Fat and unfit to 2hr40min Hell of west in 1year

Trig1

Its been awhile due to lack of motivation and over-eating and over drinking (putting on nearly a stone in 2 weeks is not good) but here is a summary of last few weeks...

30th Dec- eating and drinking
31st Dec- eating and drinking
1st Jan- suffering from hangover and eating
2nd Jan- back on the road- handy 51k cycle at 28kph- cold out there but nice day for cycling and felt good to be back on the road...https://www.strava.com/activities/235672661/segments/5553886534
3rd Jan- needed day off after yesterdays session- more eating and drinking
4th Jan- eating and drinking- (getting rid of all the Christmas food and drink)
5th jan- getting really fat now and loosing motivation to train.
6th Jan- ok time to get my ass in gear- 62k hilly wet cycle over silvermines- very tough cycle- 2.5hrs at 25kph https://www.strava.com/activities/237525841
7th Jan- time to sweat! Rads on full blast, few extra tops on and 2hrs turbo with high cadence- sweaty session!!
8th Jan- More of the same- extra tops, extra heat- 100 mins of turbo
9th Jan- 8k run at 4.58mins/km- 500m loops of track
10th Jan- more turbo- another 100mins low cadence- heavy gear session- 70rpm- this killed me but good climbing session
11th Jan- Sunday- a deserved day of rest
12th Jan- 1 hour low heart rate run- 11kms at 5.36mins/km
https://www.strava.com/activities/239963032
13th Jan- 90mins high cadence turbo followed by snowball fight with kids
14th Jan- missed session- felt bit of flu coming on
15th Jan- 90 mins low heart rate turbo
16th Jan- steady 8k run at 5.01mins/km
up to date woo hoo....

Trig1

17th Jan- missed session, working 12hr weekend days, didn't want to run 3 days in row and was too lazy to hop on turbo when I got home.
18th Jan- tried a pacey run, felt ok for all of 2k then splits just dropped, picked up again for last 1k but fitness just isn't there yet- 8k done in 37.56mins - splits, 4.28,4.33,4.58(uphill),4.46,4.49,4.48,4.53(uphill)4.34
https://www.strava.com/activities/242754215
19th Jan- 2hrs sweaty turbo- weight loss session!!
20th Jan- 95mins low cadence hard gear turbo- another sweaty session.

anyway seeing as I have a little time, I got both my tri licence and my A4 cycling licence for the year, looking at my calendar for the year and it looks a little full so I had better start getting fit!!
This is kinda how its shaping up:
Feb 22nd: Limerick Duathlon
Mar 1st: Shannon Duathlon
March 7th: Keeper challenge adventure race or March 8th: Ras Luimni
Apr 19th: visit nenagh classic
May 3rd: Limerick Half Marathon
May 10th:Newcastle west cycle race
May 24th : Lough Cutra - the long sprint one(800m/40k/8k)
Jun 13th: Boruman Killaloe- sprint
Jun 27th: Kilkee HOTW- olympic
Jul 25th: I-tri Enis sprint
Aug 29th: Worlds End Tri sprint
Sep 5th: The Lost Sheep Middle distance
Nenagh tri club have not announced their races yet so will prob be done 1 of theirs too.
Will also be doing the Limerick and Nenagh summer cycle series races on tues night and thurs night from April until Sept

Enough to keep me going I suppose

Solobally8

Wow you're gonna be busy!

mossym

my race list not public, but we're going to be seeing a lot of each other over the summer.

Trig1

mossym wrote: »

my race list not public, but we're going to be seeing a lot of each other over the summer.

I reckon you will destroy me this year, a different league altogether (except maybe "the lost sheep" ??)

Trig1

Well if anyone has been keeping track of my training you probably would have noticed that I haven't been near the water since my last race "the lost sheep", I did that race with a very bad injury and suffered the consequences for around 6 weeks afterwards so decided to take a long period away from swimming to let the injury heal properly, got a bit lazy coming up to and during Christmas and did not want to push myself to going back swimming too early and suffer any re-occurrence of the injury.
Also (my own opinion) I think no matter how hard I train at swimming I will never go sub 13mins for 750m or sub 25mins for 1500m, I personally don't see the point in doing hours of swimming training during the week to go maybe 30secs (750m) on 1min (1500m) faster on race day, I would prefer to put my extra time into the bike (and hopefully the run this year) where I can see massive improvements on race day- ie. knocked 9mins off my bike in kilkee last year compared to previous year and knocked 12mins off my bike in the lost sheep compared to previous year.... anyway all that aside it was about time I got back into the pool (being honest I was a bit nervous in case the injury showed its head again)... plan was a simple light 1500m 30 lengths of U.L. pool. Jumped into the slow lane and started off nice and easy- got around 7 lengths into the swim and started feeling a pain/tightness in my chest exactly where I tore the muscle last year, tried to ignore it but at 10 lengths I had to stop:( ,stretched it a bit and got my breath back, it seemed to go away straight away so maybe it was a stitch, started again and it felt a little delicate but ok, after a couple of lengths I thought I felt it rearing its head again so did alternating lengths of breast stroke and front crawl, stopped again after 10 lengths and stretched once more, did another 10 lengths and this time it seemed to have disappeared- (I'm hoping it was a stitch or something) anyway I will have to get back into swimming slowly but my first session in 4 months :eek: done tonight.. 1500m as 3x 500ms light

mossym

Trig1 wrote: »

I reckon you will destroy me this year, a different league altogether (except maybe "the lost sheep" ??)

:eek:it's January, you're starting the sandbagging early

joey100

Good to see you back in the pool Trig, thought the bike racing might have been your main goal this year.

Might be no harm doing shorter intervals in the pool until the muscle feels completely better? I'd say 3 x 500m is pretty tiring on it, might be better off doing 100 or 200m intervals, that way you will be stopping before it gets sore and hopefully building it up again. Just a thought anyway! Don't really know if it would help.

Trig1

joey100 wrote: »

Good to see you back in the pool Trig, thought the bike racing might have been your main goal this year.

Might be no harm doing shorter intervals in the pool until the muscle feels completely better? I'd say 3 x 500m is pretty tiring on it, might be better off doing 100 or 200m intervals, that way you will be stopping before it gets sore and hopefully building it up again. Just a thought anyway! Don't really know if it would help.

Thanks Joey sounds like some sensible advice

Trig1

Thurs 22nd Jan- handy 10k run on break around industrial estate... 10k done at 5.19mins/km
Fri 23rd Jan- due to spending half day in bed and shopping I had another missed session- what time I did have I spent putting my carbon clinchers back on my road bike, cleaning my bike, and changing the brake pads getting ready for the Nenagh cc winter warrior race the next morning :eek:.
Saturday 24th- Nenagh cc winter warrior race.
Didn't expect anything out of this race, had not been on the road in months and what turbo sessions I did were light easy weight loss sessions, after a 25k warm up we were ready for the 50k race. there was supposed to be 4 groups with handicaps - juniors/women/1st mens group and racing group. I knew I would probably be out the back early so I decided to go in the first mens group, a good few juniors never showed so Women and juniors went together in first group and they had a 7 minute head start on our group and we in turn had 5mins on the racing group, 40 racers in total evenly spread between the 3 groups, around 13 in our group and 4-5 of us were pretty strong so our aim was to try hold off the racers until the end.. race went well, I felt really good and strong throughout the race, I did suffer on every hill as the extra weight is slowing me down but besides that there was 4-5 of us driving the pace at the front of the bunch for the whole 50km, at around 8k to go the support car told us we still had a minute on the racing bunch so we went really hard to try hold them off but inevitably with a lot of talent in that group we were caught within the last 3kms, finished in the leading bunch for the sprint finish, was wrecked at the finish but delighted with the way the race went.https://www.strava.com/activities/245261912/segments/5799540809

averaged 36.7kph for the 50k race which included around 30k into headwind so decent speed.

Sunday 25th- annoyed with myself that I missed a session today, planned to go with the nenagh cc on a 160k cycle at 8am but after having a few too many beers the night before I overslept and ended up missing a good session.

Monday 26th- Handy 8k run at work at 4.54mins/km
tues 27th Jan- light 6.5k run at work at 5.31mins/km (reminder -never go running 2 days in row-hips knees and shins in bits)

mossym

Trig1 wrote: »

I overslept and ended up missing a good session.

hell of a ride you missed, from what i saw on strava, they did some serious moving.

did you meet the new guy from Killaloe in the group?

Trig1 wrote: »

reminder -never go running 2 days in row-hips knees and shins in bits)

you need to get yourself signed up for the run streak next december, do all the runs at very easy pace. and don;t be doing 4:54min/km the day before either..:)

Trig1

mossym wrote: »

hell of a ride you missed, from what i saw on strava, they did some serious moving.

did you meet the new guy from Killaloe in the group?



you need to get yourself signed up for the run streak next december, do all the runs at very easy pace. and don;t be doing 4:54min/km the day before either..:)

Ya I met the new guy from Killaloe, was chatting to him for awhile, he's fast, asked him did ye know you but he said he didnt

mossym

Trig1 wrote: »

Ya I met the new guy from Killaloe, was chatting to him for awhile, he's fast, asked him did ye know you but he said he didnt

not the lad i'm thinking of so. one of the lads from the group i used cycle with joined up, he was at that race as well, rest of the group are doing feck all and he wanted to be doing more.


unless he's ashamed to admit he knows me:)

Trig1

ha ha, maybe different lad, skinny young guy- did HOTW in 2.33 last year, think its a specialized bike with red wheels he cycles-

mossym

Trig1 wrote: »

ha ha, maybe different lad, skinny young guy- did HOTW in 2.33 last year, think its a specialized bike with red wheels he cycles-

definitely not the lad i'm thinking of so...

wonder who that is?

pgibbo

Regarding your comments earlier on the swim. There's more to it than just being a minute faster. If you're blowing hard out of the water then it will negatively impact your bike and subsequently your run. Given the bike is your strength you don't want to diminish that by not having decent swim fitness. Just my 2c

Hope the injury is nothing serious.

Trig1

28th jan: was hoping to get an evening swim after work but had sons confirmation mass to go to, didn't want to run 3 days in a row so another day off.

29th Jan: Run- have been using last years racing runners as my training runniers for the last few weeks since I got a new pair of racing runners- Saucony Kinvara 4's, so my K-Swiss Kwicky Blades have been used for training instead of my Asics Gel 1160's, these have caused a bit of knee pain due to a lot less cushion in the sole so I decided to go back to my Asics today, so a handy 8k run at 5.17mins/km done, no knee pain but shins were killing me, need to hold back on the amount of running I'm doing as I don't want to cause another injury!

30th Jan: 2hrs leg zapping heavy gear turbo (its cold outside) cadence around 75 for the 2hrs.

31st Jan: Was planning a long cycle 100k+ with Nenagh cc Saturday morning, but got notification late Friday evening that it was cancelled due to weather so a long turbo session planned instead, put in a nice long movie, a lightish gear and off I went- longest turbo I had done before this was 3hrs so 3hrs20mins later soaking in sweat I fell off the turbo, kept the gear light and the cadence around 95 but it was a very demanding session more mentally than physically.

1st Feb: Celebrating some good news Saturday night, had too mush drink, suffered consequences Sunday, a missed session but did get a 2hr Hike up keeper hill with the kids done.

Trig1

2hd Feb: First double day of the year, not much done but got 2 sessions done including a swim , got down to U.L. pool in the afternoon to see in thronged with kids but 2 swim lanes in the middle with a few in them, got changed and while I was going into the pool the kids were all exiting, soon enough I was 1 of only 5 swimmers in the whole pool and I had a lane to myself, took some of PGibbo's advice and decided to do 10x200m nice and handy off 5mins, was coming in around 4.10-4.20 for most of them, slow but I wasn't trying to go fast, nice enjoyable session and no chest pain .
Later in the evening got a window to go for a short run so with Limerick Duathlon in 3 weeks time just decided to do a pacey 5k.. was basically at my max for it, still very slow but slowly getting faster, hoping if I shed another half stone for the duathlon I should be able to knock 10-15secs per km off my time, anyway for the moment I did the 5km in 23.05mins at 4.35mins/km
https://www.strava.com/activities/249562244

mossym

you doing the duathlon so?

Solobally8

Well done today Trig, you will get up to A3 no bother this year if you do a few bike races

Trig1

mossym wrote: »

you doing the duathlon so?

Yep I'm doing the Limerick Dua and hopefully the Banner Dua

Trig1

Solobally8 wrote: »

Well done today Trig, you will get up to A3 no bother this year if you do a few bike races

Thanks Solobally8, Don't know about A3 but we'll see

Trig1

3rd Feb: Another double day woo hoo: Morning- 2k swim as 10x100mx2 off 2.30mins- first set started coming in around 2mins 10sec but slowly the times started coming down and by the last one of the first set I came in on 1min50secs- chuffed with that, 2nd set started at around 1min55secs and held that for most of the 10- tried to push the last one hard but faded badly and came in on 1min 55secs:o anyway good swim session done and another 2k swim done.
Evening-actual treadmill run-10k treadmill run at 5.12mins/km sweat buckets.

4th Feb: Another swim 2k pyramid as 100,200,300,400,400,300,200,100- nice enjoyable set- 3 swim days in a row and loving the water again.

5th Feb: tt bike back out on the road as a few duathlons coming up - 50k at 32.9kph- not a bad spin, wrecked for last 10k
https://www.strava.com/activities/250745909

6th feb: planning on doing the Keeper Challenge race in few weeks so decided to cycle the bike course- totally forgot how hard this course was and struggled with the terrain for the whole course- 42k done at a miserable 22.6kph https://www.strava.com/activities/251078782

7th Feb- Nenagh CC winter warrior race 3:
Missed the first race as I was working and finished in the leading pack for the 2nd race but did not go with the racing group, dilemma today was whether to go with the racing group (which included many A2 and A3 cyclists and also a few that did last years RAS) I decided to bite the bullet and go with the race group- it was a long flat course- Nenagh to Roscrea and back to Nenagh- 60kms in total.. first group was women and slower men- they had 4mins over the next group of men and a further 9mins later the race group went off, the pace was hectic from the start and we wre racing into a headwind until the turnaround at Roscrea, I found the first 15-20k of the race the hardest- struggling to take my turn when rolling over, missed a few turns but stuck at it for most of it, we started picking off a few stragglers that were out the back of their respective groups after around 20km's, once we hit Roscrea and turned around my race really begun, a flat course with a bit of a tailwind is a fat guys dream, we caught the 2 groups almost together just after the turnaround at Roscrea, a few rollovers later I found myself off the front on my own, with still 25kms of racing left I knew it was too soon so I stalled hoping for 1 or 2 to break up to me, 1 Limerick cc lad broke up so we pushed hard together, we got a break of around 15secs so we kept pushing, Huff N Puff then broke up to us so the 3 of us started working hard, too hard, Limerick cc lad soon fell away so it was just myself and Huff N Puff for around 10mins until a small group eventually caught us, we had around 10 in our group now, after a few mins Huff N Puff broke again, he was let go for a bit then 2 other broke up to him, I was trying to decide what to do when I saw another lad break so I went hard with him, I looked behind and no one was following, I shouted to the lad I broke with to try catch the other 2, we eventually caught them so the 4 of us decided to work together to reel in Huff N Puff and put distance into the chasers, after another few minutes I looked behind and there was no one in sight, I was getting excited knowing I was gonna finish top 5, with around 2k to go we eventually reeled in Huff N Puff, people started getting cagey now waiting for the sprint finish, me not knowing how to race went to early, a few went passed me but I got a second wind and pushed hard again for the line, I crossed the line in 2nd place and was thrilled with that.
Here is a nice report on the race with a slomo of the sprint finish...
http://www.nenaghtriathlonclub.com/winter-warrior-race-3-report/

after a 37k warm up, 60k was raced at 38kph
https://www.strava.com/activities/251455651

8th Feb: Day off
9th Feb: 2hrs spinning on turbo- high cadence
10th Feb: 1hr40mins easy turbo-low heart rate
11th feb: 2hrs10mins- high cadence sweaty session
12th Feb: 90mins low cadence-hard gear turbo- tough session
13th Feb: missed session as spent day in A&E with the 10yr old daughter and a suspected broken cheekbone after running into a basketball post in the school yard.
14th feb: Made up for the missed session yesterday-had to stay hom with the 10yr old whilst wife brought other into swimming so long turbo session-3hrs turbo with 4x5mins thrown in at race pace.Oh and started Day 1 of squeezy athletic shakes today to try lose some weight
Up to date!

mossym

solid weeks training there trig. well done

Trig1

15th Feb: Day 2 on squeezy athletic shakes- feel lighter already but a lot of will power required- not as hungry as day 1, 12k run done and it felt ok except for last 3kms which were tough, first 4k averaged 4.45mins/km, next 5k averaged 4.58mins/km , last 3k averaged 5.11mins/km- felt tired for these 3k's - 2 days with no food might do that to you, anyway a good solid hours run - did the 12k in 59.32mins at average 4.57mins/km

https://www.strava.com/activities/255546290

16th Feb: Day 3 of no food and squeezy shakes only, not feeling hungry at all now, only the smells from the cooking going on in the kitchen driving me crazy, will weigh myself in the morn, ashamed putting this up here but my weigh in at the start of day 1 was 93.6kgs :eek:, hopefully will be under 90kgs for race next week.. Sufferfest - A very dark place. was on the menu for this evening before work, out of bed at 4.30pm and straight onto the turbo- 5min warm up then 2x30secs sprints to wake the legs up then into 5x4mins flat out racing with loads of climbing and hills with 3mins rest between each- these really really hurt, 5 minn cool down afterwards- all in all a great session and all in 1 hour. looking forward to 1-2 pancakes tomorrow

mossym

honestly don't know how you do those shake things as all you eat and still work out. based on last year though it works for you so hopefully will again

Trig1

Feb 17th: dropped 2.5kg's of fat over the 3 days on squeezy and no drop in muscle- not bad! not much time to get a session in today so hopped on the turbo for a quickfire sufferfest session of revolver- 5-8mins warming up then into 16x 1min flat out 1 min light then 5min cool down- best 50min session out there.(rpe 8/10)

Feb 18th: long light turbo session- low heart rate stuff, 2.5hrs done , rpe 2.5/10

Feb 19th: a duathlon training session: planned 5k fast run/22k bike on my hilly tt route then 2k run.. first 5k felt very tough and died big time on the last km but it was a long drag for the full km... splits per km were 4.15mins/km, 4.27, 4.32, 4.42, 5.00, first km was downhill and last km was uphill, did the 5k in 23.00 flat at 4.35mins/km still not fast but thinks its my fastest time this year so far (rpe 9/10)https://www.strava.com/activities/257073931 , was wrecked after the run- hopped on the bike and struggled for the first few km's, having a headwind and a lot of hills didn't help either, found this whole cycle very tough and posted a very slow time for it. did the 21.5k's in 43.17mins at 29.8kph- record for this route is 38.xx at around 35kph.(rpe 8/10)
https://www.strava.com/activities/257088325
off the bike and on with the runners again for just 2k- 1k downhill and 1k uphill, splits were 4.26 and 4.48- felt ok for these and looking forward to getting the first race of the year under my belt on Sunday.(rpe 7.5/10) (full session rpe 8/10)

Feb 20th: just a light leg loosener today, 5.2kms at 5.21mins/km (rpe 4/10)

sconhome

How do you feel after the shakes? Seems very fast way to cut fat but do you experience any rebound in the short term once back on normal diet?

Trig1

AKW wrote: »

How do you feel after the shakes? Seems very fast way to cut fat but do you experience any rebound in the short term once back on normal diet?

Hey AKW took them last year before the lost sheep and dropped half stone- did not put it back on until Christmas, on saying that you do need to be sensible- obviously no point taking the shakes for 3 days then on the 4th day heading to Mcdonalds for a big feed, what I am doing is weaning off them slowly- ie. shakes for 3 days, day 4 shake for breakfast, normal healthy dinner and shake for tea, day 5 - 1 shake and 2 healthy meals etc... I find that there is no loss of power whatsoever with them, in fact the opposite, set a few p.b.s last year after 2 days on the shakes, I wont lie though they are tough to do and it takes will power (NO FOOD FOR 3 DAYS :eek::eek:) but worth it in the end.

sconhome

Hmmm, I think I'll be checking them out so. Thanks Trig