Another weekend MTB

Good weekend again!

Friday went out for a nice fast spin on my local trails in Howth. Did the lower cliff path, to the summit, then down the middle path, and back to the Martello tower in Sutton via the lower path again. Had a minor incident with some gorse, but its all good! Came home and made a cottage pie that was fit for the Gods themselves! Ate large amounts and had a beer or two.

Relaxed the evening, then Pauline came over from Manchester for the weekend. Hung out in town on Saturday with Ide, Una, Pauline and JJ. Did some shopping, ate food, and drank coffee. Nice.

Then Sunday came, and a dry cold day it was. Perfect for mountain biking. Had been chatting to a few mates the night before about the new trail in Ballinsloe Forrest in Wicklow. One of only two dedicated maintained trails in the country, and not officially open! So we went! Me, Pauline and Jeff. Took about an hour to get there, then 3 hrs of riding some of the best trails outside Wales and Canada! Fantastic, well set up, little hard to navigate due to the lack of way markers, but savage all the same. Not to difficult, one section is a bit tricky, but the rest is fast and flowy. Love to get back this weekend, but i'm off to the track to do some training!

Planning a good weeks training:

• Monday: off to recovery from the weekend!
• Tuesday: 2x10km spins, tempo pace. Light run 3o mins
• Wednesday: 2x10km spins, tempo pace. Swim session 1hr, split 50's technique.
• Thursday: 30 mins run, light. 1hr swim, distance, slow and steady.
  
• Friday: off
• Saturday: 2hrs hard session on track
• Sunday: 2hrs easy session on track

Thats the plan anyway! Lets see what happens!

D.O.M.S

I still have owwies from the race on Sunday.

Hip flexor's were cramping at work last night! Might have something to do with standing in the freezing cold at a rugby club for 3 hours....

Back on the turbo tonight to loosen out me thinks

Race's are good

I have been very very busy in the last 2 weeks. I had two exams each worth substantial amounts towards my final year score so i was focusing on them. College is getting in the way of training! But i don't mind to much. I only have on semester of lectures then i can get to working on my FYP.

I got my proposal and ethics in for my project :

'A Comparative study of two cycling ergometers on the energy demands of Irish male club level cyclists aged 18-30'.

I've received ethical approval so i can go about starting to recruit people for the study. But before that i have to finish my Lit Survey and a few other submissions for other modules. So i probably won't get rolling on the actual lab work until January, but I'm going to try and get my test runs done before then!

I've been training a bit but not much. Dropped 2kg in the last 3 weeks, which is a start, but im thinking that it may not be fat, more muscles :/ going to hit the gym again this week and try to get back into some sort of rhythm with my weights training.

I had to skip the triathlon training day with Rich Brady cause i just had to much work on, and i hadnt got more than 6hr sleep a night for 2 weeks. Man i had a great sleep on Saturday 11pm - 11am! Nice.

Got up early on Sunday and went down to Wicklow to race in the Off Road Duathlon being organized By Naas Wheelworx Tri Club. Great event, but felt so slow on the run, carrying way to much weight, the legs were willing but the body was heavy. Having serious D.O.M.S from all the downhill running on the course on the slippery slide mud covered grass. Man I've missed trail running! Only wished my trail shoes weren't in Manchester.....

Course was 2.5km run/12km bike/ 2.5km run all off road. I was two lazy to build up the XC bike so rode it on the trail bike (Santa Cruz Bullet). worst idea ever. 8 inch of travel, great for trails, sucks for racing, but sure i didn't mind!

I placed 26 out of 50 or so riders, ahead of most of the adventure racers which was nice! But got beat by Will Byrne...damn roadies and their cyclo-cross bikes! Great race though. Looking forward to the next one in December.

Going to do an hour on the turbo later to let the legs recover. It's lashing outside and i don't feel like getting wet.