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

Met Kurt last night for an OW swim in Wicklow Harbor. It was still feckin freezing but not as bad as last week. I was struggling to warm up in my wetsuit as pensioners swam past me in their togs. I need to man up.

4 laps, which I really enjoyed. I know Kurt was saying on his log that I was swimming faster than him but I didn't think so, I was cutting corners more likely. I'm doing Pikeman on Saturday so we'll have a battle then, but only on the swim. It's almost a year since I last cycled more than 20km so the bike will be a gentle spin :rolleyes:

Had the garmin under my hat duirng the swim hat last night and it gave me a distance of 3,100m for the 4 laps. Fastest 1,000m came in at 17.25, with an average of 19.10 per 1km - too much time trying to warm up at the start of lap 1 and too much time chatting at the end of lap 2 me thinks hence the slower average time

Nothing yesterday. Too busy in work and then out with the lads on the beer for the night. Well I say lads, the youngest was me (40)......and I say on the beer when in fact what I meant was a very nice dinner with gallons of wine followed by a marathon session of G&T's.............when did I get so old :pac:

Today the body is in revolt and even walking is a challenge. Managed a quick dip in the pool to loosed up the legs, did about 10 100m repeats easy off no set interval - they all came in at 1.35ish. Didn't feel that fast.

Looking forward to Pikeman tomorrow, hopefully my alcohol poisoned body will have recovered sufficiently. As always with these things not looking forward to the early start :rolleyes:

Pikeman Olympic Distance

I only decided to do this race on Tuesday evening and luckily enough I got a cheap entry as a transfer. I don't like the OD as a race distance, and I haven't done one since 2010 when I last did Athy. I also haven't done any bike training this year. I think I've covered less than 50kms on the road this year. That said swimming and running are going ok so I thought I'd give it a bash.

I had an overall target of sub 2.30hrs for this race, breaking down as 26 min swim; 75 min bike, 45 min run and 4 min transitions (my PB for this distance is around 2.40). That swim time would represent a huge improvement for me; as would a sub 45min run, this being something I've wanted to do for some time. The bike was always going to be a struggle, holding 32kph off no training.....

Lovely day for it. Arrived nice and early, caught up with Kurt and some club mates and got sorted.

Swim looked a bit short to me but it appears to have been close to the 1,500m, with 1,400-450m being mentioned. First bit of swim was a bit rough and it took me a while to find clear water. Turned at the first buoy and started to veer off course a bit. Couldn't see the next buoy and I think I drifted a bit off course. Stroke felt poor but after a while I got into a nice rhythm. I adopted a strange breathing pattern, breath twice to the right, miss a breath, breath once to the left, miss a breath, start again - 3 breathes per 5 strokes and this worked well. I was pushing hard and enjoying the swim. Came to the finish on the beach and who should be a few meters ahead of me only KG, sprinted after him but he got in 9 secs ahead of me....actually I was delighted to be that close to him. Swim completed in exactly 22mins, 18th fastest swim.

T1 passed without incident. I was racked next to Kurt so I let him know I was behind him but that was the closest I got to him all day. A fast for me T1 of 1.57.

Onto the bike and I settled into a steady rhythm. I didn't want to push too hard so I took it steady on the first 20km. The surface was good and as flat as you are going to get in any tri. Loads of marshals controlling the traffic. Had a couple of close calls when my lack of recent bike handling almost caused me to crash when opening gels. Lap 1 passed quickly and onto Lap 2. Decided to push on a bit on this lap. Took 3 gels on the bike, at 5, 20 and 35kms. Started to clock watch on the last lap and thought my sub 2.30 might still be a possibility. Into T2 in 1.13.51 - 50th fastest time and a fair reflection of my lack of recent training but still a minute ahead of schedule.

T2 took an age, I have to wear socks on the run and getting them on took ages. I then had to tie my laces, having forgotten to do so before the race. T2 in 1.32.

Out onto the run. Heat was starting to build now. The watch showed 1.40, so I had 50mins to run a sub 2.30. Unless something went badly wrong that should be doable. What about the sub 45 run? I contemplated running hard and then I came to the first hill, ok then, keep a steady pace and see how that goes. Run course was hilly and it was hot but I really enjoyed it. I had a bit of a battle with a couple of guys for a few km, I dropped one or two, one or two dropped me. I did the first 5km in 21.29 according to the results. Second lap I slowed a wee bit but felt good. At the 9km marker I started to open up the legs but few twinges of cramp in the calfs slowed me down again. Crossed the line with a 44min exactly run, 22nd fastest.

Overall time 2.23.21, all targets hit, 31st position overall. Absolutely delighted with my swim and run times, both huge improvements.

Hats off to Wexford Tri Club for one of the best run events I've done in my 6 seasons of triathlon. A big plus was the regular distance markers on the bike and the km markers on the run as I wasn't wearing a Garmin, just a cheap stopwatch, so this helped with pacing. I think I might like this distance now

Kurt Godel wrote: »

Regarding the swim, I'll be honest and say that I was spooked by how well you've been swimming at Wicklow harbour recently. This lark is all about pushing yourself, and you've certainly come on a lot recently. I paced my race swim steady rather than hard, and thought I saw you to left of me as we were about the halfway point (so you were swimming slightly towards the shore?) Heading out of the water I saw a guy ahead who looked like you in a black/blue suit, and cursed my conservatism, but luckily (for me) it was mistaken identity. Seeing you come to the bikes right after me just reaffirmed how it could have gone either way.

Which is a good thing for both of us, a few ding-dongs between posters here only serve to get each other faster. I've no doubt you'll be racing me to get that sub 6min 400m, you're well capable of it. What's next Tri wise (think you're doing Clogherhead swim too?)

I don't think that was me you saw on the swim, I veered out wide and I don't think there was anyone else out as wide as I was. I'm glad I got you moving on the swim, having someone to chase certainly gets you going. It was chasing you on the swim that kept me focused, and trying to stay ahead of a much faster club mate on the bike that helped me concentrate here (I held him off until about 20km into the course).

Not sure what's next. I will almost certainly do one of the swims in Clogerhead or Howth this weekend. After that I might do another couple of tri's.

8km along Sandymount strand surrounded by a sea of pasty white Irish flesh squeezed into too small bikinis and Bermuda shorts. Gotta love this hot weather

I'm paying for it now though, an afternoon of sweating buckets all over my laptop.

Cheers El D. Not sure about the sub 6 400m though, I think maybe a sub 6.30 LC may be the short term goal with sub 6 maybe a winter target (almost certainly SC).

I actually watch your log with interest regarding swim times as I reckon if I keeping close to your times I'm not doing too bad, the fact you swim LC also allows a proper comparison.

Another glorious day for running along the strand. 8km at 4.50 pace, a tough enough pace in that heat!! No longer are the sunbathers all pasty and white, now they are for the most parboiled and resemble lobsters. It's like looking at a pension plan for a dermatologist.

El Director wrote: »

I wouldn't worry too much about it Griff. It's very difficult to compare times on courses from year to year, especially in a swim. Of said it yourself, the swell did not let up at all-you expected it to after 800m or so and it didn't. So there you go. It is of course also possible that you didn't swim to your potential too and as we all found out in Kilkee, unless you are used of swimming in a big swell you will definitely struggle. Was it a wetsuit race Giff? I must look at the OW calendar and pencil in a race before the end of the year myself.

47:15 in calm waters, vs. 48.30 in rough, and you're severely disappointed? Methinks you are way too harsh on yourself, swimming in rough choppy seas you'd expect a much bigger time differential than 1:15. You've improved immensely time-wise in recent months, you're not comparing like-with-like so shouldn't expect numbers to be comparable. Sounds like a good hard swim in my book, and sounds like a big improvement too, well done.

Yep, not swimming enough in rough water this year certainly caused me problems. It's bloody hard trying to hold a decent stroke when you are being pushed around like that - lots of dropping of shoulders and elbows. The level of soreness across my core I think is an indication of how I struggled to maintain a good body position. I went for a short run last night and I had a really bad case of the DOMS across the abdomen and the lower back.

It was a wetsuit optional race, and of course I wore mine . You should look at doing some ElD. They are generally cheap to enter and no faffing about with bikes and other tri paraphernalia. I think some some Boardsies are looking at the Glendalogh swim in September.

Results for the swim are out. Interested won again for the second year in a row, although he was 3.5mins slower this year. I wounder if that was due to the conditions or the lack of competition (he was run a lot closer last year). I ended up 21st out of 66 finishers. A quarter of the field took over an hour to finish. The standard seemed to be good at the pointy end, there were 3 women in the first 9 finishers. A google of some of the names (I'm bored in work ) suggests some very very good swimmers. I'll put this one down to experience and move on.

Warrior Of The Sea 6km Swim Race Report
As I'm not doing an IM this year this was always going to be my substitute race. Long enough to require some decent training to be done, not too long that the training would take over my life. I did train well for this until about a month ago when I decided I wasn't going to do it. I had hit a few 4,000m plus sessions in th the pool and one 3,000m plus OW session but hadn't hit my hoped for target of a couple of 5,000m sessions so decided this race was off. About two weeks ago I began to think maybe I will give it a shot.......hence I found myself registering in Sligo on Friday night almost puking with nerves about the swim :P

Morning of the race I carpooled with Interested and he gave me one nugget of advice - pace yourself properly - if you think you are swimming too fast you are - if you think you are swimming too slow, swim slower. This wasn't going to be a race for me. I was only interested in getting around without dying - literally or metaphorically.

Route was from Rosses Point to Strandhill in Sligo.. The route was broken into 3 sections:

1. Section 1: 1km across the channel to Coney Island where you exit the water and run across the corner of the island
2. Section 2. The main part of the swim, 2.7km across the bay
3. Section 3. The final part of the swim when you turn for the shore - 2.3km

Standing at the start the heat was intense. There was a river of sweat, sun cream and melted vaseline running down the front of my wetsuit. After a warning at the briefing to make sure we put sunscreen on the soles of our feet we were off.

Despite it being a mass start it was very calm. I started at the rear of the pack to the left. I was stroking very easy. There was none of the usual pushing and jostling you get in a tri swim. This was all about energy conservation. The water was warm, the sky was clear and I was loving it. Sighting was going well and the first km passed in a flash and we were out onto a beach where there was a drinks table and then back into the water on the far side of the beach for section 2 of the swim.

This part of the swim can get very rough, but not this year. It was almost flat calm, or as flat as the Atlantic ever gets. I was loving it. Sighting wasn't as issue as there were enough of us in the water that I just followed the groups ahead. Once or twice the stroke rate began to go up but I reined it back in. My pacing strategy was to swim with a breath every 3 strokes, I know that if I can swim at this breathing pace then I'm using a controlled effort. The scenery to the left of us on this part of the swim was magnificent, not that I looked at it much, I was too busy swimming:P. You could see Ben Bulben in all its glory when you looked at the land and this also made you realise how far offshore you are at this part. I was passing quite a few swimmers here. You could see them really clearly in the water and it was interesting to watch the style of the non wetsuit swimmers compared to the wetsuit clad ones. There was a drinks boat located at the buoy marking the end of this section. I didn't need a drink but had planned to get one in my pre race plan so I briefly stopped for a drink of water and headed on. The gel I had stuffed in the sleeve of my wetsiut (another tip from Interested) remained untouched.

Into the final section of the race and I was shocked to see that I could actually see Strandhill beach. I had been warned before the race though that despite it looking close its still over 2kms away so not to get too excited yet. During this part of the swim I ended up swimming over a large kelp bed in quite shallow water for a bit. The kelp was catching my hands and the rocks looked very close, I was glad there was no big swell and I was happy to leave it. At this point the field seemed to break up and there were fewer swimmers around me. I spotted a skins swimmer and assuming that he would be good at sighting tucked in behind him. After a bit I decided that I was going to speed up a bit as I knew I was getting close to the finish. I ended up veering off course a bit here and a kayak directed me back in the right direction but I don't reckon I added too much to the route. After a bit I saw the final buoy and headed for it. Rounding the buoy there were 3-4 of us but we couldn't see which part of the beach to land on. This being Strandhill there was quite a big swell / surf. A speedboat then appeared crewed by 4 bikini clad Sirens whp pointed us in the right direction - I will admit, I did find it hard to concentrate on what they were saying The last couple of hundred meters were the hardest of the swim. It was hard to sight and the surf was throwing us around (there's a reason why swimming is not permitted in Strandhill) . I eventually got into shallow water and took an age to walk over the stones and rocks to the finish. I could see other finishers coming in along that stretch of beach. I did consider sprinting the last 20m on the beach to over take other swimmers but as no one else seemed bothered I didn't.

I finished in 1.51.53, 82nd place out of 188 finishers. I was almost 29 minutes behind the winner :eek: I am delighted with that swim. All along my aim was to break 2hrs but I didn't know if that was possible due to the recent drop of in training. I paced it well (a few quick time checks during the swim suggest my Pace stayed constant the whole time), never got tired, had no nutrition issues and felt like I could have gone on for a bit yet. Today I'm thinking that maybe I should have 'raced' it after all and pushed harder, but it's easy to think that in hindsight. On Saturday morning I just wanted to get around. The conditions helped a lot, it would have been a much tougher swim if the weather had been unkind. My overall pace was 1.50/51 per 100m so happy with that. That equates to a sub 1.10 IM swim which has been a target of mine for some time. I will be 'racing' the Glendalough 4km swim later this year if I can get to do it though

Met up with Interested and MCOS at the finish. MCOS put in a savage time.