(Half) Iron Maiden

rainbow kirby

Probably time to start logging again, haven't done more than a race report or two in my A/R log in a long time, and what I do doesn't really fit in over there any more!

The basics - 30, female, built for comfort not speed, Dub living in London. Started running 6 years ago, lost a third of my bodyweight in the process, ran 3 marathons and a whole bunch of shorter stuff - and did nothing but that until I got injured in 2012 in a heavy fall during the Limerick half-marathon. Had around 18 months of obnoxious back, pelvis and hip trouble after that, and swimming and gym work were a bit easier on the body than running was.

Around this time last year I decided to give myself a little challenge and when early bird entries for the London Triathlon opened I decided to nab one... and it was a nice little kick in the arse to get me training. Did a sprint at Eton Dorney in June in the build-up too. Finished London Tri olympic distance in 3:06 (35 min swim/1:24 bike/55 min run, with the very long transitions at the ExCeL), which is slow as hell but really enjoyed the day. I've also done the Bupa London 10,000 in May (55:42) and the Great North Run (2:01:59) this year, did a Rapha Women's 100 group ride in July (off a longest previous ride of 60km on a 27c day, not my brightest move but it gave me some bike confidence), was supposed to do the Great London Swim but it got cancelled for water quality reasons and I'm doing another sprint at Eton Dorney on Sunday to end my season.

Which brings me to next year... and being the kind of person I am I want another nice big challenge. Challenge Weymouth, to be exact :pac: I'm hoping to do the half as my first 70.3 on 13/09/2015. The complication? I'm getting married in May! 2015 is going to be a very busy year between training and wedding planning so let's see how this goes...

And enough waffle, some training from this week:

Monday - cycle with OH, 27km @ 28km/h average speed (6 laps of Regent's Park Outer Circle). Had taken a rest (*cough* hungover *cough*) day on Sunday so this felt great - I'm a really terrible cyclist so that is a very good average speed for me.
Tuesday - morning swim (needed to squeeze one in because we had tickets for the Arsenal-Southampton game), 1,500m mostly technique focused with plenty of drills. A bit tied for time here, would have loved to have done more.
Wednesday - easy run, 6km @ 6.25/km average pace, busy day in work so it was lovely to throw some music on and decompress on the run, even if it was only a short one.

sconhome

LOVE the name of the blog!!

Solobally8

Delighted to see you logging again. And even better that ur over here with us

griffin100

After some deep thought I think this fits in nicely with the log title and aims (I'm assuming you're a fan - if not I'll delete )

Better than that Foo Fighters sh1te that others in these parts listen to :pac:

rainbow kirby

Deffo a fan, they are great live

sconhome

griffin100 wrote: »

After some deep thought I think this fits in nicely with the log title and aims (I'm assuming you're a fan - if not I'll delete )

Better than that Foo Fighters sh1te that others in these parts listen to :pac:

Now to throw one at ye:

BTW Maiden Flight of Icarus was my first ever record bought followed swiftly by 666.

Right, to hell with the training log, I'm following for the music

mossym

why on earth would you ruin a good tri season with something as trivial as a wedding?:)

good luck with the training, look forward to the log...

rainbow kirby

Thursday evening - 9.3km easy run, 6.21/km average pace. Feeling pretty good throughout, just kept it fairly steady. After spending most of my day trying to investigate why and how I broke the build of the app I'm working on I needed this! Delicious, delicious headspace.

Oryx

I also love the title! Good luck next year, though you know you cant let something trivial like getting married be an excuse for not training you know.

rainbow kirby

Well hopefully all the training will have the minor side benefit of me looking absolutely fabulous in my dress

Oryx

RK in training:

mossym

you're not getting married in a tri suit? exactly how committed are you??

dory and oryx will need to explain the hoochie way of doing things to you:)

rainbow kirby

Top and skirt :pac:

Just need to get a dri-fit veil and some white racing flats and we're golden :pac:

Dory Dory

It's about fecking time you came over to the dark side. Welcome. Next, we'll have to work on shortening that log title of yours a bit. :D

griffin100

rainbow kirby wrote: »

Top and skirt :pac:

Just need to get a dri-fit veil and some white racing flats and we're golden :pac:

I wish my wife's dress had been that cheap

rainbow kirby

Friday evening - group swim session. I'm part of a group called Wswim here, which encourages women to get to a standard where they can reasonably join a masters club. Loads of drills and work on catch and breathing this evening. Probably around 2,000m total covered in the session. Pretty solid

Rest day (= clean my apartment, watch loads of sport and pack for holidays) tomorrow, racing Sunday

RacoonQueen

rainbow kirby wrote: »

Friday evening - group swim session. I'm part of a group called Wswim here, which encourages women to get to a standard where they can reasonably join a masters club. Loads of drills and work on catch and breathing this evening. Probably around 2,000m total covered in the session. Pretty solid

Rest day (= clean my apartment, watch loads of sport and pack for holidays) tomorrow, racing Sunday

I would have thought you were already at a good enough level to swim with a masters group? Do they work differently in the UK?
What do you swim 100m off?

rainbow kirby

I swim 100m off around 2:10-2:15, which is quite slow. Masters group in the pool I swim in on Fridays (Out to Swim, which happens to be an LGBT group that runs a proper swimming club) requires 2:10 for their slowest lane so I'm borderline. Don't know about Cally Masters, the one closest to where I live.

Also, seeing the water temperature on the IM Mallorca thread makes me really, really happy. Heading there (not Alcudia though) for a week on Monday. There will be swimming. There will be a LOT of swimming.

rainbow kirby

New sprint PB - 1:29:52. Report later when I get home. Happy out

rainbow kirby

Gatorade Eton Dorney Sprint Triathlon - race report:

Decided to do this as one last one for the season before heading off for a sneaky week away. Ended up being a very cheap one after the Great London Swim refund arrived Went in with the goal of firstly beating my time on the same course in June and mainly to try and get under 1:30. Was rewarded this morning with blue skies and a lovely warm day, very similar conditions to the London Triathlon in August (24c high for the day with a water temperature in the 18-19c range). Happy enough with that, and quite spectator friendly for my one man support crew

750m swim - 15:37

Decided to be a little bit more aggressive with my start position as I lost a lot of time in June by going too far back at the start. Glad I did, got onto some faster feet and held a good line as much as possible. Felt like my stomach was going to do a barrel roll by the end of it but survived anyway without too much goggle violence or underwater warfare! 7/21 in AG (F30-34) after the swim, though for some reason two of the women in my AG who finished the race ahead of me are missing swim splits.

20km bike - 42:14

Tried something new in transition, no socks on the bike. Worked a treat tbh and meant I sliced around a minute off my T1 time from June. Went out hard, the headwind was well placed today in that it was blowing in the direction of the shorter side of the bike course. Passed loads of people early on, hit traffic on my third lap of four 5km laps as a lot of the super sprint competitors were merging onto the course and seriously not looking where they were going - was almost hit by some twat on a TT bike who just couldn't be arsed looking despite being specifically warned about it in the briefing. Was also quite amused by the super sprint competitor on a TT bike with a full disc on the back and a deep section wheel on the front... why the fcuk do you need that when you're only going 10km on the bike? Got to the end fine anyway, but with a vague sense that I hadn't left a lot for the run... 11/21 in AG on the cycle.

5km run - 27:25

Tried to go out hard from the start, legs weren't having it. From about a quarter of the way in my stomach decided it wanted to get in a knot and that it was not going to be my run day. Stuck it out anyway, got a volunteer to throw water at me at the half way point because I couldn't stomach it on the run, and annoyingly enough got pipped by someone in my AG on the run about 500m from the line. 13/21 in my AG on the run.

Thoughts? Delighted with the swim and bike, a little annoyed with the run, but happy overall to have hit my overall goal and finished sub-1:30 Eton Dorney is not the most thrilling of places to race, but Votwo put on a decent event for what you pay for out there. Too many races here looking for over 70 quid for a sprint, this cost £47 (£37 for super sprint and £57 for Olympic distance), had a decent tech top at the end and instant results. Had the added perk of a 1pm start for my wave, so actually getting some decent pre-race sleep was a bonus too!

Would I do it again? Most likely yeah. They repeat that event 3 times in the year (mid June, late July and late September) so if I'm going to race a HIM in September I'll probably do the Oly in late July as a buildup race.

rainbow kirby

Back from Mallorca. Swam every day in the sea, rented bikes one day for a meandering spin around the south-west of the island (a rather nice Orbea Onix, even if the cycling shoes I got with it were an absolute horrorshow - a size too small on me and very worn cleats) and and went running one day. Drank way too much beer too as expected.

Back to normality tomorrow. Horrible shock to the system to land into Stansted and hit 12c and rain straight away

rainbow kirby

Long sleeves out of the back of the wardrobe and out for an easy run this evening, 7.5km @ 6.25/km average pace. Felt really good in general, but my Kayanos are smashed and I need to order new ones. I procrastinated about buying them at the end of August at 80 quid on Start Fitness and I'm now having serious trouble finding a size 7 in any year's model of it for less than a ton (99 quid for the AW14 colourway on Wiggle is starting to look like a winner...). Down with that sort of thing.

griffin100

Did you try sportsdirect.com - they often have good deals on runners. Just checking there they have kayano ladies size 7 for £69.

rainbow kirby

Bought a pair of 17s there a few years back and they were complete duds, find it hard to trust them for shoes after that...

griffin100

Wow, that's worrying. I get my runners there almost every time. Just got a pair from them today. Suppose it's hard to go wrong with mass produced Nike Pegasus but I'll keep that in mind.

Shell to Run

rainbow kirby wrote: »

Bought a pair of 17s there a few years back and they were complete duds, find it hard to trust them for shoes after that...

Buy from them regularly and shoes are the exact same as shop purchase:rolleyes:

rainbow kirby

Swim this evening, not one of my better ones. Stroke felt a bit agricultural and there was a pervy guy in my lane stopping at the ends at really awkward times to stare at the head-up breaststroking women in the slow lane so abandoned ship after 1,500m (300 swim, 300 pull, 300 swim, 300 kick, 300 swim). Still glad to have done it though.

rainbow kirby

Absolutely horrible out this evening, really wet and windy, so headed to the gym. Did about 45 minutes of strength and core work, and threw in a 5km run on the dreadmill at 6 min/km pace. Haven't been doing any strength work at all over the summer beyond a little bodyweight work and I really should make sure I do it more often to help stop me from getting injured!

rainbow kirby

Ended up taking yesterday as an unplanned rest day, felt the stirrings of something quite like the manflu that himself has had since we got back from holidays so decided to skip swimming. Went to Costa and drank soy chai lattes instead, quite a pleasant way to spend some of my Friday evening!

Decided to chance an easy cycle this morning as things have not progressed beyond a tickly throat, was out for around an hour and got 22km done. Lovely morning for it, that nice autumn morning where the temperature feels just right, the sun is shining and it feels like half the city decided that running or cycling is a good idea too.

rainbow kirby

Sunday - same 22km cycle route as Saturday but a little faster. Still a festering ball of snot but feeling a little better overall.

Monday - run to gym through a fcuking monsoon, 5km on treadmill, run home. 6.6km overall, generally around 6 min/km pace.

Tuesday - morning swim because we were heading to the pub for the Germany v Ireland match in the evening. 1,500m made up of 300 swim, 360 pull, 180 kick, 180 swim, 180 catch-up drill, 300 swim. Was a bit tight for time because I had to get into work by 8:30 but would have liked to have gone for longer.

Wednesday - spin class at my gym, a bit crap tbh. Usual gimmicks of push-ups and weird jerky moves along with the music, and it was like the instructor had no idea of how to put together a decent cycling workout together. There was a guy there before the summer who did a great class, but this guy was bad and his music choices were equally bad. I think it's time that we got a turbo and some Sufferfest videos for the winter...

rainbow kirby

Thursday - short run after work, took it a bit handier than I should have. 30 minutes sloooow.

Friday - group swim, covered around 2km, quite hard work this time!

Weekend - trip to Manchester for the Munster match. We were driving up so no workouts, not the greatest of food choices and loads of drink. Back to normality today...