Despite our best intentions we often judge each other based on our first impressions. People look at you and see who or what you are right then. We might look at someone driving a fancy car like a Porsche or Bentley and assume they are wealthy and often think they know something we don’t or have some sort of skill we are missing that allowed them to become rich.
Choose to lie on, choose a new tv, choose to party, choose cake, choose coffee, choose another beer, choose easy, choose life.
The famous “choose life” bit of Trainspotting doesn’t include the line “choose hardship” and why would it when we are told that life should be easier, more comfortable, richer, tastier, faster or more fun. Why in the world would you choose hardship? Read More
If you’ve never experienced one it’s difficult to describe just how hard the two hour turbo class we do on Monday’s are. We had one of the lads lose his lunch about 30 minutes into the session this week. He had to spend five minutes in the toilet but then he came down, got back on the bike and finished out the session.
I was really impressed.
I’ve only puked off the side of the bike a couple of times in my 18 years cycling. Once was during a mountain bike race and once in a road bike race. It’s very unpleasant and it’s hard to come back from but Joe dug in and kept going.
We have a couple of spaces left in the current block of classes if you fancy joining us drop Grace a call in the shop and she will sort you out the number is 01 6201000. All you need is a bike, towels, water and your kit. You can even rent a turbo if you don’t have your own and we will provide the bucket if you can push hard enough that you need one. Just ask Joe.
Anyway let’s get on with the weeks training.
I started the year really tired and feeling almost burnt out. It took quite a bit longer to recover from the last few races of 2016 than I’d anticipated but as we get to the end of January I’m finally starting to feel normal again.
I’m also really enjoying the feeling of returning fitness and the unique buzz that comes from just running. Most of my training this month was done on my feet which means that I’ve made reasonably quick initial progress as I mostly just focus on the one sport.
Even with the gains I’ve made though, it’s hard at this stage to see how I’ll hold my target marathon pace for 26 miles. I know I shouldn’t focus or worry about something that is still over two months away but every so often (usually when I’m struggling during some of my faster efforts) I can’t help but wonder how the hell I’ll run this fast for hours…
This post will look just what is involved in training for an Ironman triathlon and how to get started. We will also look at how much time do you need to train each week. We will detail how much training is actually involved in just crossing the finish line versus how much training is needed to be competitive. We will look at what’s the best way to split your training time and offer some suggestions about how to best fit Ironman into your life without coming home to find a suitcase on the doorstep. Click on through for all the good stuff.
One of the hangovers from my back operation a couple of years ago is that I have some residual nerve damage which affects my left leg and foot.
Mostly it’s a minor discomfort. There’s some numbness in the foot and continuous muscle flickering in the left calf. Occasionally however the constant firing of the muscle in the left calf can cause problems.
When it’s bad the calf looks like there’s a little baby alien crawling around in there trying to get out.
One of the things that drives me bonkers is being told I’m too old to do something. I’m not old. I might be ageing up this year. I might be hitting 45 then too but athletically I’m not 45. Athletically I’m probably more like 5 or 6 years old so really I’m only a young fella.
What do I mean by athletic age? Surely 45 is just 45 and I should accept that I’m getting older and get over myself. (By the way I’m not 45 yet…)
It’s probably a little bit Irish and parochial that I think when I’m writing my weekly blogs that everyone reading knows me, my background and what I’m hoping to achieve. I often think it only Ais, my folks (hi Mam) and a couple of training buddy’s who read this. However this being the internet where we are just as likely to have visitors from Australia as North Dublin I went checking to see where the actual traffic was coming from.
Online everything can be counted and measured and tracked so when I decided to have a look at who’d been along for a visit the biggest surprise was that we’d had people reading from 105 countries.
One of my pet hates is people being late. The unfortunate part of this pet hate is that more often than not that people is me. For the most part I get away with it because I’m the boss but when it comes to training I try to always be early, it’s probably the only area of my life that I do.
I think it probably stems from showing up for group rides where athletes arrived on time but they did so in their car. They would then spend the next ten minutes getting on shoes, overshoes, gloves, helmet and assembling their bike while the rest of us stood around shivering.
As a result I tend to roll out a ride at the exact start time so as to encourage people to be there early and ready to go.
So with that little introduction to this weeks blog I will start at the end of the week, Saturday evening to be exact. Myself and Ais got all of our kit ready for the Sunday mornings run, shorts, t’s, gloves, warm gear for the post run coffee and clothes for work afterwards. While packing my bag I realised that I’d left my running shoes in the van after my last run. I decided I’d grab them in the morning on my way out.
We were up early the following morning and had a coffee before gathering kit bags and started moving towards the door. I went looking for the van keys only to have Ais remind me that we’d left it in work the previous day and had come home in the car.
I felt that horrible sinking feeling in my stomach as I knew I didn’t have time to go get my runners. The fact that we were doing a three hour run also meant that I wouldn’t get away with a pair of racers. My feet would likely be in flitters after three hours of mud and grass in featherweight shoes. I went rooting through the kit room hoping I’d find something suitable and eventually found a really old pair of trainers that I figured would do.
The problem now was that our finely measured schedule had been thrown out of whack and we were going to be late. I rushed back downstairs then rushed out and piled into the car and headed in to meet the lads.
In the end we were about five minutes late and I deservedly came in for some stick as I’m rather fond of warning people to show up on time of the run or ride or we will be gone without them.
Next week I’ll make sure I’m on time again and I might even wait a couple of minutes in case anyone else has lost their runners…
Anyway let’s crack on with this weeks training…
Have you ever wondered what it is that the pro’s do to make them so much faster that the rest of us don’t? Aside from maybe being a slightly different species of course. Click on through to see what it is that separates the likes of Olympic champion Gwen Jorgenson, Irish Ironman record holder Bryan Mc Crystal or Ironman legend Mark Allen.
