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Run Fat Boy Run - The lazy mans guide to Ironman and Marathon training.
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Brick Session wrote: »Firstly Peter I hope your little woman is ok and on the mend. As you say, being in a kids hospital ward puts it all into perspective.
I am only reading your Hardman race report now and it is a great read. Great to get the opinions of some IM veterans on how the race went.
She's home now with a heap of medicine and inhalers but at least we have her back
Does 3 IM's make me a vet? I suppose it does around here Other than the mud bath at T2 I was happy with the organisation of Hardman. it's a different beast to a branded IM or a big Challenge event but it is good value for money and i really enjoyed the day. I can see myself coming back again next year if I'm allowed. 0 -
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If it was a mud bath in T2 when you got there, imagine what it was like for me when I arrived in. Could have done with a chair or something to assist with getting changed. I was trying to keep my fresh run gear on a corner of the changing tent while not sinking at the same time.
I deffo won't be going long next year or the following year due to communions & confirmations and also the amount of family time I missed out on due to training. Not so much from herself but from the big lad. We got no camping or fishing in this summer and he let me know that too. Really felt guilty after he said that.
A few Olympics and hopefully the Lost Sheep for me is the plan.0 -
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Back into the pool and boy was I ****e. No feel for the water and very slow. I was starting to think I was regressing last week but now I'm positive I am. Maybe it's the worry of the 5km swim in a few days that has me swimming like a brick.
100wu
300m drills (kick, balance, sculling) - struggled on these in a way that I don't usually
100 x 4 / 200 x 2 / 400 / 200 x 2 / 100 x 3
Total 2,300m
Times were ****e. Was hitting an average of 2.05 per 100m. Felt tired and lethargic. It was a struggle to keep it going but I need the training. My feel for the water seems to be gone and I'm all over the place on my catch in particular. Maybe I'm trying to change too many variables at once. I hope to get back in tomorrow so I'll relax on that session, not over analyse my stroke and see how it goes.
Then again it could be because I haven't shaved my legs in a couple of weeks and the drag coefficient from the large amounts of stubble could be substantial
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Another swim today and this time feeling a bit better in the water.
200m wu
400m drills (200 kick / 100 scull / 100 fist)
100 x 8 flat out off 4mins.
Total 1,400m
Only a short session but the 100m x 8 flat out was hard even off a 4 minute interval. The fastest 100m was 1.43 and the slowest was 1.47 so after yesterday I'm happier with that especially for a LC pool. I started to tire around the 5th interval and my stroke slowed down a good but but my feel for the water started to get a bit better and it felt like my hands and forearms were catching the water much better than they were previously and I only slowed by a couple of seconds over the 100m.
I'm starting to wounder if my lack of running is affecting my overall aerobic fitness and is thus having an affect on my swim fitness. Is that likely? Certainly my weight continues to drop despite only swimming 3-4 times a week with maybe 1-2 runs on the weekend. Last night for the first time since I was in college my weight dropped below 13 stone, I was all of 12 stone 13lbs Now for some this is no big deal but for me this is quite a milestone. I was 12st7lbs all through college and was slim enough in that way that cycling everywhere and drinking like a fish can make you when you're young. When I left college I went to work at sea for a couple of years, ballooned in weight and since I've had issues with keeping the weight down. A couple of years as a gym bunny lifting some serious weights didn't help. When I started training for a triathlon in May 2008 I weighted 16st7lbs and was on the fast track for a heart attack. I was so fat that when I bought my first HRM the strap wouldn't go all the way around my chest 
Getting below 16 stone happneed quite quickly; dropping below 15 stone took a bit longer, getting under the 14 stone took a long time and some IM training to do; but getting in under the 13 was the most difficult and I have to say the most satisfying yet The big thing now is keeping it off 0 -
[QUOTE=griffin100;80865942
I'm starting to wounder if my lack of running is affecting my overall aerobic fitness and is thus having an affect on my swim fitness. Is that likely? Certainly my weight continues to drop despite only swimming 3-4 times a week with maybe 1-2 runs on the weekend. Last night for the first time since I was in college my weight dropped below 13 stone, I was all of 12 stone 13lbs Now for some this is no big deal but for me this is quite a milestone. I was 12st7lbs all through college and was slim enough in that way that cycling everywhere and drinking like a fish can make you when you're young. When I left college I went to work at sea for a couple of years, ballooned in weight and since I've had issues with keeping the weight down. A couple of years as a gym bunny lifting some serious weights didn't help. When I started training for a triathlon in May 2008 I weighted 16st7lbs and was on the fast track for a heart attack. I was so fat that when I bought my first HRM the strap wouldn't go all the way around my chest Getting below 16 stone happneed quite quickly; dropping below 15 stone took a bit longer, getting under the 14 stone took a long time and some IM training to do; but getting in under the 13 was the most difficult and I have to say the most satisfying yet The big thing now is keeping it off [/QUOTE]
That's some weight loss Griffin, big respect! I was the bones of 15.5 stone at the start of my IM training last January, going into the 14's was brill but when it hit the 13's once or twice in the peak weeks I was thrilled. Trying to keep at the lower end of 14's is now my challenge. What was your way to get into the 12's, was it just pure training and healthy eating or did you do anything special?0 -
griffin100 wrote: »Last night for the first time since I was in college my weight dropped below 13 stone, I was all of 12 stone 13lbs Now for some this is no big deal but for me this is quite a milestone. I was 12st7lbs all through college and was slim enough in that way that cycling everywhere and drinking like a fish can make you when you're young. When I left college I went to work at sea for a couple of years, ballooned in weight and since I've had issues with keeping the weight down. A couple of years as a gym bunny lifting some serious weights didn't help. When I started training for a triathlon in May 2008 I weighted 16st7lbs and was on the fast track for a heart attack. I was so fat that when I bought my first HRM the strap wouldn't go all the way around my chest Getting below 16 stone happneed quite quickly; dropping below 15 stone took a bit longer, getting under the 14 stone took a long time and some IM training to do; but getting in under the 13 was the most difficult and I have to say the most satisfying yet The big thing now is keeping it off
Unsubscribe...this depresses me:)0 -
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Brick Session wrote: »That's some weight loss Griffin, big respect! I was the bones of 15.5 stone at the start of my IM training last January, going into the 14's was brill but when it hit the 13's once or twice in the peak weeks I was thrilled. Trying to keep at the lower end of 14's is now my challenge. What was your way to get into the 12's, was it just pure training and healthy eating or did you do anything special?
I love the assumption you make that I adopted a health eating approach to weight loss. My diet is pretty bad, I laugh every time I look at the confessions thread on the main page where people flagellate themselves for having half a feckin Mars bar To give an example, my standard breakfast is a danish or if I'm feeling adventurous a muffin. Ok I have cut back a bit on what I was eating when I was over 16 stone but I've done nothing major. I try not to eat as many takeaways as I used to but I still love my chocolate, cakes and red wine.
My first big weight loss occurred when I started training for my first IM simply because of the volume of training I was doing. However the big drop earlier this year came when I was following the P&D 55 mile per week plan and aiming for a 3.30 time for the Connemara Marathon. I began to see decent weight loss and a big change in body shape when I was consistently hitting 40 miles per week plus AND I was doing speed work. I think it was a combination of covering more miles, doing quality runs and doing speed work that gave rise to the weight loss. I'd trained for longer hours for an IM but hadn't lost as much weight.
I managed to keep the weight off this summer as I trained for Hardman as I kept the run miles relatively high and continued to do speed work but since then I've done a lot less training and the weight is still coming off, if rather slowly. This I put down to Tango's swim sessions For the first time I'm following structured swim sessions at a pace that would be harder than I would have done most of my swim training at before. So as with the running I think it's the quality and intensity of the training that counts when it comes to weight loss more so than simple volume although that obviously has a role to play.
Ask me again after Christmas.................0 -
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Yet another swim today........
Decided to do a 3,000m session. Considered 100m x 3 but chose 400m x 8 instead. Plan was to try and swim these nice and gently at my recent Hardman race swim pace which was 2.05 per 100m and to have a short rest between reps. This is around the pace I'll be aiming for in the 5km next week.
400 x 8 off 9 mins in on 8.04 / 8.10 / 8.20 / 8.20 / 8.20 / 8.30 / 8.25 / 8.30 - I was in a nice rhythm for the first 5 reps but the pace dropped off for the 6th rep as I lost concentration for some of this rep (very scantily clad student in the adjacent lane) and for the last rep when I began to tire and loose focus on my stroke. All swimming was done at a very relaxed pace such that I was not anywhere near out of breath at the end of each rep and I was concentrating on trying to keep relaxed and with a full arm reach. The technique did slip a lot towards the end but that's a refection of relatively poor swim fitness. The last 1,500m next week are going to be interesting 0 -
griffin100 wrote: »Yet another swim today........
Decided to do a 3,000m session. Considered 100m x 3 but chose 400m x 8 instead. Plan was to try and swim these nice and gently at my recent Hardman race swim pace which was 2.05 per 100m and to have a short rest between reps. This is around the pace I'll be aiming for in the 5km next week.
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The last 1,500m next week are going to be interesting
Downstream, with wetsuit... won't be a huge difference between 3,000m in the pool, surely?
(Have to say I'm tempted. At issue is whether I'd forgive myself for forking out €52.50 to swim in a river....:D)0 -
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Quick dip today. 1,000m x 2 with one minute rest between. The first 1,000m was at slightly harder than IM effort with the second 1,000m at IM effort. In on 20.05 and 20.45 which I'm happy with considering I still have a bit of a cold and a hangover so bad I can barely see. Was concentrating on some of the things Tango mentioned to me and I felt like I was catching the water well especially on the second rep when I slowed the stroke down a lot.
Still pretty nervous about Sunday, more so that I've been for any race since my first season in tri I'm having trouble getting to grips with the concept of swimming 5km. It didn't help when on Monday after our 5 x 100m repeats Tango turned to me and said 'only 45 more of those on Sunday' :eek: Despite that I can't wait to get going!! 0 -
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Lough Derg 5km Swim Report
Right up until literally the last minute I was unsure if I was going to do this. I had a cold for most of last week which seemed to disappear but started to come back on Friday and on Saturday I felt like crap. Got up on Sunday morning and the cold was as bad as ever. I was due to carpool with Kurt G. but I texted him early in Sunday morning to say go ahead without me as I was unsure if I was going to go or not. My chest was tight and I was coughing. I had the car packed and was sat at home trying to make up my mind about going and trying to decide if I was genuinely not well or if I was using a few snuffles to wimp out as I was worried about the distance when my mind was made up for me. My wife informed me that in light of my expected absence for the day she had invited some of her friends over with their kids so the house would have 8 kids under 8 years old in it for the day, so needless to day I sprinted for the car and hit the road:D
Arrived and registered. Had a look at the bit of the course we could see and it looked calm enough, calmer than last year I was told. Met up with Kurt G. (nice to put a face to the name) and killed the time by eating vast quantities of fishermens friends in an effort to clear my nose and head. We were bused to the start and Lough Derg looked feckin big and wide from the road, I got a wee bit nervous at this.
Time wise my best case scenario was to match my IM pace from Hardman this year, 2.05 per 100m, so that would give me a 1.44-45; worst case scenario was to slow down to average 2.15 per 200, giving me a 1.52ish.
Swim briefing was simple enough, stay inside the buoys (yellow first and then pink), watch for the entrance to the boar canal at about 4km and swim into this and follow until the finish, miss the canal and you could end up being washed downstream.
I started well at the back and to the side of the field. Water was cold at first but not excessively so and I warmed up pretty quickly. The entire 5km was pretty much flat the whole way. Water was dark but beautifully clear. Right from the start I made a big error with my sighting and ended up swimming way out wide into the middle of the lake and swam at an angle of about 45 degrees to the shore rather than parallel to it. I of course did not know this until a canoeist came up to me after a good while and pointed out my error :mad: He stuck with me for a while as I swam back closer to shore to get my bearings. He kept shouting at me to swim for the yellow buoys as we had been told, I kept roaring back at him that I couldn't see any yellow buoys (the joys of being blind without one's glasses:rolleyes:). Eventually I sighted a buoy and swam for it and began to overtake some other swimmers. But again I started to drift and again the same canoeist caught me and directed me back inside. There were 5 yellow buoys I think, I swam so wide that I only saw two and both of these I swam far too wide to the outside of. I had some minor cramping at about 3,000m or so but nothing major but then at around 3,500m I had a big cramp that caused me to stop and stretch but I was soon on my way again quickly enough. When we rounded the next headland the lake narrowed considerably and I was finally able to sight of the pink buoys. I was catching stragglers at this stage. At 4,000m we entered the boat canal. I was quite claustrophobic entering this as it was narrow, dark, had some weeds and I could see the bottom, quite a change from the huge lake I had just been swimming in. I started to tire at this stage. I had been stroking well (I think!) and feeling comfortable right up until this point. I know from the briefing that I only had 1,000m to go so I gritted the teeth and pushed on. I kept telling myself that at least I wouldn't have to get out and cycle 180kms after I'd finished The canal swim felt very very long but I was concentrating on keeping the stroke long and full even if the stroke rate had dropped. I caught and passed another 3 swimmers in the canal. Finally the end of the canal was reached, turn left, cross the river and exit at the slip in 1.51.01, tired but happy.
My time was at the poorer end of my estimate but I'm not too disappointed by that, I lost a few minutes by getting so lost over the first 2,500m so if I'd swam a bit straighter I'd have been closer to my target time. It was a nice and well run if expensive event. A decent t-shirt and / or a branded swim hat would have been nice for the €50 entry fee though.
Today I feel a little stiff but nothing too bad. My cold however is worse than ever and I'm suffering with that. I enjoyed yesterday so much that I'm tempted to enter a 10km event, now that would be interesting:pac:0 -
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Kurt Godel wrote: »Nice to meet you yesterday Griffin (and sorry I buggered off quickly, sulked at my performance all the way home:o). You seemed to really enjoy the race- there's a load of decent looking swim races held this side of the country each year, where you'd also get a bit more bang for your buck. The Lough Dan 10k, held in June, was €30 to enter, looks like a really great race. Loads on the OW sea calendar too (2012 version)
I've been looking about and there seems to be some nice longer distance races around alright. Only thing is these are hardcore swimmers, no wetsuits for these real men
I was looking at doing this event next year, which went down well with the kids as its only a short drive from here. I'd also like to give the Beginnish Island swim a bash.Good going Griffin, who would have thought a year or two ago you would be looking at 10k events. I know a tri club near me does a 8k Lough Mask swim and the Caroline Kearney across Galway Bay is very popular that is circa 13k I think
I'm done with IM for a while I think so looking for something to occupy the body and I like the look of the longer distance swims. Having a 50m pool on my doorstep in work also helps with the training and makes it possible to get the long sessions in. I can practice at swimming ling distances very slowly I've seen the 13km swim across Galway Bay and it look epic. 0 -
It's been a while I could follow the trend here and change the log title to something else but I'm still fat and lazy so I think I'll stick with the current title for now.
A quick recap of the last month would be a couple of swims and a couple of runs a week. I haven't run further than 8 miles in weeks, although I have done some decent tempo swim sessions as set by Mr Tango. Weight has crept up again by a kilo or two so it's time to set some goals and target the training.
The plan is to keep up the swimming and try and get myself into decent shape for some longer open water swims next year. One session a week with Tango plus two other sessions should see this right.
Run wise short term goal is to go sub 20mins for a 5km. Will probably try and hit this in Clonliffe 5km in December so I've approx. 6 weeks to get back into reasonable shape. After that we'll have a think about possibly a sub 90 HM and as close to sub 40 as possible for the 10km. If I can hit these times then maybe a Boston (sub 3.15) or London (sub 3.10) qualifying time for 2014 may be on, but that's a issue for next year. I also don't plan as this stage on doing an IM next year but I have a pass for IM Switzerland if I want to take it so maybe........it's just so bloddy expensive to enter and it's hard to justify the cost (although I've free accommodation in Zurich). Oh well let's see how it goes......
Monday
Swim with Mr Tango. Only two of us turned up which means that you get worked harder but get a lot of attention from the coach:D. Tango had a real go at me last night about always breathing to the right on every stroke, he reckoned it was killing my technique and speed as it was causing me to bury my head and cross my right arm. So on some 100m repeats he made me breath every 3 strokes. I've never done 100m repeats when breathing to the left and it felt like I was floundering and drowning. I was not comfortable at all, yet I brought the 100m repeats in on between 1.40 and 1.50 which is not too bad for me at all. The instruction for this week is to get comfortable breathing to the left and to make sure I don't bury my head or cross my arm when breathing.
Tuesday
Run: 6kms - a short run over lunch. 1km wu / 600m x 5 @ 5km pace+400m recovery. Jesus I've lost a lot of fitness. Last August I was doing 5 x 1km intervals at sub 4min pace; today I struggled to hold close to 4min pace for 600m repeats I've a lot of work to do. 0 -
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Kurt Godel wrote: »Good to see you haven't fallen off the horse. I had a lingering cold myself after the LD swim.
Looks like your swim splits are coming down nicely. A hundred of those sub1:50 100's in a row and you're laughing;)
How about the 100 x 100 x 100 swim challenge..........
100m x 100 repeats off 100 seconds That's a loneswimmer special!! 0 -
Wednesday
Swim
A tough one today. I was determined to breath bilaterally for all of this session and this I did for the first time ever in my 4.5 years of swim training
50m x 4 with 5 secs rest between repeats - breathing every 3 strokes
300 mixed drills (balance and scull)
400 x 2 / 200 x 4 / 100 x 7 - rest 30 secs between each repeat
Total: 2,800m. I had hoped to get to 3,000m but ran out of time.
400's @ 7.50 / 8.07 (got very tired on this one)
200's @ 3.55-3.58
100's @ 1.53-58
The main set was swum at tempo pace so breathing every 3 sides went out the window after the first 400m What I did was breath to one side for two consecutive strokes, miss a breath, breath to the other side for the next two strokes, and so on. I also concentrated on keeping the head up as advised by Tango. It felt like I was floundering at first but I started to get more conformable as it went on and the breathing to the left wasn't too bad. I was starting to veer into lane ropes as I got tired but I'm very happy with those times. Not breathing to the same side continuously helped with balancing my stroke and I reckon the keeping the head up made a huge difference as it stopped me from burying my head after each breath. I felt like I was swimming much slower than normal but those times are as good as it gets for me for such a long session in a LC pool. That said I'm as weak as a kitten now :rolleyes: 0 -
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