ITERA 2016

Bambaata

Sorry to hear you're out of The Race but definitely the right call. Was looking forward to seeing you up there but maybe next year???

joey100

Do you know if you can sell the place on MCOS or is it gone now? Only asking because I know a lad who might be interested, he's over doing coast2coast in New Zealand right now but he was half hoping to get an entry when he got back. Not sure if any of it is even possible but if it saves you a bit of cash and gets him in everyone is happy.

sconhome

Bambaata wrote: »

... maybe next year???

Don't.

D'ah too late, he'll have seen that by now!! :cool:

shotgunmcos

joey100 wrote: »

Do you know if you can sell the place on MCOS or is it gone now? Only asking because I know a lad who might be interested, he's over doing coast2coast in New Zealand right now but he was half hoping to get an entry when he got back. Not sure if any of it is even possible but if it saves you a bit of cash and gets him in everyone is happy.

I sent the Race a mail to find out. I'll let you know. Thanks

shotgunmcos

Cheers guys.

@mossym - will do although he will undoubtedly have it disguised as something cooler. You are right. I'd finish but at what cost? ITERA is the big one. But I also want to have some fun beforehand.

@bambaata - 2 years in a row I'm forced out. Maybe it's not meant to be. Flu jab this year and see how chest holds up to winter training.

@Neady - a bell?! I haven't even looked at the site to be honest. I'll go over the madatory kit and rob a bell off one of the kids bikes. This reminds me of years ago I was doing the Triathlone sprint tri. Pointy helmets were banned so I sourced a 20 quid kiddie type one. Didn't realise it has a flashing red light on the back which I sported fir the whole bike leg Will see you guys up there. Looking forward to it for the sheer fun of it. Plus Ivan is an ivy league RD in my eyes

shotgunmcos

So an early race for the year for a change. The Causway Coast Adventure Race in Boyle last weekend was a 5 hour, grab as many controls as you can, and get home before penalties start to roll. The disciplines were orienteering, biking, trekking, paddling, crawling, solving a puzzle and eating biscuits

Report is here thanks to sconhome. We had a blast!

To put "penalties" in perspective. You might spent a half hour+ slogging up a godforsaken hill to grab a 40 point control. Yay! But for every 1 minute you are over 5hrs it was minus 5 points :eek: Boooo!

I felt so unfit but just happy to survive a 5 hour workout involving over 1,000m ascent. We came 6th which was good. It is much harder to focus on small map details when its milling rain, your are biking hard and your heart is beating like the clappers!

Highlights including having to eat a chocolate biscuit off each others forehead before we got to jump in kayak, only to then cramp like F*&k :cool:

Clambering up a steep muddy trail to crawl through a pitch black cave was fun. Even more fun was watching a team slipping their way back down the trailk and opting to slide directly down on our backsides. I'm still pulling tips of Hawthorn from body parts

Overall hard race and great craic. I missed a few days afterwards as my knee swelled from banging it off a stone in the cave crawl bit.

Next bit of fun is a #TriHraderAR AR training session. We have 3 other teams joining us and I've given them all the schematic to prepare. It will involve a midnight paddle and some steep hills...

mossym

shotgunmcos wrote: »

I'm still pulling tips of Hawthorn from body parts

it's roll in the ay with sean, not roll in the hawthorn

nice going on the AR. having done that though, are you relieved you're not facing into the Race?

shotgunmcos

mossym wrote: »

it's roll in the ay with sean, not roll in the hawthorn

nice going on the AR. having done that though, are you relieved you're not facing into the Race?

Sorry never answered your Q. Yes. I was goosed after the 5hrs. It was a higher pace AR so I burned the few matches I had quickly. I just didn't have enough work done.

At that its all on for ITERA still but a small matter of Challenge Galway in just 15 weeks. I guess I need to get on my bike and start running. Running particularly is going to feel like starting from scratch.

Changed gym too. I was just not getting to the Arena enough to justify membership. While I'm giving up a 50m pool and a group to swim with, the new gym is right beside work and gives me more opportunitiy for lunchtime workouts. Mornings used to be the swim but since Zoe arrived, Caz leaves at 8am, child minder arrives at 8.30, thats largely binned.

Its 20m and just one swimming lane but its wide enough. Short swim yesterday including a 400mTT in 5:53. I've swam a total of 20km this year so thats not a bad return. I just paced it sensibly. I always belt off at the start and its not until a kick off the wall and glide that I remind myself to control it. In a 20m this happened in the first 20 secs so I settled much sooner. Also at 300m when it started to really hurt, breaking the last 100 down to 5 segments really helped to wind it up in stages and empty the tank.

This weekend we have our first #TriHraderAR SHARTS (Shared AR Training Session), featuring a midnight paddle. Can't wait. Still short a 4th person for the team this year. I've had queries from a few but nothing confirmed yet. I guess I'm leaving the option open to find the best team fit rather than simply adding an uber biker or ultra runner.

shotgunmcos

8 Suryanamaskar sequences down
52 to go

991m climbed
2009m to go

11hrs training done
39hrs to go

Some good mild dry weather forecasted for the next week woop! Hopefully a starry night for the SHART session on Saturday. Chest is finally better I will start running again. A long tri in 15 weeks, some sort of 24hr race before it and a 120hr race after it. Work to be done.

Went to see Deadpool last night. Bloody excellent. Laughed out loud.

MojoMaker

SHARTS

Neady83

shotgunmcos wrote: »

120hr race after it

:eek: 5 days makes it sound much shorter

yeaeeeeee SHARTS. Really looking forward to it

Hmmmm Deadpool, maybe Sunday night if I can stay awake. Only one more sleep till Sunday

shotgunmcos

Yeah will be good fun and good training

16x100m in the short pool at lunchtine today. 10 secs rest. The shorter pool is definitely a little flattering. I may not get long sets done but being in a position to have a quick swim on my lunch break will work.

Reps
Set 1 1:31, 1:32, 1:35, 1:35, 1:34, 1:34, 1:35, 1:33
Set 2 1:31, 1:33, 1:33, 1:32, 1:31, 1:32, 1:31, 1:30

shotgunmcos

Todays the day. I.will.start.running.again! The sun is shining and inviting

I've run 5 times all in, little short runs this year. All testers. Last one was the beginning of February.

From Neaady's and Career Move's respective funny logs you will know we were out for a long session at the weekend. A nice 3 hour trek followed by 2 midnight hours on a dead calm lough derg. I had to bail early on to get home for a 30 minute power nap, a litre of coffee and take Alex to his Rugby Blitz.

2 things.

1. The lake paddle was special. Glass like and hardly a breath of wind. The lights and mountain silhouettes reflected and just the odd glow stick to make out the other boats. Sean and I have only paired up a couple of times but its starting to slick and at times the rhythm was zen like. Other times quick chirps behind me about wet bottoms etc would result in guffaw disturbing the still air :cool:

2. I didn't take care of myself the last 2 days in terms of sleep and diet. Run down now

Neady83

shotgunmcos wrote: »

2 things.

1. The lake paddle was special. Glass like and hardly a breath of wind. The lights and mountain silhouettes reflected and just the odd glow stick to make out the other boats. Sean and I have only paired up a couple of times but its starting to slick and at times the rhythm was zen like. Other times quick chirps behind me about wet bottoms etc would result in guffaw disturbing the still air :cool:

2. I didn't take care of myself the last 2 days in terms of sleep and diet. Run down now

Hope the run goes well M, great day to get back out there.

Ye were flying it in the kayak, there wasn't a stroke out of synch. I was mesmerised by the glow stick on the back of yer kayak ... a bit like this [URL] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTUQyEr-sg0 [/URL] ..... except we never caught up to the light.

I had to take a 15 min siesta on the drive home. Look after yourself

shotgunmcos

Got out as the last of the daylight faded. 30 minutes. Hardly worth mentioning but it was a run. Lots of new metrics on the gamin since I last ran which shows how long it's been. All of the numbers relatively meaningless at this point. One that interested me was the ground contact time ratio. I spent 47.7% of gct on my left and 52.3 on my right. That's a delta of 4.6 which has me suspecting it's my right hip sinking. Hmm

career move

I don't doubt your garmin but how does your watch know what your feet are doing?
One legged squats might be a good exercise to do because your working each leg in isolation.

shotgunmcos

career move wrote: »

I don't doubt your garmin but how does your watch know what your feet are doing?
One legged squats might be a good exercise to do because your working each leg in isolation.

Same function as the turn in the pool. Your wrist moves in tune with your foot. The watch measures time and distance like any other watch but also the micro time and distance.

Another new metric is the vertical ratio. 7.9%. From the cost benefit analysis of the stride. It measures in real time, stride length which is your forward travel thus your benefit. It is divided by your vertical oscillation which is the cost of the stride.

Basically 2 efficiency metrics. Like the swim metrics that people ignore. SWOLF is actually useful.

I just found the L/R balance one interesting that's all. Basically I just need to run

Dory Dory

The metrics I get with my Edge from my Vector pedals is insane. Kinda of cool, but at my level they are sort of lost on me.

sconhome

Those metrics should be coming from the HR strap.

Just an observation from ,my own experience. Running on roads I am 'heavier' on the right side than on the left but balanced on a flat surface such as a treadmill. This I put down to camber on the road where your stride is effectively longer on the right by a couple of mm difference (or for CM's benefit 1/16th of an inch ) thus making your ground contact time longer.

The wrist unit gives your cadence but the VO and L/R is a function off the strap.

shotgunmcos

Easter Weekend Training

Friday - 2.5hrs in and out of the Kayak with Kate. Started below Worlds End and got her mind ready for a little "adventure". 1.5km of pulling the kayak up over weirs and portage over banks etc.. We both got wet. I spent most of the time in the river but the water was clear and the sun was shining. Nice tailwind paddle up to Parteen Weir disturbing some fishermen and chatting. Plugged away into a Headwind on the way back. Kate thought I was in bad form because I was not as chatty as usual. Quite the contrary, It was tough but I was loving it. The run back over the weirs down the little rapids amidst squeals of delight fom Kate was a cool way to finish.

Saturday - 1hr40 on the turbo. Just spinning trying to weigh up how I get fit for a long triathlon in about 13 weeks. Figured I'll do enough swimming to survive that, cycling and running will need to be the main focus. Running more so.

Sunday - It was turning into an epic weekend of visiting and visitors. Squeezed a 40 minute turbo in before the madness with a single 10 mins at 80%. Main turbo goal is to turn the 1x10 @80% into 3x20 @90% in 10 weeks.

Monday - Out at 0530 on the mountain bike and with the clocks going forward it gave me 2 hours of darkness. It was cool to be climbing up Woodcock hill towards the light of the mast and the moon illuminating the sky above the treeline. The first climb was fine just 4% for about 5km. Got to the summit then dived off down what looked like a trail on the map. It was pretty rocky, wet, sandy, boggy and steep. The "trail" hit a dead end after about 100m descent and 2 falls (tried biking it but beyond my ability). A barbed wire fence buried in the gorse was an idication I may be at the back of some farmland. I scouted around and although I may have been able to bushwhack my way through. I was over a km from the road and not a hope I could get my bike through it. The thorns on some of the branches looked like Lions teeth.

So bike on the shoulder and back up the trail. It was the first proper test of the Pearl Izumi X Alp Enduro shoes. I was impressed. Comfortable, grippy and they later dried out while I was cycling along. Clipped in they have decent power transfer with the eggbeaters. I even took a small short cut across the boggy peak to the mast and the shoes held up.

Next it was a descent back down to Cratloe. I opted for the steep 1.1km drop beside Gallows hill. I've never climbed it but will. 13% average with a couple of 20% ramps. I just freewheeled and hit 65kmh on 2.2 inch rough tyres! 60 thrilling seconds!

Next was a short climb up to Cratloe Woods entrance car park. I threaded my way through the woods towards Meelick at the back road climb up to Woodcock Hill again. 7% for 3-4 km. Dawn was breaking as I crossed over Woodcock and back down the other side. I did get a hail shower in the face which froze me on the descent. My feet were still frozen stopping at my Dads en route home. I scored some freshly baked brownies though and that was awesome. Overall 3.5hrs including the hike a bike and over 900m ascent. I was pretty bushed afterwards though.

Now the important bit was that lot of training was roughly 6,000 Kcals spent. Thats roughly 1.2kg of chocolate. I reckon a just about broke even this weekend!