Damian's Training Blog
Training for IM France

Back into the running buzz.

Well it’s been a while since I updated. However having just read my last post it mentioned something about getting the weight down. This is something I’ve been targeting and whilst there is still a long way to go I have lost 4kg since the last post. I’m down to 85kg however in recent years I seem to struggle to get any lower than this I’ve been at this weight a few times before and it creeps back up.

Training wise i’ve done pretty much what I had planned. Stopped swimming stopped cycling and get the shoulder better. The shoulder is starting to feel much better now. Not sure I’ll be able to do the obstacles in Hell and Back but will give it a lash.

The running feels easy at the moment which is good. I’m prob running three maybe even 4 days a week which would have been unheard of.

So going to do Hell and Back on 29th January and the real goal is Connemarathon on 1st April. So will use Hell and Back as a training run. I will prob still do my long run on the weekend just do it the day before Hell and Back.

Damo.

To Hell or Bray.

Well it’s been a while since the Ironman. When I came back from the Ironman I didn’t want to see another bike again. Just had no interest in the bike, I wasn’t that keen on swimming but for some bizare reason I was loving the running. So much so that I thought about giving the marathon another lash. I followed a sub 3 hour programme (never broken 4 hour in 8 attempts so I thought I’d try something different this year!).

The plan was pretty tough. After 4 weeks you were supposed to do a 10k race and at this race you had to go sub 38 minutes to be on track for sub 3 hours. I followed the programme to a tee however it took me 42mins 15seconds to do the race, it was pretty flat. I lost a lot of interest after that. The Ironman in Galway was about 2 weeks out, I hadn’t swam since June hadn’t biked since June so I decided rather than waste 200 euros I’d do Galway (my brain hops back and forth quiet a bit). So ended up doing the half Ironman in Galway, whilst I was half way on the bike course I counted how many times I had been on the bike since the 1st June. I counted 7 times in total (one of them been the Ironman). Anyway completed Galway happy enough. Got back and decided I didn’t want to do the Marathon.

So I’ve taken a bit of a break. However the last 2 weeks I’ve seen a bit of love come back for the running. I went to get physio on my shoulder and feel like because it’s the off season I should just rehab the shoulder. It’s something thats been a constant injury since I was about 20 a minor niggle that became a bit worse this year. I figure if I drop the swimming and just concentrate on running mostly and a bit of a biking it might give me a better chance to drop some weight.

So the plan for 2012 is to lose some weight this time. There is a race on at the end of January called “Hell and Back” we’ve entered three teams I’ve got Ash, Scottie and Conor Duggan on my team. It’s a good team and I’m comfortably the slowest on the team so I don’t want to let them down.

I’m going to update my blog once a week. I’m also going to publish my weight at the start of the week. So this week I was 89kg… I’m hoping to get down to 87kg by next week.

Damo.

The Race Report.

What a couple of weeks it’s been. Four weeks out had a great old piss up in Edinburgh, 3 weeks out had a good old piss up in Castle Durrow, 2 weeks out my son is Hospital with Mennigitis not ideal preparation for an Ironman. Anyway I was due to fly out on Friday morning so myself and my Wife Kelly had a bit of a chat about it, I had invested a good bit of time and money into this (Hotels, Flights, Race entry ) was all coming close to 1500 euros. Jonah thankfully was getting out of hospital the day after I was due to leave. So it was decided I’d go. The fact that I hadn’t done anything or even thought about training in the past 4 weeks didn’t really enter my mind too much.

So on Thursday I got the bike ready. Bought it out to Paul in Velo Motion. I got a call from Paul at about 7pm on Thursday telling me there were 3 large cracks in the frame and there’s no way this bike was doing an Ironman. As it happened the Bike was covered under a warranty but I wouldn’t get the same bike that Night. Paul very kindly set me up with a really good demo bike they had which has yet to be used, Dom spent ages getting all the angles right and to be perfectly honest I think getting the new bike if anything helped me a bit on the day, it felt great. I decided not to do a practice run on the bike the day before in case I didn’t like it as it would be too late at that stage. So headed off to france having not done any training in 4 weeks and cycling a bike I’d never sat on before.

Swim 1hour 16 mins- I had done loads of swimming this year and was really looking for a good time. However of all the disciplines I find the swimming goes the quickest when you stop training. I really didn’t enjoy this swim there was no point in the swim where I wasn’t hitting someone at least every 3rd stroke. It never leveled out at all for me. I can’t understand how people can knock into each other in Bray seafront at the aquathlons when you have the whole beach to use. In France we were possbily in a smaller confined space with 2,700 people. For anyone who has done Ironman france in years gone by the space has stayed the same but competitor numbers have gone up so it’s not going to happen in the same format next year, there were loads of complaints about the swim. To be honest it’s hard to call it a swim as we were all together like a moving mass of ice on the water or something.

When I got out of the water I was pretty disappointed with my time, I had thought I could swim faster but having said that possibly only a few minutes anyway. When I got out of the water I was punch drunk couldn’t find my bag didn’t know how to work out what number I was eventually some kind volunteer got my bag for me and off I went 13 minutes later.

Bike 7 hour 5mins

To be fair this is prob what I was hoping to do on the bike. I’m not a great cyclist by any stretch of the imagination, I haven’t the build of a cyclist and especially a climber so I was thinking if I could get near 7 hours I’d be happy. I was following the Heart Rate programme so I really felt like I could have gone a lot harder on the bike particularly early on in the bike when there were slow steady climbs I just kept the heart rate under and kept tipping away. I got overtaken by a lot of people on the bike especially early on. However once all the climbing was done at around 140k I could start feeling a lot weaker on the bike. It was only descending left at this stage but the wheels were starting to come off before the run. I started taking more food on board but that wasn’t helping either. I had been drinking lots of water all day but had only gone for the one piss stop after about 30k into the bike. That was in the back of my mind thinking maybe I’m deyhydrating but I continued to try and get the water on board. Got off the bike feeling pretty bad.

Run 6hours 18mins

It’s hard to call it a run when it’s taking you that long. But I did run for a good portion of it, having said that I think the speed of the running was so slow I would have been better off walking. I know I did the first kilometer in 7mins 20 seconds. The plan was to keep hitting 5mins 30 seconds per kilometer, I knew I was in trouble when I couldn’t hit the first one even. Kept the run to heart rate for the first 5k which meant I had to walk to keep it down. Then let it drift a bit, then after about 21k it was just about getting to the finish line in one piece. I was seeing lots of guys laying down and resting as soon as they did this the medics were over to them and they were in an ambulance with a drip. The heat was immense it was 35 degrees, no shelter no breeze. At the hottest part I got a bit of a wobble where I had to hold on to the fencing, luckily there were no medics to see this so I got going again. I have walked marathons at the end of ironmans before but this one was humilating, you wanted your legs to run but they couldn’t if you tried to run your head was so light headed you were afraid of fainting. People were really trying to encourage you to get going but there was nothing to get going. After I had the last dizzy spell from running I did think well at least if I give it a go again and end up collapsing it’ll all be over, rather than having to continue to walk for another 10k. You are hoping that somehow someone will just take you out of this situation, but it doesn’t happen like that you just got to keep going till the end.

There’s a couple of things I know after doing Ironman France. It’s not rocket science the skinny guys finish first and the fat guys finish last. The hills the heat they are not suited to having a big layer of insulating fat going around you. Coming back from the last couple of kilometers and seeing big guys going out for the last lap knowing that they were going to be given a DNF as they weren’t going to do a 10k in under an hour at that stage, that’s courage. I love Nice and France and I would love to do that Ironman again but not for a good few years. I met an Irish Guy in the airport on the way home and he mentioned the Ironman is one day in the year when you need everything to be right. I could seem like someone who just makes a lot of excuses and don’t get me wrong I never thought I was going to break 10 hours or anything, but I have had a bad run leading into every ironman France i’ve done or attempted to do. I have built up a decent level of fitness and don’t want to let that go to waste so will have a look at doing some other challenges, right now I’d love to just drop the bike for a few years and do swim and run. I’d like to do a lot more running and try and build that up to a decent enough level. I am down to do Ironman Galway in September but to be honest I’ve no real interest in it at the moment.

Would love to do Dublin City marathon.

Damo.

Bags packed ready to roll.

Well Jonah has gotten much better. He is still in hospital but fingers crossed should be coming out on Saturday (the day b4 ironman). Kelly has been with him pretty much the whole time. I’ve been in a good bit also trying to get into the shops as much as possible and minding Gracie our three year old training has been something I remember doing about 4 weeks ago or more.

I spoke to Kelly about doing the Ironman. I tried to cancel hotels and the Event to get some money back but there was no budge. All in it’s close to 1,500 euros so i’ve decided to go over and do it anyway. You never know the rest might be good for me could have a blinder. Things are a little all over the place I have been trying to remove my saddle to get into the bike box with no luck. I’m pretty sure we can find a bike box big enough that it can stay on. Anyway that’s the least of my worries at the moment. Three days ago I didn’t think I was going so now I have to try and get everything sorted so that things get done when I’m away. Need to get wages done, cover in the shop, pay suppliers.

It’s funny when I did Ironman France last year I made a promise to myself that if I did come back I’d come back much better prepared. Now I’ll be on a plane over there in less than 24 hours and last year looks like the best orgainised event in the world compared to this.

Anyway fingers crossed. Happy to just finish this one.

Damo.

Becoming a cliche

Whenever I read other peoples blogs it generally starts off really positive as in everything is going really well they are hitting all their training sessions and then suddenly two weeks before the event disaster happens, they are usually knocked off the bike or get a tropical disease or something. Well training wasn’t going amazing but it was going ok, I was doing a good bit more than usual granted the stag and wedding knocked it back a bit but this week has been really rough.

Jonah, my 4 month old son, was taken in to hospital last week with meningitis. It’s been really tough, especially for my wife, who has been by his side since he went in. I didn’t even think about the ironman all week, never really entered my head, did no training and ate poorly as my head chef was in hospital.

The good news is he is getting better, he will be in hospital for another 2 weeks which means he is going to be there when the im is taking place. I’d find it really difficult to go to France knowing my son is in hospital. Not sure yet whether I’ll be doing im France this year at all

Stag Weekend and Wedding.

Well I’ve got through the Stag Weekend and Wedding and I’m still alive.

The Stag was great crack we went to Edinburgh on The Friday and got back on the Sunday. It was heavy drinking from start to finish we started in the airport. Reckon prob had about 40 beers over the course of the weekend and a good few shots. It’s amazing how much damage you can do in two days. Prob knocked my training back by about 6 weeks. I’ve tried doing a couple of runs and Bikes since I’ve come back but there’s nothing there. I tried running 2 hours on Sunday but just started throwing up after about an hour, called it quits after about 90mins.

So Ironman France is in less than 3 weeks so I should be on a taper now, but decided to kill myself this week and try and run the drink out of my system. It looks like Liam Dillion will have the better of me in France for sure, he’s been going very well in training. Tried going for a 40k time trial on the bike but nearly killed myself.

Damo.

How far behind am I?

Hey I’m never going to be up the front of the field but in the last two weeks I’ve really found out how far off the pace I am.

Went for a cycle with Mick Bolger about two weeks ago, now Mick is going to do a lot better than me but he has only started cycling again in the last year so I though I might be able to hang with him for 15 minutes or so. I decided to leave the hrm at home and just give it socks, I got to the first set of traffic lights and that was only 200 meters and I knew I was in trouble. I think Mick thought I was messing. So to try and get back in to Bike Shape I called up the great man himself “John Darcy”. We arranged to go out for a long spin, Paul O’Connor came with us, now both of these guys are better cyclists than me but god I couldn’t even stay with them for very long either. Got dropped before we even hit a climb, ended up having to leave early and go home.

I am following the program but I’ve been doing loads of hills so I’m not sure if it’s just made me slow, the plan is to do some flats and try and get a bit of speed into the legs. I’ve eased off on the running a bit since doing a marathon in training, in fact I haven’t done a long run now in about two weeks, will do one this Thursday. Swimming is going pretty well but not sure how that is going to help me as the bike and run is where you want it to be going well.

Someone asked me a while ago, what are your goals for Ironman France, what do you want to achieve. In September I reckon I wanted to break 11hours and get down to under 12 stone. Now I know that isn’t going to happen I just want to finish the race this time and get on with my life. I really feel like I just don’t have much time anymore for Ironman training but want to do this one as I’ve put in some of the training. I think for the next few years I might stick to shorter distance races and look at ironman further down the road when I know I’ll have some more free time.

But really all I want to do is beat liam dillion………and I’ll retire as the Ironman Champion of Ballybrack.

Hurt.

I’ve just started to do some speed sessions as it says on the programme that now is the time to introduce some speed sessions. Up until now I have been going extremly slow just keeping the heart rate low and feeling comfortable in everything i do. I haven’t been out of my comfort zone at all. So today I decided to do a 10k time trial.

I went down to the track to measure it properly but needless to say it was closed. Bearing in mind it was good friday I thought it was a good day to flog myself for the first time this year. So I decided to go to shanganagh park. I hate these type of sessions so I sat in the car first of all deciding what would be a diaster time what would be ok and what would be unbelieveable. So it was decided that anything over 50mins would be disaster, I’m doing that sort of pace on my long runs almost. Anything between 45mins and 50mins wouldn’t be great but it’s a start. Under 45min would be good and if I got in under 40minutes I’d be delighted. So I set off and did the first 1k in 4mins 30 seconds that’s ok, second lap in 4mins 36 seconds but died on the end of it and decided this was now going to be a 5k run the third k was awful it took me 5 mins 40 seconds I suffered like a dog. I then pulled it together for the 4th one to bring myself back to 4mins 40 seconds and then gave it socks for the last one to do 4mins 3 seconds. A very dissappointing time overall but I suppose I haven’t done any speed work yet so I suppose that is an excuse if I was looking for one so didn’t even do the correct distance but will give it a go next week.

No Word from Stephen Roche this year.

Last year when I was doing this blog I had Stephen Roche and Sean Kelly wishes me good luck now this year not a dickie bird. It just goes to show you that you’re only as good as your last result and when that result is a DNF no one wants to know you.

Anyway last week went ok. I got up on Sunday morning and decided that I’d have a crack at the marathon. For anyone who doesn’t know the marathon distance is 42.2k and should be easily covered in under 4 hours with any sort of training. However I seem to have a mental block of getting in under 4 hours So I wanted to get that monkey off my back and what better way then to bring the garmin with me and just do a normal training run up and down Big Bum Bouvevard 4 times.

So I set out with Water at the car which I would be passing every 10.5 k. Did the first lap in 56 mins (need to be coming in under the hour to go sub 4). Felt great after one lap, however the second time going up big bum I was feeling sluggish and came in 59mins. Went up the third time and I came in 1hour and 2 mins……….the wheels were coming off so I decided to not go up big bum for the 4th time but to run on the flat ground. I got my pace back a bit but after 3 hours 14 mins I decided to make a call. I had 8k left to do and I only had 46mins to do it. I decided to keep my powder dry until next weekend and attempt the full distance again. I could see myself coming to pieces and only getting in 4 hours 30 seconds or something.

~S0 this week I’m going flat, think I’ll run to Wicklow and back which is pretty flat.

nothing much aparts from that. Swam twice and biked once this week. Not getting in anywhere near as much training as I hoped. but that’s life.

I cursed myself with that last blog post.

I really messed up saying “I haven’t missed the long run yet” Cause I missed it last week. I got all my swims in got in a good long (but very slow) bike, up the three peaks Brown mountain, Slieve maun, and Shay Elliot and then came out to laragh and back through the sally gap. The pace was terrible though around 21kmph so I really need to get quick on the bike soon.

I did a few ok runs this week but nothing earth shattering, and missed my long one. Swimming continues to go very well, I hit 4 sessions last week in the pool and joined up with Brendan Kenny for a few sets. It is a lot easier doing sets with someone else so although I’m no longer following the swim sets that are set out on my program I’m getting into the pool 4 times a week for an hour plus so happy enough with that. This week I want to get my long run out of the way early (hoping to do it tomorrow) get the long bike done before the weekend. The shop is getting busy at the weekends so trying to get training done before the weekend arrives.

Damo.