Sunday, September 30

River paddling, I'd forgoton it was fun!

Spent yesterday (sat) relaxing in Andy's house with a few other friends playing Halo 3. one fo those lazy days, eating crap food and drinking fizzy drinks. Didn't get home to bed until 2am.

Woke up today. Made coffee, so tired. So very tired. Arrhghg stupid phone making loud ringing noise's. Waggers on the phone 'barbale barbale abrble Dargle is running barble barble barble half an hours and ill be there' Long story short we ended up driving to Wicklow to go do some rivers.

I had taken a seista from paddling for 6 months. Got back in a boat for the first time last wed, then went to Wicklow to do some paddling. Darlge was low so ended up doing the Annamoe and the Lower Glenmcnass. Nice day, low water but fun none the less.

Back to college tomorrow, week two begin's

Thursday, September 27

DOMS DOMS DOMS

DOMS = delayed onset muscle soreness. Kicks in 48-72 hrs after a big session.

Long story short first session back in the gym in 2 months on Tuesday. Entire session was upperbody based and now my arms and back hurt like hell. Add to that going paddlin yesterday and doing a half endurance/sprint session against the flow and my arms are killing me.

Another weights session planned for today, lower body thankfully. So i reckon by Saturday ill be in bits again.

However Halo3 is out and this will entertain me while i cant move!

11pm:
Ended up not doing a weights session, forgot my gym gear but brought my pool gear! SO did a swim session instead. 4 x100m free, then 2 x 100m legs only, 2 x 100m arms only, 100m free. Then a quick little shower and off to the sauna.

Went out testing for the ICS-ADU tonight, wheelchair basket ball. Interesting, pity that i was testing a team from Lithuania who didn't speak English...

Tuesday, September 25

Stupid winter

I think winter arrived this week.

Went for a short run a lunch yesterday, nothing savage just getting the legs moving again! Went to Mikes to pick up keys before going for a paddle, it then proceeded to lash rain for the next 5 hours. To say the least i hid in Mikes and drank coffee, then took a break in the weather to get home before it lashed again. So i didn't go for a paddle.

Have a meeting with my soon to be final year project supervisor today. Planning a weights session before then, need to get back into the habit of doing weights again. Once the college timetable settles down i can work my training in around it and study.

Monday, September 24

250 days to go

Well i know its a long time but its a good round number to work off.

Took the weekend nice and easy, was at a wedding on Saturday, then out in Kilcock looking at the Irish Open. Nice way to relax for the weekend.

College started back today with a lovely 9am start to double nutrition. Fantastic. Going to go for a run before lunch, nice easy run for 20 mins or so. Then later tonight going to dust off the slalom boat and go out for a session.

Friday, September 21

What i did on my holidays.

Well i went to France to be short about it.

headed over and went to St Malo for 2 days. Nice old city, fantastic coffee, great food and the weather was cracking! Spent the first day wandering about the old town and then went off for food. On the Sunday i took the motorbike and spun out to Mont San Michele for the day. Hadnt been there since i was 8 or 9 so its was nice to get to see it as an adult!

The day after i drove down to meet all of the Irish teams for the European Canoe Polo championships in Thury-Harcourt in the middle of nowhere, somewhere near Caen. While the team did some training on the water i went out on the bike to do some training.

The area around the competition site was very hilly. I'd go out on a 2 hr ride and spend 75% of it climbing and the rest either descending, or on the flats, what of it there was! It made a great training ground with the weather staying fantastic until the day we were due to leave, which was just fine with me.

I only did 4 sessions in the week i was at the competition site. I was just using this as a way to get back into the swing of training. I didn't want to go mental. I just wanted to be able to be social and still get some rides in. Unfortunately I'm still not used to the Power-tap so managed to delete all but one of my sessions which kinda pissed me off when i found out! Note to self, read manual.

Sessions done:
Tuesday - 30km , rolling hills, easy pace, avg power 195W
Wednesday -50km, very hilly, tempo pace, avg power 223W
Thursday - 20km, hilly, very easy pace , avg power ~150W
Friday - 30km, hilly, tempo pace with some over geared sprints, avg power 200w

On the Friday with the sprints i was trying to check my max power for 5 sec during a sprint, still need to do sprint training for the track racing. Managed a 1,203w for 5 seconds, and 1,013 for 10 seconds. Happy enough with that. Give it time and it will get better!


Oh, although it was a training weekend, i was drinking, maybe a bit to much but the plan was always to stop as of the 1st of October so its not to much of an issue! On the way back to the ferry to go to the homeland i went via Omaha beach and the American cemetary. I remember going there when i was a kid and thinking it was boring. Dont think i understood it as a child. It was odd going there having understood what happend over that period . I'm not the biggest fan of America but i felt a little more appreciation for what they did then rather than now.

Ferry on the way home was the usual 17 hours of drinking and Rugby, was so tired i was in bed by 12:30. Then the spin home was more of a challenge to stay awake than anything!

Well better get back to my last day off!

Wednesday, September 19

Ferries are so sociable

Just back from France,

Good week of training but i'm quite tired after all the not training :)

Ill post up about it later, but now i need to shower and unpack!

Thursday, September 6

All ready to go.

I'm heading to France tomorrow for two weeks. Did all my final bits of packing today, trundled around the house for most of the day as i was full of cake from the party in Pauline's last night. Cake + Ironman = not a good combination. But sure I'm on holiday!

Heading over on the Motorbike and my friend is bringing over my road bike. Planning to get some training in over the two weeks as well as have a bit of a relax. Hopefully Sean will come out with me for a few sessions. If not I have the MP3 player. Should be a nice start to the training season and I'm hoping that the weather will be better than it was in Ireland over the summer.

Going to head to St.Malo first, then over to Thury-Harcourt (near Caen) to watch the European Canoe Polo champs. Base myself out of here to do some cycling and a bit of running.

Planning a BIG shopping spree in Decathalon!

I'll try to post when away

Tuesday, September 4

Can't....not....train...

Argrgrghghgh. I had enough of not training. Needed to go for a spin. So with the excuse of doing a shakedown on the bike before i go to France i went for a spin over my local hill, Howth.

Went out for 35mins, just pushing but not to hard. Average HR of 178 bpm, average power of 204 watts. Nice short spin only 16km But pretty much all uphill for the first half, then down sweet down on the way back.

Got this lovely pretty graph too. Hell if i know what most of it dose. But i'll figure the new program out eventually.

Work finaly finished

It's taken me a while, mostly cause im a lazy git, but I finished my INTRA report. Basicly a report on what i did during my work placement for college. In the end it turned out like one of those essays you got in the first week back in primary school when the teachers havent quite got into the grove of 'I hate my job but i have to do it' and are still in the 'I hate you bastards' stage. You know those essays 'What i did on my holidays' and so on.

Well heading to France on Friday. Going to do a bit of touring on the motorbike an then take a week training at the European Canoe Polo champs. Friend is bringing my bike and some other gear over for me so going to take it as a nice week to get back into training. Planning to get about 10 sessions in over the first week, then take a few days off after....wine and cheese.

I'll post up my idea for the training when i figure it out today

Sunday, September 2

Time off....

Its odd. I've decided to take 2 weeks off my training as of then end of the race season for me. Mostly just to relax, but also to recover a bit seeing as how I've finished work and am going back to college in a few weeks.

This has been so much harder than i thought it was. I've been itching to train but have had to make sure I'm just relaxing and not thinking about training and racing is hard!

Few more days off before i start training again in France for a week. Then we will see if the time off has helped. Maybe I'll be more psyched to get back on the bike after the time off.....and I get to play with my new Powertap!