I did it again!

I can't believe it, I went and did it again! I entered another tri :)
This one is in Manchester, near where Pauline is now. So I guess I get to go and pick up my ice cream, eh Pauline? It's happening on the 11th of May.

I've done two swim sessions this week and I'll be going to the gym tonight for the second weights session. Tomorrow is DCPL and then football training on SAturday night and a match on Sunday.
The football league starts in two weeks time, so this is my first and last chance to get back into the groove.

I managed to lose my HRM last week, so I've been on the look out for a new one. If anyone manages to find mine, or has a cheap one for sale, let me know.

Feeling better

I cycled into work this morning and felt good while doing it. I was a little apprehensive as to how I would feel today, being two days after the max test. Last Saturday, I did a great impression of a dead log, so I was hoping it wouldnt be the same today.
I went to the gym last night with Louise but didnt do a full session, I just did some light weights and some chin ups. Today, I'll be in the pool after work and then a 20-30 minute session on the turbo trainer to sort out my position on the tri bike.
Tomorrow will be a run and weights session, and Friday will be a run and swim.

If I get through all that, I'll be very happy. The last round of the Munster league is on Saturday too and I'm going to bring the bike with me so that I can get a good long spin in on Sunday.

Quiet weekend

I had a quiet weekend. On Friday, I drove to Cavan and then on to Knock. I got there in time for lunch :) Didn't do a whole pile, but got out "The Flying Scotsman" on DVD and watched that. It's the film of the Graham Obree story. Really good film, he went through some tough stuff to get to the top! I slept until 1pm on Saturday then, I think the max test hit me!

Went for a short 20 minute run with Louise and then headed to Easkey. We took the wrong road and ended up going to Strandhill instead. We got out Ratatouille and watched that in the van. Good film, quite different to the one the previous night. We tested out the van and picked a good night to do it, there was frost around in the morning when we woke up.

I'm back in Dublin now and getting an earlyish night before the second max test tomorrow. At least that one is in the morning, so I might be able to go and relax in the sauna afterwards.

Oh, I entered the Fingal triathlon over the weekend too. That'll be on the 18th of May. Greg has entered one the week before that in England, have to get the details from him on that one too.

VO2 Max

Today I was in DCU doing part one of the guinea pig work with Greg. He wanted me to do a Wingate test and then an hour later to do a VO2 Max test on the bike.

I got to do it on the Velotron (which should really be called a Velotron 2000, that would be be way cooler) which is as close to a proper bike as you can get while still not going anywhere.

The Wingate test measured how much power I could push out and how long I could sustain it, kinda like a sprint test.

After that, I went for a wander around DCU to see how it had all changed. They have astroturf pitches now and a staff canteen in my old engineering labs, it was shocking! :)

Then the VO2 Max test came up. It started at 100W and went up in 50W increments every three minutes. I got to within 15 seconds of the end of 350W before my legs gave in. As usual, I was surprised at how quickly you can go from able to pedal to not able to move. I have done max tests on a kayak machine and treadmill before and they both went quickly as well.

The best thing about all that was that I get to go back on Monday to do another set of tests, this time on a crappy cycling machine.

Tomorrow, I'm off to Cavan to let the tax man see that the new van is actually a camper and then over to Mayo. I hope to get a bit of surfing in, and maybe even a run and a cycle.

I still have to shorten the seatpost on my tri bike, but I can do that in Mayo tomorrow, I hope.

I am the greatest!

I was at the Shannon Gaels dinner dance on Saturday night and was presented with the Senior Player of the Year award. It was a surprise, and I was so shocked, I couldn't even make an acceptance speech!

It was one of my goals for the year from early on (the other being to win the championship) and it's nice when it comes to fruition like that :)

On Sunday, I went for a ride on my new steed, a Giant OCR with proper tri bars. It was only a short spin, about 27km, but it was cold, and the saddle was a smidgen too high.

That will have to be sorted out soon. Tonight, I am off to the gym, a weights session and then back to the pool tomorrow night.

Running around the place

I went for a run this evening, a nice long run. I decided to test myself a little and ran down to Louise's house. From there, I ran with her for about 30 minutes and then ran home. An hour and a half in total and it felt pretty good. I had no trouble keeping a pace and even managed to surprise myself on the way up the hill on the Swords Road.

I have been busy training recently, I was running on Saturday night, swimming on Monday and had a weights session last night. Tomorrow is back to weights, with a swim session planned for Friday. Then off home to Cavan. I'm going to try and get out on my new bike on Saturday before the Shannon Gaels dinner dance. Then on Sunday, I might go for a paddle on the lake.

That's all assuming that Dad hasn't got loads of work for me to do! :)