Swim - Run - Cycle

With Easter almost upon us and hopefully some good weather on it’s way (they’ve promised a BBQ summer again) it’s time to ramp up the training. I’ve a couple of events next week, Monday a 5Mile running road race in Whitehead (I’m not sure if I’ll finish this let alone do well) and on Saturday 10th April just days before my 33rd birthday I’ll be taking part in the Portlaoise Sprint Try-athlon.

While I’m not overtly fund raising this year (since you were all so generous last year) I have asked for some sponsorship around work and will be doing next week’s event to raise money for a small charity called Children’s Cancer and Leukaemia Group if you would like to give money to this worthy cause you can do so on their donation’s page or see me before this Monday. Hopefully Dave R and Mark T will be joining me on Monday and also David Marshall , who’s wife got me into the run.

Tri an Mhi 09 - Run

For the triathlon I’m on my own so if anyone fancies a 4:30am start you’re welcome to come down with me. After that I’ve a about 6weeks before the Roe Valley Sprint Triathlon and then the next one I’m down for will be on 1st August in Lisburn. One week later I hope to do my first Olympic Triathlon in Castlewellan, (I’ve a feeling the cycle in this one might be a killer). Then I have the final and now annual trip to the Tri an Mhi Quarryman Triathlon hopefully Mart T, Dave R, Stephen A, Niall J and Ian C will be joining me for this one. I’ll be hoping to improve on last year’s 104th position.

All that only leaves July without an event so I’ll be joining Nev & co in the Coastal Challenge, 100Km round the Ards Peninsula.

Anyway as you can see my life and therefore Blog / Twitter / Facebook updates will continue to be pretty boring and nerdy sports updates but hey it’s better than your posts about coffee, traffic jams, Glee etc. (well to me anyway).

Monday sees the first day in the new school with pupils. We will be working on setting up computers for the few weeks. I’ll probably not get to set up or use my new 27′ iMac for ages:-(

What I’m most looking forward to is the brighter mornings and being able to cycle to work and get a warm shower when I get in. I’m also hoping to use the gym in work. Not sure how it will work but it looks good.

The main focus is obviously going to be triathlons once again. I hope to shift 3 stone this year and compete in an Olympic Triathlon. I’ve an eye on a few but will confirm at a later stage. The one solid date we have is the Quarryman in September alongside Mark and Dave there are a few Sion men joining us for that one I think both married to women I once chased so obviously I would like to beat them but they are very fit. lol Glad you boys are joining us in the Tri world.

The next week however will be focused on finishing off my uni reports. I can’t wait to get this year over me. This will definately be the last university course I do. No masters and most certainly no doctorate regardless of what my course director (and ex employer) says.

I’m posting this on my iPhone using the wordpress app. It didn’t worklast time I tried but there have been updates since to WordPress and the App and it now appears to be working. So maybe there’ll be a few more blog posts to come.

Right now I’m round at Mark and Claire’s house so I’ll end the post here and get back to the craic of planning Sunday school lessons and PowerPoint.

Run Round Middle Dam

After setting and completing a few fitness goals (100k cycle & two triathlons) over the summer and losing about 33pounds along the way, I’ve been taking it easy over the months of September. Very easy in fact, since the last Triathlon and up to today I’ve only done 1 swim,  no runs and a few cycles (one being off road on a new mountain bike ). I’ve also been eating fairly unhealthy and unsurprisingly I’ve put on a couple of pounds.

So today marks phase two of my fight to fitness. I started the day with a 25.5mi hilly cycle with Mark before church and then forced myself out to the dams for a run round the 2.5mi loop.

I’m planning to do more triathlons next summer but until then I want to set a few goals to keep me focused. I’m still working on them but so far I have a few short term:

14 Pounds in sugar

• Swim at least once a week
• Cycle at least 20miles/week (Turbo Trainer if needed)
• Run at least once/week
• Lose 14pounds in 2months (cutting out rubbish again)
• Take part in the Race over the Glens on News Years Day

Let’s hope stage two goes with as few injuries as stage one.

For next year I’ve set my sight on doing at least:

• Tri an Mhi Sprint in September (The last one I did this year)
• The Mourne Triathlon Castlewellan in early August
• And another Sprint Triathlon early in the summer.

I’m also going to looking into doing the Causeway Marathon even if I only do the 10K.

The event was fantastically organised by Tri Ah Mhi. They had so many marshal’s out there was no way anybody could have taken a wrong turn (although one girl from Newry did manage to to over a roundabout when she should have turned right). The weather was fantastic sunny with no wind and the other great factor was the level of support all around the event.

To give some background this was the original event Mark suggest I enter to give me motivation to train over the summer. As it had an open water swim I needed a wetsuit so about 6 weeks ago I decided to order a wetsuit. I wanted to get a wet suit that would fit me once I lose all the weight I have to lose and was delighted to find the 2XU do a suit that is a medium solid for people my height weighing between 12s 4lb and 13st 12lb and since I was losing 2lb a week I figured I might be close in time for for the race. Unfortunately my weight lose slowed and I only got down to 14st 9lb and while my suit fitted me (with some help from Dave) there wasn’t any room for breathing.

Tri an Mhi 09 - Swim

Swim: 19:15.68 (91/160)
For the swim I couldn’t get enough air doing front crawl so I switched to back stoke (I’m probably only a little slower doing back stroke but it was hard to navigate in the open water and I ended up zigzagging back and forwards. On the plus side I got a bit of sun on my face.

Transition 1: 03:07.60 (117/160)
When I was getting out of the wetsuit I was light headed from lack of oxygen and nearly fainted twice. It took some time and with the help of the transition bars to stay upright and get my kit on I finally got out and on my bike.

Cycle: 58:22.97 (95/160)
The cycle was very enjoyable and it was nice to actually have people around me (although drafting wasn’t allowed). There were plenty of hills to test the legs and I think I worked hard enough with an average heart rate of 170bmp and max 187bpm, I guess I maybe could have put in more work on the downhill sections but hey there’s always next year.

Transition 2: 00:42:76 (64/160)
This was smoother, I had recovered from my dizziness and was actually complemented on my dismount (I had been practising). It takes me a wee second or two more than average because I need to put my knee support on.

Tri an Mhi 09 - Run

Run: 32:09:24 (97/160)
Ohhh man this was tough. Running is my worst discipline and when you throw in three laps with a big hill it gets tougher knowing what’s ahead but the noise from the finish line and all the supporters spurred me on. Again I worked hard on this with average heart rate of 174bpm and max 184bpm.

Tri an Mhi 09 - Finish Line

Over all: 1:53:38:25 (96/160)
Tough as it was I really enjoyed the race and can’t wait until next year to try it again, hopefully 2 or 3 stone lighter.

Tri an Mhi 09 - Three Amigos at the finish line

The downside to the day was for Mark who hurt his back putting on the wetsuit but still managed to to make it through the race and beat me by about 30 or 40secs (I don’t know his times yet), he’s one tough wee man.

Tri an Mhi 09 - Mark in pain

Dave having only trained for only about 4 or 5 weeks proved his super fitness again by beating me, finishing about 8mins ahead.

Tri an Mhi 09 - All the gang

We had a great weekend apart from the Triathlon with Elia, Claire, Cara, Noah, Luke and Leah all joining us for two night staying near the event. Since finishing I’ve had a break from training and diet but it all start again in the morning and to help keep the cycling going over the winter I’m going to get a mountain bike.

More pictures on my facebook page.

Thanks to everyone who donated money, texted, facebooked etc. to encourage us. It’s not to late to add to the sponsorship money for Cancer Research UK at http://www.justgiving.com/dermois/

Swim Cap First

Anyway it was today and here’s the report.

After eating pasta all day yesterday and drinking lots of water and electrolyte drinks on Friday Mark and I travelled down to Portlaoise and had an early night (kinda was warm and hard to sleep with excitement). We hot up early but faffed about a bit and were behind our timetable.

We set up the bikes, helped a few girls with their bike and getting the tires pumped up and then realise we didn’t know how to get to the next place. There was a distinct lack of Triathlon signs!! We followed a guy and arrived a bit late at the T2 area. After the briefing we got a bus back to the swimming pool and we were good to go.

The Race

Because of the pool swim there were three waves, I was in the first. The people in the lanes were meant to have guessed their time, as it happens they all all thought they were faster than they were and I was the opposite. The rules stated you could only over take at the end of the lane so I spent many laps just sculling water behind a slow person. I was ragin’ because the excitement of the race had me buzzing and I was swimming faster than I’ve ever done. In the end with all the hold ups I was second out of the pool at a time of 8mins 52sec but it could easily have been 7:30 – 8:00. Distance 440m

The Heritage Challenge Triathlon 2009 Mark Cycle

Even though I messed up the transition I passed the other guy as we got on the bikes and I started at the front of the race all the way to the start of the run. The bike ride was hard to keep focused but I managed to keep my average up a little on normal (17mph) at 17.83mph. Finishing in 36mins 36sec. Distance 19Km. http://connect.garmin.com/player/11701226

I messed up T2 a good bit. Was a little over excited and took my left shoe off to put my knee strap on my right knee. At this stage a girl and guy caught up with me. I then started the run and the first 400m are hard but after that it was not bad. However the guy with me pointed out that I still had my helmet and glasses on, so I threw them in the bushes to get later.

The run was quite hilly with an awful climb over the last half mile but thanks to my running mates I managed to keep a pace under 9m/mi and on the last hill left them both behind. Only to have the the guy sprint past me at the last minute. We were only passed by two people on the run so I ended up being the forth across the line. My time of the run was 30mins 43 sec. Distance 5.5km http://connect.garmin.com/player/11701225

However there were two other waves to come and the last one had all the big hitters in it.

By the end I finished 27th out of 37males in a time of 1h 19m 18sec I’m over the moon as at just under 15stone I’m still about 3.5stone over weight.

The Heritage Challenge Triathlon 2009 Mark Finish

I was doing it with Mark but he got a bad cramp on the bike which dogged him on the run and resulted in his time being a few second down on mine. I reckon he would have been about 5 or 6 minutes quicker otherwise. But being as over competitive as I am Ill take it as me beating him and overlook the injury. lol

Great day out the sun shone, we both finished and I think are both rather bitten by the Triathlon bug. The Next one is on the 12th September and is a longer open water swim of 750m, a longer cycle of 25K and the same distance of run at 5K, we heard today that the cycle is quite hilly but it will be fun regardless. My target for that one is 1h 30m.

You can sponsor me at: http://www.justgiving.com/dermois/

A big thank you to everyone who has sponsored me already.