Just one of those days where it all goes right! 5 Times Baby!! Gotta Love it.

Tuesday 25th June 2013

Running ( 5.00 Miles / 00:44:32 / 00:08:54 / HRZ 2.8)

I was wakened up by the bright sunshine sneaking in through a gap in my hotel curtains.
I had hoped to get an early run in this morning before the days' work started in Dublin but I hadn't planned anything really.
I got up to close the curtain and when I looked out I saw just how absolutely glorious it was this morning and it seemed daft not to take advantage of it.

So after putting on the running gear I headed out the door of the hotel at 6.20AM.  It was one of those fantastic summer mornings where the ambient temperature is nice and there is a stillness in the air.

The area where the hotel was is near to Blackrock at Stillorgan.  I ran down the Mount Merrion Road towards Blackrock Park and then on to Blackrock and did a little loop before heading back to the hotel.

If I had to live in Dublin I think this would be a lovely place to set up home.  HOWEVER  the several €MILLION needed to but a house in this are might be slightly prohibitive.  You would need to own a Bank not work in one to get a house here!!

Once again my HRZ was good for the pace I was doing.  Maybe I was just inspired by the lovely morning and surroundings or maybe it's the weight loss starting to pay off a bit.

Cycling (14.62 Miles / 01:03:09 / 13.90 mph / Cadence 69 / HRZ 2.9) Elevation Gain 521M

This is where I just felt that I was having one of those days where things were going my way.
I enjoy the hill sessions up the Pond Park Road but tonight I just felt like I was going really well and the feeling of  strength was the over-riding sensation.

I set off and was riding a gear that I normally wouldn't be able to pull and this pretty much continued for the whole session.  I did think that I was going to pay for it on later repeats but that just didn't happen.
I managed to maintain a very steady average with the 5 repeats taking (8.30 / 8.38 / 8.51 / 9.03 / 9.03)

I think that only slowing down by 30 seconds over 5 sets is pretty good going.

I honestly think that the weight loss along with being able to get some consistent training is starting to pay off now.
That is the first time on well over a year that I did 5 repeats of the hill.

I'm feeling the strength coming back - Bring it ON!

Getting a quick one in before heading South.

Monday 24^th June 2013

 

Running (4.00 Miles / 00:34:55 / 00:08:43 per mile / HRZ 2.8)

 

 

Early morning run before having to head down to road to Dublin for two days with work.

For some strange reason it felt incredibly hard for the first half mile - which is pretty much downhill.  It was really strange as I felt tired but my heart rate would not rise above about 70%.  It was strange but evened out after a mile or so.

 

Not too bad and a nice way to start the day off.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This week. Somebody was lucky not to get punched!

I really must get my ass in gear and start updating the blog more regularly than I am at the moment.  There just seems to be so much going on at the moment and I forget to update the blog on a regular basis now.

Anyway, here is a bit of a summary of the week so far.  Not a bad week at all.

 

Monday 17^th June 2013

 

Running (6.00 Miles / 00:48:54 / 00:08:09 per mile / HRZ 3.7)

 

I wanted to get a decent paced run in ahead of the Lisburn Half Marathon on Wednesday night.  The idea was to push the pace a bit but not do anything too long, so I opted for a 6 mile tempo run.

Usually I don’t really look forward to Tempo runs as by their very nature are at the threshold of race pace and get a bit uncomfortable.

As it turned out, this one went pretty well and I managed to hold a decent pace and was very pleased with 8.09 per mile.

A bit of a boost ahead of the Half Marathon on Wednesday.

 

Wednesday 19^th June 2013

 

Swimming ( 1500M / 00:34:33) 18M pool at Gym

 

I thought that ahead of the race tonight that a run would be a good idea to just keep the body nice and loose, and apart from anything else my dreadful swimming fitness and form needs all the work it can get.

I have to admit that this session felt a lot better than my previous sessions and I can feel a bit of strength coming back again, if not speed.

The elbow still isn’t allowing me to pull though at more than about 80% of power on the right arm but it is not painful, which is good.

 

Running (13.19 Miles / 01:53:43 / 00:08:38 per mile / HRZ 4.1)

 

As I mentioned in the summary blog last week, I had relatively low expectations going in to this event and had my sights set on a sub 2Hr run and a great result would have been a 1Hr 55min run.  As the time above shows, things went a lot better than I hoped they would.

It was a hot night by Lisburn standards and was up around 20 degrees on the start line.

I decided to take it relatively conservatively and aim at maintaining a steady pace and not worry too much about what was going on around me and aim to hold an 8.30 per mile pace throughout.

For the first 4 or 5 miles I seemed to have a hell of a lot of people going past me but I held to my plan and let them go as I had a feeling with the heat that I would be seeing quite a few of them later on!

As an aside – I love it when people recognise my Ironman M Dot tattoo on my leg.  About 2 miles in to the race I could overhear three guys behind me talking about the tattoo and one of them was explaining to the others what was involved in Ironman.  They were all suitably impressed and my step lightened and sped up as I felt good at the kudos being given to me, even of they weren’t talking directly to me.  In fact it was obvious that they thought I couldn’t hear them, as one of them then proclaimed “ I bet you it’s not a real tattoo anyway, it’s probably just a transfer.”

 

Bas£*rd!!  I felt like turning round and telling him it was real and hard earned but thought better of it as there were three of them and I didn’t fancy my chances of outrunning them in this heat, so I just let it go and let them run past.  Funny enough I didn’t notice any of them with M Dot tattoos anyway.

As it turns out, I had the last laugh when I passed all three of them again within the next few miles as they had clearly gone out too fast and blown apart before even half way.

 

I held the pace throughout and from 7 miles to 11 miles I was passed by only a handful of people as I was literally passing hundreds of folks.

 

I pushed hard through the last 3 miles and the average pace came down a bit more.

As it turns out I ran another negative split, doing the second half of the course 1min and 30 secs faster than the first half.  This was great considering the back half if much hillier.  This is the second year in a row I have done this.

 

On the whole I was delighted with the time as it was only 3 mins slower than my PB last year and that is off the back of very mixed and limited training this year.

 

I was also great to see so many of the Lisburn Triathlon Club members out again doing the Half Marathon and 10K and showing some tremendous form with blistering times.

 

Confidence is high.

 

Thursday 20^th June 2013

 

Cycling (11.54 Miles / 00:52:29 / 13.20 MPH / Cadence 68 / HRZ 2.8) Hill Repeats – Elevation Gain 418M

 

My old favourite hill repeats.  Four times up the Pond Park Road.

Not much to say about it except that I feel that I am getting fitter and faster.

My average time for the uphill is reducing and I feel as if I could handle five repeats now.

The hill sessions pay off and persistence is the key.

 

Topped out over 41mph on the way down – which was great fun.

 

Friday 21^st June 2013

 

Swimming ( 1750M / 00:38:23) 18M pool at Gym

 

Back in the pool again and increasing the distance.

I managed to swim this session straight through with no breaks at all and have to say that I felt very comfortable through out – apart from the usual elbow niggle which is not too bad.

 

Strength is coming back and the average speed is improved by a few seconds per 100M.

 

It is completely obvious to me that consistency in training  is what leads to improvement.

 

Not a bad week again.  I think I will try to do Parkrun 5Ktomorrow morning, but I don’t think a long bike is going to be possible this weekend unfortunately.

A whole week in review. It's good to be back!

Monday 17^th June 2013

It’s been a while since my last blog up date.  Sounds like a bit of a confession doesn’t it.

I have finally managed to string together a couple of weeks worth of half reasonable training that resembles something like Triathlon training.

Following the Crooked Lake Triathlon last weekend I felt really good, almost like I hadn’t done a triathlon at all. No aches, pains or niggles.  Great news and this led to a sense of optimism about getting a decent week of training in.

This week I managed to get in about 8 hours of training and that is the most I have managed in quite some time – mainly through injuries but sometimes life just gets in the way.

The sense of euphoria about feeling healthy and gaining fitness again led me to put my head above the parapet and ask if anyone else out there fancied joining me in doing Ironman Zurich in July 2014.

Yep – it looks like I ma going to be back on that Iron-path again for next year.  Entries open in late July and so far there are about 4 or 5 of us who are committed.

It will be fantastic to be part of a club trip to a huge event like this.

Anyway back to a quick re-cap on the week.

Swimming – both sessions went well for me considering the elbow still is not completely right.  I would say it is at about 90% mobility and about 70% of strength.  This does hamper the swimming a but, but I just got on with it and managed two decent sessions.  Slower than I would have liked but done anyway.

Biking – this is where I think things have really started to progress.  I know I haven’t been doing a lot of cycling at all but what I have been doing is trying to have quality sessions, such as the hill repeats.

This effort is aimed at building strength and I think it may be starting to show early signs of paying of.

I did two rides this week and on both occasions I managed to average over 17mph. Admittedly this is not fast by any means but it is about 1mph faster than I tended to average through my Ironman training last year and it is noticeably quicker than I have been able to sustain in the past.

Both rides were on rolling terrain and would not be classed as difficult but I am delighted at the progress.  I would love to be able to get myself to a point where I can comfortably average about 18mph on a long ride. That’s the goal!

Running – again some pretty good sessions here.  I missed a 30 minute tempo run but it was no big deal, and I managed to have a pretty decent longer run mid week which was for a large part on the route of the Lisburn Half Marathon, which is on Wednesday night this week.

Last year I was only about 4 weeks out from Ironman and was treating the event as a training run, however the amount of training and fitness just shone through and I ran an accidental PB of 1H50M.  There is no way I will be equalling that this year.  I’m just not fit enough to hold that pace for the length of time required.  This year I would be happy with sub 2 hours and delighted with a 1H55M run.

I’m looking forward to the event.  It’s my hometown race and a firm favourite for me.

Last week and this week I have had to travel to London and this interrupts the training a bit but I will do my best to do all the planned sessions this week, which should give me about 8 hours of training again.

It also probably is helping that I managed to shift over 10lbs in weight over the last 5 weeks.  I can notice a bit of a difference but there is a lot more to go still!

Here’s a summary of last week.

Crooked Lake Triathlon -Saturday 8th June. Race Report

Saturday 8th June 2013

 

Crooked Lake Traithlon

 

Swim: 00:20:11

T1: 00:03:39

Bike: 00:36:08

T2: 00:01:17

Run: 00:25:59

 

Overall: 01:27:11

 

Position 357 /491.  

Age Group 50 / 67

 

Who would have thought it?  The one thing that none of us expected was tough hot conditions for the race.

We have been having a decent spell of weather and the temperatures were up at 23 degrees.  This was something that I am not used to and it might just throw a different spin on the race today.

 

I had a great sense of anticipation about this event for a lot of reasons.  It was my first Open Water Tri of the season, it was also the event we were using for the Club Championship which meant there was going to be a big turn out from Lisburn Tri Club and lastly, the organisers of this race are the same folks who organised the fantastic Warrior Triathlon that I did last year.

What’s not to be excited about?

 

Well, for me the only thing was my dodgy elbow.  It still wasn’t right and I was seriously concerned about my swim.

I had been down for a practise swim during the week at the lake and the swim had taken me a desperately slow 20mins.  I was hoping that the adrenalin of the race and being able to draft off other people might speed me up a bit.

 

Pre race registration was in Camlough Village and I collected my number and well stocked Goodie Bag.  I was also allocated my Swim wave, which was wave one of two.

I wasn’t thrilled about this as I knew that he faster swimmers from Wave two would be swimming over the top of me as they caught me.

 

As I rode my bike up to Transition to get set up I changed gear and the chain came off completely and wrapped itself around the crank.  Nightmare!

Luckily as I got near to transition, I bumped in to Marie Gorman, a friend who I met through Ironman Frankfurt last year, and she pointed out the free Bike Service tent to me.

I made a bee-line for that and the mechanic had me sorted in no time thankfully.

 

It was so warm in transition that the Tarmac was actually melting on the road.  That was a first for me.

Set up complete and race briefing done we made our way in to the water for the start.

 

Swim

Wave one lined up ready to start and I placed myself towards the back in the middle.  Interestingly someone was flying a drone helicopter just above us taking some video of the start.  It was fantastic to see this little remote controlled device used in this way.  I can’t wait to see the footage.

The gun went off and we were away in the usual washing machine of spray, feet and bodies.

I managed to avoid most of the physical brutality as I was behind most of it.

I just put my head down and focussed on as smooth a stroke as I could manage with my stiff elbow.  Pleasingly it was behaving itself and was not too sore.

 

I knew that in proper fitness the swim should take me about 15 minutes, however the elbow was slowing me down, and in all honesty, my lack of swim fitness probably lso equally accounted for my time too.  I exited the water in 20:10.  About 30 seconds faster than practice – not great but not horrendous.

 

T1

My notoriously slow transition was foremost in my mind as I tried to make an effort to get in and out without taking an eternity.

The time of 3:39 was not fast by any means but it was not really awful

Coming out of T1 and mounting the bike I lost my footing on the pedal and did the thing that I hate others doing.  I weaved across the road and nearly took out another person mounting their bike.  I apologised profusely and got going.

 

Bike

I had been warned about the bike route being tough for the first few miles and then evening out and becoming a rolling course.

After about half a mile the first hill came at me.  It was tough but not too awful and I began to think that people had been exaggerating.

I was wrong!

About half a mile later another sharp little rise hit me, then another followed that.

True enough the hills stayed sharp until about mile 3 then things started to level out and in fact there were some fairly speedy downhills to gain a bit of time on.

Nelson from the Club passed me after about 2 miles.  Briefly I though he must have had a shocker of a swim, but then I realised he was in Wave 2 and had caught me!

 

It is fair to say that the views over Crooked lake and the surrounding countryside were beautiful but I had no time to really soak it in.

There were a lot of people on the bike route as a large part of it is on tight country roads, so a lot of effort had to go in to avoid drafting.

 

The last 5 miles of the route were flat to rolling and I tried to gain a bit of time.

I seemed to constantly be passing or getting passed by a girl on a pink Ridley bike.

Over the last two miles I put in a concerted effort and managed to drop her.

 

I rolled through Camlough and up the road towards T2.

The bike course is best described as tough but fair and I was very pleased with a time of 36:08 which was an average sped over 17mph.  I would definitely take it on that course.

 

In hindsight my decision to go with the Time Trial bike over the Road bike might have been a bit of a mistake as the technical route may have suited the road bike better but at most it may have made the difference of a minute or so – so no big deal really.

 

T2

This was much faster than T1 and I was happy with an in and out time of 1:17.  Pretty sharp for me.

 

Run

As I started running I realised that my legs felt absolutely amazing and completely fresh.  I was moving along the first quarter mile at sub 7min / mile pace.  Far too fast but I felt good.  This feeling was very short lived as I turned right and hit the infamous hill on the course.

It is only about 200M long but it is steep and in the increasing heat of the day it felt extremely tough.  I slogged my way to the top cursing my luck that I would have to do it all over again on the slightly shorter second loop, as the course is a two loop route.

Over the top of the hill I collected my wrist band to signify that I had come through the checkpoint for Lap 1 and that I was not cheating by cutting the route short.

 

I noticed that there weren’t too may people passing me on my first loop apart from those that were on their second loop and it gave me a bit of encouragement.

My legs still felt great but I noticed that my feet started to feel extremely hot in my shoes.  The hot day was taking an unexpected toll on my feet.

There wasn’t much could be done about it so I pushed on to Loop 2.

Back up the hill and trying to stay strong and take short sharp steps was working for me and I turned off the hill and round for my final mile.

 

As it turns out each mile became progressively faster and I ran a negative split for the 3.2 miles and came home in a run time of 25:59.

 

My goal all day was to beat the disappointing time at the Roe Valley tri of 1Hr 33mins and I smashed that coming home in 1Hr 27min and 11secs.

 

Overall

I am very pleased with a solid performance on a tough course on an exceptionally hot day.  The lack of training definitely takes a toll, and probably more so on the swim as I am still able to get some biking and running it.

 

The event was superbly organised as I had expected and the turn out from Lisburn Triathlon Club was fantastic.

I loved the day and it reignited my racing enthusiasm and I hope that as the elbow injury subsides, that I will be able to get some decent training in over the summer and improve on these times.

 

Well done to everyone completing and especially those completing their first Tris from the  Club.

A good result in the Time Trial.

Tuesday 4^th June 2013

 

Cycling (9.27 Miles / 00:25:41 / 21.7 mph / Avg Cadence 85 / HRZ 4.4) Club Time Trial

 

Finally the promise of decent weather emerged and the timing was perfect for the monthly Tri Club cycling Time Trial.

(For those that don’t know, a Time Trial is basically a defined distance to be done individually as fast as possible)

The route is nice and flat but a  bit exposed for winds – usually with one way and against the other.

 

The twenty degree temperature was so welcome and the breeze was not too stiff.

 

Responsibility had been handed to me to do the timing for the overall event, so Nelson kindly come down early to time me on my run first so that I could then do the timing for everyone else.

 

I started out hard and after about half a mile thought I was going out too hard but stuck with it.  About a mile in to the route I passed a guy on a bike with his backpack on obviously commuting home from work.  He had stopped to adjust something on his bike and I blasted past him and said a quick hello on the way past.  Feeling smug I almost felt the need to explain that I was doing a time trial – bit I didn’t.  Just as well really. As little more than half a mile later the same commuter went past me like a bullet.

He was down in his aero bars and his BIG backpack was sticking up in the air acting like a parachute creating drag and he still left me for dead.

 

I felt crap!

Here I was absolutely smoking myself on the Time Trial and this guy commuting home just breezes past me – admittedly he must have been doing about 25mph.

 

I couldn’t stick with him but I managed to hold the gap to about 300M until near the turnaround point where he gained about half a mile on me.  Maybe we should try to get him to join the club as he was bloody quick.

 

After the turnaround I felt the wind start to hit me in the face a bit and I knew that he four and a half miles back would be harder than coming out, but I had the benefit of knowing that I only had a short distance left to bury myself and it would all be over.  If I made myself sick so be it.  I was going for it.

 

When I did the dummy run last week I did a time of 29 minutes.  This route is probably about 500M shorter than I timed last week, but even allowing for that I knew that I was going to smash that time.

 

I hammered like hell and then over the last mile the wind seemed to strengthen and hit me in the face.  I changed  down a gear and kept the legs spinning.

My overall cadence was high with an average of 85 rpm.  I’m pleased with that.

 

I crossed the line with a time of 25mins 41secs.  I am so pleased with this and the average speed of 21.7mph is definitely the best I have ever sustained.

 

Finally after all the injuries, set backs and lack of training, I feel like I am getting in to a bit of regular training and some degree of fitness coming back.  I also have managed to lose about 9lbs in weight and this no doubt helps too.

 

It’s amazing how a 25 minute time trial can give such a confidence boost.  I hope it continues.

 

I am heading down to Camlough on Wednesday evening to do a test run on the swim course and bike route ahead of the Triathlon there on Saturday.  Fingers crossed the elbow is OK for swimming as I haven’t had  swim since the Roe Valley Triathlon which was three weeks ago.

Short sleeves at last.

Monday 3rd June 2013

Running (8.78 Miles / 01:17:06 / 00:08:46 per mile / HRZ 3.5) 

 FINALLY!  A night when I am able to run in short sleeves.  This is the first time I have been able to do this all year.  Tonight was not what you would call sunny but it certainly was warmer than it has been in a long time.

I dropped Ben off to Cricket and took advantage of the time to chuck in another run.

 

Rather pleasingly I was able to press on a wee bit more than I did on my run on Saturday and the average pace was quite a bit quicker than a couple of days ago.

 

Every mile apart from one was under 9 min mile pace and that was one of my aims for the run.  The one over 9 mins was because I had to cross a busy main road and wait for the traffic, so I'm not counting that one!

 

I've got the Tri Club monthly Time Trial tomorrow night so I am hoping to go a bit quicker than I did on the dummy run last week.

Sunday ride on the new machine and a bit of a competitive side creeping in.

Sunday 2nd June 2013

Cycling (35.00 miles / 02:15:23 / 15.50 mph / Cadence ? rpm / HRZ 2.9) Elevation 288M

Plenty of excitement about getting out this morning for the ride as it was the first proper run on the new bike.
Firstly the ride itself was great.  I picked out a familiar route that I knew would be about two to two and a half hours.

It's a good route with a few wee rolling hills but nothing of any significance - although I have to admit to puffing on a few of them.

At about 25 miles I pulled out from a side road on to the main road and noticed another cyclist coming down the hill in my direction.  He was only about 150M away from me and I thought that he would certainly catch and  pass me as he had a run down the hill.
I decided that I was not going to be caught so I put in a bit of an effort and tried to push on.
by the time we got to Moira he was still about 100M behind me and I had the long straight of the Moira Road back in to Lisburn.  About 5 miles of straight Road for him to chase me.

I really felt like I was drilling it along the Road, although the reality was that with the slight headwind I was only averaging about 19mph - which is still decent for me.
The good news was that I managed to hold him off until he turned off and headed in another direction.

Now, on to the bike.
The first thing I noticed compared to my old Kuota was that his fits so much better,  It may sound weird but I feel like I am part of the bike rather than plonked on top of it - like I was on the Kuota.  This leads to a much better feeling of handling than I had before.  The bike seems so much more responsive on bends and downhills.  I really like it.

A couple of things are different and not so great.  The wheels are pretty heavy and I notice a real difference with them.  I will be replacing them with my better wheels and keep the standard issue ones for Winter training.
The gearing is also different.  Without being a technical geek - the front chain rings are bigger than my last ones and this just makes it a wee bit harder to push on hills.  This is probably a good thing for me in order to build strength.

In summary I would have to say that I am very pleased with it and look forward to plenty of miles on it.

Lovely Saturday morning to go a bit longer again.

Saturday 1st June 2013

Running (12.25 Miles / 01:54:49 / 00:09:22 per mile / HRZ 3.0) 

With the Lisburn Half Marathon less than three weeks away I thought I better get my ass in gear and do some longer runs.

After leaving Ben off to Cricket I just headed for the Tow path, parked the car and hit the road.

Rather out of form with our recent weather, this morning was very pleasant and there was no need to multiple layers - just shorts and a tee-shirt.

 

The aim of this run was just to log some decent miles and to maintain the Heart Rate at the appropriate level.

I felt very comfortable and really enjoyed the nice morning and a steady paced run.

I'm happy enough with it but I know that I will be aiming for quite a bit faster over the next few long runs ahead of the 19th of June.