Don't forget your cycling shoes when you go to work.
I never realised how difficult it is to cycle in the rain in runners on clippy pedals. And then the tyre that was threatening to burst all week started leaking air. So I had to walk home from the post office on Griffith Avenue. But the reason I was there was that my new cycling gear came in. Good old TRIUK and their sales! I got me a new pair of shorts and a windproof cycling top.
I raced the first of the Punchestown Duathlons today. It turned out to be a nice race, despite the threatenings of the weather. It started to spit before the race started, but once it was on, it stayed dry.
I brought Greg out as well and we met up with Louis, Sean and a mate of Seans. There was quite a bit of faffing around before the race as the registration closed 30 minutes before the race was due to start. Despite this I still managed to make a hames of the start. I was using Louise's watch to time myself as mine is away getting a new battery. When the start came around, I was still messing with it trying to get the stopwatch started!
I managed to beat my way to nearer the front and finished the first run in 12 minutes. Then on to the bike. I was passed out on the first little downhill section out of the race course, but then managed to make up quite a few places on the uphills. At the turn around I was in 11th place. On the way back, I had a tit for tat race with two other guys until we got back to transition. Out of transition, my time was 50 minutes, so I reckon I was on the bike for about 36 minutes.
I passed one of the guys early in the run, but was caught by the other one. I stayed with him until 400m from the finish, when he put on a bit of a spurt and I dropped off. I finally finished in 1:04:22, taking 4 minutes off my time from last year! Yay!
It also meant that I finished in tenth place.
The next one is on February 10th, but I won't be able to make it because I have to go to the Shannon Gaels 30th anniversary dinner dance the night before.
I don't like dirty roads. I'm just back from a short spin with Waggers and my bike is all dirty again! Ah well, it'll distract me later on from the work I have to do :)
This has been a good week. I got two weight sessions in, a run session and now this morning a mini brick session.
I went for a run on Wednesday evening and decided to try out a Fartlek style one. I went on a 10K loop and used street lights, cars, traffic lights and even counting my steps to break up the bits. I made one mistake though. Going down Ballymun Road, I decided to jog to the first traffic lights and run to the second one and so on. It wasn't until I got to about the fourth or fifth one (yes, there are lots of traffic lights on that road) that I realised I was jogging the short ones and running hard for the longer ones. Ah well, it still worked out in the end.
I had DCPL last night so that was my kind of break from the norm, we beat Kamikaze 4-3 and I scored 2 goals, yay me! :)
Today I went for a lap of the airport and out to the far side of Swords and then straight back again. On the way back I thought it might be a nice time to try out going from bike to run. We did one lap of the park and came back. So that was todays easy session, just over an hour in total.
Tomorrow there is the start of the Wheelworx Duathlon Series. A 3.2km run, 12km cycle and 3.2km run to finish it off. I'm looking forward to it. It'll be my first race using Pauline's tri bars. I'm so glad I got them for her :)
I finished the hill race in Howth today. It was a nice little race, 8.5km over some pretty hefty terrain. It started out with a lap around a football pitch, which I am well used to. Then it was the start of the race proper. Straight into a big hill. It was like being stuck in traffic, quite hard to get past anyone. The rest of it was pretty rolly with a long downhill section. It was really muddy all round and the runners I was using had no real grip at all. I only fell once but there were sections of gorse that you had to run through as well.
I finished in about 40 minutes and in 13th place. Not bad for my first hill run!
And here are the results
I went for a quick blem up to Wicklow courtesy of the Waggers' mobile to try out the Scar trail with him. We arrived in Laragh and it was dry, but overcast. We got changed and started out. I was told that it might be a bit muddy on the way up, but we could always push up if it got too bad. The first bit was grand with a rocky firetrack and then onto a forestry ridge. Then the cycling proper started, through some ruts that had been washed out by the heavy rain. It was fun to go through the puddles not knowing if they were sandy or muddy on the bottom, or how deep they were.
We kept going up for about 30 to 40 minutes and then my bike decided that it had had enough. The chain came off first and dumped me on my head and then the gears started slipping so I walked on for about 5 minutes. By this time the rain had come in and we were traipsing through mud and puddles. So we decided to turn around and WHEEEEEEEE all the way to the bottom. I took the lead at one stage and thought I was going great until I decided I wanted to go from where I was on the edge of the track on to the track itself. Whump! Over I went and ended up facing backwards. I had hit a 15cm high vertical ridge and just smeared it.
Then later still as we were coming to the Wicklow Way, we met some scouts that were very enthusiastic about meeting someone else out in the rain. A final section with lots of speed and one more of some narrow rocky bit and we were back at the road. After some coffee, we headed off back to civilization and dinner.
Overall a very enjoyable hour and a half and much better than sitting around the house all day.
This has been a good week.
I have managed two weights sessions, a swim session and a run session. Going back to the pool was daunting, not having been there in a while, but when I got into the water and got going it was fine. I cranked out a kilometre at a steady pace but there were a lot of people using the lane, so I kept catching up with them and having to slow down or try and pass them out. And then Louise decided that she wanted to headbutt me on one of the lengths :)
I went for a run at lunchtime on Wednesday. I had a nice course set out in my head, but when I started to run it, I was finishing the loop far too quickly, so I changed it a bit. That meant that I ran slightly further than I had intended, but I still managed to get back inside 40 minutes. It was a good warm up for Sunday. I am going to try and do a hill running race in Howth (details ) It's only 8.5km but there are some steep hills over there.
Off now for a MTB session somewhere in Wicklow.
From snowboarding in Italy for a week. I was over in Cervinia near the Swiss border. It's a pretty good resort, no runs were too taxing or steep, but there was enough there to keep us all busy especially as it snowed heavily for 4 days.
The first day we got to ski had a beautiful clear sky and great visibility, but some of the runs were a bit bare. I lost New Years day entirely due to being sick from partying too hard the night before, but the second was snowy and the pass into Switzerland was closed. This was to be a common theme as it was closed for the rest of the week that we were there!
I learnt quite quickly how to ski through powder as deep as my knees but did manage to stop dead a few times and others to actually crash and spray powder everywhere including down my trousers.
Overall it was a great week of relaxing and taking a break from work, but as usual, I want to go back...now. I did feel the effects of the altitude a little bit, seeing as Cervinia is at 2050m and we were skiing from 3360m high.
Now it's time for bed and to read part of a book on triathlon swimming to get a few ideas on training for swimming.
Posts
All Comments
