Underachievers Please Try Harder

RJM85

Time for a new log.

2015 went pretty well. All objectives at the start of the year achieved and exceeded my expectations for the most part:

Sub 4:20 HIM with 3rd in AG, 3 x 2nd places, 2 x 4th places, and a couple of PBs @ 10k (36:19), 10 Mile TT (21:17), and 400m Swim TT (5:46).

Training went well, and was consistent. Diet as usual will need work and it slipped more than it should have.

Will be working with a new coach for next year and won't nail down all the plans until after he gets back from his holidays in Hawai'i, but unless I have a major change of heart I'll have the following goals next year:
- Dublin 70.3
- to win a (any) race
- sub 21 minute 10 Mile TT
- Dublin Marathon

As usual, my main constraints will be time and my poor self control when it comes to food. I have been doing bits and pieces since the end of August but nothing really of note. It's time to start actively getting out and excercising to keep fit and 'train to train'. 1st of October is a nice round date to start.

rodneyr1981

RJM85 wrote:

Will be working with a new coach for next year and won't nail down all the plans until after he gets back from his holidays in Hawai'i, but unless I have a major change of heart I'll have the following goals next year: - Dublin 70.3 - to win a (any) race - sub 21 minute 10 Mile TT - Dublin Marathon

Bit early but what kind of marathon target have u in mind?

RJM85

rodneyr1981 wrote: »

Bit early but what kind of marathon target have u in mind?

My dads PB is 3:14 ;-D

RJM85

The ultimate goal would be to train well, and do a good race where I can be fairly confident I couldn't have got much more out of myself on the day. So long as I'm happy with the preparation and the execution then I'm happy.

I'm conscious that changing coaches, and therefore to a certain extent changing approaches will mean that I will find new things that work for me and equally things that don't. As such I'll be buying into what coach says (because I believe he does know what he's at) and trying to execute the plan as best I can. Whatever that gets me, I'll have to be to at least a certain extent, happy with.

That said, I'd like a sub 3.

RJM85

78.2kg this morning.

That means I've managed to put on between 4 & 5 kg in six weeks.

I've always thought I could have a career in competitive eating.

joey100

Good to see you keeping up your log. I'd say you will win a race this year, wouldn't say it's even a matter of picking the right race, probably be competitive in most you enter.

I do think though you should concentrate on Dublin marathon rather than Dublin 70.3, but only because I'm doing Dublin 70.3 and we are probably in the same age group. Either that or I'll post you links to bargain food deals so you can work on the competitive eating alongside training, be my best chance of keeping up with you!

RJM85

joey100 wrote: »

Good to see you keeping up your log. I'd say you will win a race this year, wouldn't say it's even a matter of picking the right race, probably be competitive in most you enter.

I do think though you should concentrate on Dublin marathon rather than Dublin 70.3, but only because I'm doing Dublin 70.3 and we are probably in the same age group. Either that or I'll post you links to bargain food deals so you can work on the competitive eating alongside training, be my best chance of keeping up with you!

You're making steady progress year on year. I'd say another good winter will give you another good jump. I'd say there's serious potential for you to do some damage on the run leg in time.

zico10

RJM85 wrote: »

That means I've managed to put on between 4 & 5 kg in six weeks.

Don't be too proud of yourself, I'd say I've managed this in six days.

RJM85

zico10 wrote: »

Don't be too proud of yourself, I'd say I've managed this in six days.

that sounds like some sort of challenge!

hf4z6sqo7vjngi

Who have you gone with for coaching? No problem if you don't want to disclose.

Good luck for next year.

zico10

RJM85 wrote: »

that sounds like some sort of challenge!

I think it's best not to go there. I'll get back to eating somewhat normally next Monday(or until the current half price offer on Ben & Jerry's ends in SuperValu). Then I intend to adopt a poor body image once more.

RJM85

Atticus Famous Salt wrote: »

Who have you gone with for coaching? No problem if you don't want to disclose.

Good luck for next year.

I'be asked Owen Martin to coach me.

Kurt_Godel

RJM85 wrote: »

- to win a (any) race

Which race? I'm sure you have something better in mind than the local fat fighters try-a-tri!

RJM85

Thurs 01st Oct:
Swim - 2k. New pool as my normal one is closed for renovations. It's either a slow pool or slightly long or something because times were noticeably slower than normal. No real purpose to the session, just swimming steady, broken up into 250 swim, 250 pull & paddles, repeat. Coming in about 4:05.

Run - 40mins about 8.5k. Steady / easy. HR is higher than it should be, but that's to be expected.

Friday
My parents normally take Connor on a Friday, but they had a wedding this week and we were stuck for a baby sitter. I took the day off to mind him. We picked his mum up to go for lunch and a bit of shopping afterwards (he was very excited with his new pram), and then I drank a couple of beers and watched the rugby. A good day.

Saturday
Slightly less than 1hr, 12k easy / steady. Nice run. I'm not as unfit as I feared, but still seriously noticeable.

Sunday
Bike - ~2.5hrs, 75k or so. Enjoyable. Felt it a bit close to the end, but it was nice to be out on the bike.

Grand total of 6hrs 40 for the week (including a bit of running and swimming before Thursday). Nothing spectacular, but it doesn't need to be right now. More importantly, I'm feeling like I want to get out and do some excercise, enjoying swimming, biking and (well kinda, but it'll come when my weight comes down again) running. Diet hasn't been bad either, apart from the bits I'm blaming on the RWC.

RJM85

Kurt_Godel wrote: »

Which race? I'm sure you have something better in mind than the local fat fighters try-a-tri!

Ha! Well I came second at Sportsman Duathlon, Cootehill Sprint, and Carligford Tri this year... All three are possibly on the calendar again this year, so one step up on the podium would be nice...

I'm not overly fussed to a certain extent, but it needs to be an actual race. That said, I'm likely to discount any race I actually win as worth feck all!

Edit: the winner of the non draft race at pulse Sprint came 3rd behind me at carlingford. I'd take that!

Kurt_Godel

RJM85 wrote: »

I'm not overly fussed to a certain extent, but it needs to be an actual race. That said, I'm likely to discount any race I actually win as worth feck all!

As a running friend once put it, "a gong is a gong is a gong". You can't do better than first on the day!

But I know what you mean, I once found out about a local sprint tri the day before, got a last minute entry... turns out it was the main goal that a keep-fit group had been targeting... I won, and got a very nice sports bag for my troubles... at prizegiving a very irate local hero came up and told me I had robbed him of his intended bag;) One race's midpacker is another race's ringer!

Anyway, looking forward to following your progress over the winter. You are now my official 400mTT nemesis

RJM85

Kurt_Godel wrote: »

Anyway, looking forward to following your progress over the winter. You are now my official 400mTT nemesis

Note to self: learn to tumble turn.

RJM85

Kurt_Godel wrote: »

But I know what you mean, I once found out about a local sprint tri the day before, got a last minute entry... turns out it was the main goal that a keep-fit group had been targeting... I won, and got a very nice sports bag for my troubles... at prizegiving a very irate local hero came up and told me I had robbed him of his intended bag;) One race's midpacker is another race's ringer!

I'm told that BMCs entry to this year's Carlingford Tri came on the day, presumably because of the generous prize money on offer. I totally should have hit him up for /my/ €250!

RJM85

Managed to get the rear wheel of my bike caught in the Luas lines this morning and left myself with a bruised shoulder (and ego). No run today and I suspect no swimming for a couple of days.

RJM85

I'm quite sore today. No point in trying to push through pain at this stage. There'll be nothing done for another day or two in the hope that I'm right for a decent run and bike at the weekend.

In other news; my hopes of besting Joey in Dublin in August have been dealt a blow. A second delightful bundle of sleep deprivation on its way to us in April!

ray o

Congratulations!

joey100

Congrats RJM, The first one didn't slow you down too much so not too sure it will be enough for me to beat you, but I'll keep my fingers crossed!!

zico10

Congratulations!

Dory Dory

Yep...congratulations from me too!!!!

rodneyr1981

Congrats. Those 1am runs will have to be squeezed in between feed's

Bambaata

Congrats!

pgibbo

Congrats. Plenty of training before April so :pac:

RJM85

Nothing done for the week. Shoulder didn't allow anything. Still there today, but seems a lot better. Going to see how I get on with a run.

RJM85

I spent a bit of time yesterday and this morning trying to figure out what might be realistic expectations in terms of a result for Dublin 70.3. Based on looking at peoples times from known events that I have done (Tri an Mhi CXIII, Budapest 70.3) and comparing them to Dublin, I’m of the opinion that roughly speaking, the Dublin course is about 10 minutes faster than Tri an Mhi, and about 10 minutes slower than Budapest. Podium for 30-34 this year was sub 4:27; with that in mind the goal has to be 4:25 or below, which as near as I can figure will require a bit of improvement on my Budapest fitness and execution. This is roughly how I see it going…



Swim: 29/30 minutes – given a sea swim, and obviously dependent on conditions, I’m guessing that the same time for Dublin as I managed in Budapest would actually constitute an improvement. I seem to do proportionately better in calmer conditions and I’d guess that I have a bit of a ‘pool swimmers stroke’. Something I have constant difficulty with is managing open water swims in training (I think I managed 4 in total last year). I’ll have to see if there’s anything that I can do on that front, and it also might be worth considering whether I can gear the majority of my races pre Dublin towards sea swims. Obviously, if the swim course is long again this year, then I can expect to be slower too. If that’s the case I’ll probably need to find the added time in transitions and on the run.



Bike: 2:22 – an avg speed of 38km/hr would give 2:22. There’s one Irish guy that did both Budapest and Dublin – I was 2 minutes faster than him on the bike in Budapest, and he managed a 2:24 in Dublin. All things being equal, the same power as Budapest (266 NP) should hopefully give me a 2:22. I’m not expecting not to improve year on year, but I am expecting to maybe bike more conservatively with a view to running better – this is something I’ve discussed with the new coach; while I’m not 100% sold on the idea as the best race strategy for me I’m happy to give it serious consideration and will do a bit of calculations to get an idea of the differences to be expected within power ranges.



Run: 1.27/28 – same time as Budapest on a more difficult course. In truth, I’ll be hoping for a bigger improvement on the run all going well. If I can get the weight down I expect I’ll get a good amount of free speed with similar fitness levels to this year.



Giving myself 5:30 for transitions (similar to Budapest) all that should have me sneak in under the 4:25. That said; I should be looking to improve on transitions also. In Budapest I passed the guys who came 2nd, 4th, 5th in my AG on the bike. I actually swam slightly faster than all of them, meaning I lost time in T1. It took a full lap of the bike course to catch the guy who eventually came 4th – that’s not really good enough when you consider I had already been ahead of him 45km beforehand.

joey100

Looks like we have the same time in mind for Dublin so, with a very similar split of times, my bike might be bit slower but hoping for slightly faster run and swim. If you are looking to do a bit of sea swimming next year let me know, I'm north county Dublin so not too far so we could pair up for some swims. I'd be the same as you, not a huge amount of open water swimming done apart from races, will need to work on that a bit next year.

RJM85

joey100 wrote: »

Looks like we have the same time in mind for Dublin so, with a very similar split of times, my bike might be bit slower but hoping for slightly faster run and swim. If you are looking to do a bit of sea swimming next year let me know, I'm north county Dublin so not too far so we could pair up for some swims. I'd be the same as you, not a huge amount of open water swimming done apart from races, will need to work on that a bit next year.

Just rough thoughts for the moment, but it's good to have a clear picture of what I'm looking to achieve and how feasible it actually is. Part of me feels like effectively aiming for 3rd place is like standing still, but I genuinely think it would require an improvement on this year to achieve.

I'm going to have a good think about the swimming aspect. It would be great to have open water company (even pool company!). There's unfortunately a dearth of decent swimmers in the immediate tri community around me. I appear to be the fastest swimmer in our club, which reflects fairly badly on the situation!

Unfortunately, the biggest issue with getting ow swimming for me is time. And I'm unlikely to have additional time next year. I could always prioritise swimming at the weekends, but that would be at the expense of long run or bike which probably isn't worth the trade off.