Tunney's Blog

Suns barely up and the alarm goes. Time to get up and do my long run before work. Half asleep I arrive at the Phoenix park. Pop two gels and then get running. I didn’t feel fantastic from the start of this run but 34km the long run is finished and I’ve only one more long run to go. I was a little off the pace – I don’t think I fire on all cyclinders until about 10am, nevermind 630am. Still the important thing is it was done. Rounded the day off with a nice easy recovery spin in the sunshine yesterday evening. Bar dodging pobs and rollerbladers in and around Clontarf it was great to be out in the sunshine. If the weather keeps up I may have to invest in some suncream for the weekend!

A hard swim yesterday morning. Going-off times were low for me and the session hurt. However my shoulder didn’t as it had been sorted last night by The Man With The Tan. Happy days. Unfortunately I didn’t get to eat until mid day so I was fairly wrecked for the day.

On the cycle home the notion came into my head that if I went out on the roads for the bike aspect of my brick session I’d get knocked down. Couldn’t shake the idea out of my head so said feck it, and fished out the turbo. An hour and a half later I ‘d sweated my way through two litres of water and two jerseys. I looked at the silver lining and called it heat acclimatization for Austria. Over dressed for the run as well – where was I going with the winter long sleeved top to round off the brick and the unintentional heat training.

I hurt my shoulder badly last week. Basic movements, never mind swimming, have been painful and my swimming has sucked. I struggled through a swim Monday morning knowing that I’d get the shoulder sorted Tuesday evening by The Man with The Tan. Stupid injury – got it gardening of all things.

I had to be fasted to get some blood tests done Tuesday morning and then I tried to run straight after this having crammed about 3 meals worth of food in in about 10 minutes straight after the tests adn just before the run. Ended up puking mid run – not pleasant. A hard bike Tuesday night finished off Tuesday’s training – very happy with how I was going on the bike.

IM Austria is nearly here – must sort a bike box.

Last week was the week from hell. Recovery week and I felt crappy all week. I was down to race a draft legal race on Saturday and I really could have done without it – the race and the hassle. My shoulder was sore, my legs were heavy and I really didn’t want the baggage associated with the event. In the end I grinned and bared it and did the race.

The heavens opened up just before the swim start and it looked like a cold miserable day. The swim was slow for some reason and I kept drifting to the left, a quick transition and out onto the bike. Given it was draft legal I was looking forward to working with people and having a fast bike leg. Not to be unfortunately. Took me 7km or so to catch Sean Collier of Wexford TC (thought I was a faster swimmer than him!!). We started working well together and were really smacking it for 4km. 50kph on the out part of the leg Sean pull off to leg me come through and do my turn. One minute he’s too my right and I’m saying that if we keep this up we’ll catch the guy in second in no time, next minute he is bouncing down the road with his bike folded in two. I thought about stopping and seeing was he okay but spectators ran over to him so thats my excuse for not stopping. Was on my own for the rest of the bike and had nearly got the guy in second towards the end of the bike. He had a bad T2 (not his fault, his bike was moved) and I was out of T2 just behind him. I was slowing catching Darragh for the first km but then he found his running legs and I couldn’t get any closer – in fact I think he pulled a little bit away over the last k or so. The run course wasn’t the best, very soggy and slippy and I didn’t feel comfortable running on it – I was worried about falling and hurting myself in a race that didn’t really matter. Finished in 3rd place. For some reason after the race both my heels were really sore and they are still killing me today.

Back into the proper training and a big week planned for this week. Hopefully there’ll be some sunshine when I’m out on the bike as I’m getting sick of cycling in the rain.

Every cycle I’ve done since the IM block of training started two and a bit weeks ago has been wet. Its rained on each and every cycle (I think) including yesterdays recovery cycle. I’m definitely getting a bit sick of cleaning my bikes and constantly making a mess at home with wet cycling gear and muddy bikes. Don’t think the OH is too impressed either.

Monday and Tuesday of this week were very easy. Which was good because I am very tired I’m still looking forward to the last two weeks of training but I’m not dancing around the room in anticpation.

Swim: 10000 metres, 3:40 hours

Bike: 416 km, 15:36 hours, 8774 kilojoules

Run:73 km, 6:30 hours

Other: 1:22

Total: 27:08

The first of my two blocks is over. A lot of time on the bike on Saturday and Sunday and a good bit of running. Sessions were good unfortunately the weather wasn’t.

Saturday’s ride was long with a constant head wind and regular soakings from downpours of rain, but in between the rain there was some sunshine and I dried out between soakings, I didn’t quite appreciate these periods of relatively nice weather (i.e. not raining) until Sunday’s ride. Four of the wettest hours I’ve ever experienced. Flooded roads, driving rain, being unable to see for the rain. Two rain jackets didn’t help a bit, 30 minutes into the ride I was soaked through. At least it was the last session of the block so that helped mentally. So wet and cold it took me the rest of the night to warm up.

Lovely weather today though.

Eagle-eyed Raam spotted this photo in this gallery.

My first bike race!!!

For the last week I’ve been more cranky, more stressed and less happy than I would have liked to have been. Problem was the little niggle I had in my ITB last Thursday. I was utterly terrified that it was a real problem. While I was able to run for an hour without issue and run off long bikes and hard bikes the ultimate test was the long run. I was pretty scared heading out last night for my long run, running through contingences for problems, etc etc. In the end I pushed it all out of my mind and just started running. 35km later I finished without issue. I didn’t realise the extend of the worrying I was doing about it until I didn’t have to do it any more. Fantastic.

A good long swim this morning and now I’m down to two days left in this block of training.

Ten days of this “up” block done. Four days to go. I’m pretty tired. A hard fast swim yesterday morning going off times much lower than usual. A tough and long brick in the evening in the miserable rain left me shattered and battered this morning.  Ended up getting caught up in a womens bike race last night when doing my intervals, was a little bit awkward.

I’d love to spend a day just sleeping……………