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Fat and unfit to 2hr40min Hell of west in 1year
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Well since I pulled the calf a week ago at worlds end I decided to do no training for the week and just concentrate on healing the calf... I figured I had enough long sessions done at this stage and the fitness was there or thereabouts
...I spoke to a sports therapist on Sunday after Worlds end and she advised me to start taking a supplement called L-Glutamine to help with recovery so I started taking that twice a day and I started a rigorous 30 mins of foam rolling and stretching every evening for the full week, slowly but surely the calf started feeling better- I even managed an easy 20k cycle on the Thursday before the lost sheep with a few sprints thrown in and I started feeling a bit of confidence creeping back in, the last thing I did (again on the advice of the sports therapist on sunday) was I went to Paul Murray (one of if not the best sports and physical therapists in Limerick) on Friday before the race to get Kinesiology tape on the calf- I was a real sceptic of this but after a session with Paul I was brimming with confidence.
So left for Kenmare on the Friday evening with the missus and arrived down for reg just before closing. got a nice bag and then just went for food and skipped the race brief, met the bro who was doing his first half and he was nervous as hell, shot the breeze for awhile and then just went to bed for 10.30pm, alarm went of on morning of race day at 5.45am, took a carbo loading drink straight away and some brown bread and jam and a mug of coffee, got my gear together and off I went with the wife to transition. My aim for this race last month would have been the sub 5hrs but after a bad 2 weeks training and the calf strain last week I would be happy to complete the race. shot the breeze with the bro and Mossym for a bit before the race then before I knew it it was time to enter the water...
Swim... I started my watch a few seconds before the hooter as I didn't want to be caught out like last year--- last year my watch time was 4hrs 59mins46seconds but official chip time was 5hrs00mins01seconds, I set off hard but then the realization came into the head that this was a 5hr race so I decided to pace myself a little and get the breathing under control, I felt good, the water was calm and I felt I was moving well, I really enjoyed the swim but after what felt like forever I was getting a bit anxious as I still had not come to the first buoy, I started looking around to see if I could see it but nothing! I was then starting to worry was I in a group that had missed the buoy and swam past it
, eventually though it started to come into sight- after rounding it I glanced at my watch and it read 21mins WTF- I got concerned here that I wasn't swimming hard enough so tried to push harder on the return to shore, obviously the tide was with us on the way back as it felt a lot shorter, I still felt like I had a great swim but I was very disappointed when I looked at my watch on exiting the water and it read 40.XX mins- a whole5mins slower than last year... I had major time to catch up on the bike.
swim: 40:46 mins 213/315 finishers 44th in agegroup
T1 I had a slow t1 as I put on socks for the bike and the run, learned my lesson after the first year...
T1 2.59mins 121/315 finishers
Bike I mounted the bike well and went off like a bat out of hell straight away, last year I was off on the bike at 38mins and change, this year it was 44mins and change so already I had 6mins to make up on last year...I pushed hard over the first 10k as I knew this was a flat section before the climbs- I averaged 40+ for most of this and was passing loads, I was feeling good and strong and let the bad swim behind me, I was eating road!!- on the first climb I kept the pace high at 22kph+ and was still passing loads, on the descent off the first climb I checked my speedo and it was averaging 35kph- at this stage last year it was 33kph so I knew I was going really well,I was hoping to catch Mossy at some stage but unfortunately I never saw him through the whole bike leg, I hit the Healy pass and motored up this too, still spinning hard and keeping speed over 22kph on the climb, the descent off healy last year rocked me but this year I took it like a man possessed and was flying past people, I was also watching my nutrition the whole way taking squeezy gels religiously every 20mins- a mixture of caffeine/iso and tomato gels for the electrolytes whilst also drinking and eating, after the healy descent and around half way through the bike I looked at the speedo and it was still showing average of 34.5kph- I was happy with this, quick look at the HR and it was 165- happy with this too, got onto the long stretch between Healy and glengarrif where I was hoping to make up more time but unfortunately there was a stiff headwind here and I started to suffer big time, I tried to push hard into the headwind but the bike seemed to be going backwards and people started (for the first time) to pass me out, the average speed was dropping as I was looking down at 19kph on the speedo, once we got to glengarrif I turned for the Caha pass and tried to increase the cadence for the climb of Caha but the legs were dead and people started to regularly pass me out, 70k into the cycle and with only 20k left I had bonked!! I had gone too hard over the first 2 hills and had nothing left for Caha, I was totally pi$$ed off now and was struggling at 14kph up the caha pass with the wind blowing me all over the road, Once I got to the tunnel at the top of Caha I looked at my speedo again and it was reading 29.8kph average, so much for a sub 5hrs!! I had a 33kph average last year for the bike, I tried to make up time in the last few km's into Kenmare but this hurt and at times where I knew I should be well over 40kph I struggled to hit 35kph, I was hoping to be off the bike at the latest 3hrs15mins to be assured of a sub 5hrs,I was now looking down at 3hrs 30mins whilst dismounting off the bike, the wife was there cheering me on but I felt totally spent and dejected and facing into a half marathon that I was probably not going to be able to complete. I didn't realize then but the bike was torturous for everyone and I had one of the better bike splits of the day even beating the bro by over 2 mins. I finished the bike at an average speed of 30.8kph, way down on last years split, that with the slow swim time meant I could kiss any attempt at a sub 5hrs goodbye this year.
Bike 2hrs39mins16secs 38th/315 9th in agegroup
T2 Just to add insult to injury once I ran the long transition to rack my bike I bent down to put on my runners and got a massive cramp in my right Quad and I mean massive- I couldn't move, the quad was totally locked, I asked a guy racking alongside me to help and he just looked at me and ran off!!, I tried lying on the ground to stretch it but it was still locked, the wife ran over to see what was wrong and I told her I got a cramp and she roared at me to get a f**king move on, with that the cramp eventually subsided and a tried running on very sore , very tired legs but I had lost a ball of time lying on the ground for around 3 minutes.
T2 4.41mins 244/315
Run- Unfortunately the head dropped heading around on the run, in my mind I had nothing to run for, sub 5hrs was out the window and my body was in bits, I made a decision 1km into the run to run within myself and get the race finished, I was also wrecked and couldn't run much faster if I wanted to anyway, I went through 10k in 51mins (48mins last year) I tried to up the pace for the 2nd 10k to at least get a respectable half marathon time but the legs were gone to jelly, I saw the Bro coming towards me at around 8k gone and he looked good, few km's later Mossy ran past me and he looked like he was also moving well, I just kept the legs moving counting the km's down in my head, I walked through all the water stops and walked up the big hill at 17k, I just wanted to get this race over with now... the last 3k was torture and I fell across the line at 5hrs24mins09secs. and I was totally spent, the half marathon took me 1hr56mins.
The wife came over to me afterwards expecting me to be really pi$$ed off but to be honest I wasn't, I dealt with a lot of demons in my head in the last 20k of the bike and for most of the run, many times I wanted to stop, a few times I even hoped for my calf to go so I had an excuse to stop but thankfully I won the battle in my head and persevered and got through the race, not the best time in the world but it was a slow days racing for everyone, the bro did 4hrs53mins- I expected him to easily go sub 4.40mins, looking on the bright side it was my third half ironman distance race completed....
Lost Sheep Triathlon 2015 : 5hrs 24mins 09secs 115th/315 finishers 25th in agegroup
After the race I shot the Breeze with Mossy and the brother - all 3 of us were of the same conclusion that the swim was long and the bike was very hard, the brother said he would never do another half ironman race again!!
I myself will be taking 2 weeks deserved break from training before I start my new chapter of training for Challenge Galway.
Looking back on the year briefly I had a disappointing last month of training with not completing my favourite sprint race in the Worlds End Triathlon and doing a slow Half ironman race but I did get my first sub 70min sprint race at lough derg tri so the season wasn't a disaster...
I think that after 3.5years of writing this blog I may take a break from it for awhile, I might come back to it again or I might even start a new blog for my challenge Galway training, who knows!
Thanks to everyone for your input and advice over the years.......Signing off for now Trig10 -
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Oct 18th.....90 mins spinning on turbo watching rugby match
Oct 19th..... 8k run at 5.07mins/km
Oct 20th..... Nenagh CC turbo night, 2hrs30mins turbo- heavy gear interval session, ~75km done in total
Oct 21st..... day off- In Dublin (Mam back in Hospital unfortunately- time for her 4th battle with the Big C
)
Oct 22nd....Still in Dublin
Oct 23rd.....8k run- light run at around 5.25mins/km
Oct 24th.....day off
Oct 25th.....day off
Oct 26th.....Long Turbo- 2hrs30mins going up and down through gears- changing every minute- long tough session. ~75km done
Oct 27th.....Long run- 16.3km ran at avg 5.36mins/km, 1hr31mins in total, HR 155
Oct 28th..... Day off
Oct 29th..... Turbo-sufferfest Downward spiral interval session, avg HR 130, Max HR 170
Oct 30th..... Long High cadence turbo - 2hrs15mins in total
Oct 31st- Injured (hurt Hip helping out at Castleconnell Head of River)
Nov 1st- Injured
Nov 2nd- Injured
Nov 3rd- Small fitness check and hip check anfter slight injury- 8k hard run at high tempo- last km was fastest and felt good- so happy enough with that for this time of year- 8k done in 37.30mins at 4.40mins/km
Nov 4th- Small window for training but managed a quick swim - 3x500ms, nice to get back into the pool
Nov 5th- light 6k run at 5.23mins/km followed by another trip to the pool for a swim lesson~ around 1000m with fins only- tough leg workout
Nov 6th- day off
Nov 7th- longest cycle yet!! 141km's cycled with Nenagh cc- long tough cycle in horrible conditions- 4hrs52mins at 28.7kph
Nov 8th- 14k run- nice enjoyable run,expected legs to feel bad after cycle but felt surprisingly good- 14k done at 5.21mins /km with last 2km's being the fastest
Nov 9th- Turbo -Sufferfest downward spiral intervals-0 -
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welcome back, that was some crash and at least the bike was ok:), myself and PMaldini are talking about a run or two over the festive period if you fancy joining us (will be very very very slow)
if you fancy a very slow run early on xmas eve i usually run up the hill at two mile gate(where the old killaloe tri was on) every xmas eve morning at 8.30/9. very slow pace, first 45 to 50 minutes uphill, then you get to run back down. has snowed on me a couple of times up there which is a nice setup for xmas
welcome back trig, good to see you back0 -
if you fancy a very slow run early on xmas eve i usually run up the hill at two mile gate(where the old killaloe tri was on) every xmas eve morning at 8.30/9. very slow pace, first 45 to 50 minutes uphill, then you get to run back down. has snowed on me a couple of times up there which is a nice setup for xmas
welcome back trig, good to see you back
i am working christmas eve but will be going up slieve felim next sunday 18th if anyone is interested, ill be doing the easier of the 9 mile routes unless ye really want to work the legs!!! there will also be a mini hangover to protect so it will be very easy pace:D0
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