Damian's Training Blog
Training for IM France

getting into the early morning swims.

I’m back from France now nearly a week and I’ve been doing early morning swims. I’m not someone who naturally gets up early in the morning. In fact everytime I look at doing some crazy endurance event like cycling across america or rowing the atlantic, the first thing I do is check the sleep times and if my sleep is interupted i’m not interested.

So getting out of bed at 6:30am for three mornings a week is pretty good going for me. I know if I can get a bit of consistency in my swimming I could bang out a 1hour 10 swim easy enough but it’s just getting that consistency.

Bike isn’t going as well as it was in france, I am struggling to find time to fit in the long bikes and even on the shorter ones i’m not feeling very strong on the bike.

The running is going well i feel ok on the run. I don’t feel like I have any speed but I do feel like I could endure a marathon much easier than I have in the past. The one session I haven’t missed since starting the Ironman training is the long run. No matter how bad the week has been i’ve always managed to fit in a 20k min run

Not so warm weather training.

Well this week we decided to go off to Nice in France to attempt a bit of warm weather training. When we arrived we were amazed to see it was pissing rain. Although no day was as bad as the first we did get more than our fair share of rain.

We arrived on the Sunday afternoon there appeared to be a clear split in the camp. Liamo Williams and Collie Butler are ex rowers and were pretty much professional atheltes I would say “in their day” but I think their day has yet to come. So they were taking everything very seriously and been honest were at a different level to myself and Liamo Dillion on the bike so although four of us left together it was pretty much two groups cycling.

On Sunday we wanted to get out for a two hour ride. It was pissing cats and dogs and I was happy to call it off, but do you think two pro athletes would stop for a bit of rain. No they made us go out into the pissing of rain and ride hard for two hours. It was miserable, the fact that I wasn’t sure of the course even though I had done it twice amazed the two boys. I think they thought I would have studied the course on the other two occasions in reality I close my eyes and hope for the best. The lads had printed off maps and everything, far too profesional and orgainised compared to what I am used to. Hell I didn’t even know it was a two lap swim the first time I did it.

Anyway, with two young kids I am finding the bike riding the hardest to fit in so I rode hard for 3 days and clocked up a little over 340k in france. I managed to do the course on the final day which was a good confidence booster, although now that i’ve done the course I realise how far off the pace I am on the bike so will need some serious training now over the next 12 weeks.

only 14 weeks left……………….

Next week we are going over to Nice to do the bike course. I sort of fell off my bike last year on the course and in truth the bike course killed me last year, maybe it was because I injured myself falling off the bike but I really felt like a beaten man on some of those climbs so I need to confront them again before the actual ironman.

Training has been going ok considering trying to juggle everything at the moment. Sometimes I look at mates who have no real commitments and think wow if I was in that situation I’d be pulling in sub 10hours but in reality it’s hard for everyone to find the time to train, especially the bike.

Running is going pretty well these days and I’m doing a bit of swimming not anywhere near as much as i’m supposed to be doing but a lot more than I did last year. I know I’m a bit of where I need to be on the bike.

I went out on Friday and decided to do the three big hills, brown mountain slieve maun and shay elliot. It wasn’t pretty but I got it done, the average speed was very bad 22.1 kph but the heart rate was below 135bpm the whole way around.

5 weeks training done only 15 weeks left.

Well I’m 25% done through the training and it’s been ok. I have missed a fair few sessions but none of the key ones. I’d say last year I prob did 7 sessions a week and now I’m attempting to do 14 so it’s a big jump up.

The weight is very slowly heading in the right direction. At the moment I’m prob hitting 70% of my sessions. I’m doing the long bike long run and long swim however I’m missing a good bit in between. I need to be doing two sessions a day no matter what.

So going to keep the blog a bit more regularly updated once a week on Sunday night for the next 15 weeks I’ll do my updates and I plan on at least hitting 12 of the 14 sessions.

Heart Rate my Ass!

Starting to lose a bit of faith in this heart rate based training. I’m pretty confident I am now training in the correct zone for me but I still have a few problems.

1. Some random days, for no apparent reason I start my session and my heart rate shoots up to 170-`180 on the monitor even though, I know it can’t be that as I’m not even out of breath. Have replaced HR monitors but it’s not a problem with the heart rate monitor…….think I need to replace the heart.

2 I can see the benefit in the run is coming through. I am now running at the same heart rate but am averaging 5:30min per kilometer. However the bike doesn’t seem to be working to well with the heart rate based training. I am getting slower and slower average speeds. Nearly gave up on Thursday when it was a bit slippery so I had to take it very easy on some descents but ended up averaging 21kph……that’s pretty brutal.

I am going to stick with the heart rate based training. I don’t mind training on my own as much as I thought I would, it gives me a lot more time to think.

Black Sunday.

I had a bad week this week. Life got in the way of training.

It started off ok, went for a long run on Monday down the cliff walk at bray managed to get in 1 hour 40mins. I was out in Galway on Tuesday and didn’t get anything done in the morning or when I got back. Was in Base2Race on Weds so couldn’t sneak off for any sessions and got nothing done in the morning. The evenings aren’t really an option for me at the moment with 6 week baby at home I can’t come home and say see you later honey I’m out for a run!!

So having missed all sessions on Tuesday and Weds I got out for a bike spin on Thursday it was supposed to be 2 hours but took a lot longer than I thought ended up taking me 3 hours. Friday was another day when I got nothing done training wise. Saturday I was out at the Fingal Duathlon but managed to get my long swim in which was 3.8k which I was delighted with. It took me 90 mins on the button but that included all the rests some breast stroke and back stroke and 400meters kick only so swimming is going well.

There was a bit of a randonee on Sunday with Bray wheelers, I felt terrible leaving the house as the eldest child was just waking up and I knew my long suffering wife was going to have her hands full so the plan was do the race and get home asap.

It didn’t happen there was a lot of messing around before we got going. When we eventually got going I was keeping the heart rate under 136bpm so everytime we hit a hill I had to hold back. The route was only 100k but was taking me a lot longer than I had thought it would. It was pretty bad as 59 people in total went past me and I caught no one. Luckily there were a few punctures and people got lost otherwise it was pretty much a last place finish for me.

Damo.

Two weeks in a row this is getting serious.

I managed to hit 12 of my 14  sessions this week which for me is unheard of. Normally I’ll do 3-4 sessions a week having planned on doing 20.

Got out for a long bike on Sunday which was a bit of crack with the Bray Wheelers, we managed to get three punctures from Bray to Ashford which meant it took us all of 1 hour to get to Ashford. I was trying to train in a heart rate zone of 120bpm-138bpm. Sturggled to keep it up to 120 on the way down to Ashford but as soon as we hit a few minor hills I couldn’t keep it below 138bpm.

Liam dillion one of my trusted domestiques was huffing a puffing going up one of the climbs must have been a category 3 climb. Anyway got 4 hours in on Sunday which I was very happy with. Kept the heart rate under 138bpm for most of it which was great and the icing on the cake was seeing a broken Liam Dillion arrive into Amphibian King for a carb hit.

Until next week.

holy shit i’m actually pretty much sticking to a plan.

I really surprised myself this week. I had a plan that involved swimming cycling and running and doing some weights and for the first time in my life I actually stuck to the plan more or less. I may have missed one or two sessions but was close enough.

I surprised everyone in Bray shoreline by turning up to the pool three times in one week. They couldn’t believe it.

Bike was ok but it was all on the turbo because I just can’t get out on the road with Jonah and Grace, Kelly is barely getting any sleep. It’s not all about the Ironman has to be some balance in life.

The weight is also heading south which is good. I will have a belly photo up soon but I’ve now lost 5 pounds since starting the blog…….restarting it.

Back on the Bike.

I am looking at following an actual program for the first time in my incredible Ironman career. After Ironman France last year I had a look at www.markallenonline.com as I’d heard loads of good reports about it. However they have you working at a heart rate worked out by a fairly standard formula having got my heart rate tested on numerous occasions I know I’ve a low heart rate so I was dying trying to stay in his zones. I was emailing them but they were happy for me to just keep working on getting my heart rate into the zone as often as possible. I like all the theory behind HR based training but if my max hr on the bike is 155bpm and he wants me to train for 2 hours in 145bpm to 160bpm I just can’t do it.

My heart rate is about 80% lower than the what it should be for my age so my plan is to follow his plan but divide everything he tells me in terms of HR Zones by 80%??

Sounds a bit crazy to pay for a program and then alter it but it makes sense to me. So the actual program starts 20 weeks out from the ironman which is 7th Feb. I’ve been trying to stick to it a bit for the past week. In the plan I basically train 14 times a week so i’ve split it up into 2 times a day. long run Monday long swim Wed and long bike Sunday. Four of each discipline and two weights sessions.

This week my first week back I managed all my long stuff but missed nearly everything in between. However the big news of the week was that I got on the bike for the first time in 3 months out doors.!!

I got new pedals put on my bike by Paul O’Connor in Velomotion, Paul explained that they are speedplay or something. Anyway I thought I might go faster with it. Ended up just falling off more times, you have to twist the opposite way to get out of these guys!!

Nothing too exciting happened this week, nothing to report next week should be better “The Fighter” is out so can’t wait for that and Ireland V Italy ………..might do some training too.

Getting Back into the swing of things.

I haven’t updated this blog since November 2010, so what has happened since.

Think around the 8th November I came off the bike in a big Bray wheelers pile up. I’m a bit of a wuss so I haven’t been on the road since done some strange cycles on the Turbo at about 2AM till 5AM, when you’ve a 2 week old baby in the house you tend to do some crazy things.

December was a crazy month, Amphibian King opened two new shops. I bought my first house (moved in on 24th December) and we had a baby boy very early in January so it’s been really busy. The house was a real mess when we moved in Coffee stains on the wall and everything clothes still in the wardrobe so there was lots of work to do which I hadn’t intended. Life has been a little crazy so training has taken a real back seat. I decided to get a coach in October for 3 months but it wasn’t working out as I couldn’t put the time towards it and it seemed a bit crazy paying for something I just couldn’t commit to so I’m 22 weeks out from the Ironman and I’ve decided I’m going without a coach again!!

So where do I stand compared to last year. On the positive side I’ve kept the swimming going which I’ve never done before. I’m not really a fan of the pool I love swimming in the sea but not the pool so my swim training usually starts in May/June however for Oct/Nov/Dec I managed at least one swim a week. Running has been going ok, but I have really been slack on the bike.

On the negative side and this is the big negative I’ve put on a fair bit of weight. I weighed in at 14 and half stone on January 1 managed to get down to 14stone 1 pound on 15th January but I’ve crept back up to 14stone 8 pounds it’s the heaviest I’ve ever been. I have a training plan for 20 weeks which will start in two weeks time but I want to shift a bit of weight between now and then.

So I’m going to use this blog as motivation will take a topless photo every week to motivate myself to try and change my body shape………here goes nothing.

Official weigh in 14 stone and 4 pounds.

Damo.