Send in the Clowns - BAC 10K Challenge

Seres

krusty
let your friend know , if he is still interested that lough key tri registration is open on the 12th (Friday) on runireland website .

asimonov

best of luck to little miss _clown today in santry. i'm just gonna have to do my best not to turn into competitive dad....

Krusty_Clown

LOL. Cheers. Was a bit of a disaster as the relay baton was dropped during changeover. There were tears, followed by ice cream. If only we could all be consoled so easily! How did Asimonov_Junior get on?

Krusty_Clown

Today: Scalp IMRA race. Been looking forward to this one for a couple of reasons:
1) I know the area well, as it's where I do a lot of my training (albeit on the roads)
2) It was my first ever IMRA race last year
3) Having done it before, I thought I knew the route
4) Injury seems to be on the mend, and it's a short race

Wore my Inov8s, which was a great decision. I remember the route being slippy in the rain last year, and as we lined-up at the start, it started pi55ing rain again. The inov8s Made a big difference on the pine needles, and wet rocks. As per last year, lots of people went out too fast, and within 500 metres, we were slowed to a walk, as those in front slowed the pace. Quite frustrating when you know you have a lot in the tank, particularly in the first km. Managed to pick off a few people on the narrow trail anyway, with a bit of jostling, and running in the ditches. On the descent after Carrigologan I managed to overtake a lot of people who were wearing running shoes, and struggling with the steep descent. I just let rip, and managed to stay vertical.

I totally misjudged where the finish line was, and pushed way too early, which left me struggling over the last couple of hundred metres of hills. Still happy enough with the first return to hill running since the injury.

Finished 4 mins faster than last year (29:30), and finished in 38th place (out of around 200 runners). Fantastic to see that there were 9 Boards AC runners, even if I only manage to bump into slogger_Jogger. A great Boards turn-out, and congrats to the ever first Enduro!

Garmin Connect Link.

donothoponpop

Great that you're back at the coalface Krusty. Don't rush things too fast though: baby steps with those great big clown feet.

Abhainn

Good stuff Krusty Clown. Welcome back

asimonov

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

LOL. Cheers. Was a bit of a disaster as the relay baton was dropped during changeover. There were tears, followed by ice cream. If only we could all be consoled so easily! How did Asimonov_Junior get on?

Tears and disappointment! His birthday is on the 28th of december ( i can't believe we misjudged that so badly) so he has to run u9's and that was a bit tough on him. All compounded by the fact his younger sister casually picked up a silver in the u7's 80m. No icecream; but donuts on the way home fulfilled a similar function.

Congrats on your return...

MCOS

Nice way to return KC, well done on that run!

Woddle

Firstly Krusty congrats on the comeback and by the sounds of it you've lost little or no fitness, well done.
Secondly, the kids races, is that a school thing or are they with a kids running club?

Krusty_Clown

Woddle wrote: »

Firstly Krusty congrats on the comeback and by the sounds of it you've lost little or no fitness, well done.
Secondly, the kids races, is that a school thing or are they with a kids running club?

Hi Woddle, it was a primary schools competition. Not sure if it was a Leinster League or something similar, but the schools were well represented. Here some photos I took of the day: Picasa.

Krusty_Clown

Today: 22km hilly cycle, just to keep up the effort. Couple of nice hills.
Around Tullyvale and killiney. Ignore the elevation profile, it's screwed. No hill that high beside my house! Also did weights. Core too tired for stretching after yesterday's race!

Garmin Connect.

Krusty_Clown

Today: swimming - 45 minutes of practice.
I see Achill registration is closed, so that one is off the books. But Lough Key Triathlon is open.

RacoonQueen

The half marathon in Clontarf is calling to you.

Krusty_Clown

RacoonQueen wrote: »

The half marathon in Clontarf is calling to you.

LOL. I'm not too sure about that. I'm actually going to run the route tomorrow with a friend of mine who is training for the race, but it'll be close to two hours. I'm not terribly keen on running a half-marathon distance race if I'm not at my best, but it's nice to have a couple of races over the summer to keep things ticking over. Are you doing it yourself? How's the recovery going?

RacoonQueen

I might run it just for a stretch of the legs and not worry about time etc if I'm OK by then. I'm FINALLY getting there...I've done short sessions the last 4 days now, 3 of them on the treadmill at the gym mind where I jumped off after a few minutes out of boredom, got a good 4.8 mile relatively pain free run in last night - in 14 days I should be good for 13 (slow) miles. It's mostly fear of taking 3 steps backwards thats stopping me pushing through now. Will hopefully get a good run in tomorrow as well as/instead of the gym.

Krusty_Clown

Today: 13.1 miles along the multimarathon route, pacing a buddy for 10min/miles, up until mile 9, when I picked up the pace for the last couple of miles (around 7:25/mile).

Based on their current published map, the route is a mile short of half marathon distance. We had to run about 1/2 mile past the Kilbarrack road (along the promenade) before we hit 6.55 miles. Running back on the beach on Bull Island was tough, from a psychological perspective. Mile 9 with not much visual feedback felt like you were standing still. Otherwise it was a nice route. Some tough things to expect:
1) Seeing the leading runners heading back when you're only a third of the way into the race
2) Any wind at all is going to hit you in one of the four directions you run - it's so open there is zero shelter from the wind.
3) Very little parking near the start.

Summary: 13.1 miles in 1:57.

Garmin Connect.

Krusty_Clown

Today (afternoon): 21km cycle on the wife's trusty (but fierce slow) steed. When I left the house, I wondered if I should have worn sun-screen. After 10 minutes, I was wondering if I should have brought arm-bands and my swimming togs, as my uphill slog turned into an up-stream slog. Cycled through 6 inches of water for the next 11 miles as the heavens pelted me in huge globs of rain.

I'm borrowing a friend's bike for a few days for comparison purposes (thanks Pumpjacks!) so will cycle the same route when I get a chance, to compare times and effort (heart rate), and help me to decide what kind of bike I should be looking for.

Swimming later (though I spent 53 minutes under-water earlier).

Summary: 13 miles (bike) in 53 mins.

Krusty_Clown

Today:
20x17 Core strength exercises
5 mile easy run. First three miles with the young fella (with a couple of strides) @8:54/mile. Them let him go home and finished off with another two miles (7:40/mile).

Cracking day out there. Garmin connect.

asimonov

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

Today:
20x17 Core strength exercises
5 mile easy run. First three miles with the young fella (with a couple of strides) @8:54/mile. Them let him go home and finished off with another two miles (7:40/mile).

Cracking day out there. Garmin connect.

where did you get core strength exercises from? Its one of those i'm sure i should be doing but i'm not a gym goer....so don't have anyone to tell me what to do.

RacoonQueen

asimonov wrote: »

where did you get core strength exercises from? Its one of those i'm sure i should be doing but i'm not a gym goer....so don't have anyone to tell me what to do.

Don't know what Krusty does, I tend to vary it, do certain things at the gym and certain things at home.
Crunches - there are so many different varieties so you don't get bored.
Leg raises
Leg pushaways
Press ups
Staff
Plank
Bridge
Oblique twists
Back extenstion and back extension with twists
Kneeling leg/arm raises
Inward/outward knee raises
There's lots and lots and lots of stuff you can do with a stability ball aswell.

Krusty_Clown

Hi Asimonov, I'd be in the same boat (won't go to the gym unless absolutely forced), but know that I've had a weak core for...well for ever. Never had much flexibility either, but these exercises have helped greatly. At the start I found them very hard, but they've gotten easier over time.

These are the one's I do: Handy site with animated photos
I started back in December with 10 reps, and now do 20. I also have added a couple for the hip flexors. I usually do them twice a week, which takes around 20-30 mins. I was also doing weights with dumbbells in the same session, but I'm splitting these to a different day, as they're taking too much time together.

RacoonQueen

More tri stuff krusty? You're in denial. :pac:

asimonov

sorry both, one last core question. Do you do a warm up or just bash into a session of them?

Krusty_Clown

Bash in. I used to do the weights first, but then by the time I got to the press-ups I was kacked.

Krusty_Clown

Today (am): Swim practice. Breakthrough. Finally managed to get into a rhythm for front crawl breathing, so hopefully I'll start to improve in leaps and bounds now. Going to keep up the three sessions a week, and hopefully get myself into a position where I can start tackling long distances in 6-8 weeks time.

Also got my hands on my friend's bike. It's a Giant OCR4, a decent entry level road race bike, so I'm looking forward to taking it out for a spin (where's my bloody allen keys?!). Will have to wait until tomorrow as I'm headed to the Scarr IMRA race this evening. Calf is a little knotted though, so I might have to take it easy.

MCOS

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

Today (am): Swim practice. Breakthrough. Finally managed to get into a rhythm for front crawl breathing, so hopefully I'll start to improve in leaps and bounds now. Going to keep up the three sessions a week, and hopefully get myself into a position where I can start tackling long distances in 6-8 weeks time.

Also got my hands on my friend's bike. It's a Giant OCR4, a decent entry level road race bike, so I'm looking forward to taking it out for a spin (where's my bloody allen keys?!). Will have to wait until tomorrow as I'm headed to the Scarr IMRA race this evening. Calf is a little knotted though, so I might have to take it easy.

Excellent, a swimming breakthrough to now make progress from. The breathing took me ages! Hmmm a Tri on the horizon, got one set in mind yet?

Seres

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

Today (am): Swim practice. Breakthrough. Finally managed to get into a rhythm for front crawl breathing, so hopefully I'll start to improve in leaps and bounds now. Going to keep up the three sessions a week, and hopefully get myself into a position where I can start tackling long distances in 6-8 weeks time.

Also got my hands on my friend's bike. It's a Giant OCR4, a decent entry level road race bike, so I'm looking forward to taking it out for a spin (where's my bloody allen keys?!). Will have to wait until tomorrow as I'm headed to the Scarr IMRA race this evening. Calf is a little knotted though, so I might have to take it easy.

fantastic krusty , its so great when you overcome the breathing hurdle , keep up the good work !

Krusty_Clown

Me? Triathlon? Never! I'm a runner!
If I was going to do one though, I'd have to be certain that I could swim properly first. and I'd probably already have signed up for Lough Key Sprint. It would also be a really bad idea, as it's a few weeks before my key marathon goal (Berlin).Just as well it's only hypothetical.

I have to start reading that first time triathlete thread, but it's 641 post long! :eek:

Krusty_Clown

Today (pm): This morning's great progress in the swimming was cancelled by this evening's IMRA Scarr race. Wasn't feeling great beforehand, so decided I wouldn't kill myself on the way up, and save some energy for an enjoyable downhill and started towards the back. It was a good strategy for the way I was feeling, tired and lacking in energy. Race was a good one though, and I look forward to battling with the hill next year.

Race report:
Started towards the rear, and over the first 10 minutes passed a lot of people on the uphill climb, before the terrain became more rutted and boggy, and most people moved into the tracks, which made it more difficult to pass. I was wearing my new mudclaws, so decided to head through the puddles that everyone else was avoiding. Lots of splashing. I'm sure I annoyed lots of people with my splashing (sorry!), but it gained me a few places and the shoes got a baptism of fire.

Well before I should have (probably around 2.8kms) I slowed to a walk. My back was killing me. Stuck with a run/walk strategy that saw me lose some places, but not a huge amount. I was eagerly awaiting seeing the leading pack, so there'd be some suggestion that we were approaching the summit, but no. Damn you fake summits. Every time you thought you might see the top, another appeared. Finally spied Enduro bouncing across the hills on the way down, followed about a minute or so later by some have naked rugged men. Why were they clutching their running tops in their hands? Then it hit me. The wind. Jerseys and numbers were acting like sails in the strong wind.

Arriving at the top, I took 20 seconds to enjoy the view, before launching myself at the downhill section. It was hard to catch other runners as it was a fast downhill, but the mudclaws did a decent job. Passed maybe 7/8 people, before I noticed my shoelace had become undone at around 6km (with 2 to go). Toyed with the idea of leaving it undone, but remembered that I'm on the back of an injury, and running this race for fun. Pulled up for around 20-30 seconds to re-tie the lace, and watched 3 or 4 of those runners pass me again.

I soon picked them off again, and launched myself at the last 1.5kms which are quite fast (4:14/km and 3:40/km). I could hear what sounded like a horse chasing me down the final section (turned out to be a friend of mine (Keith123), trying to pick me off over the finish like I did to him in a 5 mile race last year. One guy just ahead of me, but he heard me coming as we sprinted for the finish line and wasn't going to let it happen.

Probably my worst IMRA performance (from a self-satisfaction perspective), but apart from a bunched calf muscle, I'm mostly injury free. Marathon training starts on Monday. Nice to meet you JLang, and the usual suspects.

Summary: Finished a tad under 45:44, for approx 5 miles.
Garmin Connect

jlang

Nice to meet you too. From looking at the results sheet in the pub I think you were 2 places and just a few seconds behind me at the finish so it looks like your shoelace was the only thing that had me in front. Forgot to pick your brains about your swimming progress.