Getting to know....68 lost souls

MD1983

Right, i will start:

How many easter eggs did you eat?
how many years are you in triathlon?
thats a unique username, whats the background?
whats your A race this year?
do you eat much fruit?
whats your best discipline?
whats your long term goal in triathlon?
what bike do you ride?
are you a member of a tri club?
what do you think of enda kenny?

enjoy the week!

68 lost souls

Thanks! Not at the same level as many of those who have done this before but I hope people find it somewhat interesting.

How many easter eggs did you eat?
Chocolate is my biggest vice so easter is a bad time for me. Depends on weather cream eggs count. Dont get shocked but I had 7 cream eggs over the weekend and one regular egg which I shared. Have another 5 creameggs sitting at home and a mars easter egg. Trying to be good but its so hard this month!

how many years are you in triathlon?
This is my 3rd year. Did my first 3 races in August and September 2013 having trained don my own for the most part going off plans from online and following couch 2 5k for the run.

thats a unique username, whats the background?
It dates back to my days as an obsessive Nirvana fan when I was a teenager, as with my signature. The dedication at the start of one of Kurt Cobain's biographies are the words Dedicated to the 68 Lost Souls. It's a little morbid looking back at it now but its become my handle online for many places.

whats your A race this year?

A race this year is Dublin City Olympic. I did the supersprint as my second ever race and with having pulled out with a DNS last year due to injury I want to beat it this year. It's also local enough so hope to be able to cycle and run the course a bit before hand.

do you eat much fruit?

I have tried as much lately to replace all my snacks with fruit. I used to eat a packet of crisps on my brake at work, another or a chocolate bar when I got home and then maybe some biscuits with my tea at night. Now I eat an apple, an orange and a banana at these times. Try to eat at least 5 pieces a day. Its working well for me so far. Down 4KG since Christmas and I put most of it down to this and other smart decisions when snacking/eating.

whats your best discipline?

Swim is definitely my best and probably favorite. I've never been good enough to be a pure swimmer but I would live in the water if I could. The bike is certainly coming along as well. I am trying to put some extra work this year into the bike as I know I feel I probably have the largest scope for improvement here.

My run, well the less said the better.

whats your long term goal in triathlon?

Long term goal for now is improve over shorter distances, sprint and Olympic. Reckon this year will be about getting my knee back to where it needs to be as I am still struggling with this injury. Then next year I will build on it and hopefully then when I move into the next age bracket the year after I can maybe compete at the pointy end.

Don't think I see myself going long for a while as I have noticed more and more lately those that do often find it hard to go fast short again. It seems to change how your body works and I'm not ready for that yet. Nor do I have the time to commit at the moment.

what bike do you ride?

Ride a trek 2.1 with a 105 groupset. Stick a set of BBB tribars on it for race season and it gets me around. Will be sticking with it for a couple of seasons at least I reckon. Get the motor running smoothly first and then I'll think about moving up.

are you a member of a tri club?

Yep. I have moved around a bit so last year was a member of 2 clubs, Drogheda and Dublin. Having moved to North Dublin last year I have joined a new club as of January where I can make the training sessions and really enjoying it. Great bunch of people and some serious training. I tihnk I benefit a lot from it as I am getting good advice from the more experienced around me and training in a group pushes me to make sessions and improve myself to try and catch up with the better of the group.

what do you think of enda kenny?

I think he has handled some things badly but has done a lot for the country in taking us from where we were to where we are now. I do think at times his head is in the sky about things like the average wage and how the water tax fiasco was handled was bad although I do agree we should be paying for our water. I am also concerned about the push for 2020 with regards to carbon emissions, lots of money has been set aside for reducing carbon emissions but not enough is being done about it. No clear way in how this will be used or how companies can access it. I'd certainly vote him in again and give him another 5 years to make some changes.

joey100

Any bucket list races??

How bad was the knee injury and are you nearly back to full health??

Dream bike and set up??

I move into the next age bracket the year after I can maybe compete at the pointy end

Would you consider yourself to be competitive?, from that I would say yep!

Best bit of tri advice you have gotten?

68 lost souls

Hey Joey

Any bucket list races??

I'd love to do Escape from Alcatraz one day. Always been a admirer of the history of there and having visited there a couple of years ago I think it would be a great race, location is good, atmosphere is supposed to be great.

How bad was the knee injury and are you nearly back to full health??

Injury seemed run of the mil, torn meniscus - key hole surgery and 6 week recovery. 6 weeks after surgery my knee was still a balloon and they reckoned it was infected so a second surgery, a week in hospital, 2 weeks total bed rest and 7 weeks of antibiotics later I was allowed get back in the water and swim. Another couple of weeks before I could cycle. Just started back easing into running now almost a year later.

Things tend not to run smoothly with me. I know several people with the same injury and all recovered with no complications. I guess I just got the bad luck. The muscle wastage is the big problem and fear of re-injury.

Dream bike and set up??

Would be either a P5 or a Trek Concept. Like them both. Big fan of Trek bikes. For a daily run around though I miss my old steel peugeot racer with the downtube shifters. Had it to get around college in the states and loved it. It's what got me back cycling.

Would you consider yourself to be competitive?, from that I would say yep!

I used to be competitive academically if there is such a thing but now that I'm all but finished with that for now I have started to develop a competitive edge streak in triathlon. Was never particularly sporty and stopped almost all team sports at about 13.

Stuck with tennis and badminton although not to a high level until I finished school and competed in triple jump and long jump at the schools competition in Santry.

Last time I won a medal for sport was in the second year long jump about 14 years ago.

Best bit of tri advice you have gotten?

Probably to cut out the junk miles. I try to make the most out of the time I have to train and wasting it on training for the sake of training is no good for me. I started heading out with purpose and focusing specifically on things at every session and it has helped show greater improvements for less input. Now if I can free up the time to put in the same amount of time I was 14 months ago I should be able to be a lot better.

catweazle

Favorite Movie?
Favorite Scene from a movie?
One race at the Olympics to attend - what would you pick?
3 Sports personalities that you admire and 3 that you don't and why?
Dream Date?
Best music concert?
Do you feel Irish should be a compulsory or optional subject in school?
Courtney Love - your opinion?
What college did you go to in the States - what was it like - would you recommend it?

Chartsengrafs

Nirvana fan.. So were/are you a Pixies fan too?
Sonia O'Sullivan or Sean Kelly?
Coffee or tea?
Favourite tri purchase to date?

68 lost souls

Favorite Movie?

A lot to choose from, like most movies to be honest not one to switch off a movie normally. Would probably go with Point Break.

Favorite Scene from a movie?

From said favorite movie the last scene when they are standing on the beach in Australia at the 1000 year storm.

One race at the Olympics to attend - what would you pick?

Over in a flash but would say the 100m sprint in the summer olympics and skeleton bob in the winter Olympics.

3 Sports personalities that you admire and 3 that you don't and why?

3 sports personalities I admire would be;
Brian O'Driscoll - Just a fantastic athlete, great attitude and all around nice guy
Shaun White - Both winter and summer Xgames medalist, again a fantastic athlete
Surprisingly Bressie - Talented footballer, hurler, rugby player and at the same time remembered better for his music. Also doing great things for charities and has turned his hands to triathlon now too. Seems like an ordinary guy that can just do it all.

3 I don't admire -

Lance, well I don't think I need to say much about this one. I don't like cheats.
A lot of football (soccer) players, thugs who get paid millions to kick a leather ball around, that I never got.
New Orlean Saints management staff - Any one that puts a bounty on a player is an awful human being

Dream Date?

Apart from the OH Jennifer Aniston, enough said.

Best music concert?
Red Hot Chili Peppers at Phoenix park stands out to me. Great day and a fantastic show, Pixies were amazing too. Any chili peppers gig I have been to has been amazing (Slane, Phoenix park, and Oxegen.)


Do you feel Irish should be a compulsory or optional subject in school?

Yes, 100%. They need to change how it is taught completely but every one should be able to speak it.
It should be taught in my eyes like French and Spanish with an optional extra course of literature for those attending Irish speaking schools or those who excel at it. The language would do a lot better like that.

I attended an all Irish primary school and English speaking secondary school. It was shocking how poor Irish was in secondary school. 8 out of 125 of us did honours in the leaving cert and 7 of the 8 just learnt answers off by heart and not how to answer.

Courtney Love - your opinion?

The woman is both bat Sh!t crazy and super intelligent at the same time. I think she should be locked up but I also like the music she creates. I do think she had a lot more to do with Kurts death than Kurt did.

ANy further into this and I would be opening a can of worms.

What college did you go to in the States - what was it like - would you recommend it?

I'm a boilermaker true and true. Purdue University, Indiana. It was amazing not just for the social aspect and the people but also the resources. I had free use of an Olympic quality pool and gym for free all year and there was a 62,500 seater stadium for college football, 14,000 seat basketball, and 2,500 seat baseball stadium. The labs were sate of the art, the lecturers are experts in the field and the location is stunning.

Made some good friends with the locals and really enjoyed the american way of life. Frat parties and summer cookouts as well as a lot of other college traditions were all a lot of fun.

68 lost souls

Hi Basster

Nirvana fan.. So were/are you a Pixies fan too?

Not as big a pixie fan as Nirvana fan but yes. As per Catweazles questions the Pixies live was amazing to be at. Doolittle is one of my favorite albums of all time.

Sonia O'Sullivan or Sean Kelly?

I reckon Sonia on this one. Both did the country proud but she would have been more of my time.

Coffee or tea?

I have 2 cups of coffee and about 5 cups of tea a day so tea wins. Probably too much caffeine in the day but Im a sucker for a good cuppa.

Favourite tri purchase to date?

My bike so far is my favorite, really enjoy getting out on it in the sun. Wish I had taken to cycling more years ago. Gives a great sense of freedom

pgibbo

What would be your death row meal?
What do you do for crust?
What AG are you in?
400m swim pb?
5k, 10k, HM and marathon pbs?
How many hours a week do you train?
What's the typical breakdown?
Any plans to go long?
If so, what's the target?
What's your favourite session in each discipline?
What's your most dreaded session in each discipline?
Do you do much maintenance - core, stretching, rolling, gym, etc?
Anyone on here that you would like to beat in a sprint finish?
What do you to totally chill?
Do you ski or snow board?

68 lost souls

What would be your death row meal?

A Chinese from Top Tops in Old Bawn, Hot Spice Chicken with fried rice and prawn crackers. My favorite and it's not like I need to eat health on the way to the chair

What do you do for crust?
I'm a product designer/applications engineer in the 3D printing industry.

What AG are you in?
25-30 for the moment. Just turned 28 so another couple years here.

400m swim pb?
6:38 is my best in the last 3 years. Not sure prior to that. I am confident I'll go below 6:30 before June.

5k, 10k, HM and marathon pbs?

Never done a HM or marathon.

5K - 28:04
10k - 50:16

Had to look up my logs to check these and surprised that my 10km is so much better than my 5km if you look a the split.

How many hours a week do you train?

Normally 10-15 depending on my load and what else I have going on.

What's the typical breakdown?

Try and get in 2 swim 2 bike if I can a yoga session and 2 or 3 conditioning sessions. When I am running I'd aim for 3 runs a week as well.

At peak I would say 3 hours each to swim, bike, run and gym work with remaining extra hours going to the bike and swim.


Any plans to go long?
If so, what's the target?

None yet, but in a couple of years I might do it. I enjoy shorter races at the moment.

What's your favourite session in each discipline?

Swim - 4x400 with 100m drill between each set. Spending each 400m working on the aspects of the drill.

Bike - A set of ramps is always good. Moving up 5% every 4 minutes and then back down.

Run - 5 x 1km with a sprint a the en dof each 1k.

What's your most dreaded session in each discipline?

Swim - Anything that involves hand paddles. I hate using them.

Bike - Long intervals e.g. 45s on 15s off x 10.

Run - LSR I find it hard to stay discilpined to slow down enough and differentiate things partly because my normal speed is too slow.

Do you do much maintenance - core, stretching, rolling, gym, etc?
Yes I try and do a good bit of this. I try and fit in some stretching most days even for a few minutes or at work during the day. Use the roller whenever I feel a little tight.

Been trying to force myself to do some legwork everyday.

Anyone on here that you would like to beat in a sprint finish?

Cart man would be a nice one. I'm sure one day I will but for now he'll have me beat every time. :P

What do you to totally chill?
Either play guitar, if I can get away and go surfing in Donegal but I don't often get a chance to do that.

Do you ski or snow board?
I was snowboarding in Colorado for spring break 3 years ago and loved it. Would love to get to go again at some stage.

Claude Burgundy

Going to college in Indiana...........are you a Colts fan ?

Oh and Top Tops in Old Bawn, many many a good meal i had there when i lived locally for 5 yrs !

68 lost souls

Going to college in Indiana...........are you a Colts fan ?

I wouldn't be a die hard but yes, unfortunately I happened to be there when they went through the suck for Luck phase. Fortunitly it was also the year that the Superbowl was in Indie so got to soak up the atmosphere there. Didn't manage to get tickets for the match but the city was electric that weekend.

I would also be a fan of Drew Brees being a fellow boilermaker.

Claude Burgundy

68 lost souls wrote: »

Going to college in Indiana...........are you a Colts fan ?

I wouldn't be a die hard but yes, unfortunately I happened to be there when they went through the suck for Luck phase. Fortunitly it was also the year that the Superbowl was in Indie so got to soak up the atmosphere there. Didn't manage to get tickets for the match but the city was electric that weekend.

I would also be a fan of Drew Brees being a fellow boilermaker.

The only time i was in Indy ( for F1 in 2003 ) the Colts were playing away BUT i was in New York when they won the Superbowl in 2007 and it was just amazing watching it with normal fans and some Bears fans who they beat !

Also in Florida when the Gators won the championship with Tebow in his prime. I don't think people in Ireland understand just how big college football is.

68 lost souls

I'd say that was a great experience. Lots of Bears fans at Purdue too seen as its pretty much on the border. Plenty of fun rivalry there.

College football is great. It's probably easier to watch then NFL from an advert point of view which is the big complaint from most Irish. I reckon the fact that a lot of the players are in class with you you feel more part of the team with College football so you can get more involved than with the NFL.

johnk123

Favourite alcoholic beverage?
€100m lotto win in the morning, would you tell anyone? As the ad says, what's the first thing you'd do? Like literally the first thing, before the real cheque was cleared and the mega bucks were all set up for you.

68 lost souls

Favourite alcoholic beverage?

Depends on the situation. Normally red wine or rum.

€100m lotto win in the morning, would you tell anyone? As the ad says, what's the first thing you'd do? Like literally the first thing, before the real cheque was cleared and the mega bucks were all set up for you.

I probably wouldn't be able to hide it so would end up telling every one.

I'd have to weigh up quitting the job. I've always thought about it and thought I'd probably be bored if I gave it up having won the lotto but at the same time I could do everything I ever wanted and didn't have time.

Very first thing, ring the OH and tell her to start packing a bag, we're going on holiday. We could both do with one at the moment.

68 lost souls

Ok, I took over on a Tuesday so I will start looking for a taker for the next round and hand over tomorrow hopefully.

joey100

Before you go 68,


Are you a member of a tri club??
If not any plans to join one??

Kurt Godel

Favourite swim set?
Best place to swim OW?
How early in the year do you get into the OW?
How far can you swim underwater on a single breath?
Whats you best 400m swim time?
What advice would you give to newbies buying wetsuits?

Thanks!

68 lost souls

Keep the questions coming for today.

Are you a member of a tri club??
If not any plans to join one??

Yep, a bit of a club whore the last few years due to several relocations this is the third club I have been a member of in as many years. Each club has been beneficial for different reasons. I really enjoy club training and the experience of others really helps to learn.

68 lost souls

Favourite swim set?

There's not a lot of swimming I don't like apart from anything involving padles.

Probably something like, 4x400 with 100m drill between each set. Spending each 400m working on the aspects of the drill.

Best place to swim OW?

Malta would probably have been my favorite so far. 27 degree water temp, clear visibility, not really strong currents.

How early in the year do you get into the OW?

I'll be in the water on Friday, had hope to start back the beginning of this month but I was hit with tonsillitis and a chest infection. I'd be in the water in February though surfing.

How far can you swim underwater on a single breath?
I'll have to try this and get back to you. Certainly a length of a 25m pool.

Whats you best 400m swim time?
6:38 in recent times. I'm working on improving this. Feel like I have a good bit more to give. Still have issues pacing it and afraid to blow up on the first 200.

What advice would you give to newbies buying wetsuits?
Make sure it fits, buying online might seem cheaper but its a false economy if you have to buy twice. Also don't necessarily buy the most expensive as it might not suit your ability. Wetsuit design varies from brand to brand and across the different levels and buoyancy is one part that differs greatly.

Some wetsuits target more buoyant hips or legs to improve swim position but if you are a strong kicker the extra buoyancy can detract from this and also is not needed as you probably have good positioning anyway.

Get the right suit for you which means, if you can, test them out. Even if you can't get to a shop that allows this then see if your club mates will lend you one to test (just don't pee in someone else's suit).

Lastly, a wetsuit is different getting out of when its dry than when its wet so to practice your transitions make sure to do it wet. This probably means get more OW practice in and try remove your suit like you would in transition and learn to take it off quickly without tearing it.

Kurt Godel

68 lost souls wrote: »

What advice would you give to newbies buying wetsuits?
Make sure it fits, buying online might seem cheaper but its a false economy if you have to buy twice. Also don't necessarily buy the most expensive as it might not suit your ability. Wetsuit design varies from brand to brand and across the different levels and buoyancy is one part that differs greatly.

Some wetsuits target more buoyant hips or legs to improve swim position but if you are a strong kicker the extra buoyancy can detract from this and also is not needed as you probably have good positioning anyway.

Get the right suit for you which means, if you can, test them out. Even if you can't get to a shop that allows this then see if your club mates will lend you one to test (just don't pee in someone else's suit).

Lastly, a wetsuit is different getting out of when its dry than when its wet so to practice your transitions make sure to do it wet. This probably means get more OW practice in and try remove your suit like you would in transition and learn to take it off quickly without tearing it.

Great answer! I'm going to nick this and post it for the swim newbie thread

68 lost souls

Work away and feel free to edit it. I think that thread is a great resource. When I've been stuck on what to do myself I've robbed a few sessions and modified it. I did the breathing exercises last week with 100s instead of 50s for example.