Run Mojo go now!

After writing the earlier post about skipping run sessions twice i decided to get off the comfy couch and go for a quick run. Nothing to hard, just an easy recovery pace for the whole run, what i like to call my all day pace. As in i could if i had someone to talk to run all day at that pace.


Did a nice little loop, normally it goes along the coast for longer, but it was way way to windy so i took the short cut through the housing estate :) 4.2km ish, rather than the normal 5km ish. Took 24mins, focused on staying on the forefoot for most of the run. Getting better at it!

Training mojo is back!

Had a bit of a shitty start to the weeks training. Monday was in essence a write off. Got a cycle in but only 12km , nice high cadance session but i wasn't pushing out at all. Was testing Tues, wed, and Thurs for my final year project. So that got in the way, allot. I don't mind the testing, its the faffing in between i don't like!!!

Had a good run on Tuesday, was supposed to go outside but it was blowing a gale so chickened out and hit the treadmill for 35 min's. Full steady state session, HR was so so stable, was running at 11kph for the whole session felt great, really good. Wed was two cadence sessions on the bike, both 30 min's long. Keeping the cadence over 100 for the whole session with some sprints in too, legs were dead so the run session that i was supposed to do that day got pushed back a day. Then the long fingering started.

Thursday was a speed session in the pool, followed by the pushed back run. So the swim session was a farce. I don't know but i just was about as motivated as a small dead squirrel. Did half the session, decided that i couldn't give a F*^% about the session, got out of the pool in a foul humour and went to the lab. Tested a lad, it ran over, and i had to run to a varsities meeting. This went well, the team are well psyched for the cycling varsities. Went home, sat in front of telly and didn't even pretend to move to go for the run. Wasn't even funny.

Today i got a bit more sleep than normal. Got up about 9.30 and had some breakey, still a bit moody so i did some work for the club, then got some college stuff done. Was looking forward to getting out on the bike, when i noticed i had a puncture. Fixed it, cycling into meet the lads, another puncture! They always come in two's! Surprisingly i wasn't getting angry....weird. Met the lads and had some coffee to put off the inevitable. It was real real windy today.

Headed out towards the TT course for the varsities, man the wind made it a bit of a joke. Just couldn't push out, i was laughing at Tim he was tucking in so close to me to hide from the wind. Little guy kept getting blown out of it. However when we got to the course it was a different story, my racing brain was in gear. Pushing hard with the wind behind me, clocking 65.5kph at stages. Max power for one of my splits was 1049 watts exiting one corner. The worse thing is i know i can go faster!!! Man i'm psyched for the TT , don't care less about the RR once i finish in the bunch to get some decent points. The sprint pirmes will be mine. I am willing to deck to get them.

The mojo is back, if i could bottle it for next weekend i would have more than enough to give to the whole team. Roll on the varsities. Roll on some prizes.

Busy busy weekend....well social anyway

Had a good week training last week. Tuesday saw my first Interval session back running since the ankle injury. (4:30 at recovery pace, then 30 seconds at a fast pace)x5. Full session took about 35 min's including a warm-up and a cool down. Felt good for the whole run, felt odd to be back enjoying running! Stretched for a good 30mins after the session, just to be sure to be sure.

Had another good session in the pool on Wed. Was supposed to be a sprint session, but i just couldn't get the pace up, so turned it into a nice steady state session with some tempo work. Did a decent session based about 200m sets and 100m sets, total distance was about 1,000m. Felt good after but a bit tired from the training of the entire week.

Thursday i was heading over to Manchester again. Cycled into college, did some testing, the dropped the bike in the lads house and went to the airport. Peter came over with me so had company on the plane for a change! Didn't do much on the Thurs evening. Friday morning was supposed to be a run session, but i decided to catch up on some sleep....woke up at 9:30 :) Went into town with Peter and Carys (who was up from Plymoth) and faffed for a few hours. Did a bit of sight seeing and met up with Pauline and headed towards the MOSI to see the Body Worlds exhibition. Fantastic. I could rant on for hours about it, but in short it was great to see what we actually have inside and how it all works together! Noel you did a good job teaching me anatomy. Played KILLER BUNNIES!!! Great game.

Saturday was another good day! Chilled out in the morning and went too Decathlon, i had decided i was not going to spend money! Arrhghg how wrong i was. i only spent £3.30 on myself, the rest was on trophies for the intervarsities. Watched the Wales match and the Irish rugby match's. Great games, dang i wish the English would stop beating France! So onto the track we went to watch some racing. Fantastic night. I'll post some photos and videos when i get them off Peter. Best racing i have ever seen at Rev's. probably cause it was GB team sprint selections.

Sunday was an odd day, went to Old Trafford :) Did the stadium tour and looked around the museum. Was odd, i've started watching a bit of soccer again while working, and was a great tour at the Man U grounds. Haven't really supported my team in years, maybe i will pay a bit of attention to em. played a bit of Bunnies on Sunday night again.

Up early Monday, bounced our way back home on the plane, and straight into college via tea and picking up my bike. Did a bit more work, met my other supervisor, then cycled home. Man i was tired. So very tired. Didn't sleep to well either, i hate when i get to wrecked to sleep, i was up until 2 before i fell asleep, i guess i was thinking a bit too much about the varsities, having too many ideas!

Today i was psyched to get back to training after the weekend off. RRARRRR resting sucks! Did a 35min run today at about 70%. Felt good, HR remained nice and steady for the whole session and i felt good. Going to take a spin out to the TT course tomorrow after testing Tim. Need to remember what its like so i can gauge gears for the TT. I'm going to ride it fixed. No reason not to, im fast on a fixed. Just want to check the corners.

Just keep swimming....swimming swimming....

Today was set to be a long day. Cycle to college, test Mike again, do some work, do a swim session, then go to a meeting for college, then ride to get home for about 7:30. I was going to do the session this morning but i felt like pushing it back. Dunno why, woke up well early, just wasn't in a swim mood.

Got into college and tested Mike again. I reckon he was tired cause his numbers were lower than before. Not quite sure why, he wasn't doing much, but you could see his HR just wasn't working. Had some coffee and lunch after and talked a bit about the race and plans for the racing season. Man i'm looking forward to getting my racing groove on again!

Big swim session today. First big one in a while :/

250m warm up. Easy enough, just winding it up as i went.
1,000m main set. No stops, pace it pace it!
3x75m each slower than last

Felt ok for the warm up, sloppy but ok. The first 400m of the main set was horrible, i was nearly going to quit at half way then just mentally forced myself to keep going. Hit the 600m mark and i finally started to loosen out and get some glide on. Man i don't know why it took so long, normally its the first 200m, but this was what i get for not swim training :/ After i loosened out i was fine, just kept swimming. Took a 3 min's break at the end of the set and did some cool downs. Felt good all the way, and form was still ok.

Boring boring lecture, then cycle home. Thankfully i had some spagbol in the fridge for when i got home. Took ages to get home after the lecture. Easy spin on the bike. Nothing savage. Big day tomorrow, training and work! yey more money!

BBRRRRRRrrrrr.....

Frick it was cold today!

Had to work today so no could go for cycle with Peter and Grainne. Went out to the Hockey Inter-provincial finals. Good game, Leinster vs Munster.

Was planning to do a swim session today. Legs are tired and a bit sore so I've decided to do some of the college work i have to do tomorrow tonight, then swim in the morning tomorrow before Mike comes in again to get the second set of testing done!

Season is starting to come together now in my head. 15 weeks until the race, 14weeks of college left. Finally getting my race calender together. Now have 3 races booked and paid for.

11th May - Wimslow Triathlon
18th May - Fingal Tri
Two week taper
1st June - Switzerland 70.3

This week i have mostly......

Been training! The mojo is still high and i'm getting some great sessions in. Every day i'm waking up, i want to go to college, i want to work on my project, and most of all i want to train! How long can this last?

Wed saw a nice few spins about town, into college, out to UCD, and then home. Attended a TI classroom session for the beginners in Tri thing that's going on at the moment. Was a bit useless for me, but was fun to go too none the less. Nice to see people getting into tri, man they know more than i did when i took the plunge. Think i got about 45km in total on Wed. Nothing to high or hard, most of the stuff was just at a nice aerobic pace.

Thurs was a day off. I was starting to feel stale and i didn't sleep to well on Wed evening. My brain wanted to train, but my conciousness wouldn't let me. Good thing too, cause when i went to bed on Thursday i was out like a light. Had a great day in the lab on Thurs. had Mike in to do some testing for him, he is a pilot study for my FYP. Did a Wingate test and incremental VO2max test with him. He did quite well getting a 61 in the max test. Looks like we have a similar max! Little bit worrying cause i know he has better running economy than me (git). Took the evening off, watched films. Chilling = good.

Friday. Long day in my head. Into college, do some work. Drove in cause i had to do some testing after, and i knew i had a long session planned for the evening. Got home from work. Was worried about my session. First 10km run since i had done my ankle in proper in January. Threw the gear on after much faffing and out the door. Decided not to push out at all, kept my HR bellow 170 and tried to keep a nice pace all the way. First 10mins were hard , i keep feeling like my ankle was about to get sore and start to back off. Eventually i decided to just run. Totally forgot about the ankle and the time started to go! 5km in hit the turn around , watch said 23:10, i wasn't pushing so was happy, stupid happy. Legs really started to loosen out and the running got easier and easier. Had a girl to chase about 200m ahead of me, doing pretty much the same pace. Great to have something to chase! The run home was good, hit the front door and checked the watch, 22:20! Faster! But it felt easier! Man i haven't had a good run in years, honest to gwod that felt great. The whole 51 : 49 split for the distance is starting.

Hit the shower and got straight into compression tights after. Foodage and stretches for the rest of the evening cause i had a hard session planned for this morning. Decided to sleep in the compression tights. First time i had done this so i was expecting to wake up in the middle of the night to rip them off, generally i ain't to good sleeping in clothes. No problems, woke up as the alarm hit 7:30am this morning. Threw on my riding gear, got some food and coffee in. Out the door at 8:10am. Quick 17km warm-up to meet some of the club lads in the Park. Spent the next hour half doing laps on the varsities course. Need to get to know that route by heart, every hole, every climb. Met up with some of the TI folks at the beginners run day. Didn't have my shoes so just chatted then rode home via town and a quick stop in Cyclelogical to get me a new bottom bracket for the road bike. Man those lads are nice to me some times, even got offered coffee today. Saw a lovely new version of my bike , Quintanna Roo Caliente. I didn't ask, if i ask i generally buy. Got the hell outta there with my CC intact...ish. All in all got a nice 74km in today. Came home happy as a pig in poop. Food, stretching and now doing some maintenance on the bikes.

Swim in the morning, then a spot of workage. Going to plan another 10km run for next week. Then a 10km run after a 2hr bike. Need to start the brick sessions big time. 105 days to go!

I still got that mojo feeling

Still here!

wOOt! Still training and still loving it.

Monday got a hard turbo session in. Interval session on wattage. Tuesday was a nice 1 hour cardio session in the gym, running and rowing, followed by a 15 mins session in the pool. Cut the swim session short cause i was swimming like crap. No idea, probs just tired from the sessions. So decided to take the evening easy.

Got a cycle into college, then out to UCD later tonight for a classroom session with Triathlon Ireland. Just for intro's for beginners, might be doing one myself for them so figure i should pop out and see what they are doing. Spin should be about 50km.

Thursday i might be doing a max test again, cause the last one was b*&&^*%s. Have to see how i am feeling. Lined up for a recovery day on Friday, maybe a light spin on the bike, working in the afternoon.

Sat i reckon will be a nice long spin, or , go mountain running. Ankle was ok during the run yesterday so i reckon i'll be up for it, see what happens. Sunday, run in the morning, then workage. Swim in the evening.

GO MOJO!

Panadol Extra

Just saw an add for this on the telly.

Its being promoted by the Irish rowing team! Which is great, but also very ironic. If any of them took it and got tested they would fail! Silly IARA.

Turbo session tonight, hope my mojo will make this interesting :)

Mojo

I've got my training mojo back.

I've been up every morning at 8am this week. Not just up, but up and energetic. With this my first week in college, never happened together before. I feel like I'm in top shape, despite the fact that I'm still 3kg above race weight!

Had an interesting week altogether, getting back into my training groove finally. Man my finals messed things up. Out on the bike again on friday. Spun into college the long way, and home the long way. During the day i did a 'max' test with the most useless postgrad on the plannet. Not going to get into it, but suffice to say he don't have a clue what he's doing. Quit the test as my max hit 56.3 ml/kg/min. Not because i was at max, but because i was sick of doing cardiac output tests with a bag that didn't allow me to get a full breath in. Was only at 350W. I know i tend to max out at 450W. Funnily enough i felt ok, tired but ok. The last max test i had done i only got too 52.8! So training is working. First time i was tested, 3 years ago after not training for 5 years, i hit 48.9 ml/kg/min. So on the way up :) Not so bad for an old-man.

Did a wingate test in the same day. Yes it was a test-tastic day. Max output was 949W, which is down from normal. Going to put it down to the max test earlier in the day, and the fact that i haven't seen a squat rack in months. Average wattage was 738W which is quite nice over 30 seconds :) Got my bloods done too, all good, don't seem to be any issue's RBC and haemoglobin are all perfecto, moving towards perfect all the time. Got my cholesterol checked again, should get results next week too! Took Saturday more or less off. Did some gardening for my dad and cut the grass. The evening was a tentative decision to go for a run or not. Decided to go for a 15min run to see how the ankle was, all on grass. Its ok, but its not right, felt great, could have pushed but i would have hurt the ankle. Decided to give the duathlon a skip today cause of last night. Good call Greg, good call.


Today, ohh today was a good day. Up early. Nearly jumped outa bed. Straight into cycling gear. Downed a bowl of wheatabix and start, and a quick coffee. Tried to drink a pint of water, but my stomach was having none of it. Out the door on the bike. Rule for the day. No number chasing. Ignore the wattage, ignore the HR, ignore the distance. Just do the planned loop, see what happens. Felt great all day, so fresh, so happy, just enjoying the cycling. Every now and again take a look at the wattage and i was pushing out decent power. Must force self to not chase! That was the hardest, just trying to stop the 'one more watt' syndrome. Felt so fresh for the whole ride. Pushed out a bit longer on the spin than i normally would for this time of the year. Just felt so good! Didn't start to feel tired until 65km into the spin and at that stage i was nearly home!

Stretched, did my exercises, and put on some compression tights. Chilled out and watched the rugby. Man i want Italy to do well! No idea why, i just do. On such a mental high at the moment, its like a negative man period! Love it! 2 sessions tomorrow, light run and pool. Hope this keeps up!

Physiotastic news

For the first time ever i went to a physio and they told me i wasn't fucked. WOW, this never happens. Whenever i go to my physio, she tells me i cant do anything for months. This time i was told i was lucky, and that all the weights made my legs strong enough to stop it damaging! Then i was told i should go for a light run over the weekend to test it out! Nice!

So I have some exercises to do, balance stuff, and some stretches. Gonna make sure i do em cause i don't want to get damaged before the race. Decided to enter a triathlon in Manchester in May. Lets me get 3 races in now before the big day. Let me work on my fuelling strategies and pacing. I'm all about the planning!

Back on the bike today. Went out for a nice easy 50km spin. Weather was fantastic. Sunny. God i'd forgotton about the sun. How i missed it. Roads were pretty empty, but i did head out pretty early too. 1 O'clock on the road for 1:45. Feeling stale today. Wasn't quite able to push out the watts like normal. Aimed to keep over 200W for the whole session. Worked out well, but i just felt like it was harder than normal. Don't know why.



Hamstrings and my abductors were screaming at me for most of the cycle. Stretched a bit earlier. Going to do some more after i finish here. Maybe make some more pancakes....

Pancakes...so full... can't move....bleugh...

Oh dear god. Pancakes was to many...but so tasty...too tasty.

Half a bag of flour left, many eggs, milk a plenty.... do i make more...do i not

Cooker so far away...

Back to college

Well semester two has started. No more lectures now, just 16 weeks of preparation and testing in my FYP. Looking forward to finally doing some actual science! One thing our course is missing is actual practical science. We do a good bit, but we don't do near enough. Anyway...

Was working at the weekend, both days. Rugby and Badminton. Sizx nations game was great to work at, big crowds, lots of pressure from IRFU and lots of chances to fuck up. Pitty the game was a bit muck. Got to watch the other two matches over the weekend too. Wales game was fantastic. Think i found my other team for the season! Took Saturday night off to spend some time with myself and my x-box. Haven't just totally slobbed out in a while, didn't go mad with food or beers but just sat on the couch playing games all evening. Went over to Andy's on Sunday after work. Played some Killer Bunnies with the lads and watched the super bowl. 2am heading home, and in for college on Monday. Needless to say i was wrecked yesterday.

Got my new ergometer for my FYP though, its a thing of sexiness. SO easy to cycle on and so plush. Very very happy with it. Brought the manuals home now just have to digest them so i can understand how to use the bloody thing! Working from home today, made some pancake mix, gonna feast tonight!

Turbo session tonight, way to windy to even contemplate going out on the bike. Just going to do some power intervals. Will post up the session later.

Going training on the inter-varsities course tomorrow. Hopefully a few of the lads will come out so we can get a good spin in. See what happens. Going to head from my place out to college then the course, should get in 70-80km in total tomorrow. Nice long day in the saddle.

Booking a physio appointment for my ankle today. Pissed off with it.