Gower Marathon Report

The results are out so I should probably write up a wee report before I forget it all.

A few months ago, Pauline mentioned an off road marathon in Wales and I entered before realising that she was going to do the half and not the full one. Greg and Waggers were then talked into doing the half as well.

The Journey

We headed over on the Friday on the ferry from Rosslare and arrived in Gower before it got dark. We got to see some lovely countryside, hills and beaches that we would be running over. Then we went and bought food, cooked it up and went off to get registered. Registration was well organised and it only took us about 10 minutes before we were all done. Pauline arrived shortly after that and we all chatted before heading off to bed for an early night.

Next morning I was up and had breakfast before heading off for the briefing at 08:30. There they told us that they had to lengthen the course by about 2 miles. Wahoo, my first ultra!

The Race

To the race. We started in the car park and raced off to the beach where we had been asked to pick up a piece of rubbish and put it in the bins at the end of the beach. One guy I saw ran most of the beach with a plastic bottle filled with water before realising and emptying it out. Then it was over the dunes and down into a caravan park for the first checkpoint. 24 mins for 2.8 miles.

Then we hit the hills, big climbs, fast downhills and lots of potholes filled with bog water. It was like being a kid again, jumping in puddles and dodging around some of them. The next checkpoint was at 11.4 miles and I got there in 1:41. I was still going well at this point.

More sand next before we headed onto a beach with a headwind. There were 5 of us together so a bike style paceline formed pretty quickly. After that nice section were lots of steps through a foresty bit that we were warned about earlier. It wasn't as slippy as it might have been, but there was no point in taking chances.

Down more steps and onto a flattish cliff top run through fields. I had latched onto a guys shoulder and we were pushing each other on until he stepped aside and I was left on my own again.

The next checkpoint was at the start of a beach which I had to run on my own this time. I was getting more mentally tired at this stage and the gel I had taken a few minutes before hadn't quite kicked in.

A wall

The next bit is a bit of a haze, I ran past lots of sheep and walked a lot of uphills, even the slightest incline had me down to a walk. There were some off camber slopes and it was hard work trying to keep your footing.

The rain and wind also started around here so it was back on with the jacket and hat and head down to keep going.

Finally I got to the last checkpoint and they had jelly babies! It was the most welcome sight of the day so far. I was also joined by another guy and we decided between us that we had to finish the last 10km inside an hour. There was more walking of the uphills and laborious jogging on the flats and downs.

We got near to Worm's Head and I was back in a groove of just jogging on. I kept this up to the bottom of the last major climb and felt better for having pushed the pace a bit.

The last climb was tough and slippy and when we got to the top, the other guy wanted to keep moving as he was getting cold. We passed out a few more people along the top of the ridge and eventually topped out on the final peak. From here it was all downhill to the finish.

The only problem with it was that it was downhill on ground akin to a ski slope. There was water running down and rocks sticking out. I lost my footing and landed on my back, bounced and was back up before I realised what had happened.

Over the line in 4:48 and 32nd place, the timing chip was taken and Greg arrived with a bacon buttie. Yum!

The rain was really pelting down by now and I got changed and went back to eat all the free Clif Bar samples.

Back to the house for food and then more food and some rugby on the telly. Feet up with some beers was the order of the night.

Summary

Overall I was happy with the race, except for my nutrition. I only had one power bar and one gel in the entire race. For the Dublin marathon I had 5 gels. I definitely felt it late on in the race, I seem to be able to get along quite well to a point and then collapse. The trick for me is to start eating while I feel good and avoid that crash.

The race was well worth doing, the organisation was great and the course was beautiful. It also added quite a chunk to my December challenge. Next time though, there will be more hill running training done!

Gower Medal

I did the marathon in Gower at the weekend. I’ll write up a report later on but during the meanwhilst, here’s a pic of the medal:


I finished the slightly longer than marathon course in 4 hours and 48 minutes.

The third day

Another day, another run. Almost the same route as yesterday but slightly longer to take it over 10k. I'm now up to 30k so far. Keep an eye on my progress over at my new site where I'm also mirroring all these blog posts. I hope to move over to it permanently pretty soon, once I put the final finishing touches to it all.

Here's the map of today's route, courtesy of Runkeeper

Day 2 of December

The run for day 2 was done earlier this morning, just under 10km from Chapelizod, up through the park, up the Kyber Pass and around by the zoo and Garda HQ before coming back along Parkgate St.



Oh yeah, I got yesterday's run done too. 10km around Chapelizod

December

Wow, it's December already. Time to start another challenge. Yeah, once again it's the "Run 200 miles in December" challenge. Last year ended in failure when there were too many weddings to go to. This year, I think I only have one to go to in December, so it might be a bit easier.

Planning a quick 10k for this evening to get me started. It's cold and wet out but that'll only be a problem for getting out the door.

Incentives

If ever there was an incentive not to get run down, it has to be coldsores. I seem to get them every time I get run down and after getting sick earlier in the week, they've hit me with a vengeance. I've got them in my nose and down onto my top lip. The only thing I can do now is put up with them and keep them covered in vaseline so they don't dry out and start cracking. It does make blowing my nose next to impossible though.

On a better note, I ran in from Chapelizod this morning to work: http://bit.ly/6iqCHV
It felt good, not too hard, and a nice crisp dry morning.

It's been a while

I haven't been paying attention to this lately. I did the marathon, finished it in 3:11 and haven't done a lot since. I'm doing another marathon in Wales in two weekends time, a trail one this time.

I got back on the bike this morning to come to work after being off it for most of the last two weeks. I was sick earlier in the week as well so this was a test as well as a way of not going back on a bus. I got in with no problems, it was a lovely day for it, sunny, cold and not too windy. The wind will probably be stronger later on but I'll deal with that then.

Oh, also as it's Movember, why not sponsor my mo for charity

Short bursts

Since yesterday, I've done two runs. Yesterday evening I did an 8km run from the house around towards HP and back. I managed that in just under 30 minutes and I was pretty happy with that. I only decided part way through to push it harder and managed to keep up a good pace.

Then this morning I ran in from Chapelizod to work. Just took it nice and easy, no rush on me to get in :) Feeling good now after both of them and looking forward to Monday.

Dublin Marathon

It's coming up on Monday, only 4 days away now and I am in a dilemma. Do I go out and race it properly, following the red balloons and try to get near to 3 hours? Or do I cycle in, run the race as I feel on the day and then cycle back home again?

If I want to race it, it'll be in Ronan's name as I'm entered as him. He entered and then wussed out of racing so I said I'd take his slot. I didn't go and change the name on the entry or anything, so technically I am doing a bad thing. I also haven't trained particularly much for this, I have done one long run of 20 kilometres going home from work and a few 10-12 kilometre runs. I feel I have a good race in me, but will it be blighted by having it attributed to Ronan?

On the other hand, I could use it as a small taster for Ironman distance racing. Albeit without the uber long bike ride before hand, which is kind of the essence of it all. That would take the pressure of trying to race it off me, but is a type of wussing out too.

The weather isn't helping either, wind and rain for the last few days doesn't entice me to go out and try and race fast. Nor to cycle :)

I'm going to go for a jog this evening and see how I feel and I will probably delay the decision until Sunday evening.

A long time away

I've neglected this here blog for a while, so it's about time I put down what I have been doing recently.

Football.
We were knocked out of the championship by Cavan Gaels who were then beaten in the semi finals by Butlersbridge who went on to win it. We played Butlersbridge a week after the championship final and to my disappointment/embarassment and lots of other emotions I was sent off with a straight red card for lashing out and kicknig someone after getting rid of the ball. We were a point down at the time and ended up losing the match badly in the end. On the plus side, we are still in with a shout of getting to the semi final playoffs of the league. We have one match left this weekend against Ballymachugh and the winner of that match gets fourth place.

Training.
I've started doing some long runs to prepare me for the Dublin City Marathon on October 26th. Last night I ran home from work. A 20km run in 1 hour and 27 minutes. I felt pretty good after it, but I think I need to do it a few more times before Monday week. I ran in from Ballyfermot this morning too to loosen out my legs after last night. 5km in 21 minutes. I thought I was going faster, but the stopwatch doesn't lie.
I entered an off road marathon in Gower in Wales too. Pauline talked me into it and then told me she was doing the half! Greg and Waggers have entered the half as well and I hear tell that Ronan has entered the 10K race. Should be a good weekend even if the race will probably take the best part of 5 hours.
I've also done some paddling recently. For the last two weeks I have been on the canal in Ashtown for one evening and I was in the pool last Wednesday as well. It's nice to be able to go out still and pass the ball around outside before it gets too cold. Munster League is starting this weekend but I can't make it as I have a wedding to go to in Waterford.

Life in general.
I moved into a new house with Louise. Just the two of us. It's different from living with other people, a lot quieter and a bit easier on us too as we don't have to rush around and try to orgnise meeting up. I suppose it's about time we did it and we're both enjoying it!
Work has been pretty mental lately with a lot of external problems that were out of our control. We still had to co-ordinate all the vendors and consultants to fix things though. Fingers crossed, it seems to be okay at the moment.

That's a quick overview of the last few weeks. I'll be updating here with info on how my long runs are going for the next few weeks and up to the Gower marathon in December. Stay tuned folks!

Out for a run

I went out for a run yesterday. I didn't bring a watch nor did I know where I was going to go. I just went out and ran. It was a wet day but the rain held off for the most part. I ended up doing 10k in 46 minutes and saw some nice parts of the canal towpath. There were some not so nice bits too. Parts of the canal were totally overgrown as well. Good job we don't get too much hot weather as it would stink along there.

Hoping to get out more and do some longer runs. I might take Ronan's entry to the Dublin marathon too.

Championship round one - complete

Two matches down in the 2009 Junior Championship and we are into the qurter finals.

Our second match was against Maghera last Saturday evening in Breffni Park. We started slowly but were up by 1-5 to 3 points at half time. We pulled away in the second half to win by 2-15 to 0-4.



There was a strange start to the match, with both myself and Martin (the two corner backs) being left unmarked from the throw in. I even thought they had forgotten to put a full team out. In the end, Martin picked up one of the free men and I played as a sweeper in front of the full back. This meant that I was around to pick up free balls and knock downs and start attacks from the back. There was some bad blood a couple of times and Martin was elbowed twice in the mouth without the referee doing anything about it. It threatened to boil over a few times but thankfully nothing went too far.

The draw for the next round was made on the Sunday and we drew Cavan Gaels, to be played in Breffni on Saturday 29th of August.

Championship

Our first round match against Arva was played last Saturday evening in Belturbet. The pitch could have been better but we're probably spoiled with the great facilities that we have in Páirc Gaeil na Sionainne. We've been hit by alot of injuries this year and we had a kind of makeshift team out. I was picked at midfield with Enda McHugh. The warm up went well and we were all up for the match.
There was a minutes silence for John Mc's uncle who died earlier and then the game was off. We got the first point and then I went to tackle my marker and something went wrong. One more kick out to test it and then off with my glove. Yup. My finger was definitely not looking right. The physio refused to put it back in an I wasn't able to either so off to the hospital with me.
I was there for about an hour and a half in all and got some xrays and then they numbed my finger and spent 5 minutes trying to put it back into place.
Off home after that to be told we drew the match and had Gerry sent off. We have to beat Maghera now in two weeks to get into the next round.
I'm writing this in the hospital in Drogheda where I was sent to the fracture clinic. A 9:30 appointment and I didn't get seen until 11:30. Strapped up again and told not to play football for 6 weeks! Ha, as if!

Here's a link to my xray
http://twitpic.com/bt5rv 

Football, tag rugby, a duathlon, a wedding and a birthday

We won our last league match for a while against Mountnugent. They had beaten us twice last year so it was nice to beat them for a change. I was playing at corner back and despite us leaking two goals early on, we never really felt like we would lose.

That's a different situation to the tag rugby team on Thursday nights. We finished second last in the league with only one win out of 7 matches. But then last week we managed a win against the team that beat us the week before that. So we have one last match this week.

There was also the third Phoenix Park duathlon last Wednesday. I hadn't pre registered so it meant that I was to set off in the second wave with the women and the other non pre registered guys. It was a good race for me, I was second after the first run, second to someone else after the bike and then ran away from everyone and managed to finish first in the wave, a couple of hundred metres ahead of the fastest woman. I didn't quite get my goal of under 40 minutes but I was happy with the race.

Last Saturday was Andy and Aileen's wedding in Celbridge and they got a lovely day for it all after we got out of the church. It had been raining up to the start of the ceremony but we had lovely weather for the evening. Congratulations to them both and best wishes for the future!

It was also my birthday on Saturday and I got a birthday cake at the wedding dinner. It was probably the best cake ever! A giant chocolate Rice Krispie cake with jellies in it and covered in icing! Thanks Pauline and Greg for that :)

It's back to work today, and I am shattered. I think it'll be a week of resting and recovering.

Wicklow 200 - The aftermath

Well, it's a bit of an anti climax really. I was tired today, but not sore or anything like that. I had expected to feel some tightness in my back or my legs, but no, I was alright.

It was a long day yesterday. It didn't start out too well with Greg sleeping in after his alarm went off. We got to UCD and on to the road by about 8:30 though so it didn't delay us too long. The first bit was fine, chilly but dry. We met some other groups on the road and said hi to them. I noticed that my HRM wasn't working properly and stopped to fix it, then TT'd my way back to the lads, nice to go fast, even if it was a little early.

I don't remember much of the order of how things went, but we climbed Sally Gap, Glenmalure, Slieve na Mann and Djouce over the day. The uphills were a struggle for Waggers who just didn't have it in his legs to push on the hills in any way. I found the descents the worst because I wasn't entirely comfortable on the tri bike at such speeds without knowing the roads.

Overall it took us about 8 hours of riding and 10 hours in total to get around. I reckon we could have done it about an hour and a half quicker if Waggers wasn't so weak on the hills and had actually done some training for it. The funny thing is that he was the one that talked me into doing it :)

I really enjoyed the day in a weird way, the uphills were long and hard, and the weather stayed dry all day long. The marshalls and the volunteers were brilliant and even in the wind at the top of Slieve na Mann were in great spirits. That was the longest I had ever ridden and now that I know I can do it, it's another step on the road to putting that back to back with a 3.9km swim and a marathon.

I have no other races or anything planned for the summer, I might try and get an entry into some longish race at some stage, or else do some long days on my own. But for now it'll be back to football next weekend with a challenge match on Friday evening in preparation for the Championship.

Phoenix Park Duathlon

I raced in the second Phoenix Park duathlon organised by Belpark last night. Beautiful weather, a light breeze on the final straight and a good crowd. I entered on the night as the pre entries were closed when I finally got around to trying to enter on line. I got there early, straight from work, because I wasn't sure how many people would try and enter on the night. Because of that I had plenty of time to warm up and get ready before the race.

It started off well with a mass start before stringing out onto the bike path around the 15 acres. I felt good running along and managed to pass a few people in the second half of the run. I was expecting around 12 minutes for the first run but got in in 9. Then it was on to the bike. I was a little nervous about that especially as it was straight into the Kyber pass downhill. I braked too early for the turn at the bottom but got around it alright and powered up the hill. I managed to catch some people and got some clear road for two tightish hairpins that had my heart in my mouth when I realised I had to lean more than I thought. I caught a group on the final drag of the lap and felt good. Met Peter starting his first lap when I was starting my second and within a few seconds he was blasting past me. Following him were 4 others quite close and not worrying about any draft busting marchalls. I caught them all again on the uphill but once again it seemed that their chain gang was working well and they all passed me on the drag to the end of the lap.

On the third lap, I decided to go hell for leather. Blasting down the Kyber pass and up the hill after it, I had finally dropped the chain gang. Passed some back markers on the last drag before taking my feet out of my shoes waaay too early. Got some more power back on and had a good second transition. I was right behind 2 others going into the forest and got some good encouragement from some runners that were out.

I was slowly losing ground on the 2 in front of me when I heard heavy breathing and gasping coming from behind. That kept me going and pushing and I caught up with one in front of me at around half way. On the last corner I was passed by someone and kept on his shoulder for a little bit. I tried to up the pace and pass out one more but he had a better kick and I let him be, just holding my position so that I wasn't passed in the last straight.

I finished in 40 minutes and 19 seconds beating my pre race estimate of 45 minutes. First run was around 9 minutes, just under 7 minutes per lap and 10 minutes for the last leg of the run. The race gave me more confidence on the PlanetX Stealth and it felt nice and responsive under me. I reckon with some real training I could get some nice fast times out of her.

Peter, Yvonne, Clare and Gerry all did the race as well. I think they were happy enough with it, even if Peter was empty after the bike.

Toe ripping

I've had to admit that I can't continue with my burpees. On Friday night I played polo in the pool in Cabra and in the first sprint (about 30 seconds after I got on the water) I ripped a slice of skin off my little toe. I have done this regularly enough to know that I should wear booties, but this time was the worst yet. I bandaged it up and left it to rest for the night, but the next day it was still oozing blood and hadnt scabbed over at all. Then I had a match on Saturday night. We won it by one point, we are now the self proclaimed West Cavan Quadruple Crown Champions.

I'm still hobbling around on it today, it's all cleaned up and bandaged but still very sore. I enjoyed the challenge and am glad that I managed to get through half of it. The burpees themselves aren't that difficult, but trying to fit them in around other activities every day is the hard bit. If I do it again, I'll be doing it in a quieter time and not when everything is go go go.

A busy weekend

I had to get the bus home on Friday evening after work because I am still searching for a part for the van. Got home just in time to turn around and find my football gear to go training. An hour and half of training and then back to say hi to Mum and eat some food. Saturday was spent coding and then in the evening we had a match against Kildallon. We were playing against the wind in the first half and went in at half time 3 points down due to a flukey goal just on half time.
Second half went the way of the first for the first ten minutes and then we somehow managed to start winning everything at midfield. From then on we were almost unstoppable. Only our shooting let us down but we still managed to score 17 points. Final score, Shannon Gaels 17 points, Kildallon 1-9.

The pitch was very slippy and wet on top but at least the rain held off for the match. The wind, however, didn't and played a large part in the goalkeeper's kickouts.

Today I went for a cycle on my Planet-X Stealth. Only the third time I have been out on it, I think. I went up as far as Glenfarne and back and then to the Cladagh Glen and back home. 28km in 57 minutes with a pit stop to fix up my handlebars. Got caught in a heavy rain shower and the wind wanted to be in my face in both directions, but it was enjoyable. I'll have to do another couple of rides before the Wicklow 200 in June though!

Falling down

I'm falling behind again. Just when I was getting back to near parity, I got a bad back spasm which has now kept me from completing Tuesday's and even starting yesterday's load of burpees. This has now put me back to more than 100 behind again :(

It's really disheartening, and the more days I miss now, the harder it will be to get back. I don't want to rush back to it and risk doing more damage to myself. I still have some pain and tightness in my back today. I could try and stretch it out a bit this evening when I get home from work and see will that help in any way.

To top it off, I volunteered for a tag rugby game tonight as well. I suppose that will either kill me or cure me!

Burpees

I'm getting back on track, I've been trying to catch up on the missed burpees from last weekend by doing an extra 10-15 each day. I've also created a set of graphs to show how I am doing over the course it all. It's updated each day and shows how many I have done that day and how my record is compared to what it should be.

Here's the graph up to today for the number of burpees done each day:

Charleroi - Tournoi de Seneffe

I'm back to work after a pretty good weekend of polo. I was in Charleroi playing with Kamikaze in Division 2 and we came seventh in the division. A little disappointing seeing as we only lost one of your five matches and drew with the team that came second in a golden goal final.

We had a very good win on the way, 12-0 against Strasbourg B. That was the biggest Kamikaze victory ever, I believe!

Deventer beat Odysseus A in the final of division one by a golden goal after the game finished 6-6 in normal time. It was a fantastic game with Odysseus coming back from 6-4 down to draw level near the end.

Unfortunately after the final, I started to get quite sick and spent the next 24 hours alternating between standing over a sink getting sick and lying down trying not to get sick. Along with a plane journey in the middle of it all. That means that today is a bit of a write off, no energy and I need to drink and eat lots to replenish myself.

Gah, I don't like being sick

I've had a cold since last Wednesday or so and I am finally shaking off the last of it, or coughing it up and spitting it out at least. I decided to run in to work this morning because I left my bike over at Louise's house and I need to pick it up later. I felt slow and tired through the whole run but still managed to make it in in 50 minutes.

I am on day 27 of the burpee challenge now, I forgot about them yesterday and because of that I did yesterday's this morning before I left on the run. I'll do the others later on when I get home.

I played a match on Saturday afternoon against Killygarry. I was playing at corner back again, the third time I've played there in a row. I think that's the longest run I have had in one position for about 2 years. We won in the end but made harder work of it than we should have. We played against a gale force wind in the first half and were up at half time. Then in the second half we just didn't build as much as we should have.

We have now played 7 matches in the league and won 4 of them. It's going pretty well and we have a weekend off next week. Because of this I'm heding to Charleroi to watch Louise play and to play division 2 with Kamikaze. It should be a good weekend, I hope the weather is as good as it has been the last few times I was there.

100 burpee challenge

I decided a couple of days ago to start a new challenge after reading this blog. It might soud a little weird, but it starts really easily. Start with one burpee on day one, and add one extra every day for 100 days. This means that on day 30, I will have to do 30 burpees and on day 100, I will have to do 100 of them.

If I miss some on any given they, they have to made up the next day. Unfortunately I can't make them up beforehand so there will be no sneaky making up extra in the early days :)

I'll be keeping a log of how and when I do them on Jaiku at my jaiku page


For anyone that doesn't know what a burpee is, here's a you tube video demonstration:
Burpee demo

My finisher's certificate

I guess that proves that I really did do it :)

Done and dusted

3 hours and 28 minutes. Up hill and down dale. Over the most picturesque countryside to run and finish the 2009 Connemarathon.
It all started at 10:30 by Lough Inagh after the first ultra runner went through. It started off cold with a headwind but that was refreshing once we started. Turning a corner after 5 miles the wind was behind us for most of the rest or the race. Some nice uphill sections later and it was a long downhill into Leenane. That marked the half way point and we then had to run through the back markers of the half marathon.
Coming out of Leenane and straight into a long uphill. I got my hrm working properly from here and my hr was up around 180bpm. I managed to drop it down a bit as I was going uphill. After 9 miles we got to the bottom of "the hill".
This was a 2 mile long hill. Strangely enough the pace dropped off but I still managed to pick people off on the way. From the top it was the last 2 miles. One downhill and one flat. These were the hardest two miles of the entire course. Eventually I made it and didn't walk a bit of it. I was so sore until I hot some food. A fantastic man was handing out Jaffa cakes. I have never been so happy to get a Jaffa cake :)
I'm sitting around now with the compression tights on, eating food and drinking tea. Let's see how well I can recover for a match this weekend. Lots of sleep and food!

Connemarathon

It's coming!

On Sunday I will be running in the Connemarathon in Galway. It's supposed to be a killer of a race with lots of hills and running into the wind in both directions.

To prepare, I jogged home from work today just to keep my legs moving. A nice 50 minute 10km at an average of 140BPM. Really looking forward to Sunday now.

Munster League

Last weekend was the end of the Munster League and we were in there right to the end. We finished in second place to Swink. We were put down into second place because we were beaten by Bad Company in one of the first nights when a whole gang of us went off to Revolutions in Manchester.

We had some good games on Saturday night, we drew against Swink and Kamikaze and beat Bad Company. It was also the night of the Ireland Scotland rugby match. I only got to see the end of the first half because we had to help put up the goals. Apparantly it wasn't a good match, but Ireland came out on top to keep the dream of the Grand Slam alive.

A win

We beat Templeport at the weekend, though we let it get a little close after letting in a goal in the last couple of minutes again. We won the match by 1 point, 2-8 to 1-10.

Now we have a couple of weeks off from matches, I'm going to be using the time to play in the Munster League next Saturday and to do the Connemarathon on the 22nd.

Runnity run

I went for a run yesterday at lunchtime. I decided to just go and run and not to worry too much about form or pace or anything. I did a 10k loop through the Phoenix Park, a hillier one than my normal loop and there was also a headwind for most of the first half. It took a while to warm up but once I got into my stride I was felling good. Looking at the stats at the end, my HR was an average of 172 with a max of 186, average pace of 4:20/km with a max of 3:59/km. Not incredibly fast for a 10k, but it took me 44 minutes in total.

I was quite happy with it until I went to move later on in the day and my knee was sore. It was my right knee for a change. I did some stretches and after it had warmed up a little it was fine again. I must remember to warm up properly for training tonight and the match tomorrow.

The league starts again

And boy did we have a bad day!



We were playing against Munterconnaght at home and were doing alright in the first half until we let in three sucker goals. That left us 3-3 to 0-6 down at half time, not too bad, only 6 points in it. I had started at half back, but was moved to wing back after the guy I was marking scored a goal. Then the wing forward I was on scored the third one. I wasn't with the pace of the game at all. I felt lousy.
The second half was a complete transformation. I was moved to corner back and the team as a whole started to play. We levelled eventually and then went 2 points up coming near the end. Then another sloppy goal. That put them one point up and we weren't able to claw it back.



It was a frustrating and annoying afternoon. Some good play and some bad misses but it all comes down to once again letting in goals. We had a few good chances to score goals ourselves and even hit the cross bar near the end.

Next week we are away to Templeport, let's hope for a better result

Snowboarding

I'm back from a week of snowboarding in the Pyrenees. Myself, Louise, John, Una and Peter went to Andorra last week and we all made it back in one piece, some more bruised than others. We had lovely sunny weather, the snow was good and the slopes were quiet enough for most of the week. Myself and Louise managed to get every run done on the Pal side of the mountain and most of them on the Arinsal side as well.

We tried to get more done in Arinsal on Saturday, but when we got to the other side of the gondola, there was a wind blowing from the bottom of the valley all the way up and taking ice crystals with it. We spent a lot of time trying to board down before giving up and getting back on the lift to go to the warmer side. It was like being sand blasted in the face so we were better off to head back and try to warm up.

So now I'm back in work and drinking coffee to try and keep awake, I need another holiday to recover from this one!

To add to the week, I also proposed to Louise at the top of the mountain, looking into Spain and even though she was shocked, she gave me the right answer! After a few minutes of sitting down and trying to figure out what it all meant, we both headed off down a nice little red, I think we both flew more than skiied though :)

Bad weather

Our first challenge match of the year had to be cancelled on Sunday. There was a large snowfall on Sunday morning and I got a few phonecalls telling me not to drive from Dublin.
The night before I was down in Limerick playing in the Munster League. We had three matches, we drew the first one against Kamikaze and beat Glaway and Bad Company. Ireland were playing France in the 6 Nations but I only got to see about 15 minutes before I had to go with the rest of the Muppets to set up the pitches.

I went for a run on Monday evening after work to loosen out and it was lovely, cold and dry. I went for a loop through the Park of about 8.5km. Then afterwards I met a gang in town and went to the Bodies exhibition. Then dinner and off to the cinema to see Valkyrie. A good evening all round.

A new gym

I went for a swim yesterday in Northwood gym in Santry. I joined there last week with Louise, Ronan and Waggers. Only a 25m pool but it wasn't busy at all. I tried out some tumble turns and was starting to get the gist of it by the end. Didn't do much else except for a few hundred metres of fist drill. Wow, it's a weird one, I didn't realise how much I use my hand for balance! Some more of that will either drown me or get my balance better.

On another note, we have snow! The weather has turned cold and we are getting a nice bit of snow and cold wind from the continent. Not as bad as England, but it's nice to look out and see snow falling. It's even nice to cycle through it as long as the flakes don't freeze to your glasses and make you blind :)

Hard football training and a cycle

Football training is in full swing now, we had two more sessions over the weekend. I'm using these as interval and speed sessions as we are doing lots of running to get everyone fitter. We spent 20 minutes running in circles on Friday night on the track around the pitch. I really enjoyed it, but I don't think that was the general concensus from everyone :)

On Saturday I went for a cycle into Enniskillen to see the new boat quay place that is being built by the Round O. It looks like it's the perfect size to fit in polo pitches and with walkways on both sides to let the referee walk along. Now all we need to do is to get the Fermanagh District Council and Waterways Ireland to let us use it for a competition. There is loads of parking, and even a coffee shop as well. Perfect.

The cycle took me around an hour and a half for 46km in nice cold and dry conditions, not much wind to speak of either.

Later on that evening, I had the second training session, this time in Loughan House. Yes, the prison! Training on the astroturf pitch is different to grass and it tends to burn more if you try to slide on it! More running after some short passing games and it was all over. Everyone was glad to get out of the heavy rain and the cold.

I took yesterday off as a rest day and today I plan to get back into the pool for a session.

Football has started again

Like the subject says, training for the new football season started last weekend. We had 2 sessions, one on Friday night and one on Saturday evening. Nothing too strenuous, I thought, but then again I have more of a base to work off than most of the others. I only really have to work on my football specific skills. Oh, and maybe some speed work! :)

I came back up to Dublin on Saturday night to go to the Punchestown Duathlon on Sunday but when I got to Dublin it had been snowing and the forecast was for more snow, some ice and 100km/h gusts. Not ideal racing conditions so I decided not to go out. In the end the race was turned into a 3 lap running race, so I'm glad I didn't go.

I have also been back in the pool in the last couple of weeks, just some light sessions with an emphasis on technique and long slow distance. I think I'll keep at this for another couple of weeks and then start bringing in some more pace.

We've been in the middle of a strange non-Irish cold snap recently with snow, ice and cold winds every day. I'm looking forward to getting out in it tomorrow for a run.