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A higher state of cardiovascularness
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So you drop this when u actually start training hard?
You are doing some savage mileage, especially with the swimming. Whats the aim for Galway?
Ha would you believe I had far more mileage done at this stage last year. I think its more panic than anything else that has me back training consistently. I think I may have got sick of it and burned out on the training coming up to the race last year so I am fantasizing that the little I have done so far since last July will have me chomping at the bit right up to the end of june!!!!
I will start this log up again fairly soon anyways - I can see the benefit of looking back on it when I was wondering what I was doing this time last year. I said I would wait till I was under training 80kgs again which was supposed to have been by end of january but it has taken me a good bit longer as you can see. I get like Ricky Hatton between fights
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Ha would you believe I had far more mileage done at this stage last year. I think its more panic than anything else that has me back training consistently. I think I may have got sick of it and burned out on the training coming up to the race last year so I am fantasizing that the little I have done so far since last July will have me chomping at the bit right up to the end of june!!!!
I will start this log up again fairly soon anyways - I can see the benefit of looking back on it when I was wondering what I was doing this time last year. I said I would wait till I was under training 80kgs again which was supposed to have been by end of january but it has taken me a good bit longer as you can see. I get like Ricky Hatton between fights
Jaysus, if you resserect this log I might even have to consider my own position. Not sure there's much to log on my end though!!0 -
Too much cake in Barna in late February?? To be fair, you were just trying to keep up with Gibbo.
I was supposed to going cycling him with the day after and I was reminded of this excerpt from Tyler Hamilitons book watching Gibbo devour that birthday cake after pigging out on the chicken curry
Lance indulged himself by eating a piece of chocolate cake during a training camp. It must have been pretty good cake because Lance had another piece, then, unthinkably he ate a third. “The other Postal riders watched him eat with a sinking feeling: they know what was going to happen. The next day in training was supposed to be an easy day. But the cake changed that. Instead, Lance had the team do a brutal five-hour ride, to burn off the cake only he had eaten.”
Needless to say I made up some flimsy excuse and dodged the bike ride the following day
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If you'd seen the grin on his face coming out of the swim sub-60 you'd understand the lack of race report...he's still laughing with delight!!
Lol and the ****ers lost my chip split and then give me a 1.01 time.........a full minute behind Mikes split time. I was on my second cup of tea by the time he came in! A race report will be done...........eventually!0 -
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Will make a start on this and might have it done and dusted before the holidays are over - much easier to write this with a glass of red wine on a patio on holidays
Challenge Galway
The Lead up
After Ironman France last year I stopped training altogether, I wasn't far off 5/6 months doing nothing, I was just sick of it and I got into a rut then. I had started thinking of doing a 1/2 Ironman the following June and nothing really appealed to me, with the wife a teacher training going into the summer is a bitch for me as its easier to have the guarantee of structured training times with the childminder rather than working around herself and what suits from day to day.
I eventually got bullied by the mrs into doing the Full at Challenge Galway when I really had no interest in going long again.I think she was scared I would do something foolish (and expensive) like sign up for Austria or Roth etc
I tentatively started getting into slow training in December with a view to stepping it up in January, but then had issues with my arse muscles and running so that set me back again till january. After a month of butt clenches I was ready to go again, badly overweight but slowly getting some some consistency into my training again. Challenge then announced they were doing a 1/2 as well but I didn't like the way I was being screwed for switching down by them so I stayed at the full
Swimming
2 lads in the pool I go to then told me they had signed up as well, they had both only done sprint races before but they were hard workers in the pool, at the start I was far better than them in the pool but they were getting better and better every month. I decided that I was a little tired coming in from the race the previous year so I didn't worry too much about speed but I rarely did less than 4k a session from then on and I did far more swimming than last year. I finally got out and did a couple of open water swims the week before which were hairy enough with bad conditions but the thursday of the race it was calmer and I remember nailing an approx 2k swim at full bore and I was satisfied that I was in far better swim shape than 2015. I would go well here
Cycling
In february I finally switched my long rides to saturday and went out with the two lads and a few other they knew, I had to laugh on the first day I went out with them, 6.30am in the morning, 1 degrees on the Garmin, I had the full works on me - probably a grands worth of winter cold and wet gear that I have built up over the years and they arrive at the meeting point in bib shorts, one of them with GAA gloves and the other with some type of fingerless gloves. Off we head down to to Clare pissing rain all the way down and its ****ing snowing when we go up the first hills. They finally cracked at Ballyvaughan and we took shelter in a petrol station where they bought gardening gloves to replace the saturated gloves they had. One of the lads took a pull all the way home to keep warm and I realized he was a beast myself and the other lad was hanging on to him all the way -green they might have been but they were strong cyclists as well. We ended up going every saturday up to the race and it was probably my favourite session of the week, usually 5 or 6 of us out and always macho balls out at the turnaround home so it was very different to my solo rides every other year. April-May were tough months on the bike for me, I couldn't decide was I going backwards or they were just getting better and better as instead of doing more than my share of work at the time I was struggling holding on to them
The last few weeks things seemed to click for me again and I was delighted to see we had increased the average speed to over 30kph for a lot of these rides while feeling strong. The course was a bit of a disappointment for me, after France I thought any course I did would be far easier but the Galway route was a real ballbuster, very rolling with some of the faster downhill sections on bad road. Fanore to Galway could be superfast but only if the wind played ball if the wind was the other way it would be a long day. All in all although I would never admit it to the lads I was confident I could get under 6.30 here
Running
I never felt I was running well this year at any stage, I did 1 x 34k run and 5 or 6 30k runs but unlike last year they were all a slog and way down on my pace from last year. I tried to console myself that perhaps its because it was the day after my long bikes unlike last year when it was the day before. But this was my big worry coming into it more so than the swim and run
Having said all that I thought a sub 12 was on if I was able to hold it together on the run. The side bet was of the 3 regular guys I trained with, I thought one was far too good for me, the other two were beatable - and the three of them were first timers so they might get things wrong and I had an outside chance of beating all 3 if they messed up nutrition or pace. Whatever way it would work out I would be the rabbit in the traps as unless things went pear shaped on the swim I would have a healthy lead on them coming onto the bike. One might catch me on the bike but I thought if I had a decent lead on the other 2 I would be on the run ahead of them as well. However they were all far better runners than me so that's as good as it might have got for me as well
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Bike
I didn't bother with heart rate this year, i misplaced the strap early in the year and never bothered looking too hard for it again. It was pointless anyways as the weekend cycles were very random as regards effort.
I felt I had done enough over the years to know my limits anyways, I was confident coming in to this that I would do far better than the 7.15 in France last year, after a slow start in the new year I had done far more long cycles this year at a faster pace than last year and I knew I would be out of the water in good shape.
Set out with shades on which was a mistake and it was too dark for them and I spent ages trying to squeeze them into a pocket underneath my gilet on the way out, this was frustrating me as I ended up having to stop and unzip the gilet to get them in. Losing a minute there and then very quickly after that dropping the chain losing another couple had me fuming as it was probably the guts of cutting off an hour before some of them would catch me on the bike as they weren't going to be that much faster than me over the course
Besides that once I got going I was comfortable enough, was averaging around the 31-32kph for the first while down to Gort, couldn't decide what way the wind was going but it certainly wasn't against me. I had a shedload of Powerbars cookies and cream, I had these in France the year before and they were grand so I went with them again and I had the organizers isotonic that they were providing
The road from Gort to Boston is poor but I didn't really notice it either, there was plenty of action with the faster 70.3 lads flying by, out onto the main road and left again straight up the first real climb of the race, not a long one by any means but plenty of it is around 12% and I always used it as a gauge on the long bikes training to see how I am going. Not to bad I thought and trucked on - I was then nearly up the 2nd climb beside the Michael Cusack Centre and disaster struck when I heard a hissing sound from the front wheel and the tyre went down very quickly.
I grew despondent straight away and my head dropped- my own fault but I had never got a puncture on the deep dish wheels before and had never practiced with the co2 pump. I put it to the back of my mind and decided lets get the new tube in before worrying about it. I actually got it changed fairly quickly until I realized that at some stage the valve must have slipped out and was in the wheel, tried to see if I could get it back into position without taking the tyre off again but it was no use - for whatever reason probably my head I couldn't get the tyre off for ages - we are talking more than 10 minutes here i reckon. I saw one of the lads going by offering help and in my own head I thought I would have held him off till the run with the lead I had. Little did I realize that he wasn't 2nd out of the water from us like I expected so there was at least one if not two ahead of him at that stage. I waved him on - not fair to drag him into my meltdown I had everything I needed at that stage
From then on things went totally tits up with another two punctures after that which were my fault and was left in the end with no canisters or working co2 pump to change them - to make a long story short I reckoned I was not far off last in the race, in the arse end of nowhere and a 20k walk to get to the next aid station. So off I walked as it was better than standing in the pissing rain
Eventually a guy comes by and gives me a tube and is nice enough to wait till I have it changed, however all he has is a handpump and I cant get air into the deep sections so I let him go. I knew myself there was long odds of me seeing another racer that had a co2 pump at this stage
Eventually a real old guy comes past and starts chatting to me, I didn't even ask him did he have them but he started asking what I needed and he tells me he has a cannister stuck somewhere in his saddle bag but no pump so I took it anyways. At this stage I resign myself to walk to wherever the next house is and ring for a lift, I reckoned I was last now for sure. For whatever reason I try and work the pump one last time, I notice something in the bag and realised that a small nozzle attachment must have fallen out, screwed it on and it worked like a dream - these pumps are great things
So off I go again, I knew from the course I would have to make a decision at Ballyvaughan whether I finish up or not, the weather was miserable absolutely teeming down but in fairness it wasn't cold at least. Got to the turn off at Ballyvaughan where a friendly cop directing traffic said he would arrest me if I tried to go by him - it was only another 15k to the turnaround at Lisdoonvarna so I said another 30k wont kill me and would put off the decision to T2. I finally pass a few racers, one was a particularly good looking girl with a nose ring so chatting to her was a good way to break out of my misery. I borrow a phone off the marshal in Lisdoonvarna to tell the wife I would be running late as I knew she would be stressed looking at the live tracking.
I was just trying to keep it steady for the rest of the way, coming into the coast road at Oranmore was awful, the headwind was brutal and finally I could see Lough Atalia road. That bitch of a wife has positioned the two kids at the entrance to T2 with some Come on Daddy signs and the young lad in particular was well stoked up trying to hand me a gel
**** it anyways I cant quit in front of them - what kind of example would I be setting! I gave them a big hug - quick moan with the missus and went in to transition 2
I come in the door with my running gear to be greeted by a lad that I should have been way ahead of - hes a bit of a character so I stayed and had a bit of craic with him before we headed out on the run. I was well down obviously on where I expected to be but with the break in the bike I wasn't feeling too bad for the run
8.15 for the bike and 12 minutes for the transition - jaysus so much for a sub 6.30 bike 0 -
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griffin100 wrote: »What happened next? Hurry up and tell us. It's like waiting on the latest episode of Game Of Thrones...........
It's akin to the RedB posts :pac: 0 -
It's akin to the RedB posts :pac:
Far from it - Redbs Ironman diary should have been syndicated on the papers it was that entertaining
Run
I started off on the run with yer man but we weren't even out of transition before he needed a ****e so i shuffled on. Last year I was on the hrm and kept it to 130s for more or less the whole race, this time I didn't have it and ran to an easy pace - after one or 2k i thought this easy pace would bring me under a 4 hour marathon but alas I faded towards the end of lap 3 and drifted out
Was nice to be running the prom but if they could get a small section cordoned off it would be great - you are always going to get the odd couple/crowd who wont make it easy for you to get by so it would be nice to jump into that area the odd time it gets busy
It was nice to run in with the family this year, Ironman doesn't allow it but the young lad was super psyched coming into the finishing straight even enough to give out to the little one saying she is too slow for daddy and himself
I came in at 4.06 i think, three minutes faster than last year but the nice break in the bike might have helped too
13.42 finish overall - I would have been disappointed last year if it was my first but I didn't lose any sleep over it at all this year. I suppose I was glad I finished after the fact for the kids.
I came out of this very well this time, nowhere near as stiff or exhausted as last year and strangely enough I am well motivated for next year - that's not to say I am doing any training over here - although I did hire a mountain bike and kiddies bike for the young lad and am doing some short running but I am hoping to have a go at a fast 1/2 next year. I would go long again but would prefer to give it a miss next year, work is getting very busy and there might be a lot of travel over the next year.
Hoping the lads I was training with this year will keep at it as I reckon a 1/2 Ironman could be very competitive between us next year - the shorter the race the better chance I have i reckon
My thoughts on the race were mostly positive, you always hear the complaints about the goody bags or the food after the race which shouldn't be such an issue to people signing up to these type of races, now while they should never have put in the 10% off some ****ty restaurant i cant remember the name of with for one person only in bold (what were they thinking) the t shirt was of a far higher quality than the one I got in France last year and the bag was nice. Exactly the same goody bag as what I got in IM France, the roads weren't fully closed in France either and neither was a problem for me anyways.
Not having time displays was a bit cheap coming in from each of the disciplines alright though
Aid stations were well stocked, volunteers were very friendly, course was well marshaled, support was good I thought it compared favorably to the IM I did last year. I liked the way they tried to make a weekend of it too with the Rock on the Docks
The weather was atrocious for the bike bit what does one expect in Ireland, you could have fried an egg on the road last year which isn't great either. I would hope they go again next year and I would be keen to do the 1/2
So all in all, 2 chalked up and hopefully the sub 12 will come in a take 3 attempt in a couple of years0 -
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Lisdoonvarna - is that where they have the annual buy-your-mate event?? Or something like that??? Or maybe I'm mistaken here...
I'm finally making my rounds...and fantastic report(s)....entertaining as always. And it sounds like you worked your patootie off training for the swim and bike in particular - so well done you. Pity things went all askew on the bike, but if anyone here could work their way out of a crappy situation in good humor it's you. No doubt you've got a sub 12 in you, so fingers crossed the next time you have a go at it all goes to plan. Again, well done and congratulations!!!! Whoop whoop!
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