Tuesday 29 July 2008

Nice weather makes it easy

To train.


Went for a run yesterday evening, blowing off the plans to go to the gym and for a swim. 56 minutes or so for the run, felt good throughout and pushed for the last half of it after leaving Ronan, Junior and GrĂ¡inne to go home.


It rained heavily last night so I thought it was a good thing and I could go to the gym this evening. Woke up this morning and it was still wet. Good stuff :)


Then over the course of the day it got better and better and now it's warm and sunny again! Still went to the gym and then did 500m of a swim afterwards. Felt really tired in the swim and noticed that my technique was waaaaay off, so I left it at the 500m.


Home now, and about to make dinner. Mmmmmm.



Monday 28 July 2008

Championship 2008

Shannon Gaels got off to a winning start in the championship last Saturday with a 2-14 to 07 win over Maghera. I was playing in midfield for most of the match before I was taken off "to rest me". At least I hope that's why I was taken off!


I felt really good throughout, did a good bit of covering off, but maybe wasn't totally at the races when my man had the ball.


A challenge match on Thursday evening is the next thing on the way.



Thursday 24 July 2008

Things I learned on my commute today

Both indirectly and directly.

Indirectly first.
Don't stop a delivery van in a bus lane right in front of a Garda on a motor bike. He won't be able to ignore you.

And directly.
Make sure that your pedal is tight enough to hold your cleats before attempting a skid stop at 30km/h! Otherwise panic and frantic attempts to back pedal ensue!

Wednesday 23 July 2008

Cycley spin

On Monday I got home from work and felt in great humour so I decided to go out for a spin on the tri bike. Started off by climbing Howth hill. The gears weren't very happy and the whole way up was a fight between getting a nice gear to climb in and chunking between about three other gears. It was even the same on the way down! I was tempted to just bail home at that stage and cut my losses. But no, it was too nice an evening to think about giving up.

I went straight on from the bottom of Howth hill out towards Potmarnock and through to Malahide. Along by the estuary and out to the roundabout near the M1. On the stretch to the roundabout I was really tearing along, felt really strong and jus kept pushing. After the turn I kept up the pace all the way back to Malahide. Then it was in through Portmarnock where only one car pulled out in front of me!

Uneventful for the rest of the ride, made it home in 1hr 22mins. My speedo said it was nearly 43km, but I still think it's a little off. I have no idea though how Pauline managed to compete in the Beast of the East tri at the weekend with the gears in such a bad way! Oh and congrats to her for finishing in third place!

Red lights, what's the point

I know, as a cyclist, I am probably not in the best position to give out about people not obeying red lights, but at least when I go through them I've let the other cars go through first. On two occasions on the way to work today, cars went through the red lights about five seconds after they had gone red. I'm just lucky I wasn't about to make a break across the junction to get ahead of the traffic! And not a Garda in sight all day.

You couldn't go more than 10 metres 2 days ago without seeing a Garda when the French president was here but now that we're back to normal, they seem to be hiding again. Is it too much to ask that the Traffic Corps come out and actually do some traffic work. The way things are going, traffic lights wont matter soon and it'll be every man for himself on the roads.

Anyway, enough ranting, I promise the next entry will be about training :)

Friday 11 July 2008

Dublin roads suck!

Why are there so many potholes on the roads of our capital city? Actual gaping holes that are at least 10cm deep! It does make for an interesting ride in to work though, avoiding potholes, man hole covers that are raised from the road surface, cars, buses and pedestrians that look straight at you before deciding that no, you don't exist and starting to cross the road.

On the plus side, I made it in before the rain started!

Thursday 10 July 2008

Runnity run all day long

Tuesday turned into a day of running. After going mountain biking on Monday evening and falling onto a sharp rock with the palm of my hand, I decided that running to work would cause less stress on it. So off I headed, with my new Polar foot pod.

I took it nice and easy, 50 minutes for the trip, and the foot pod was pretty accurate, giving the distance as 10.7km. Then after work it was a quick jog to Louise's house. From here, Pauline came over and gave me my bike. Then I cycled to tag rugby in Tymon Park and afterwards back to Louise's.

Overall a pretty good day of workouts. Oh and we wont the tag rugby match too.

Yesterday I went for a short 30 minute run with Louise and Junior. It was Junior's first time out in a long time and it was at a nice slow pace. Managed to keep my HR under 140bpm for the run. A grand wee recovery run.

Monday 7 July 2008

Football training

Back to the grind of training :)

Last weekend I had two training sessions on the pitch. The first on Saturday was pretty intense. Lots of sprinting and hard ballwork. Then a couple of games at the end. One posession game and another with full rules, though only 9 a side.

Sunday was a bit more relaxed and skill based. Still plenty of running but not as much sprinting as Saturday.

Today I hope to head off to Three Rock and do some mountain biking with Waggers and Pauline. It looks like it'll be a wet one, the torrential rain we were promised has just started.