Run Fat Boy Run - The lazy mans guide to Ironman and Marathon training.

Port Laois Tri Race Report
This is one of my favorite races (this was my 4th time to do it) - well organised, well attended, and beginner heavy so that a mid-packer like me can feel good about himself

Early start on Saturday and it was -4 degrees in the car on the way - I was starting to regret getting out of bed. I registered and set up the bike and it wasn't getting any warmer. I was in wave 6 of 7 so after registering at 7.30 had to wait until 11.30 to start :rolleyes: Kept myself entertained watching the early waves and the kids event.

Time to start and there were 6 of us in the lane. We all gave predicted times and two girls were looking to go under 13 mins so they went first, with me in 4th place ahead of two people giving 15min predictions. After 100m the guy behind me started tapping my feet to go by, which I let him do at the next turn and within 20m he overtook the next guy in the chain, why give such a slow predicted time and start well down the group when you are much faster? Anyhow was swimming well within myself and sitting 1-2m behind the guy in front of me and was happy to stay there. At 400m I had a quick glimpse at my watch which showed 7.20 mins. As I got out after the 750m a swim marshal roared 13.50 at me....I thought he said 14.50 so I had a look at my watch and sure enough it was 13.50. To say I was delighted with that would be an understatement. I never ever thought I'd go under 14mins for a 750m pool swim.

Long run into T1. As it was still cold I spent an extra few seconds getting a bike jersey on over my wet tri suit (not easy) and I also put on some socks. Another long run out of T1 for the bike mount.

I should say at this point that I haven't been on my bike since last August. In the past two weeks I have done 3 turbo sessions of 45 mins but today was the first time I had ridden outside in 8 months. Onto the bike course and I decided to push as hard as I could for the entire 21.5km which I did. I caught a few of the faster swimmers from my wave within the first few kms and some slower bikes from the preceding wave and then I was on my own. Only one person passed me on the entire bike (pointy helmet wearing Cervelo riding man) at about 10kms. The bike course was testy enough with some long drags but also some nice downhills. Was a cold wind blowing so I was glad I had stuck on a cycling jersey. Some of the course was very very narrow and I was glad there was not much traffic on the roads. I pushed hard the whole time and my legs were screaming at me for the last 5km or so. Lack of bike time was really telling on my soft undercarriage:D Finished the bike in approx. 41.30 giving an average speed of 31kph so delighted with that.

Quick (for me) T2 and off on the run. I ran hard. I caught some slower runners from the previous wave very quickly. I then caught Cervelo man who had passed me on the bike. At about 2.5km I caught a group of 4-5 from my wave and passed them. Course was undulating and I was suffering but I kept pushing hard. Caught a few stragglers in the last km to finish in 23.17 for the 5.4km. I was a bit disappointed with that run time until I looked at the results and realised it was only a few seconds sloewer than the winners run time.

Overall 1.23.41 and 24th place. Swim and bike were inside top 50 finishers, run was inside top 20 times for the day so really delighted with that. Overall very happy. Must start doing some bike training

Well done to Trilogy for another well marshalled great event.

Nice 1hr session on the turbo on Saturday - 5 mins hard + 3 mins recovery x 7. No science behind this, no PM, no HRM and no idea if this does any good training wise but it feckin hurts

Sunday did my longest run in ages with a 13km at 5 min/km pace. Was unbelievably windy and at times was being blown into the ditch on the side of the road.

Today was a swim and finally broke 7 mins for the 400m TT. Did a quick 100m warm up and then into a 400m TT. I made no effort to control the pace, just went hard as I could for 400m. Did the 100m splits in approx. 1.33 / 1.45 / 1.50 / 1.50 for 6.57 overall. Delighted with that. Followed that up with some drills and 200 x 5 off 4.15 very easy in on sub 3.40 for them all. I need to start pushing myself in the pool again and to start hurting a bit more - i.e. faster reps and shorter rest intervals. I also need to start doing longer sessions, I seem to be maxing out at 2,000m a session at the minute due to time pressures.

Keeping up the theme of no structure to my swim training I decided today to have a go at a 3,000m straight swim. This would be by far the longest swim I've done since last August.

I have a long term goal of trying to go under 60mins for the 3km in the pool and given I'm swimming better than I ever have this I thought would give me an indication of where I am with this.

Splits were:
1,000m@19.10
1,000m@20.08
1,000m@21.10
Total 60.28mins / 3km

Stunned by that, only 28 secs over the hr. Started off with a very easy pace, started to get tired at around 1600m and really struggled in the last 1,000m. The swim fitness limiters are plain to see, first km averaged 1.55 per 100m / 2nd km averaged 2.01 per 100m / 3rd km averaged 2.07 per 100m. Overall still happy with that.......now just need to double that distance for the Warrior Of The Sea

Church To Church 10km
Did this 10km yesterday. It was a race that was being organised by Martin before he was killed so it turned into a big club day. It was held in Kilrush near Bunclody, a part of Wexford that has no flat bits :rolleyes:

Good crowd of 80 or so starters with a lot of club runners. The plan was to try and hold 4.15 min/km on the flats and see how I got on on the hills. I wasn't feeling too confident, too much vino the night before and little activity last week meant I felt very sluggish.

Started off ok, first 2km were fairly flat. I headed off at the front of the main pack and was sitting in behind two other runners. I was holding target pace but I felt very labored. Then we hit the first big hill at 3km. I made the mistake here of trying to take the hill at the same pace when I should have slowed down a bit :rolleyes: I ended up nearly blowing up on this hill and had to walk for 10m or so twice to catch my breath. Lesson learnt, take it easy on the hills. At this stage I had lost the two guys in front of me and until the 7km mark I didn't see another runner. At this point I got overtaken by three others. One of these I managed to drop after another km or do but the other two got away from me. The last few kms were spent at a comfortable pace, trying to keep something for the many many hills and drags. Have to say I was glad to see the finish. Overall time was 43.59 for 9.92kms which put me 23rd out of 83 finishers. Not a great time considering I've run faster than this in training but then again that was on the flat. Looking at the times from some club mates and comparing them to a flat 10km last month they were between 1-3 minutes slower. A club mate who finished in 44.47 ran a 42.48 in a race last month so that's an indication of the affect the hills had on finish times. With that in mind I'd hope close to sub 42 is possible, assuming that I do some training in the meantime :rolleyes:.

Got a second session in yesterday for the first day in ages with a 8km run to try out my new runners. I got a dayglow yellow pair so there's no missing me on the road. The good think I noticed last night about having such bright runners is that if I can see them out of the corner of my eye when running it means my head is dropping and my posture is poor - if I can keep my head upright enough so that I cant see them then I'm good Big thumbs up for sportsdirect.com - got them for €55 delivered when the same shoes are €85 on a well known Irish site. Were ordered and delivered in 7 days.

Into the pool today to try and get some form back. Stuck for time so kept it simple - 100 x 15 off 2.00 - first 10 in on between 1.45-50; last 5 began to drift out to 1.55. Happy with that.

A 400m TT today in the pool as I was pushed for time and couldn't do much. In on 6.47 - that's another 10 secs off my last PB. Came in on 1.35 / 1.44-45ish x 3. Effort was hard but not flat out. First 100m felt very easy, if only I could keep that going for the next 300m :rolleyes: Think I may be starting to get close to my limit now

Wicklow Way Relay Leg 4

Saturday morning found me up at an ungodly hour and off to Glendalough for Leg 4 of the Wicklow Way Relay. The leg was 9.6km with 363m of climbing and was from Oldbridge to Glendalough. I didn't bother car pooling for this so arrived outside Glendalough at about 8am and walked the 6km over the Wicklow Way back to the start. This acted as a great warm up and was really enjoyable as the weather was lovely and the trails were deserted except for me and the deer, rabbits and sheep.

The relay handover point was a bridge at a crossroads so I settled down to catch some sun and look at my competitors. It was lying on the grass eating banana sandwiches when I realised that I probably should take this a bit more seriously. Almost everyone else was doing elaborate warm ups and stretches and were wearing trail shoes - I had on an old pair of runners and spent most of the time sitting enjoying the sun.

So after about an hr my handover arrived - looking fairly hot and sweaty - indicating that this was going to be a hot one.

The first two km were on the road. The first km was uphill, and I mean uphill. It was probably the steepest hill I've ever run up. Pretty quickly I began to catch glimpses of two runners ahead who had a good head start on me but who were running slowly enough. I kept them in the sights for the first km - which tool me 5.30mins despite running as hard as I could :eek: Like I said, steep.......The second km was mostly downhill and I ran this hard, covering it in 4mins. After about 2km we turned onto a fire road / wide gravel trail and I caught the two runners ahead of me here. I sat in behind them for a bit. I had to walk some of this uphill, but my walking pace was only slightly slower than their slow running pace. At about 3km I passed them and pushed on. The heat was brutal, I was sweating like mad on the top of an exposed hill while my bald head sizzled. Kms 3 and 4 were mostly uphill but then it leveled off for another km and here I spotted another runner ahead. I caught her fairly easily but then into km 6 which was mostly downhill on steep narrow rocky trails and my lack of experience caught me out. Two of the runners caught me back on the downhill and left me for dead :rolleyes: Into kms 7 and 8 and these were again mostly uphill. Once we hit the start of the climbs I recaught the two runners again and knowing that the last km of or so into Glengalough was a steep narrow descent I pushed hard on up the hills. When I had to walk I did it after rounding a bend where I couldn't be seen I pushed on hard conscious that there were runners close behind me and also that this being a team event I didn't want to let the team down. Last 1.5kmn was all downhill and I threw caution to the wind. I couldn't see anyone behind me so knew I wouldn't get caught. Into the finish in 52.08 by my watch for 9.6km :eek: A crap time for the distance but one I was happy with, I gave it my all. It was a good minute before anyone came in behind me.

Overall my team finished 11th which we were happy with. I'm still suffering two days later from some very sore legs and glutes. This hill running is certainly tough.

This race was run by IMRA and staffed by volunteers. It was a mammoth operation from start to finish and IMRA deserve a huge amount of credit for it. It was €15 to enter per team member and no one from this race made money, there were no commercial operators targeting a profit - it was people doing what they love that made this event possible. A big thanks to all at IMRA.