Month: June 2008

This is a great city! My only other visit here, a few years ago, was a little rushed and we didn’t have a lot of time to explore; then we were heading into the depths of winter and the temperature had plummeted to close to zero Centigrade, not ideal for wandering the streets. This time…

The final lesson of the summer. I’m sorry to see them come to an end and shall look forward to their resumption in the autumn. Tonight we revised all 3 strokes (front crawl, breast stroke and back stroke) and spent a little time in the deep end. Tonight’s takeaways: Keep moving when treading water. If…

… but it doesn’t stop there! It turns out that there is a lot more to that little country than gastronomic delights! But while we’re talking about food, my favourite Belgian dish has to be Stoemp & Wild Boar sausages; haute cuisine it may not be but it has a farm fresh, healthy, traditional, mature,…

Very tough run this morning, it was only a 3 miler but it took a lot out of me. I’m putting it down to a combination of a fast paced 5 miler yesterday morning and 3 hours of wind surfing, kayaking and topper sailing last night! Still, a pretty decent pace of 8:43 (finishing in…

…when feet move around! (sung to the tune of Amazing Grace it’s mildly amusing) For this morning’s run I had a Garmin Forerunner 201 that I borrowed for one of my colleagues… and I love it, I’ve gotta get one. We ran exactly 5 miles at a fantastic pace of 8.25 (finishing in 42:06). 3…

OK, I think we’re getting there… slight overall improvement this week and I’m finally getting this breathing lark! Towards the end of the lesson we had a chance to dive into the deep end, swim towards the shallow end and front crawl to the other end of the pool… that was FUN! I keep thinking…

Latest fartlek session, I’m getting into these and can feel them working! We add a few press-ups, sit ups, bench presses, etc. into the mix. We covered approximately 3 miles this morning in a little over 30 minutes.

Up and out early on a Saturday morning… well, not as early as I promised as a text message 10 minutes after hour I had arranged to meet testifies. Better late than never, or as my Granny used to say when she burped “better out than in a man’s eye”…. bless! We ran the 5…

Oh, this was fun… when I got past the pain. Fartleks; who came up with that word? It’s actually German word and is defined as a form of punishment in which the punished must run around a track. The last person in the line sprints to the front, and then jogs; the newest caboose must…

Hmmm, not much improvement this week. Have I plateaued? I’ve got to swim 1500m in a triathelon next year, talk about a challange! Tonight’s takeaways: Smaller arm swings and faster legs for the breast stroke 1/2 a lung full of water

As part of the Dublin marathon training and to increase overall speed we’ll be adding in a few race pace training runs, and later we’ll build in some fartlek sessions (I’ll explain later). This 5 miler was very tough, especially as it is only a week since the Cork marathon. We ran it in 46:42,…

The first run since the marathon and we took it nice & easy, finishing the 3 miles in 27:50; that’s a pace of a little over 9.17.

While in Cork I made unbelievable progress. I breaststroked an entire length of the pool, vastly improved my front crawl and backstroked half a length. Tonight, however, normal service was resumed. I have a theory: the pool in Cork was a normal gym pool with normal pool water, etc. But the pool in Naas is…

After a restless night I was up early and feeling good. I was really looking forward to this race, I believed I had prepared well and was looking forward to reaping the reward from all that hard training. The breakfast room was bustling when we arrived, full of aging French tourist and aspiring marathoners; we…

We woke up fairly early on Sunday morning. As this was the day before the race I was feeling a little nervous but nothing serious enough to put me off my usual hotel treat… a full Irish breakfast!! In hindsight it was not the cleverest option for breakfast; I have been leading an extremely healthy…