Reach for the sky...

woody1

updating this whilst sitting in work ( note that i didnt say i was actually doing any work ) with a stinking hangover after 3 nights on the lash, finishing at 5am, 4 am and 3 am respectively, my brain is not functioning at all and im having trouble remembering what i was doing an hour ago never mind what little training i did this week but seeing as im trying to pass some time without actually working here goes

tuesday swimming , 5 x 200 , first one ok, for where i am now, the rest shocking, seem to have lost any little bit of endurance i had, really need to get in to the pool a lot over the next month, have really gone backwards

wednesday. took bikes , turbos , riser blocks etc back in from shed, set everything up to be ready for later in the evening.. and then did nothing

thursday. early morning treadmill, 30 mins, wasnt as bad as the last treadmill session , finished strong ( ish )

thursday night, swimming, last block before xmas, supposed to do 10 x 100, did 5.5 x 100 and died , played some water polo after,

sunday. santa run , 2k with 6 year old, he enjoyed it, he ran it all , shook off the cobwebs for me,

target 5k race is in 4 days, havent really trained properly for it for 2 weeks now, eating drinking and being merry is going to take its toll as well,realistically i know there isnt a hope of going sub 20, in fact i could do well just to be anywhere close to my current pb, but theres always a small bit of hope / faith / lunacy that its still possible and maybe on the day things will come together, i think the strategy is going to be go out as hard as physically possible hope to get to 3.5k without falling apart and just hang on for dear life til the end.. and see what happens.. in terms of training between now and then ? cant see much happening until the new year.. need a target for next year , a bit lost for inspiration at the moment, im 40 in 2016 and ive more ideas for that than i have for the year coming,

woody1

well f*ck it, no race for me today, back muscles decided on christmas eve morning to spasm, got things on track by getting in the bath at 7 am and going through a lot of stretches, a lot of deep heat and ibuprofen also helped a bit, was reasonably mobile by 9 am, had a quick jog around the house, not perfect but bearable,
same again yesterday morning, not as bad and more down towards lower back top of butt area, but loosened up much quicker, so i wasnt worried,
locked badly today , in the bath this morning again, unfortunately its not loosening as much as any other day and at this stage it just makes no sense to go jog a 5k in the lashing rain with a dodgy back.. bit pissed that after being reasonably good ( for me ) and actually following a plan , almost to the end, for 12 weeks and a bit that i dont even get to run and see what was in the tank, given that ive had a crappy 2 weeks in terms of training and a crappier 2 weeks diet and booze and sleep wise it wasnt like i was gonna pb but
on the other side there are parkruns every weekend now so im not short of races to target , if i can get the back sorted reasonably quickly ( hopefully ) then the past 12 weeks wont have gone totally to waste..

woody1

so to finish off this log for 2014,

nothing done from 21st to 30th , back trouble ( ongoing ) , christmas, visiting and all the associated drinking and eating,

30th 6k run, i was surprised at how easy this felt ,but that changed when i turned back into the wind, and the effort level had to lift a lot..

31st started on the treadmill but it was murdering my back so i threw a jacket on and went outside, 4k, tough, slow enough, back stiff but not sore thank god.

so thats it for 2014..
no sub 20 min 5k
huge improvements in swimming
cycling stood still in terms of speed but distance / endurance definitely increased..

im at a loss for next year,
running only is tempting
swimming only is also tempting
triathlon at the moment is not, that will change as the year goes on and duathlons and the like start popping up..
most likely itl be all the usual suspects , the mayo sligo races, if swinford is a half iron again it would be tempting in a see what that feels like kind of way , dublin is too expensive for me , i dont want to do it enough to justify the price of it.. if i can arrange bike hire in sweden then id be tempted by the itu race , but i made no progress last year at arranging anything

targets i suppose would be
sub 20 min 5k preferably early in the season
take a nice whack off 10k time which is 45mins at the moment
under 1.40 half marathon

swimming, ive no real clue of my times, but i guess sub 15 for a lake 750.. as far sub as possible, part of me would leave running and cycling for the year and swim as much as possible and see where that takes me..

cycling sub 40 20k still just about eluding me, i think i did it a few years ago unnofficially but never in a race and thats what counts..

get running off the bike closer to stand alone running as its miles away at the moment

this years totals

swim 109.2 ...bike 2393.2... run 639.2

last years for comparison swim 37, bike 1280, run 924.3


happy new year to all ..

woody1

3rd jan parkrun, not chaperoning today so i could have a right lash at it and see what damage xmas had really done, the answer was , a lot. 5k in 22 and a bit and huffing and puffing all the way..
so 3 weeks doing shag all and putting on half a stone really does make a difference.. !

4th jan, 5k recovery run, mostly easy, threw in a few fast bits just to make me feel like i was actually doing something.

in with physio on tuesday as back still hasnt freed out fully, the good news is its nothing lasting / to worry about

7th swim 1000m , swim fitness has left the building, i knew this , what i didnt know was that it had hopped on a jet and left the country as well , , did 20 lengths with the pull bouy, then did 20 without, without felt really bad in terms of form and really hard.. lesson learned , leave the pull bouy til last..

10th jan Parkrun, back to chaperoning bro in law, first 5 in 37 mins but i can feel him getting fitter, less hard breathing, less slowing down, much the same pace throughout, he got a lift home at the finish and i went and did another loop in the woods, so 11k total.. was loving the looks that the back markers were giving me as i was heading back out in the hailstones to go again as they were finishing.. makes you feel like a badass, even if you are nowhere close

11th jan, crossmolina 5k, wanted to improve on last week, that was all, got round in 20, 40 something, 9th r 10th not sure, happy with that. and a racing debut for my xmas pressie, bright orange adrenalines, supplied and delivered by akw, thanks .. its a fact that dayglo runners are much faster..

ive still a bit of xmas weight to get rid of, and ive a lot of little niggles, i think im getting to the age that i cant ignore stretching , warming up and general maintanence any more... but theres light at the end of the tunell , last weekend i wouldve thrown away the runners, this weekend i can see a reason to stick at it..

woody1

mon and tues , nothing.

wed 14th swim 1250 m , 500 straight, 3 x 250 pullbouy

thurs 15th swim , coached session, i think 1750, mix of paddles, pull bouy, technique work

friday 16th, 5k run, headlamp run with tri club.

sat 17th. turbo 20k , boring slow pointless turbo, first one of the year, the youngest wanted to join in, so i put his stabilisers on his bike up on some bits of wood and that rose his back wheel enough for him to spin the pedals and not move, so we knocked a bit of craic out of that for a while, he had to have the dvd (sufferfest) on and his helmet as well..

sunday. nada.. supposed to be a 5k race on but it was cancelled with the icy roads,

woody1

mon 19th treadmill 25 mins.

tues 20th 1600 swim with coached group

wed 21st 1000m swim, 5k run , forgot pull bouy paddles etc, forgot goggles too but could borrow those, this was a boring slog, i need to figure out some kind of a set to be doing for this hour to make it pass quicker

thursday 22nd 2600m swim, coached

friday . nothing

saturday 24th 5k parkrun ( still 22 mins ) and 5k run with better half afterwards. tried to pace the park run a bit, came in about the same as usual for the course, finished a tiny bit stronger is all..

sunday 25th 1 hour run, at a guess 10-11k ..

mossym

woody1 wrote: »

, so i put his stabilisers on his bike up on some bits of wood and that rose his back wheel enough for him to spin the pedals and not move, so we knocked a bit of craic out of that for a while, he had to have the dvd (sufferfest) on and his helmet as well..

,

like that idea...might steal it if you don;t mind..:)

woody1

kept him away from my turbo, i always have visions of spinning back wheels and little fingers.. !

put it in the sitting room in front of the telly another day and he spent an awful lot of the day sitting on it watching kids tv and spinning

he probably has more cycling done that me in the past week !

woody1

tuesday 27th coached swim 2200,
mon, wed, thurs, nothing, weather, kids, better half working etc etc
friday swim , 1500
saturday , 5k parkrun in the morning, 15k run later in the afternoon/ evening
sunday. better half working, day taken up with spin down to akw to get new wetsuit..

local pool has at last allocated an hour for adult lengths on the weekend, so at least from now on i should be able to do a minimum of 3 swims a week and with any luck 4 swims some weeks, when the weather improves / days lengthen a bit can bike/run in or out to make up some mileage as well,, metalman series opens for entrys on wednesday, will be trying to enter that with the better half and that should give me a bit of motivation swim wise as well..

anyway next week 3 swims, 2 decent runs and il be happy

Dory Dory

How did the Parkrun go?

woody1

the parkrun i ran with my brother in law ( one of many , i have 5 ! ) , but this one in particular has downs and either my better half or me swap over running it with him, 5k in just over 35 mins, few seconds outside his pb..

woody1

Tuesday 3rd swimming 2100,
Thursday 5th swimming 1700,
Saturday 7th Parkrun 5k 34,03 1 minute pb for brother in law , then ran another 22k after that, very stiff by the end of it, thought id have trouble with achilles and arch of foot, turned out to be hip flexors again !

took wednesday swimming off to enter the metalman swim series, needed to be sitting at the computer at 7 to get in, all 3 of us entered, better half, her brother and me, will hopefully keep me on straight and narrow with swimming.

got bumped up a lane on thursday, more due to crowding in my normal lane than my ability , didnt find it too bad thank god, the difference seems to be endurance more than speed, shorter breaks and less of them, i had to skip an odd length here and there but it was a good workout..

duathlon season is upon us, im not a big fan of cold wet and miserable so i dont usually do too many of these,but i must dust off the bike and take it for a spin, theres normally a few on " at home " so always a good excuse to bring the kids to visit granny and grandad and then both of us can race too

woody1

tuesday 10th . swimming group, from what i remember something like 300 warm up, 5 x 100, 10 x 50, some other bits , and then diving in..which i skipped, no diving starts in any triathlon il ever be doing

wednesday . swimming, just me , 1800m , pull bouy and or paddles, half and half ish

thursday 12th swimming , group, mostly kicking, roughly 1200, diving in again , waste of time

saturday 14th, 14k run, out on friday night , only had 2 bottles and a glass of paintstripper ( sparkling wine ).. still very tough run, only really got into it on the way back, the massive bag of minstrels i ate at the cinema and the big bag of doritos later probably didnt help either

sunday 15th, out for valentines, neil delamere ( very good ) food, alcohol, night away, early check out time meant i was back in time to do a local 5k, ran it in 20.34, given the weekends excesses i was happy enough with it ..

woody1

tuesday 24th swimming , group 1800, pull bouy and paddles and fists, alternating, tough set.. i like the closed fist drill, seem to be better at it than most in my lane, get a good catch with right arm, not so much with left but its something to work on, paddles on the other hand i seem to be a lot slower, im wondering if im getting drag from leaving the lead hand out too long, not quite catch up stroke-ish, but kind of,

wednesday 25th, 1000m , we had a breastroker, admittedly a very good breaststroker , in the lane, only 2 lanes free, other 3 lanes taken up with kids/teens swimming club , real swimmers that can backstroke faster than i can front crawl !one very slow lane so he couldnt go in there so he was in the fast ( er ) lane, whilst he was a good swimmer and im not , he still made a balls of my session as i kept swimming into the back of him, so this ended up as 20 x 50, with long breaks to make sure he was well down the lane before i started..

thursday 26th, swimming , group, 2150m. warm up 300, 1x50,2x100, 3 x 150, 4 x 200, twice, only did 1 x 150 and 1x200 the second time, all off times, another tough session, although we made it harder by doing the first set too fast, i think there was a 100m around 1.35 in there which was a surprise for me, lost touch somewhere in the first set and was told to use the pull bouy to catch up , even with that it was still a tough session,

friday .. nada.

saturday, volunteering for parkrun , so didnt run it, ran about 10 or 11k afterwards, took a good 2k to warm up after standing still for an hour , after that felt ok, just very tired, did 5 hill repeats on a very steep hill in the woods, hope to do this once a week at least for the foreseeable future,

so its sunday, its raining and cold, i see a window on accuweather for dry-ish weather between 1 and 3, but ive the turbo set up, dont want to turbo, dont want to run either, need to do both, the turbo will win as the timing suits better..

in semi-related news, after a 5 year break i am working in architecture again,:D only part time , on top of my other part time job, it will be interesting to see how it affects the training side of things , from a time / energy and inspiration side of things, not used to long weeks,normally do 20 hours, did 36 hours this week and im wrecked, on the plus side the new bike savings fund will fill a lot faster.. and the bike spec should be a bit higher too .. now tt bike or decent road bike .. or both

anyway.. off to turbo we go ..

edit , good solid 1 hour turbo, downward spiral, done hard enough to leave shaky legs getting off the bike and for a while after

woody1

tuesday 24th, 6k run, started slow, felt strong at the end..
swimming , group, 1900, paddles and pull bouys, finished with 10 x 50 , arms hanging off by the end

wed 25th , swimming, 1000m, arms, sepcifically right shoulder tired/sore, took it fairly easy,

thurs 26th swimming group, 1625, warm up, 5 x 100, some drills, 5 x 100 pull bouys and paddles, could swear i saw a 1.40 something for one of the first 100s, not great with pool clocks but in that region, happy with that as it wasnt flat out, but i was leading so had no advantage of a draft like last week..

friday, nada, probably couldve done something but it just didnt work out

saturday 28th feb, parkrun 5k, 21.47 which believe it or not is a pb for this run, its a bloody tough 5k and i just cant crack it, anyway wheezed the whole way round, was borderline gonna vomit and had a busting headache at the finish, so i gave it all i had at least.. had planned on doing another lap or 2 after but just couldnt be bothered / wasnt able !

saturday evening, turbo 1 hour ish, revolver, 15 x 1 min flat out with 1 min rest between, not quite flat out, but not far off it, shaky legs again..

looking at jan and febs totals in comparison to last year, swimming is up 30% , running is way up , 3 times more than this time last year but still not a lot of running by a long shot, and cycling is way down, about 1/4 of the distance that was done last year,
gonna keep swimming at 3 times a week as it seems to be making a difference, running and cycling will have to be crowbarred in where i can fit them, as days get brighter will try to do both in one go, always needed to do more bike runs anyway..

sunday 1st March 35 mins treadmill, got the incline to work on the treadmill and could set it back to its flattest rather than its steepest setting, made things a fair bit easier ..

woody1

3 swims
tuesday 1900, wednesday 1200, friday 1200

3 runs, tuesday and wednesday 5k , saturday 21.2k local half marathon,

came third in a fairly weak field , was second by a nice margin but got caught about halfway thru the last lap , 1.47, which is 5 minutes off / slower than my pb which was set on this course, laps 1 and 2 were fine, lap 3 was a small bit slower nothing major, just couldnt run the fourth lap, no great idea as to why... as usual i could think of a half dozen excuses but nothing really convincing.. anyway not worth dwelling on it..

woody1

So after Sundays half I was f#cked for 3 days . monday tuesday and wednesday were spent in a daze of serious tiredness . so I did nothing. Well I tried to run on tuesday but it would be a stretch to call it running. A slow jog or fast walk would be closer. Done with a very foggy head too. Anyway probably had some bug rest seemed to clear it and got back to it thursday with swimming, still felt very tough but got thru it.

Tues 10th. 5k slog

Thurs 12th swim coached. 1.5k

Sat 13th parkrun. 5k. Took it handy 23 mins

Sun 14th duathlon did the 2 runs 7k . minding kids between 2k 10 mins. 5k sub 21

Straight after 5k race 21.13 ish

Have been having ligament trouble in front of foot lately. Niggles more than anything and have been playing with laces to try to take the pressure off the area. So today I hit on a solution I thought but after 2 races I now have a very sore Achilles .. Will rest it for few days and see what happens.. Need to do less running and more cycling anyway

woody1

easy week, lot of work on, achilles giving trouble so v little running, no swimming on tuesday as it was paddys day and no window on wednesday as had no cover for kids. but still happy enough

tuesday 17th march, 19k spin outside on bike, nothing amazing , tough to start, finished stronger than i expected but tough in general, not surprising havent been on bike since august / september and have done about 3 turbos in that time

thursday 19th coached swim 2000m approx, enjoyed this, flagged towards the end but felt good, the week off swimming helped my shoulder issues , they did re-surface towards the end though

saturday 21st oldbridge parkrun. lovely sunny morning, all grass course, nice and dry , ran with better half in 25 something, enjoyed it, could be a good course for a pb sometime though

sunday 22nd drogheda duathlon, a serious wake up call on a tough course.. 3.74k, 16k and 3.74 k again, half the run is uphill and then downhill, the bike the same in 2 8k loops, so 4k down, 4k up, repeat, and then onto the hill on the run to finish,

first run , stayed within myself, very conscious that it was gonna be a tough race, let go a bit coming back into transition down the hill but still conservative .. 3.74 in 16 something

bike, out of transition downhill and straight up to the high 40s, round the cone and uphill and back down to the low 20s ! and repeat, tough cycle for me given that ive not been on the bike lately
16k in 37 something mins :eek: to be fair a lot of the mid range is around this, only 4 got under 30 and there werent to many around the 32 mark either , but 37mins is just taking the p*ss , a lot of cycling to be done

second run. strangely enough i felt ok for this run and had to hold myself back going up the hill for fear that id blow up , hit the turnaround and let the legs go, passed 4 on this run and was less than 30 seconds slower than the first run .. normally cant run off a bike so this was the one major positive of the day..
3.74 in 16,40 something

achilles still giving hassle so there wont be much running again this week may have to find an hour or 2 to get some midweek bike work in , have to take the new bike for a spin..

club try a tri at the weekend, details are sketchy at the moment but should be a good short blast to knock off the cobwebs, would be nice to get some cycling in beforehand though..

edit, 29th out of 39 . lovely day for it, well organised, got individual leg times and even transition times, all done manually, well done drogheda triathlon club.. other half, got stuck in gear on the bike, as in had only one gear for the whole bike leg,mercifully it was a spinner, it says a lot for her that she stuck at it and slogged through it and finished it, i know i would have got off the bike and left it ,

Dory Dory

New bike???

woody1

eh yeah, given the weekends performance its definitely a case of putting the cart before the horse but i bought rawheads felt b16 last week..

just a few things fell into place at the same time, more architectural work recently has meant the bike savings fund was finally getting to where i could purchase, and then a good bike that was obviously well looked after became available just up the road

il have to get a serious amount of bike training done between now and june/july to do it justice though,

woody1

tuesday 24th swim 1750, was wrecked before the warm up finished, kids had been sick over the weekend and i had a touch of it, thought it wasnt the worse dose ever but man it made this session tough, 1750m in an hour, everyone else did about 2100

wednesday 25th. couldve ran, decided to rest sore achilles


thursday 26th . swim 2200, more like it, still having some shoulder issues, breathing on one side only helped a bit, the coach took a video of my stroke, i dont know enough to make much of it, i didnt think i was crossing over but my left hand seems to be every few strokes, whether thats putting pressure on my right shoulder i dunno, something to keep an eye on i guess..

friday 27th . nada. more rest

sat 28th volunteered at the parkrun in the morning,
1 hour bike very slow later on in the day, 6k treadmill run later

sun 29th marshall at clubs new try a tri, did local 5k, took it easier than usual in first 2k , achilles mostly worrying me, let rip from 2-4 then chilled from 4-5, round 8th i think in 21 mins.. 2k warm down

turbo with other half later on, sufferfest revolver, felt a lot tougher the last time i did it , maybe company made it more bearable..

so the weekend saved the what was setting up to be a poor week, 2 cycles, 2 swims, 2 runs, thats always the minimum that i look for but i wasnt getting that lately , will be trying to get at least that much for the next few weeks, achilles is twinging again here so might have to be careful with the running still ,

woody1

this years races hopefully

30th may metalman 1
6th June metalman 2
13 june metalman 3

20th mullaghmore sprint ( charity cycle to achill day after :eek: )

28th humbert olympic

11th july letterkenny sprint

19th july lissadel olympic ( sligo )

22nd august muckno sprint ballybay

5th september meath sprint

12th september lough key sprint

19th blacksod oly ( relay prob )

definites are in bold, the others will be decided closer to the dates as life with small kids and a better half that works weekends dictates.. id probably be happy enough to get 3-4 sprints in and put a team into blacksod for the craic at the end of the year.

will be marshalling at our own tri so thats why its not on the list

wouldve liked to do the westport sprint but it clashes with one of the metalman swims, ashford or rosses point dont seem to be on this year, humbert and lissadel i would be unsure about, not much cycling done yet so do i want to slog through an olympic just for the sake of it,

of course there will be all the usual 5ks duathlons aquathons "adventure" races and whatever else is on as well,

woody1

monday 30th off

tuesday 1st 5k run, coached swim 2100

wednesday 2nd , turbo 1hr

thursday 3rd coached swim 2400

friday 3rd , bike 30k, outside

saturday 4th , bike 10k, parkrun 5k ( 23 mins taking it easy ) , bike 18k, 5k race ( 22 mins , cramp ) , bike 20k

sunday 5th, 5k recovery run.

woody1

tuesday 7th swim coached 2600

thurs 9th 6k run with o/h

friday 10th swim 2.7k , bike 50k , run 10k with hill reps , split up over the day

sat 11th swim 2.85k , bike 32k, run 8.5k with intervals , again broken up

sun 12th, swim 500, bike 7.5k, run 2k.. all in one..

woody1

tuesday 15th swimming , coached , 2400

thursday 17th swimming, coached 2500

friday 18th, 6k easy run

saturday 19th, parkrun oldbridge, 5k +1 k warmup , 6k

patsy kelly 5k dundalk, 20.45 , according to my watch it was 100m long, anyway still wasnt sub 20, started too far back in the crowd ( 1000 ) and got tied up in traffic for the first km, at the least it controlled my pace, first km 4 mins easy enough, 2nd and 3rd k were 4.08, these felt nice and easy and loose, 4th km has a small bump of a hill, 4.16 i think,still cruising, theres a 1.5k straight which goes gradually downhill all the way to the finish, looking back on it i shouldve gunned it from the top of the hill and went for the sub 20, i wouldve had to run it round 5.30 something to crack the 20 but what had i to loose, anyway stayed loose and controlled and ran it within myself, last km 4 mins.
finished with plenty in the tank.. content with the run, nice to run a controlled 5k for a change , the more i look back at it the more it looks like an opportunity missed,

driving all sunday so nothing done, quiet week anyway to recover from last weekends exertions..

woody1

tuesday 21st group swim 1750,

wednesday 22nd , mile swim , 64 lengths straight no breaks, run 5k easy enough..

thursday 23rd, group swim 2000,

friday 24th , treadmill 5k, after a glorious week the weather has turned to ****e and had to resort to treadmill to get something done

sat 25th, treadmill 5k, early morning treadmill jog, have wedding today so the weekend is most likely gone in terms of training, there is a pool in the hotel, hopefully il be able to get a few lengths done in the morning but im not making any solid plans so i cant be pissed off when it doesnt happen..

woody1

so saturday 25th was spent at wedding with many promises made to myself about doing something in the morning

in the end i woke early enough as the kids have me conditioned to do, got brekkie in loads of time and an hour later went down to have a look at the pool, 15m leisure pool jammed with kids and parents , so any thoughts of doing anything productive were gone , just had a bit of a splash and sat in the jaccuzzi for a bit..

the rest of sunday monday and some of tuesday were spent in recovery mode, too old for hangovers and missed sleep,

anyway tuesday 28th , group swim 2400,
wednesday 29th 6k on the treadmill
thursday 30th swim 2300
friday 1st may bike 23k, finally a decent spin on the new bike, seems a nice yoke to ride, responsive, light, bit twitchy , needs to be adjusted to me, hands were a bit sore,
saturday 2nd
clare island adventure race..
a race of ups and downs, in a lot of ways, such an island for hills,
this is a low key short-ish adventure race with a fairly small entry, me and the better half did it as much for the night away on the island as for the race,

breakdown was 5k run, 5.5k bike, 5k run (hill run ) , 8.5k bike, pier jump ( or 2 min penalty ) and 500m run with small obstacle course..

there was about 50 people across the short and slightly longer race, at a guess maybe 10 did the shorter race which didnt take in the hill climb, so 40 odd in my race, looking around there were a lot of hybrids and mountain bikes and people doing their first of these, so id be lying if i didnt say i had high hopes.. they were dashed fairly quickly at the start line when a slip of a girl in a ucd running top sped off into the distance with another fairly fit looking bloke not far behind, i settled into third running far too fast for a first 5k with lots more racing to come, after about 500 metres the hills appeared, short sharp steep hills and loads of them , at a guess there were about 10 climbs in the 5k alone including one up the side of a hill with no road. or a green road as they called it, this was about 3k in and my legs were burning , i was wheezing badly , something i havent done in years, so i had to put the brakes on a bit and relax, got caught by 2 in the next 2k, got into transition just behind 4th place and got out pretty much level..

the 5.5k bike was more hills, steep hills, narrow roads with grass in the middle , all of it was spent in the small ring, spinning or at least trying to spin, grinding , standing and creeping up on 3rd and 4th, about 4k in 4th place dropped a chain and 3rd who was riding a monster of a mountain bike, carrier and everything was caught shortly after, so i went onto the hill run in 3rd place,

the initial kilometre and a bit of the hill run was lovely, uphill but gradual grass underfoot,and i was thinking this wont be too bad at all and then we hit the steep bit and were reduced to a crawl, you couldve gone hands and feet and still be almost standing kind of steep, there was 20 minutes of this maybe, it felt like much more though, 4th 5th were right beside me at this stage, 6th wasnt too far back, we were wondering where first and second had gone to when they came flying back down towards us, girl still in the lead, and they told us just 200m to go, still took a good 5 minutes to get there and in the meantime the guy in 4th had overtaken me tagged the pillar and dissappeared down at rocket speed, he was only few metres ahead of me turning but when i turned down he was gone, he flew down and made up a good gap, i went down fairly quick too and put a gap into 5th but i couldnt catch 3rd at all, this guy was in 5th getting onto the mountain, had a reasonable road bike and when he got to it that was the last i saw of him for the day, i got to my bike and as usual started fiddling about, chatting to the marshall , getting a drink, next thing i know 5th place is on his bike and gone, and now im 5th..

get on my bike for the last bike section, nice steep downhill to pick up speed , cattle grids every now and then to be careful of and to try not to puncture on, anyway more uphills now and i catch up to right behind 4th place, im keeping my powder dry, i know theres a last downhill, a dangerous one and then about 4k into a headwind back to the finish area, i reckon il try to pass him about 2k out and with any luck hold him off on the run, anyway it doesnt matter , about 2/3 of the way down the hill i hear the metal of the back wheel clattering off the road, ****ing puncture, worse again im trying to stop and wheel is snaking on the road, have to put it on the grass verge to stop it and nearly end up in the fence,.
im crap at changing tubes so despite the fact that i had one i had no intention of fixing it, so took a gel off the bike, and the keys for the b and b and left bike, helmet jacket etc lying against the fence and set off to run it in,
initially this was as much to get back to the b and b as it was to finish the race but after 10 minutes running nobody had come past me and i was starting to think about where id finish, shortly after 6th place came past then 7th and 8th, but that was it, the gel was a godsend, even if it was just a crutch i was delighted to have it, 20 minutes running later with legs hanging off me i could see the quay where the jump into the water was , nobody had come past in a while and couldnt see anyone behind me either, ran up to the pier and told them i wasnt jumping in, had to take a 2 minute penalty and then wade across knee deep freezing water , get thru the obstacle course, under tyres, over tyres, under a net, lot tougher than it sounds when your wrecked, and then about 300m of a run to the finish, turned around on the run to see the better half taking the jump off the pier into the sea fair f*cks, finished up in 7th r 8th r 9th not sure , some that came past me whilst i was running were doing the shorter race, better half finished next after me and third lady,

hung around for the presentations and waited for most to go back on the ferry , had some grub ( lovely ) and a few pints, retired to the bnb to lie on the bed and die and then went back for proper food ( lovely again ) and more pints.. had a great race, then day and night and morning on clare island and i cant recommend it enough,
race was very well run, good honest course , marshalled where it had to be and signposted everwhere , couldnt ask for more, check out clare island adventures, the go explore hostel , clare island lodge b and b etc on facebook or the t-internet,

back to training

monday 5th may, 50k on the new tt bike, nice spin, some showers but mostly nice weather, havent done much cycling lately, good confidence boost for something thats in the pipeline later in the summer , getting better at handling the bike too, let it away down a few hills, finding my balance on it..

woody1

better half working,at home with kids on a crappy day, plans for later are being re-assessed by the minute.. anyway

tuesday 5th may, swimming was cancelled, cant say i was sorry, tired and stiff after clare island
wednesday 10k run , easy
thursday 7th, 2.65k swim, lots of paddle n pull buoy stuff, longest session we've done ( my lane, the fish have done much longer )
friday 8th 35 min run , easy
saturday, 1.45 cycle, 15 min run.

including monday thats week 1 of 11 week plan ( i had to take a week off ) finished, meant to be 2 swims, 2 runs, 2 bikes ( + short run ), missing the swim on tuesday was outside my control, not worried about swimming, have more than enough done so far this year, cycling and running off the bike is going to be the key, have to get and keep cycling volume up..

woody1

monday 11th may 40 min run 7k ish with 4 hill reps, am now coaching / babysitting little athletics on mondays , 5-7 year olds, in fairness not much coaching involved but its good craic and the kids are enjoying it so far
tuesday club swim 2200m
wednesday 12k run
thursday club swim in pool wetsuit practice roughly 1000m
friday off
saturday 16th 2hr bike ride 45k nice and easy , went up to enniscrone to see the coast to coast start and saw sean and edel , had a chat with mossy, didnt meet either neady or truffle-pig but kept and eye out for everyone on the tracker , all seemed to go well,
more interested than ever in doing it next year, if i can convince better half
sunday 2 1/2 hr bike ride 55k easy + 20 min brick run

week 2 done, all sessions done, good start so far

mossym

nice meeting you at the weekend. be sure and talk to sean before you sign up next year, he can give you the lowdown:)


really really impressed with that practise half your club is putting on after seeing the conditions at the weekend, will be reading your prep closely, best of luck with it, not allowing non club members are ye:)