Training Log Archive: sjreeve

very happy to get under the 3hrs on the mountain bike. i had fitted a pair of slick nimbus 26 x 1.5 tyres to reduce friction and these at least helped mentally. an undulating route on mostly country lanes, the road sections from derrylin to belturbut were into a head wind and i was never going to catch any other riders on this section, but equally i wasn't caught either. a gps would've been good as i can only guess the route taken back. i'm estimating about a 900m climb overall

i borrowed a kayak from the event organisers thinking it would be better than my sit on top kayak. it possibly was, but my technique wasn't! everyone had to deal with the cross winds on the route but without a fin or rudder or much finesse i found i wasted alot of energy. maybe i should've stuck to what i know, the same make/model kayak as my own came in only 9mins behind me. it was great being out on the water though.

although i felt there was slow progress in the kayak, i kept myself right knowing i could be competitive in the run. there was going to be runners to chase down and previous results had shown a sub 1:30 was possible. i went out fairly hard, a 20min 5km but had to ease up for the 2nd 1/4 as i had taken on too much water (it was warm but not sunny and i'd over estimated how much liquid to take on) the stomach cramps had passed by 1/2 way and i was feeling strong. mentally glad it was a loop and not out&back i kept motivated in my pursuit of chasing down runners and think i was the second solo runner to finish with the fastest time for the run (only one other runner from the relay teams ran faster at 1:27:34) an undulating route, a few long straights, again i can only guess the some parts of the route -used the last 4.5miles of the bike route home

a really enjoyable course, i should've cleared this alot better than i did but i'm thankful that i did enough to at least make up some of my errors.
i could've been quicker out of the blocks to control 1, but planned route to 2 & 3 & 4. got to the circle for 2 but wasted a minute finding a way into the control. everything then went well 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 all grand & was happy for route to 8 ...but, i lost focus, confused by the unmapped tracks i went too far north, returned to circle but overcompensated too far south/east. wasted 3 1/2 mins & frustrated lost another minute into 9 & then fell apart losing 2 1/2 mins getting to 10. i could've walked quicker.
coming away from 10, i passed declan running in to it. this refocused the mind as he'd clearly made up the time between our starts.
took a slightly wider route into 11 & with the pressure on i stopped too short of 12 losing 30 secs, i pushed on to 13 but ran to the t-junction en route to 14 and should've headed nw earlier (losing 10sec!) could've ran a quicker route to 15 but was focussing on nailing the remainder of the course & it was all going so well untill i cracked under the pressure and ran too far west from 20 into 21 wasting 30 secs in the ditch.

this one has been on my list for a while & after this years mountain trial was cancelled i was definitely up for it. took it easy to start along the singletrack but pushed on to anglesey, the run across to clermont was through burnt heather & i'd pulled away from the crowd & was chasing the slower of the top ten runners. enjoyed the run up the stony track to black mtn & was catching three runners on the way to the cairn at carnawaddy. wasn't happy with my descent to windy gap as i stayed too high for to long and lost time. i knew my descent of slieve foye might not be too fast until i hit the forest so really tried to push myself on the climb, my route choice wasn't 100% but again i'd caught up with runners and was in the top 10 by the split rock. i could see my route to the summit but messed up the last couple of 100m & contoured round to the west instead of just approaching from the northwest. got caught on my descent & pushed back to 11th, route choice was ok but i was also too slow to get to the forest. the final run in was grand & was happy enough to creep in just under the 2hrs