More cycling

I went for a cycle yesterday despite the bad weather. A nice long one, about 60km. I ran into some problems with my gears again and was limited to about 4 usable gears, but it worked out okay in the end. I went from my home in Blacklion, across to Belcoo, then out the Garrison road. Here I hit wind, strong wind, right in my face! It didn't stop until I got to Garrison and turned left to head to Rossinver. Then the wind was coming from the side, through the trees.

After a long climb up the hill outside Rossinver, I had the best part of the cycle, a long fast downhill on decent roads. I got up as far as 57km/h. It was hair raising in parts because I didn't know the road. Into Manorhamilton and I had to slow down going through the town, then take a left by the Bee Park and out the Glenfarne road. I turned off onto the Kiltyclogher road to stay off the main and windy road and turned off here after about 2km. Then over to Glenfarne school and off left up a small country road. Another long hard hill and then down the other side. I couldn't let go here because the road was only wide enough for one car to drive on. I got to the Ballroom of Romance in Glenfarne and turned left towards Blacklion. I had the wind behind me and flew along for the rest of the way home.

Over all it took me just over 2 hours and with the wind and hills I was pretty happy with the time. No real stiffness today, so that's another bonus.

More training

I had another VO2 max test on Thursday. Greg wanted to make sure that the machines he is using are calibrated properly, so guinea pig Mike came to the rescue!

I should get a cape and wear underpants on the outside of my trousers if I get to do another test :)

Afterwards, I went into town and got a new pair of runners. It's probably about time seeing as I have the previous pair for about 5 years. I did a gait analysis before hand and found out that I have a neutral stride and a heel strike. I got to try out 5 or 6 pairs of runners and eventually decided on a pair of Sauconys.

Then on Friday, I went out for a run, 12.75km according to www.gmap-pedometer.com. It took just over an hour and I took it as a recovery session. I thought I had training in the evening in Cavan, so I headed off from Dublin at about 4:30. Made it home for 7:30 and got to Loughan. Then I decided to check the message again and found it was sent on Thursday, who's the goose?

I had a match today against Kildallen in Ballyconnell. We were beaten by a point after being up 1-5 to 0-2 at half time. We just didn't get any breaks in the second half. As a team we need to work on starting the second half of matches stronger.

Tomorrow I hope to go for a nice long cycle, but I have some stuff to do around the house for Mum while I am here too

Swimming

I did a swim session tonight. 300m warm up and it was supposed to be 3x500m descending. It didn't quite turn out like that though. I got the first one done fine, and then on the start of the second, I got one length finished. As I touched the wall, some guy decided that was the time he wanted to start his length. The only problem was that he was a numpty. I managed to pass him out and gave it no more thought. Got through the rest of the 500m, but was slightly slower. Then on the third 500m he did it again. Exactly the same thing at the same time. I stopped until he was far enough away that I could pass him at the end of the length, but he stopped after about 20m. I gave him some more time and then headed off. At the end of my length, he was getting out of the pool. I called after him to tell him I wasn't happy with him and he went off on one at me. The lifeguards didn't seem to believe that there was a shouting match over some swimming!

I finished out the last 400m faster than the previous ones, so maybe I need to get angry before I start swimming :)

Now it's time to watch some ice hockey, Dallas v Detroit on NASN2

New Season

Last weekend was the start of the new football league season. We played Corlough away and were beaten by two points. The match was played in strong winds, but luckily now snow! We played pretty well, but just couldn't put the ball over the bar. We had a goal disallowed aswell.
Afterwards, I cycled home. I decided that I needed to test out the new bike properly. I also wanted to use my new watch :) The cycle went well until I got to the big hill at Florencecourt. Then the gears decided that they wanted to start skipping all over the place. I made it to the top eventually after much swearing. Total time for the cycle was around 50 minutes for the 30km. I also managed to cycle through about 8 minutes of pretty bad cramping in both legs. I think I needed more water, I only had power-go-faster juice with me, which I was taking every 10 minutes.

Today I went out for a run. Close to 10km in the park. Man was it windy though! I tried to keep my heart rate around 165, but going into the wind it crept up to about 175. Legs are feeling sore now after it, just my calves that had cramped up on Sunday.
Going to go to the gym tonight with Louise for a weights session and maybe a go in the sauna too.