A little knowledge is a dangerous thing

Dory Dory

I saw this and thought of you!!!

https://www.teamusa.org/USA-Triathlon/News/Blogs/Multisport-Lab/2016/January/25/Inadequate-Sleep-and-Consequences?utm_source=MZ&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=january2016

mossym

Thanks guys. It would appear this forum has magical properties. As soon as I mentioned it here both kids went off to bed last night and slept all night. 8 hours blissful sleep.

Thanks for the link dory, many of the symptoms were\are there. Immune system is the one I am trying to watch. Do not want to get sick out of it, as Ray mentioned(thanks!!!)

Anyway, will keep an eye on it. Hopefully passes quickly. Training wise:

Monday: easy 45 at lunch. Wasn't in the mood, felt like blowing it off, but wasn't doing that. 8.9km in 45mins, 5:05 pace. Felt better for getting it done

Legs (and knee a bit, need to watch that) were sore and tight, so a decent rolling session that night. Felt better for it



Tuesday, Bike, hard intervals, repeat of last weeks session which didn't go too well. Year 3 with the coach, he knew it was grating on me not to hit the numbers on the bike. So same session again. This time though, felt a lot better(that 8 hours sleep ) and the intervals go hit, 5*4 mins with 1 recovery came in as 315, 318, 315, 310, 310. Even managed to do 5 mins for the last one by mistake. Happier with that. 228W average for the hour.

mossym

Catch up time
Wednesday 27th:
Run
easy 40 mins at lunch, new route, nicer than the out and back i've been running. doesn't avoid the big hill at the start though!! 8.39km, felt like i was moving well, pace felt good. no hr, but 4:46min/km.

swim
2200m, mainly some fast 50's, then 2*400p leaving on 8, and some more fast 50's. Fast 50's on 43, 41, 43, 44. 400's felt really good, stroke ws in control and strong, in on 6:43 and 6:47. second 50's on 44, 44, 45, 47. best swim in a while, was happy with the 400's coming in under without the foot on the floor.

Thursday 28th: was in the UK for the day, so an hour on the bike was done very early, no watch as was half asleep getting on the bike and had left it beside the bed.


Friday:
Lunchtime run. after hitting the fast intervals the week before, as they always do, they got a bit harder again. 4* 4 < 3:50, off 2 recovery. these were the sessions i've always struggled with. but this turned out to be another good run. all 4 intervals came in under target, even with a strong head wind for first 2. 3:48, 3:49, 3:43, 3:47. was moving really well. happy with this.
9.77km in 45 mins

Evening swim
fast 50's, 4 *300sw, fast 50's.well that was the plan. legs started cramping badly on first 50's (46, 46, 45, 47). had to switch to pb to fpr the 300's , so 300's done with pb, 5:16 (100m sw before cramping), 5:02, 5:06, 5:05. 50's on 46, 47, 48, 49 while fighting cramp on every turn.

Saturday:
snow and sleet on saturday morning, so done on the turbo, easy 90 minutes then steady 60, then easy 30. nothing really to report, done watching rocky and warrior, so lots of thumping scenes to get the drive going. 3 hours total


Sunday
Morning Swim: mixed bag of 50'sand 100s drills and fast works. This was a tougher session than i thought it would be. stroke with PB is good at the moment, catch and follow through much improved. not as clean with just sw though. 2200m total


Run: done in the evening, miserable out, sold and wet, was bright heading out but knew it would get dark so the headtorch was on. 17.22km in 90 minutes. tiring by the end, but pace stayed steady throughout


Monday and tuesday was nothing done. came down with something, had flu like symptoms, shivering, and felt awful. tuesday was better but still some issues so left it

Wednesday: easy 40 minutes at lunchtime, felt good, strides felt fine, fast even, one of them even ducked under the 3:00 min mark which could be a first for me. 8.4km in 41 mins

Evening swim:
fast 50's, 3*400p, fast 50's. really happy with this swim. best swim in a long long time. really feel the stroke coming along. catch and pull as good as it has ever been. holding pace even on shorter efforts. first 50s were done totally controlled, very calm and relaxed but fast, time as 43, 43, 42, 43, but happy with how controlled they were, not the usual mad splash fast often is. 400's as 6:39, 6:44, 6:49. effort felt fine all along, time would suggest tiring a bit but felt smooth. stroke is much better with PB. last 50's on 42, 43, 43, 42. so happy to hold similar pace even though was tired and the stroke not as clean. very happy leaving pool .


Thursday:easy hour on the turbo. with the couple of days off legs were strong, so had to hold this back a bit.

Friday:
Lunchtime swim. drills, 5*200 alt sw/pb, f50's as 25 fast 25 swim. good, but not as good as last few swims.not as smooth. 200's on 3:26, 3:21, 3:28, 317, 3:22. last 50's on 47ish.times were okay, but the form wasn't as good.

Evening run. upped again. 5*4 @ < 3.50 with 2 recovery. after the last 2 weeks felt good about these. misplaced confidence unfortunately. struggled from the off, knew i wasn't moving well. was a horrible evening but that wasn't it. legs just didn't have it. could have been the last few weeks were done with the run before the swim, need to look at that. paces as 3:51, 3:55, 3:46, 3:56, 3:59, so not too far off and the effort level was right at least.


Saturday: Turbo. 4* 20 easy 15 steady 10 threshold. knew this would be tough and it was, the first interval the toughest surprisingly. the 20's felt easy after the threshold. Targeting 170 to 180w for the 20, 215 for the 15 minutes, and 280 for the 10. Honest 3 hours of work, legs were shaking afterwards. huge problems with hr and power though, frequent dropouts, hr stopped reading completely after 2 hours or so and just took it off, power started dropping out for the last hours and would jsut read zero for a while.

Sunday
Long run: woke up with a migraine, head killing me. almost blew this off, but hardened up and got out the door. miserable day out, steady downpour. wasn't feeling great at all and again almost blew it off after 20 minutes, but kept going. did a nice hilly route, lots of nice steady climbs.

18km in 90 minutes, one of my most consistent runs, wasn;t overly fast given my head was splitting, but i was moving as well at the end as i was at the start and had loads left in the legs. if i felt like that after 18km of the marathon in copenhagen i;d be laughing (some hope..:))

hf4z6sqo7vjngi

Suffer bad with migraines myself, not fun. Good work being put down, your swimming seems to be going well.

mossym

Leo Chilly Sarsaparilla wrote: »

Suffer bad with migraines myself, not fun. Good work being put down, your swimming seems to be going well.

i don't generally suffer with them, but yesterday it never really left. even last night was still suffering. I'd hate to have them regularly.

swimming going well from a relative sense, still not fast compared to what fast is, but going well for me, given been struggling with the swim recently and there wasn't a lot of regular swimming going on there for a while with sickness and the new job. still not as regular as i would like, but if i can at least get to a consistent stroke that i can hold at an acceptable pace and keep working away on that i'll be happy. the big improvement over the last few weeks hasn't been the times but the consistency of my stroke over the lengths.

biggest struggle right now is with pool opening times. the advantage of the august IM is that once the water warms up i can use the always open pool, i.e. lough derg for a couple of months before the race at least. would be early morning solo swimming in the canal, but would take away the pressure to make the pool

mossym

So last week was recovery week, and i got a very easy week, made easier again by yet another round of sickness

Monday was a day off. Rachel had a playdate all afternoon, one of the girls in her class who lives just down the road. tuesday morning we got a text to say the playdate had been up all night sick with a bug she had picked up at the weekend from her next door neighbours. so we were on alert that Rachel would probably go down.

Tuesday evening was an hour easy on the bike, and easy it was 180w with the limiter strictly on. this was done really early as we were at a bowie tribute film night that evening. usually my power way down in the morning but this felt good.

Wednesday: woke up to find the sickness had hit, rachel been sick during the night but my great wife had taken care of it, but unfortuntely it wasn't just her, i was down too, no vomiting but stomach cramping and not far off it all day. longest day ever in work, was a real struggle, and no way was i getting anything done. thursday was a write off too. not much better.

Friday was 75% back to normal, knew if i asked the coach he'd have told me to do a really easy session, so never said anything and as the sessions were easy i just did them.

swim, 2k as WU, then 10*100pb. given how i was feeling these were good, most were in 1:36ish, one slow one at 1:41 where i had to stop with an idiot in my lane, and a couple at 1.30 where i was pushing a bit. not too shabby at all. fast 50s then on 44, 43,43,42, the effort going up a little each time. still feeling good about the swim.

evening run, 6.38km in 32 mins, holding back on the pace, 5:05min/km,but HR still a bit high, body definitely not 100%

Saturday
with having been sick, and it absolutely pouring down and freezing on saturday, i hit the turbo for an easy 2 hours. had the first rambo for company. got into a cycle of 5 mins easy, then 5 a lttle harder in the small ring, then switched to the big ring at the same power for 5, then upped the gear/effort for another 5, and repeated that. worked fairly well, AP of 194 for the session, max 20 mins power of 210 so was pretty consistent.


Sunday
got a text from a friend saying they were going mountain biking out the hills where i usually bring the mtb. all fire roads. expected we'd just be cruising those, so it would be an easy, almost recovery spin
we went out, climbing away up the fire road. then next thing they turned off down a small single track i;d never even seen before, but it was flat and looked like nothing so i followed, they went left and down as tough a singletrack mountain bike decent as i've done, was about 4 or 5 of them and on the last one i jammed the wheel against a rock, and the bike fell sideways and i fell on my upperleg/hip right on a rock. got a fairly hard thump, but picked myself up. they went back up to do it again and i left them off, spun around the fire roads for a while and went home. leg just stiffened up from there . talk about stupid.

90 minutes mountain biking with 500m climbing, but only 20km or so travelled.

evening run. with very stiff and sore leg this was more a hobble than a run, but i got around it. thought the leg would loosen out but it never really did, but didn't get any worse either. a very slow 9.1km in 50mins, 5:25 pace.

leg just got stiffer and sorer that evening. was fairly well cut up and started turning some nice colours, and i have to admit a little fear i had broken something (except i've never broken a bone in my life )



Monday: woke up with a very sore and stiff leg, but the pain not as accute as the day before and seemed to me more from stiffness than anything else. so was a little more confident that nothing was broken. was sore any time i'd been sitting a while but by evening it had loosened out a lot and it felt okay. so hopped on the bike for the evening turbo. different session to normal, some high cadence drills, some builds then into minute on minute off drills. rather than treat these as a sprint with very high cadence i tried to keep the cadence a bit more in normal range. minutes on came in from 365 to 385. AP of 209 for the session, max 20 min power of 250w. nice short session, good workout for 40 mins.

joey100

Your not having much luck at all with the training recently Mossy. Hows the leg feeling today after the turbo?

mossym

joey100 wrote: »

Your not having much luck at all with the training recently Mossy. Hows the leg feeling today after the turbo?

said to the coach it might be doctor time, coming down with bugs too easy, might go get the bloods checked.

the weekend incident was my own stupid fault, no excuses there, no more messing around now like that till post CPH. thing that bugs me is that i was even being careful, if i'd been told before hand what the route was there was no way i would have gone.

anyway, legs much improved again today, so won't worry about it too much. was stiff and tight again after the nights sleep, could feel the pull on it during this mornings swim but it was nothing too bad and didn't affect the session

Neady83

Sorry to hear about the fall from the MTB- I think everyone who has a MTB now has a fall story in their log and nobody come off light from a fall. Hopefully you can get to the route of all the bugs and sicknesses. My mother would probably tell you that it's a good tonic you need

mossym

i think a lot of it has been the kids moving from childminder to a creche, so a whole new batch of bugs to deal with. in fairness my wife has been hit nearly every time i have been as well so think it was inevitable, but i'm getting sick a lot easier than i did before.

think i need to get rid of that MTB, fecking things are only dangerous

hf4z6sqo7vjngi

You bloody numpty, you're as bad as Sean with that MTB:)

mossym

Leo Chilly Sarsaparilla wrote: »

You bloody numpty, you're as bad as Sean with that MTB:)

ah here, i had one fall, missed no sessions, and will be right as rain after 3 days. that's nothing as bad as Sean!!

tunney

Kids bring home many many bugs. In a childminders there would be limited to the amount of pathogens that they would be exposed to. In a creche they are disease spreading bundles of snot.

sconhome

I'm in the room lads!!

Pmaldini

nice result today Mossym, pretty horrible conditions to race in!

mossym

Tuesday 16th: Early morning swim, knew i was a bit tight on time so did my best to get all this in. WU, where i did 100m more pull bouy than i was supposed to, then some drills. Some fast 50's in on 42, last one on 44, took my eye off the last one i think. 2* 400pb were in on 6:57 and 6:52, both pretty easy focusing on stroke. the last set of fast 50's were all on 43, but the last was an effort to hold that. had to skip the 200wd, but figured i had done an extra 100 WU so i'd jsut count that instead. 2100m in 44 minutes.

Evening run: plan was to give the Limerick Duathlon a lash at the weekend on Sunday, so the long run was moved to tuesday evening. it was a horrible horrible evening for any type of run, let alone be out there for 90 minutes. but needs must and into a deluge i went. was feeling fine, but the pace was a bit lower than expected, most likely a combination of the morning swim, the conditions, and the hip still far from 100%. overall it was 17km @ 5:15 pace in 90 minutes, but the pace for the last 20 was down a bit as the hip started to get a bit sore. was very glad to get in and get a warm shower.

the other notable thing from these couple of days was the re-emergence of a pain on the sole of my foot that i had before and thought was plantar facitis. on that occasion the helpful shopkeep in the west suggested i give the calves a good going over then and voila problem solved. tight calf was stretching the muscle on the sole of the foot to the point of pain.

by the middle of last week both my calves were locked solid and in serious pain, and sole of my foot was very tender. rolling and stretching brought short lived relief. any exercise helped, pain would go for the duration as the muscles warmed up, but it was back straight away once i stopped.

good news and bad news then. Good news was i had a rest day wednesday, bad news was i was going to germany with work so no roller with me. plus 8 hours sitting in a car plane on both Wednesday and Friday wouldn't help.

Wednesday: off;
Thursday: easy 30 minutes run on a treadmill, very careful to avoid straining the calves. some stretching afterwards
Friday: Crazily the gym in the hotel didn't open until 9am. so couldn't get the planned run before i leave session in. home that evening, with both a swim and a run to do, and a wife getting ready to go out. decision was made, the swim was scrapped, and the run was done.

bit longer than planned, 50 mins instead of 45 as i misjudged, with 5* 1 minutes at the planned run pace for sunday. went well, holding 3:45ish which was a bit faster than i thought i'd hold on sunday. 10.05km in 50 mins


Saturday: some family stuff meant i didn't get on the bike until 3pm. 3 hour turbo, with a few interruptions. after 75 mins i kicked into 5*4mins @ race wattage, with 1 recovery. was perhaps aiming a bit high on this, as a i realised the 4 min intervals were at the same level as i usually do my hard intervals session, and i was doing them in a 3 hour turbo now!!. they were a bit lower than expected, all in the 280 to 305 range. spun away very easy after this, and finished out the 3 hours.


will stick the race report in it's own post

mossym

Sunday Feb 21st Limerick Duathlon

i don't particularly like duathlons. I'm a steady runner, rather than fast. the speedsters on two feet have a big advantage over me here, and the bike usually isn't long enough to make up the time.

And with the calves acting up I was nervous about doing more damage. The last thing I then wanted was bad weather, but when the alarm went off at 7am all I could hear was the wind blasting rain off the bedroom window. Was only entering on the day, so decided I wasn’t going. Turned over to get cosy again. 5 mins later I was up getting ready. 5 minutes after that I was back in bed after looking out the window. 5 minutes later I said f*ck it and up I got. Packed up and headed for the race.

Was in nice and early to get registered, got the bike racked, or tried to. Have always found my bike tends to swing wildly on racks, and in this wind it was all over the place. Had to move it 3 or 4 times trying to find something to jam it against to stop it crashing into other bikes. Eventually got it settled, but was in a far from optimal position with regards the bike out and in, but left it given it wasn’t that important a race.

Warmed up, listened to the race brief, where the mount and dismount line and not crossing it on the bike was stressed about 3 times. Wind was kicking along nicely at this stage, talking to a few I knew we were questioning the wisdom of the small number who had brought disc wheels. I’d left the disc at home, but even the 50mm I’d brought looked like they might make things tough

Lined up at the start. Made the same mistake as last year, too far back, and caught up in really slow traffic when the gun went. Finally got clear and started moving. Legs felt good, better than I thought they would. Course starts with a steep downhill, then shallows out before climing and going flat for a km. made the turn around, knowing I was a good bit down the field. Picked off a few on the way back in, up the steep hill back into t1, thinking how much this was going to hurt the second time around. How little did I know.

Run 1 : 13:09, 21st overall, 9th in AG

Into t1, grabbed the bike, shoes off, helmet on. Hadn’t brought the aero lid this time so the road helmet went on nice and fast, and exited t1 right behind the women’s race leader. Around 5 people screaming at us not to mount until the marked line, yet a good 20 feet before it she hops on her bike and off she goes. I don’t believe for one minute she didn’t realise, but she wasn’t stopped and off she went.

T1: 0:38 11th overall, 4th in ag

Crossed the line, hopped on bike, down the hill and onto the road. Got the feet in the shoes, and started pushing. The wind was awful, blowing mainly across the road and making handling really tough. Was tough to keep the power down as kept getting gusts that threatened to blow the bike into the ditch or onto the road and would make me back off. Still though, this was my leg, and I started making up for the run. Was picking guys off 1 by 1, and was msking good headway. AP out over the first half, which is mainly uphill, was over 300 which was the plan. As I approached the turnaround, I had a long straight stretch in front and up ahead of me I could see a rider from a local club(same club as the mount line violator in fact) stuck to the back wheel of another bike. Was closing the gap all the way to the turnaround, so had loads of opportunity to see that he was camped there. Turned, still closing the gap. Got caught up with some other traffic we were all overtaking, so had come back in another couple of km before I finally got to the point I could overtake. As I came up, he had moved a bit wider, meaning I couldn’t get past, but he was making no effort to overtake. I roared to “pass or move”, and in fairness he pulled in, right back on the wheel. I got a roar of abuse from him as I went past, not sure what he said as I was roaring back that he was a f*&king cheat. The guy in front then started roaring at the two of us to cop on. Great fun .


Pushed on .passed one or two more. Then was clear, nothing up the road. Drove for home, but the wind was almost worse on the way back in.

Approaching the turn back into t2, I was reaching for the straps to get the shoes undone when I thought of the really steep uphill. For some reason decided that the hill would be climbed faster with the shoes left on, so left them strapped, climbed the hill, then clipped out the shoes as there wasn’t enough space to get them off before the mount line. Or at least I got one shoe out, got one stuck and gave up a few seconds getting it out stopped just before the line. Into t2, and 4 or 5 of the guys I have passed, including my friend, are into t2 with me. Silly decision on the shoes. Lesson learnt. Stick with the original plan. Happy enough to see only a few bikes on the rack though, realised I was a lot farther up the field than I thought.

Bike: 23:37, 8th overall, 3rd in AG

Helmet off, shoes off, runners on. A couple have made it out ahead of me. Balls. Given the effort I’d pushed on the bike to make up the time on these lads I’d handed some back.

T2: 0:45, 43rd overall, 17th in AG (worst portion of the day)

Out, and what I thought was my bike route friend went off at a fast pace. Another lad was just ahead and I tucked in on his heels. Down the hill out of t2 we went, and slowly started closing on the guy ahead whose pace had slowed. As we crested the hill after the first km I moved past them both, but could hear footsteps behind. Realised as I passed them it hasn’t been the guy I thought, it was the front guy who had been yelling at us to calm down.

Out to the turnaround, chance to see who was behind me. 3 or 4 lined up. Nuts. Pushed a bit harder, but we were into the wind now and it was tough. Very tough. Had been pushing already but this was really starting to hurt. With about 1.5km left I could hear someone beside me passing. Turned out this was my friend, and he gave me a good stare as he went past. Didn’t want to lose to him but he moved in front .as he did though, it seemed he dropped the pace a bit. Even though I hasn’t much left I suspected he might have used what he had to get past me, so I tucked in for the downhill bit, and once we hit the shallow climb before the last steep hill I gunned again, knowing I had to drop him completely. Emptied the tank up to the steep hill, then hung on with everything I had.the doubts then set in that I had pushed too early and left too much to the finish. Around two thirds of the way up I heard footsteps behind, then I was passed, was cursing myself for having gone too early. Turns out not to be the same guy, but someone else. I tried to dig but I had used it up, I found a bit more as we got onto the flat at the top but that was too late, over the line hurting as much as I have in any race.

Run 2: 13:27, 14th overall and 7th in AG.

Overall: 51:39, 10th overall and 4th in AG.

My first top 10. In a duathlon and all. Given the last few weeks training have been broken at best with sickness and work I’m happy out with that. First 3 home are all on the junior development squads, and had those spots sewn up before the race begun. 2 minutes off the bike from last year, over that distance is a lot. Runs were faster too.

As I said, not a huge fan of duathlons. I’d mentioned this to the coach, and once we’d planned to do it I was nearly regretting I had. Once done though I was glad I had, not because of any result, but because after months of training it’s good to open the taps for a race, and it’s a good dusting off for the bike and the technique, reminding me of what needs work. And it stokes the fires just that bit more to get the head down. I never mind training, but a good race always increases the hunger just that bit.

Onwards…


oh and on a final note, no penalty for the female winner, but she won but >3 minutes so no questions over the win. i do notice there are pics of most emerging from t1 with their bikes but none of me or her, the conspiracy theorist in me thinks it's because it would show her on the bike before she should have been.

tunney

mossym wrote: »

Sunday Feb 21st Limerick Duathlon

i don't particularly like duathlons. I'm a steady runner, rather than fast. the speedsters on two feet have a big advantage over me here, and the bike usually isn't long enough to make up the time.

And with the calves acting up I was nervous about doing more damage. The last thing I then wanted was bad weather, but when the alarm went off at 7am all I could hear was the wind blasting rain off the bedroom window. Was only entering on the day, so decided I wasn’t going. Turned over to get cosy again. 5 mins later I was up getting ready. 5 minutes after that I was back in bed after looking out the window. 5 minutes later I said f*ck it and up I got. Packed up and headed for the race.

Was in nice and early to get registered, got the bike racked, or tried to. Have always found my bike tends to swing wildly on racks, and in this wind it was all over the place. Had to move it 3 or 4 times trying to find something to jam it against to stop it crashing into other bikes. Eventually got it settled, but was in a far from optimal position with regards the bike out and in, but left it given it wasn’t that important a race.

Warmed up, listened to the race brief, where the mount and dismount line and not crossing it on the bike was stressed about 3 times. Wind was kicking along nicely at this stage, talking to a few I knew we were questioning the wisdom of the small number who had brought disc wheels. I’d left the disc at home, but even the 50mm I’d brought looked like they might make things tough

Lined up at the start. Made the same mistake as last year, too far back, and caught up in really slow traffic when the gun went. Finally got clear and started moving. Legs felt good, better than I thought they would. Course starts with a steep downhill, then shallows out before climing and going flat for a km. made the turn around, knowing I was a good bit down the field. Picked off a few on the way back in, up the steep hill back into t1, thinking how much this was going to hurt the second time around. How little did I know.

Run 1 : 13:09, 21st overall, 9th in AG

Into t1, grabbed the bike, shoes off, helmet on. Hadn’t brought the aero lid this time so the road helmet went on nice and fast, and exited t1 right behind the women’s race leader. Around 5 people screaming at us not to mount until the marked line, yet a good 20 feet before it she hops on her bike and off she goes. I don’t believe for one minute she didn’t realise, but she wasn’t stopped and off she went.

T1: 0:38 11th overall, 4th in ag

Crossed the line, hopped on bike, down the hill and onto the road. Got the feet in the shoes, and started pushing. The wind was awful, blowing mainly across the road and making handling really tough. Was tough to keep the power down as kept getting gusts that threatened to blow the bike into the ditch or onto the road and would make me back off. Still though, this was my leg, and I started making up for the run. Was picking guys off 1 by 1, and was msking good headway. AP out over the first half, which is mainly uphill, was over 300 which was the plan. As I approached the turnaround, I had a long straight stretch in front and up ahead of me I could see a rider from a local club(same club as the mount line violator in fact) stuck to the back wheel of another bike. Was closing the gap all the way to the turnaround, so had loads of opportunity to see that he was camped there. Turned, still closing the gap. Got caught up with some other traffic we were all overtaking, so had come back in another couple of km before I finally got to the point I could overtake. As I came up, he had moved a bit wider, meaning I couldn’t get past, but he was making no effort to overtake. I roared to “pass or move”, and in fairness he pulled in, right back on the wheel. I got a roar of abuse from him as I went past, not sure what he said as I was roaring back that he was a f*&king cheat. The guy in front then started roaring at the two of us to cop on. Great fun .


Pushed on .passed one or two more. Then was clear, nothing up the road. Drove for home, but the wind was almost worse on the way back in.

Approaching the turn back into t2, I was reaching for the straps to get the shoes undone when I thought of the really steep uphill. For some reason decided that the hill would be climbed faster with the shoes left on, so left them strapped, climbed the hill, then clipped out the shoes as there wasn’t enough space to get them off before the mount line. Or at least I got one shoe out, got one stuck and gave up a few seconds getting it out stopped just before the line. Into t2, and 4 or 5 of the guys I have passed, including my friend, are into t2 with me. Silly decision on the shoes. Lesson learnt. Stick with the original plan. Happy enough to see only a few bikes on the rack though, realised I was a lot farther up the field than I thought.

Bike: 23:37, 8th overall, 3rd in AG

Helmet off, shoes off, runners on. A couple have made it out ahead of me. Balls. Given the effort I’d pushed on the bike to make up the time on these lads I’d handed some back.

T2: 0:45, 43rd overall, 17th in AG (worst portion of the day)

Out, and what I thought was my bike route friend went off at a fast pace. Another lad was just ahead and I tucked in on his heels. Down the hill out of t2 we went, and slowly started closing on the guy ahead whose pace had slowed. As we crested the hill after the first km I moved past them both, but could hear footsteps behind. Realised as I passed them it hasn’t been the guy I thought, it was the front guy who had been yelling at us to calm down.

Out to the turnaround, chance to see who was behind me. 3 or 4 lined up. Nuts. Pushed a bit harder, but we were into the wind now and it was tough. Very tough. Had been pushing already but this was really starting to hurt. With about 1.5km left I could hear someone beside me passing. Turned out this was my friend, and he gave me a good stare as he went past. Didn’t want to lose to him but he moved in front .as he did though, it seemed he dropped the pace a bit. Even though I hasn’t much left I suspected he might have used what he had to get past me, so I tucked in for the downhill bit, and once we hit the shallow climb before the last steep hill I gunned again, knowing I had to drop him completely. Emptied the tank up to the steep hill, then hung on with everything I had.the doubts then set in that I had pushed too early and left too much to the finish. Around two thirds of the way up I heard footsteps behind, then I was passed, was cursing myself for having gone too early. Turns out not to be the same guy, but someone else. I tried to dig but I had used it up, I found a bit more as we got onto the flat at the top but that was too late, over the line hurting as much as I have in any race.

Run 2: 13:27, 14th overall and 7th in AG.

Overall: 51:39, 10th overall and 4th in AG.

My first top 10. In a duathlon and all. Given the last few weeks training have been broken at best with sickness and work I’m happy out with that. First 3 home are all on the junior development squads, and had those spots sewn up before the race begun. 2 minutes off the bike from last year, over that distance is a lot. Runs were faster too.

As I said, not a huge fan of duathlons. I’d mentioned this to the coach, and once we’d planned to do it I was nearly regretting I had. Once done though I was glad I had, not because of any result, but because after months of training it’s good to open the taps for a race, and it’s a good dusting off for the bike and the technique, reminding me of what needs work. And it stokes the fires just that bit more to get the head down. I never mind training, but a good race always increases the hunger just that bit.

Onwards…


oh and on a final note, no penalty for the female winner, but she won but >3 minutes so no questions over the win. i do notice there are pics of most emerging from t1 with their bikes but none of me or her, the conspiracy theorist in me thinks it's because it would show her on the bike before she should have been.

Good report. Well done.

All this cheating in the West. Very strange.
Go Figure.

sconhome

Not just in the west anymore, Go Cavan too

Neady83

Cracking start to the new year Mossy, well done.

Edit: just saw the results, that female is a runner. I don't think she's with a triathlon club but she features in all the big races in Clare, tucks in behind a guy and takes him on the last km or mile.

RJM85

Great result and some nice biking! Is it fair to say that some of your progression in races is to do with learning how hard you can really hurt yourself? Each race report on here you seem to empty yourself more?

mossym

Neady83 wrote: »

Cracking start to the new year Mossy, well done.

Edit: just saw the results, that female is a runner. I don't think she's with a triathlon club but she features in all the big races in Clare, tucks in behind a guy and takes him on the last km or mile.

cheers Neady.

she's with a club alright , has been for a while now. not having a go at her but lax enforcing of the rules will just get worse and worse

mossym

RJM85 wrote: »

Great result and some nice biking! Is it fair to say that some of your progression in races is to do with learning how hard you can really hurt yourself? Each race report on here you seem to empty yourself more?

now that's an astute observation, and a correct one, but not an easy one to answer in terms of how much.

Unlike a lot, i seem to be able to, or at least i find it easier to, bury myself on the bike than i do on the run. i'll get an evil bike session from the coach, and i might wonder is it too much, but i've no doubts that i'll leave nothing behind in trying to hit it.

on the run, he'd be the first to confirm i tend to question my ability to hit the tough sessions, and am almost surprised when i do.

so part of it is ability to hurt. the other part is the confidence that i can hold a pace if i start at it, and then when the pain comes in to hold it.

so yup, you're right, definitely hurting more now than i did.

sometimes though,fighting for something, like a top 20 place, or a head to head duel, makes it a lot easier to hurt than hurting to finish mid pack.

zico10

mossym wrote: »

First 3 home are all on the junior development squads, and had those spots sewn up before the race begun.

Those pesky juniors, taking all the podium spots. Limerick was no place for old men yesterday. I chose Limerick over Naas, as I thought they'd all be competing at the Inter-Varsities in Naas. Ah well.

Good performance, big improvement on last year.

pgibbo

Well done at the weekend. Nice going. :cool:

Why did you not bring the roller with you when travelling? The grid fits nicely in most back packs. Footballer & quadballer fit well too. You pack stuff in the core of the grid too How are the hip & foot now?

mossym

pgibbo wrote: »

Well done at the weekend. Nice going. :cool:

Why did you not bring the roller with you when travelling? The grid fits nicely in most back packs. Footballer & quadballer fit well too. You pack stuff in the core of the grid too How are the hip & foot now?

i never looked to see if you could bring a grid as carry on? if so i might get one, right now i have one of the big 3 feet long blue rollers and a tiger tail, the long roller for easy work, the tiger tail for more focused work. the blue one is too big to bring, the tiger tail wouldn't be allowed as carry on and on business travel i don't check in..:)

mossym

zico10 wrote: »

Those pesky juniors, taking all the podium spots. Limerick was no place for old men yesterday. I chose Limerick over Naas, as I thought they'd all be competing at the Inter-Varsities in Naas. Ah well.

Good performance, big improvement on last year.

given the top 4 in the 35 up age group were in position 6 to 10 you might be right!! think at least a couple of them were too young for inter-varsities!!

i may have it wrong though, not sure Chris Mintern still classes as a junior?

pgibbo

I bring the grid, footballer, sliotar and bands as carry on. Never had any issues

mossym

thirty minutes and no-ones been by to say they stock them.

he's slipping i tell you..:)

BTH

mossym wrote: »

thirty minutes and no-ones been by to say they stock them.

he's slipping i tell you..:)

I have a grid roller thats gathering dust. That rolling and such nonsense is not something I bother with.