Ironman 70.3 Dublin was first held in 2015. In both 2015 and ’16 it’s been one of the most enjoyable events I’ve been involved in or raced at. Here are ten things you need to know if you’re thinking of racing Ironman 70.3 Dublin. Read More
This week is the last weeks training before starting a two week taper for the Boston marathon. The training load is light as work is getting increasingly busy but the sessions I get done go really well. I think this is our fourth week back doing a weekly strength and conditioning session with John Belton and I’m really feeling the benefits of them. I think it’s increasingly important to incorporate S&C work almost all year round. I went and got a very specific S&C plan prescribed by a specialist physio in the Santry sports clinic last year and then worked on that and nothing else with John for half a year. Eamonn in the Sports Clinic identified what had caused my back problems and instead of working on the symptoms he gave me a program of really specific work to fix the cause.
John took the plan and we worked on it gradually increasing the difficulty as I adapted to the load and as a result my back is in the best condition it’s been in in ten years or more. I think this is the best way to incorporate S&C work into a plan. Identify the weak areas that are likely to break down or cause an imbalance or injury and fix them, not just treating the symptoms. This requires working with a really specialist sports specific physio like Cillian Moffat who you can find here as opposed to just going into the gym and lifting weights or doing basic core work. When I went in for back surgery in 2014 I had, for the first time in my life, a somewhat proper six pack and my core was in the best shape of my life. Despite this my back failed and I ended up having surgery and spent two months in bed recovering. If I had identified why my back was going instead of assuming that a strong core would protect it I would probably never have needed surgery.
Anyway lets get on with the weeks training which actually includes TWO swims if you can believe it. I almost feel like a triathlete again… Read More
We are only three weeks out from Boston marathon at this stage and I’m looking forward to my first attempt to run a quick time in a marathon in probably four or five years. In fact I can’t remember the last time I trained for and ran a hard, stand alone marathon. All of the ones I’ve done in recent years have been run easy as long training days or have come at the back end on an Ironman. Physically I’m feeling good and am confident that I’m in reasonably decent shape but I’m aiming for a time that’s going to be right at the edge of my current fitness.
After last weeks lack of motivation and the resulting drop in training volume, this week sees a return to a more normal level. In fact this is the biggest run week I’ve had in several years. I also had a bit of a breakthrough session mid week. Click on through for the weeks update. Read More
What do you do if you miss a session? Do you beat yourself up about it? Do you stress about it? Do you try to fit it in the following day? Or do you move on and forget about it?
What should you do?
Ais has been known to say “there are no do overs” “there is no second chance” or in her best Yoda voice “do or do no there is no try”
It was like someone pulled the plug out of me this week. All motivation and energy were gone and I ended up in a sort of holding pattern. I only managed a couple of short runs during the week and one decent one on Sunday but otherwise the week was a bit of a non event.
Luckily enough it doesn’t happen to me too often but occasionally I just completely lose the desire to train. I used to just stop completely when this happened, sometimes for as much as a couple of weeks, and of course I would end up losing a lot of the progress I’d made. Now though I try to just tick over with very easy, short runs or bikes so that at the very least I hang onto whatever fitness I’ve gained and it also serves as an easy recovery week.
That’s what this week became. Hopefully things will be back to normal next week. Click on through for this weeks fairly short update… Read More
It’s like the holy grail of triathlon. How do I get faster without training more. Where is the best place to spend money and what gives me the biggest bang for my buck? Everyone looks to Tri bikes and deep section carbon wheels first (Which is good because that’s what I’m selling in the day job) but there are a lot of much more economical ways to “buy speed” or even go after “free speed” some of which might surprise you. Click on through for the good stuff…
Some days you’re the hammer. Some days you’re the nail.
Today I was the nail. And the hammer was not really a hammer, more like a 40 ton steam roller….
For the last number of weeks our Sunday run in the Phoenix park has been a gradually building sort of affair. It started off at two hours, all easy. Then we stretched it to three hours and as we became comfortable with the distance we started adding a little pace into the last hour.
The last two weeks saw us build the pace from the half way point and run a strong negative split for the second half.
This week Ais wanted me to run with a faster group from the start and see how I got on. A couple of the lads from that group said they had been averaging 5 minute k’s for their 20k run for the last few weeks.
Grand, I thought. That should be comfortable.
Famous last words.
The pace did start at 5 min/k’s but the speed gradually crept up until by about the 10k point we were running 4:15/k pace. I was working fairly hard but still confident that I could manage another 10k at that pace.
The problem was that while the group I was running with only had 10k left I had another 24k to go. I knew I wouldn’t last that long at this pace so three of us backed off a little.
In the end we finished out the first 20k lap in about 1h30 and after a quick pitstop at the car to grab a gel and some water I headed out for another 12-14k.
Four of the others were extending their run a little so started out with me but cut out after ten minutes.
All except Barry.
I was surprised to see him still running with me so asked him how long he was doing. We had met him near the end of our first lap and he had jumped in with us. He said he was happy to do as much as I was.
Without trying to sound like I was making excuses I told him I wouldn’t be going too quickly. I was already a little fried after the first lap and was just making up time on my feet.
Barry answered that he was happy to run at whatever pace I liked as he was only making a return to training. I was still very dubious that I wouldn’t be slowing him down too much. Barry Minnock is a sub 2:20 marathon runner. In fact I think he also has the Olympic “B” standard qualifying time for the marathon so chugging along with me at 4:40/k must have felt like being out for a brisk walk.
I’m surprised he wasn’t shivering. Anyway he dragged me through another 13k and I finished up doing 33k in just over 2 hours 35.
I’ve seen a couple of minutes improvement over the three hours most weeks since the beginning of the year without too much effort. If I’d started off today with the ambition of lopping off over 20 minutes in one fell swoop I would have told you that was probably a tad ambitious and to be honest I probably wouldn’t have had the confidence to try without firstly the push from Ais, then the group and lastly from Barry. Sometimes you can pleasantly surprise yourself.
Lets get on with the weeks training…
Bike 2:00 60k turbo
This was another one of those lactate threshold sets. Very unpleasant while doing it but savagely satisfying afterwards.
Off
AM: Run 1:40 16.5k hills.
PM: Run :45 10k
Swim 1:05 2800 Paddles set
Run :45 8k easy run
Run 1:10 12k
Bike 2:30 57k
Run 2:40 33k
This is the run I talk about at the start of the post. Enough said.
Total 12:35 (9)
Swim 1:05 2800 (1)
Bike 4:30 117k (2)
Run 7:00 89.5k (6)
S&C —
Accumulated
Total 46:15 (31)
Swim 3:55 10,300 (4)
Bike 18:30 447k (8)
Run 22:25 260.5k (17)
S&C 1:00 (2)
My favorite training session of all is what we call big day training. I just love how epic it feels. I love the idea that on any random Monday while the rest of the world rolls into work I could be doing 80-90% of an Ironman in training. Of course I it takes months and even years to build up to this sort of session. I start with a more manageable big day but the fitter I get the bigger the session gets. We start BDT early in the season and gradually build it up until we hit about 7-8 hours. Click on through for the details of this monster day.
One of the most common Ironman training questions we get is regarding training volume v’s intensity. How much should people train and how hard should they go. Can they possibly get faster by training slower? And can intensity deliver better results than big volume? Click on through for the good stuff…
