Reach for the sky...

4th july 13... swim with the kids..about 8 lengths 200m ..

so i had left a red towel on the seat of my bike to make it easier to find in transition turns out when your almost last out of the water it isnt too hard to find your bike
decent transition and onto the bike .. used elastics to hold shoes up on bike but they were too short and broke the minute i put my foot on the first shoe so i had to go fishing around for the second shoe, kind of half got it and got going.. 2 minutes later the same shoe came off the pedal and is only half on my foot , so to make sure it didnt fall onto the road i slowed it down and got it on properly back clipped in and off again, properly.. i enjoyed the cycle .didnt really find it windy at all .. 90 percent of it on the bars, was passed by one guy early on but passed him back later, i was passing all the way out and back, slowish turnaround as the girl in front of me had a bit of a freak out going round the cone but got going again quick enough.. spent most of the cycle in the 30s and very rarely lower than high 20s so i was fairly happy that itd be a decent time, had no stopwatch i was just guaging it of the actual time i got on the bike, got held up by a car on the way back in, belted thru the arch around the corner and a perfect dismount off the shoes and running.. 40.25.. the course is long so im happy enough, id be happier sub 40..but fluting round with shoes and that car probably cost me that .. and thats fixable stuff, if i had stopwatch going too id have known to push a bit harder at times.. id feel a bit better about spending on a better bike now that i can see that at least theres some progression happening.. not that thats going to happen for a while.. 3 minute improvement on 2011 which was a standalone cycle too..

second transition.. knocked lilipoos bike which was racked beside mine, put it back, took longer to get shoes on than i wouldve liked, elastic laces are probably better than greepers for shorter distance like this ..

got running eventually legs fine , lungs fine, bad bad stomach cramp right up under my ribs which didnt go til about the halfway point, so slow jog down to halfway any time i sped up it got worse , going up the little hill was torture, but i think the downhill run to halfway loosened things out a bit and i was grand from the turnaround on, was a bit wary of really opening up but i could run freely , at the turn at the park i lifted it another bit and then at murphys which is across the river from the finish i totally opened up and strided in.. 27 minute run.. without the cramps id say sub 25 easily.. but you cant legislate for things like that..

so im happy ish with the swim, i couldnt do a length in february and i was never worried about speed just forward progress, and thats how it worked out.. il be looking to get 3 minutes off that for next year..

bike .. content, i enjoyed the cycle, it was nice to be looking at 32s and 36s on the speedo instead of 28s and 29s but theres more to be got there even just the bit lost from messing with that shoe..i couldve pushed more on the way back at times but was content to be over 30 and wanted to save the legs

run... not overly happy..considering i ran 21 something a few weeks ago, but it wasnt because of tiredness that i couldnt speed up,.. on a better day without the cramp i wouldve been under 1.25 for the whole thing which id be happy with..

overall .. despite my giving out about the late start everything else went well, next door neighbour won his age group and was high up overall, one of club members was done for drafting and went from 2nd to 4th , i saw most of the front runners coming back as i was cycling out and i didnt see any blatant drafting.. but then i wasnt looking for 10 metres between them either but i didnt see any wheel sucking going on at all.. in fairness at the briefing they had said they were going to clamp down hard and the draft bikes were more visible this year than any other year ive done..

didnt catch lilipoo.. she passed me going back not long after the halfway point on the run but id have to do some serious sprinting to get her and she ran faster than me for the distance anyway ...fair play to her..

having a look at the calendar now to see wheres next, preferably my side of the country and we can leave the kids with my parents and both do it.. sprint next week in swinford but im having a break for the week so thats not a runner..

general plan now is to get running training back to normal and have a lash at the marathon in october .. but if theres a triathlon or club events on in the meantime that suits il happily give it a lash but i wont be training specifically for it..

big thanks to all the marshalls and support and the guards on the route.. a lot of club members gave up their own chance to take part in order to marshall or help out in general, so fair play to ye.. and all the local support.. im a blow in , im only 10 years living here but i was surprised at how many knew me on the run and were shouting encouragement...

swinford sprint

1.31 something
24 swim ( yes 24 ! ) last out of the water, lake so no current to help.. few other 24s,23,22s so its not as disastrous as it sounds,
36 bike.. the opposite situation.. flying on the bike ( for me ) even had to stop to fix the speedo magnet so couldve been a bit faster
26 run.. hard run up a hill.. got tummy cramps again, for the next one il take a gel at the end of the bike to see if that makes it any better.. i know i can run a lot quicker than this...
transitions in the 1.30s, second one couldve been faster but i fell with the bike on the way to rack !!!! on grass thank god...

so when you come out of the water last and end up a third of the way further up the field i think you have to be happy...ish .. a lot of work needed on swimming but thats for another day..

edit .. 4 were taken out of the swim so technically i wasnt the worst swimmer there :-)

cheers lads.. bike course 19k so not as impressive as it sounds but im still happy with it.. if i did a 36 minute 20k id be seriously happy but im happy with the progression thats happening this year at least it shows that might be possible..

15th july 13.. 100m o/w swim .. no wetsuit.. trying something for a short race thats on in a few weeks.. short swim so might not bother with the wetsuit, its certainly feasible but much harder work, especially kicking.. itl depend on what the weather is like on the day !

sat 20th july

ow swimming on aran.. 28 degrees at least.. like being in the canaries..had to get off the beach the sand was so hot.. went across the width of the beach a couple of times to make it feel like i was doing something useful..
90m across.. at a rough guess about 250 done altogether..
a lot of hydrating done after.. nothing done since.. still not 100 % recovered..

tuesday 30th 5.6k run

8k run.. fastish last 3k.. slow first 5 though..

5th august 13... 15k run

8th august

7k run in the woods

swimming with the kids

new runners, not convinced, but ive only had them on twice.. hopefully i get used to them

12th august intervals .. 1200 warm up, 5 x 400 fast , 4 x 400 slow, 3k warm down.. not doing much as 10k race at the weekend dont want to be too stiff,

quiet week, itb and knee twinges early last week and i had a 10k on sunday so i didnt want to do too much and make things worse, so took from thursay to sunday off,
ran 10k race sunday, first 3k too fast, 2nd 3k too slow, last 3k prob just about right, last km i thought the finish was a bit further down the road so left the kick a bit late.. finished 45.05, pb by 40 something seconds, should have been under 45 really.. as usual didnt train properly for it, i think close to 40 is possible with some concentration and proper training.
holidays in wexford this week, swam every day for the 3 days and ran intervals 1 day on the track in new ross.. about 8k
back to it today .. short run today, long run tomorrow..

27th august
intervals
1600 warmp up
6 x 400 faster
6 x 400 recovery
2k jog

8.4k total

friday saturday nothing, side of knee / itb still twinging which is worrying, not overly keen on going for long run and making it worse but with 8 weeks to go the mileage needs to increase a lot..think its time to get to the physio and see what they think..
bad bad bad hangover today.. still hopeful of getting some bit of a shuffle done at some stage but what distance it turns out to be god only knows.. better to do something than nothing though

16k lsr

9.6k run , part of aquathon so had plenty of company, went well though,

6.5k early morning shuffle, knee / itb problems seem to be slowly sorting themselves out, little bit of a twinge below the knee to the side of shin / calf which is getting a bit annoying ..

athlone half
1.44.57 which is what i was aiming for, aerobicaly i was comfortable throughout , legs got bit heavy round 16-17k, which tells me that my long runs need to get longer.. took a gel at 19 odd which was possbily a bit late to be taking it , woke up on last km .. and got in where i wanted,
very warm out there today, i was up early to get kids to grannys, drove 2 hours and only as i started did i realise id had nothing to drink all day, got water at 5k and hung onto the bottle til it was gone which i never do, same at the other 2 water stations as well.. so that probably didnt help..
saw a few boards heads around in the gym but went to the car to put stuff away and when i went back they were gone..so didnt get to chat to anyone.. sorry..

8. something km .. ish

lsr day.. 33k the last 3 1/2 were torture.. another one next weekend !
UP MAYO

5k tt blowout, cos i thought better half wanted to get out after me, ran it hard-ish , finished wrecked.. then she doesnt want to go out :eek:
ah well .. needed the change from slow runs all the time