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Time for a New Adventure
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That all sounds fairly straight forward Neady. I'd say yous are doing most of the technical stuff anyway yous just don't know the name of it. Level 2 was always the introductory level, level 1 was introduced more as a thing to give kids who were going kayaking as a school tour so the school could sell it as educational. I can't see yous having a problem with any of that really, in my time teaching the only time someone didn't pass was when they wouldn't do a capsize drill. Other than that everyone passes. I hope I haven't cursed you now! The only things I would be curious about on that are the assisted x rescue and the H rescue, these are ways of getting people back into their boats after they have capsized and the boat has taken on a bit of water, not really an issue in a sit on top! Good knowledge to have though and will really help your balance in the boat. Last question I promise, are you doing the training course in kayaks, sit on tops or double sit on tops?
The reason I was asking about having your own is I have seen, and have done myself, little adjustments to make the footrests better. I'd be short and if I was in some boats I couldn't reach them, especially when I was younger. Some well positioned foam blocks and duct tape sticking them to the existing foot rests can help bring them closer to you and make it more comfortable.
Thanks for the info. on the course Joey, it makes sense why Dave recommended going straight for Level 2 when we told him we had a bit of experience.
I'm not sure what kind of kayaks we're doing the course on, Dave is supplying them. Only one of our team has her own Kayak but she's going to use the one from Navsail for the course. If he has sit-on-tops I might get him to check how I fit on it (I'm only 5ft 5). Will be interesting to see how we fare sitting in the kayaks for 6 hours on Sun
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So...wading thru all this kayak stuff is nice, but what I really want to know is what's in those coconut balls and will you share the recipe???!!!!
I don't have the original recipe but they've evolved over time and change each time I make them. The ingredients are:
Medjool dates, pitted (1 - 2 cups)
Almonds
Hazelnuts
Wallnuts
Cocoa powder
Desiccated coconut
Coconut Butter
1. Steep the dates in cold water for a couple of hours or overnight. Drain (but keep some of the liquid) and blitz in a blender until nice and squishy. Pop into a big bowl.
2. Lightly toast all the nuts (I use mostly almonds) and blitz in the blender - add to the bowl with the dates.
3. Add a couple of tablespoons of cocoa powder and some coconut to the mixture.
4. Melt a few spoons of coconut butter and add to the mixture before giving it a good mix to combine all ingredients. If it's a bit dry, add some of the liquid from the dates until it's a mushy texture.
5. Roll into balls (this is messy work) and finish off by rolling in more desiccated coconut.
Sorry that I've no measurements - I add everything and taste, then add some more but the base is dates so lots and lots of them. I added figs to a batch before and that was nice too. You can play around with the combination of nuts. They're really energy dense and taste yumeeeee. I usually make a big batch of 40 or 50 balls and freeze them. You can eat them from frozen as they never get solid.0 -
Monday Lunch
5miles @ 9:05/mi (46mins)
5 lovely miles lunch time style in the beautiful sunshine. It’s amazing how the sun energises the body, I was loving this. After 11 hours of sleep, my legs and body was feeling good after the weekends escapades.
Monday PM
45mins Wattbike (23km)
10 easy, 5 hard, 5 easy, 5 hard, 5 easy, 5 hard, 10 easy.
Shins felt a bit stiff and energy was good.
20mins swimming
This was just all a mess. I did 10 mins with the kick board by my legs were stiff and I felt every bit of it. The tri club were using all the pbs so I went straight to the front crawl and I was just an uncoordinated mess. Got one full length done but I kept lifting my head or not turning my head enough and getting frustrated. I had a work thing on my mind and it was distracting me so I jacked it in after 20 mins.
Tuesday AM
Circuits: 8 stations @ 4x55secs
1. Push pull planks
2. One legged wall sits (my knees weren’t playing ball for this so I’d to plank)
3. Squat & hold for 5 secs, leap forward, rinse & repeat
4. Mountain climbers & burpees
5. staggered sprints
6. Some sort of ridiculous monkey hop thing, must be the most unflattering exercise ever
7. Bear crawl with a bungee & weight tied to the back of us
8. Medicine ball throw and sprint
This went pretty ok except my knees were feeling the pinch a bit after the weekend so I substituted for planks any time I though they were being over worked. Nothing twingy, just a bit tender and will right itself once I'm not leaping or doing too much squatting.
5.4miles @ 9:01/mi (49mins)
Perfect evening for a rage run after a stressy long day at work Love rage runs – everything got left out there. 0 -
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That swim may have been a bit tougher for you if your body was fatigued from your weekend's activities. And I love rage runs! Great way to cleanse the body of anything (or anyone) that is toxic. I find them healthy and empowering.
Thanks DD, I do hope that's what it was. Going to try again over the next few days and see how it goes and I'm likely to be taking a dip during the kayak course on Sunday so I can practice will ll the bells and whistles on.
Oh god, you're so right about rage running, slept like a log after that last night. Everything pounded into the footpaths 0 -
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i make similar but don't have the diligence to steep the dates overnight, so i jsut heat up some water in a saucepan, not to boiling, and add the dates for 5 to 10 minutes, works as well.
I don't have the original recipe but they've evolved over time and change each time I make them. The ingredients are:
Medjool dates, pitted (1 - 2 cups)
Almonds
Hazelnuts
Wallnuts
Cocoa powder
Desiccated coconut
Coconut Butter
1. Steep the dates in cold water for a couple of hours or overnight. Drain (but keep some of the liquid) and blitz in a blender until nice and squishy. Pop into a big bowl.
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one extra thing you can try neady is gioja berries, i add them to mine, supposed to be another of these "superfoods". no idea if they are or not.0 -
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Wednesday AM
5.15miles @ 9:23/mi (48mins)
Morning, straight out of bed run – my legs refuse to do any sort of pace at this time of the morning so this felt harder than the pace would lead you to think.
Wednesday Lunch
2.5miles @ 11:55/mi
Done with my two friends from work. We did 2mins on, 30secs off and they are flying it. I can see a bit of friendly competition brewing between them, they’re out doing a bit by themselves in between our lunch time runs and one of them has already signed up for a 5km.
Thursday AM
Croagh Patrick: 2,400ft elevation gain, 2hrs 10mins
For the day that was in it, it would have been a shame not to go and see the bed where St. Patrick laid his head for 40 days and 40 nights and before he threw a silver bell down the side of the mountain knocking the she-demon Corra from the sky into the lake, banishing all the snakes from Ireland. Great day for the climb with the big orange thing shining in the sky. Kieran was with me and in fine form for pushing the pace – we did this 40mins faster than we did it together only 4 weeks ago and in similar conditions and he enjoyed it If he didn’t have a fear of heights I could get him out on the mountains in Connemara.
Though it was bright and sunny, there was a bitter wind blowing when we turned the corner at the shoulder. I saw two or three people climbing in bare feet and saying the rosary as they climbed – with leprechaun hats and all sorts of glittery paraphernalia on them
Thursday PM
4.1miles @ 9:02/mi
This varied in pace from easy to hard as I was running with Kieran, belting off and running back to him for some easy running.
Friday
Croagh Patrick Round 2: 2hrs 30
My friend, who’s going through some ****e at the moment asked if she could come along so Kieran belted off at his own pace. At the bottom, A and I put a few small stones on our bags and hit for the top on what was a stunning day. At the top, we took the stones out of our bags and left them and all the ****e they represented up there. Who needs therapy
We sat for some lunch and all headed back down together.
Saturday: Bike/Run/Bike brick
33.5mile Cycle, 2hrs 30, 13.3Mph, 868ft elevation gain
The Pakie Ryan 10mile race is a sure thing on my calendar every year BUT I need to do more cycling so I got it into my head that I’d make this a brick session. Cycle from home in West Clare to New Market on Fergus, run, cycle home.
I choose a nice lumpy cross country route to the race and off I set early this morning with my runners and run gear in my backpack. Bryan ARSE was out for a cycle so he met me at my house and did the cycle almost all the way to the race with me.
There was a nice head wind all the way to the race which explains why this took longer than the cycle home. Nice cycle but tough with all the hills thrown in.
Pakie Ryan 10 miles road race: 1:22 @ 8:12/mi
I got to the race with 20 mins to spare, picked up my number and did a change of clothes to get me run ready. I met John and Frank ARSE at the start line and wished them well, not having a clue how these tired legs were going to fare.
The 10mile and 10km kicked off together and the 10kmers split at the 3km mark. From there I was pretty much on my own. There were three guys in front of me and I held on for as long as I could but they pulled away from me at around 6 miles. Other than that I passed two or three people and didn’t let anyone pass me but that’s because there was a small 10mile field. I think if there was a bigger field and more people to target I could have dug a bit deeper but then again it was tough so I’m not sure I could have gone faster.
There’s no point in sugar coating it – this was bloody hard, there was 300ft of elevation gain and I wanted to walk up the hills but I kept coaxing myself to the next mile marker.
I was really surprised to cross the line in 1:22 as I could have sworn I was running at 1:30 pace, I felt like I was crawling. Only a minute off my PB. Had a cuppa coffee and two biscuits after before I changed back into cycle mode and got on my merry way.
28mile cycle, 2hrs, 13.6Mph, 900ft elevation gain
Frank ARSE had his bike with him so he kindly offered (I might have bullied him a bit) to keep me company on the way home as he wanted to do a cycle. We took the same route home and the gentle wind was pushing us along.
The hills hurt and the bag on my back made for not very aero descents. I was very very glad to see home ☺0 -
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Sunday: Kayak Day
5 and a bit hours of paddling, capsizing and generally freezing my bits off
I now have a Level 2 Kayak Proficiency Award yeaeeeeee.
We did this with Dave from Nevsail Watersports in Limerick - at the back of the Hunt museum. Luckily enough there were three others there who were working up their hours to get their watersport instructors award so because there were only us four ARSEs stupid mad enough to do some dunking at this time of the year, we had one to one training from some pretty cool instructors.
We did a lot of forward and reverse paddling as well as learning how to stop correctly. Then there were forward sweep stroke, reverse sweep strokes and simple draw strokes. We had been doing most of these on our kayak training but didn’t know the name of them. It was good to get instruction on the correct hand positioning for paddling though. I was in a baby Pyranha kayak. Sweet cheeses those things are unstable and mine had a penchant for going in circles because it was quite short.
To warm us up and get us using our paddling techniques, we played water polo with a tennis ball. It was great fun but when the ball lands in the water beside you, the rest of them launching their boats towards you at ferocious speed to get it back would put the fear of god in you.
Next up was edging, tipping the kayak to the side but still being in control and using this to turn the kayak while moving forward. The low brace stopped us from turning right over when we were on the edge.
Just before we stopped for lunch we all had to take a dip and do the capsize drill. Capsizing over, lifting the skirt and getting ourselves out of the kayak while under water, then swimming 10 meters with the kayak in tow. It took me more than a few minute to gather the courage to do this: there were two thoughts running through my head, the water is Baltic and I might not get the spray deck out to release myself. It went ok, I was calm under the water and had no bother releasing the spray deck and getting myself loose but when I surfaced I was hyperventilating a bit. It was probably the cold water and the first dunk of the day (and because I’m a chicken s**te).
After lunch we put on dry wetsuits and settled in for another game of water polo Poor Frank ARSE got to practice being rescued more times than he’d have liked I’d say. Next up were lots of drills and games where we had to use all of the skills we’d learned earlier.
The last thing we had to do were the rescues which meant, you guessed it, more dunking. The assisted X rescue started with me capsizing and my rescuer tipping my boat upside down over the front of his boat, emptying it and turning it the right way up. Then I used his boat to get myself back in my boat. I then rescused him and all was good except for a serious dose of brain freeze on my part. The H rescue is pretty similar except you have two rescuers tipping up the upturned boat onto the front of both of their boats.
Last up was the T rescue, capsize, stay calm in the boat (I didn’t) tap the sides of the boat – your rescuer will come over to where your hand is on the side of your boat and you use the nose of their kayak and your hips and legs to roll back up.
I had to try this a few times using the nose of one of the guys boats. Brain freeze multiple times and by then I was dam glad to be back on dry land and taking the wet clothes off.
Overall, a great course and the most important thing I took away from it was how much I need to use my legs and core to do the work. Oh and just how Baltic the water is in March brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Weekly totals
Running: 4hrs 52 (32miles)
Cycling: 4hrs 30
Circuits: 1hr
Hiking: 5hrs
Swimming: 30mins
Kayaking: 5hrs
Total: 21ish hours
This week will be a step back week after two big volume weeks.0 -
Great work S. Interestingly enough brick sessions are commonly used as training for triathlon.... #justsayin'.
Ha ha Thanks C. I'm not kidding when I say that all the way around that 10 mile run I was I wondered how in the name of god the triathletes on this forum run off the bike and ENJOY it.
Still though, we'll see how this swimming malarkey progressesNice work Neady - I like the story about leaving the bricks behind. Nice thing to do for your friend!
And I am mightily impressed, 60M cycle and a 1h22 10M race - all in a day's work for you
Thanks Nop, eh, no mountain half marathon thoughcareer move wrote: »That's a great week. You're motoring again, the iron tabs must be doing their job
Thanks K, I'm feeling 95% there. I got on top of it straight away, took plenty of rest and tailored my diet completely around Vic C and iron and knocked the tea and coffee on the head. It was worth taking two step back weeks.0 -
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Well done on the kayaking cert Neady. All good stuff to know and at least you know the names of some of the stuff you were already doing now! Try practice it when ever you get in the boat, it will start to become natural but just keep it going. Always hated the rescue part of the sessions, except when I was the instructor, didn't mind it as much then! The trick for the T rescue and edging is head position, in the T rescue the head should be the last thing up out of the water, and when it comes up bring it right across the boat. And Keep the other boat as close to you as you can, pull it into you rather than pushing away. When your edging keep your head over the centre of the boat as much as possible and use your hips and arse to lift the boat on edge. Well done again! Now that you have been in a 'proper' boat you won't want to go back to a sit on top! 0
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Fair fecks S. I dipped a hand in the sea today when I was walking the dog and it was enough cold for me!
It was ridiculously cold and we knew it would be when we booked the course for March but we wanted to get the skills work done early so that we could use them in practice for the rest of the year and the instructors timed the dips so that we could get out and change by the time we started to freeze. I'm glad I'm on the other side of it though shotgunmcos wrote: »+1 fair play. Water is baltic. Yay cert. Tick. Skills. Tick. Practice practice practice now..
Another 20hr week. Getting it done! 5 months...
Where did ye get your kayaks for your ardnacrusha session last year? If ye only did one way, how did ye organise it?
Bryan had a few sit on tops borrowed from a friend of his for a few months last year. We dropped the kayaks at O' Briens bridge, one of us stayed with them and set them up while the van and a car went to Ardnacrusha. The van (with our running gear) stayed in Ardnacrusha and the car and van driver came back to O' Briens bridge to us in the car.
It's difficult enough to launch there when the water is low as there's no slip and the bank is pretty steep. I think I remember us taking a dip when we launched.Well done on the kayaking cert Neady. All good stuff to know and at least you know the names of some of the stuff you were already doing now! Try practice it when ever you get in the boat, it will start to become natural but just keep it going. Always hated the rescue part of the sessions, except when I was the instructor, didn't mind it as much then! The trick for the T rescue and edging is head position, in the T rescue the head should be the last thing up out of the water, and when it comes up bring it right across the boat. And Keep the other boat as close to you as you can, pull it into you rather than pushing away. When your edging keep your head over the centre of the boat as much as possible and use your hips and arse to lift the boat on edge. Well done again! Now that you have been in a 'proper' boat you won't want to go back to a sit on top!
Thanks Joey and thanks for all the advise last week too, it made me a lot calmer heading to Limerick yesterday morning. I really hadn't realised how much hip and leg action was needed in those boats - I'm tight around that area this morning.
When the water warms up a bit I might see if I could get out on canal here in Galway with the kayak club - if I wasn't so afraid of falling into the cold water I might be better at the level 2 edging
I've serious admiration for you guys and the skill you have in those lil boats.0 -
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happy to lend my security services to either team ARSE or #Tri Harder to look after kayaks for a while if either team needs if ye are in the ardnacrusha/O'Briens Bridge area , or up around killaloe.
now, not if it is middle of the night as you lot are prone to do, but if it's only for an hour or two during the day some weekend no problem. give me a shout.
Thanks Mossy, you could live to regret thatWow, Neady, just catching up here.... Love your Croagh Patrick descriptions... And great time in the 10 miler, you seem to be getting stronger and stronger. And then the kayaking... :eek: you will be so much more comfortable in the water after all that!!! When's the next adventure race?
Awh thanks Anna, I'm getting stronger but I'm getting no faster at this running business - but I'm not doing any speed sessions so that's my bad
The next big one is a night cycle in Connemara followed by an assault on the Maam Turks mountains. In May we have the Coast2Coast (Enniscrone to Newcastle) which is where my focus lies at the moment.That sounds like my sailing.
Great to see you in the water and getting on great with the swimming. V impressed and proud as always.
Just read through HM and 10 mile reports, with additional cycle just for the craic.
Great going as always. Keep taking Iron supplement.
Thanks A thats very kind of you. I let my diet and supplementing slip for a week or two and I've felt the effects so back on the horse this week. Hope you're doing well and resting up before the Op.
Eeekkk I've a bit of catching up to do on this log.0 -
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Monday March 22nd
2miles @ 10:00/mi
Lunch time run with one of my work colleagues – she has her first 5km next weekend and she is totally going to smash it
Tuesday AM – March 23rd
Circuits: 8 stations @ 4x55secs each
1. Boxing, 20 punches/ 15 second sprint/burpee – rinse and repeat
2. Mountain climbers with sliders
3. Side-shuffle with dyna band
4. Sprints
5. squats with dyna band
Can’t recall the rest
Tuesday PM
3miles @ 10:00/mi
Legs still feeling tender from the weekend and hips still feeling tight so I knocked this on the head after 30 minutes.
Wednesday Lunch – March 24th
3miles @ 11:00/mi
Done with two of the girls from work. Nice recovery and everything feeling less stiff.
Wednesday PM
4.6miles @ 8:51/mi before circuits
I think I’ve lost my mojo for training – I sat in the car for 15 minutes to psych myself up for this. Usually I’m bolting out the door from work, gear on and rearing to go for this session. Of course – I could just be getting lazy.
Circuits: 6 stations @ 4x60secs each
1. Spider crawls and reverses with 12kg weight vest on
2. 20kg weight vest: dyna band lateral walk & wall sits
3. Inverted row under the squat rack/inch worm with 2x5kg weights
4. Split squat to overhead press (2x7.5kh with last one using 2x10kg)
5. Burpee/push-up/chin-up combi & push-up leg tuck combi
6. Ball slam & wall run with ball (5kg medicine ball)
We started with about 10 mins of dynamic stretching to warm up – the best one was the push-up into the hip stretch with a twist. I went into this class with tight hamstrings and by the time the warm-up was done, my groin was pretty well stretched and starting to ache. By the end of the class, my arms were ripped to shreds so pretty much an all over workout.
I was paired up with a boy so my competitive, I can do this just as well as a boy, streak came out. I matched him on everything but the burpee/chin-up combi but we were both bloody shattered at the end of it. It was good to be pushed outside my comfort zone though.
Thursday AM – March 25h
Circuits: 7 stations @ 4x65secs each with 10secs recovery
1. Kettlebell tricep curl
2. Push-up & renegade row with 2x4kg
3. Split squat pass kettle bell
4. Step
5. Plank/side-plank
6. Wall run/
7. Russian twist/basketball
Dave didn’t show up this morning so we threw this one together ourselves and didn’t too shabbily at all – I think.
Thursday PM
5miles @ 9:24/mi (47mins)
Nice evening for a trot up and down by the river, watching the rowers out training. I threw in two 8:15/mi for good measure.
30mins swim
10min kick
10min PB
10min swimming swimming swimming
Friday – March 26th
Rest/sniffles/cough/splutter
Saturday
Eamon Moloney 10km: 48:13
This was supposed to be a brick session and I had the bike and gear ready to hit the road Saturday morning but I had a dose of the sniffles going to bed and the weather man said it would be awfully windy so that put paid to that.
The Eamon Moloney 10km is the third race in the Clare run series. I probably said it last year but I’ll say it again, €50 is incredible value for a 5km, 5mile, 10km and 10mile, not to mention the haul of mugs, t-shirts, medals and other goodies that I’ll have by the time the 10mile rocks around. They are all organised by Athletics clubs so they run really smoothly and the spread of food after each one is top class. The series (only in it’s second year) has really encouraged lots of people to take up running and go the whole hog and build to the 10mile.
My brother was on hand to run with me on Saturday – he was hiding at the back of the crowd so I hauled him up to just behind the 50min pacer. We were off before we knew it and overtook the pacer on the first straight section. The wind was at our back for the first 3km so I told Ger that we should use it to our advantage.
The hilly section between 3km and 5km flew by and we were passing out lots of people while keeping the effort steady. At the 5mile in Feb, the two of us were chatting away nicely, today there was no chat, we were both working hard.
When we hit the 5km mark, we turned left and into the wind and there wasn’t a ditch nor a person to provide any shelter so it was just us and the wind. I was still putting in the same effort but when I looked back at 7km, Ger was fading but he told me to plough on. I kept going, catching people and hoping to get some shelter but I was going faster so had no choice but to pass them. I really hammered the last km home, passing everyone in sight, but it didn’t show in my splits. Ger came in only a min or 2 behind me – not bad for a fella who’s only training is running after naughty calves.
It looks like a sub-48 10km is just beyond me. Then again, if I did some speed work, it might happen
Splits: 7:51, 7:43, 7:44, 7:51, 7:46, 7:53 (1:22)
Sunday & Monday
Cold, miserable and tucked up in bed for these two days. Disgusted not to be able to make use of my days off and do some climbing or cycling.
There was also a MASSIVE fall from grace in my diet. I haven’t had any chocolate or sweet goodies since the end of December so when I got my mitts on a ‘taste’ of my Easter egg, I was like a woman possessed. I ate two Easter eggs, not to mention numerous creme eggs and chips and all the s***e you could imagine – nothing with an ounce of nutrition. I was in a hoop on Monday coming down from the sugar hit. The shakes and the shivering, dear god, sugar is the ENEMY. Back on the wagon and I’ve realised now that moderation is not something I’m good at – so chocolate is banned once again.
p.s. Dory, you win ☺
Tuesday AM – March 29th
Circuits: 8 stations @ 4x55secs each
1. Wall handstand type thingys
2. Mountain climbers with sliders
3. Wall sits & sprints
4. Bear crawls and wide legged jumps
5. 2 legged hurdle hops (4 hurdles) & high knees
6. Frog leaps and sprints
7. 6 burpees and sprints
8. Skipping
Did not enjoy this, was sweating way too much for the effort I was putting in.
Weekly Totals
Running: 3:41
Circuits: 3:00
Swimming: 0:30
Total: 7:21
It was supposed to be a step back week but not stepped back this much. Need to get the finger out and increase the cycling again. I set my alarm every morning to go to the gym to do a wattbike session but I hit snooze and turn over. My motivation is waning lately.
Tuesday PM
3miles @ 8:40/mi
It was a nice evening for a lovely long run and that was what I intended as I headed out the door. I ran down by the river, dodging the swarms of flies, with the sun at my back – running to effort. When I turned around to run back up the river, there was a bitterly cold wind in my face and the snotterying was getting too much as well as my breathing getting too laboured so I pulled the plug on it.
Wednesday Lunch – March 30th
1.6miles @ 10:06/mi
Done with my work friend. She ran her first 5km on Monday in 31 mins - so chuffed for her, sub-30mins is next on the cards. This was a short run to stretch the legs, get rid of the stiffness and as both of us were snotty messes we didn’t stay out long.
Wednesday PM
9.3miles @ 8:52/mi
This was supposed to be a cycle but my friend bailed on me so I came home from work, curled up under the blankets and only mustered some enthusiasm and energy to go for a run as the sun was going down. I decided on a new route this evening and after 3 miles was contemplating hitting for home but I hung on and got into it at around 4 miles. I threw a few 8:30/mi in the middle and really enjoyed this. Long definitely suits me if I can get over the hump of the first 3 miles.0 -
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