Double the fun.

Sunday the 6th of September goes down in my personal history as the first time I did two races. It may also be the last time, but I can’t guarantee that.

I started the day with the Newtownabbey Triathlon. If the Amsterdam marathon is my “A race” for the season and the Lisburn triathlon was my “B race” (due to it being my first tri) then this was probably my C or D race. Not due to not caring about it… but due to the fact that I haven’t trained for it specifically and was not expecting to do particularly well.

So, about the training… or lack thereof. Well, with my A race being a marathon, I've been running focussed. I’ve been doing speedwork.. But that’s been speedwork based on improving marathon pace. Not focussed on getting a good 5k pace. So I wasn’t expecting to be that fast on the run. For the bike, I’ve been doing some cycling, and I’ve got a road bike, but I haven’t been training on the bike as such. I’ve just done some cycling. As for the swim. Well, my last swim was in the last triathlon.. in July.

So I set out to enjoy the race and wasn’t too worried about times. I had a feeling the bike course was going to be hilly, so on Friday night I went out to ride round it and check it out… but I got lost and ended up cycling about 20 miles around the countryside. I had stayed enough on the course to realise that it WAS hilly and there was no way I was going to improve on my bike time, even though I was on a road bike. The last tri had a really flat bike course by comparison.

I arrived to my local leisure centre, picked up my pack and got marked with my number. I found out that I was in wave 3 of 5. It runs, basically, from slowest to fastest. In the last tri I was in wave 2 of 5. I guess this means I’ve moved up one level. While waiting to get into the pool I enjoyed chatting to a few of the other competitors. I bumped into one guy who I had shared a swim lane with in the Lisburn Tri and a few that I had met while marshalling at the Lough Neagh tri.

The swim was tough going. Luckily my lane only had 4 people (some of the lanes in wave 1 had 7 people) and I opted to go out second of the 4. My lack of swim training really paid off. I struggled from the start. I let the guy behind me pass me once, but then he slowed and I passed him again. I stuck with my second position, in the lane overall.. but it was not done with style or good technique. I think I did the breast stoke for about 10 of the 30 lengths and couldn’t find a pace or rhythm at all. I’m very surprised to see from the results today that I was actually 1 second faster than last time. It felt like I was a few minutes slower.

The bike course was tough, but fun. I’m proud to say I wasn’t passed by anyone on the bike, and I passed lots of others. One lady (who had been in my swim lane, and weirdly, had also been in my swim lane in the Lisburn triathlon) was a really strong cyclist and we had out own little race/ game of cat and mouse. She passed me a few times but I got back ahead each time and finished about a minute before her. At one point my chain popped off the big ring at the front, but I managed to guide it back on without panicking, unclipping or even slowing down much. The course was indeed very hilly. Nothing too steep, just lots of long slow inclines. The course was also a little longer than the standard 20km (I think it’s was closer to 22) so I was happy with my overall time. The bike racks were split up into waves and when I racked my bike it was the first one on the rack. I can’t guarantee that there weren’t people in my wave who racked in other racks, but I’m still happy that I performed pretty well within my wave.

The run was two laps of the valley park. Which meant that it was also hilly. I’m proud to say once more that no one passed me on the run. They must have compensated for the extra few KM on the bike by shortening the run a little as I did the run in 20:30. There is no way I could have done a full 5K in that time as I was probably averaging just under a 7 minute mile.

Overall times

Swim: 17:11
T1: 1:51
Bike: 42:01
T2: 1:49
Run: 20:24
Total time: 1:23:14
Position: 56/196.

Wow. I just checked the results from my first tri… 1:23:13. ONE SECOND slower this time on a much tougher course. Last time I just about made it into the top 50%. This time made it into the top 30%. Sweet. Could definitely improve the swim. Transitions were slow too, could save 2 minutes there easily.


I finished happy and proud and completely enjoyed the race. The course was tough and I was happy with my performance considering the lack of triathlon specific training. I’m sorry it is the last tri of the season. Next season I will definitely be doing more.

My brother in law, and some twitter buddies, were doing the Laganside 10k. It started at 2pm and I finished the triathlon at close to 12:30. Having picked up my bike and loaded it into my car, I sped off down the road to pick up my son from my parents place and headed on down the road to meet my sister and Brother in law at the 10k course. We got parked and got to registration at about twenty to two. Just in time for last minute registration. I had planned on just having an easy run around the course without registering, and maybe pacing someone. Obviously though, having a number on your chest makes you run just that little bit faster. So I decided to run it after all. It was tough going. I had gone out hard in the triathlon and I kept the pace going for the 10k. It did cross my mind, at around the 2k mark that just maybe I could PR this. However, once I hit the 5k mark at about 23 minutes, I realised I had nothing left. I could keep my legs going at this pace but no matter what I did they were not going to speed up.

I completed the race in 46:37. This is about a minute slower than my 10k PR. A minute slower and it was my second race of the day. Couldn’t be happier! My sister managed to get a few picture of me running. The first was on the first of two laps. I was happy, smiling and waving at my son who was grinning and waving back.
The second is me crossing the finish line. Yes.. At that stage it was hurting and you can see it in my face.

Next time some one asks me for advice on how they should taper for a 10k, the answer will be “don’t do a triathlon 2 hours beforehand”.

I enjoyed it all though. It’s a great sense of achievement to finish any race. Finishing two in one day is just frickin’ awesome.

Strength and Determination

Its been a while since my last blog update, so here is a quick update on the last month.

Since my last post Ive finally got myself a new bike. Its a Vitus Alios Triple, and very nice it is too. Been out for a few training rides on it and have really enjoyed it.

Ive never ridden clipless pedals before and generally have found them to be great. I have, of course, had the inevitable experience of falling over. I was on a desserted street, on my own, trying to adjust the saddle bag, and to be honest, Im not really sure how it happened... but I just fell over. It was embarrassing, even though there was no one around to see it!

I decided to help out at the Lough Neagh triathlon and cycled to the event (about 30 miles) and home again that afternoon. This was the most cycling I had done in one day, and it felt really good. It was also my first experience of marshalling a race which was a lot of fun at the start, and got pretty boring after a while. Good day overall though and nice to meet some local triathletes who were all very nice people.

Funnily enough, on the way home from the race, I started feeling a bit of a wobble in the front wheel. Last week, When I set out last week to do a long ride from Cookstown to Belfast, the wobbling got progressively worse to the point where the whole bike was shaking and I had to abondon the ride and be rescued.
Today my wife brought the wheel back to Chain Reaction, where I bought the bike, and they are going to fix it. apparently the spokes were loose. Im kinda annoyed about this but I guess these things happen.

Ive actually just finished two weeks vacation. I had originally planned to do extra workouts over this time... but in the end I did less than normal... due to focussing on family time and partying! yesterday though, I did make it out for my long run and did my first 18 miler.

I did it in 2 hours 45 minutes, which was decent enough and I really was trying to go slow. I enjoyed most of it. Where I ran was far from flat and so I got a good workout overall. The weather was terrible. One of the highlights though... at one point, at the bottom of a mile long uphill climb, with the wind blowing in my face and the raid pouring down, I came towards and older gentleman who smiled and told me I was "the picture of strength and determination". That put a huge smile on my face and helped me speed up for the last few miles.

Well thats about it. I have my second triathlon this weekend. It will be my first on a road bike.. but the course is much hillier so Im not sure if my bike time will be any better. Ive done no swim training at all, so thats not likely to improve either. Lucky its not my "A-race" right?

Will update again after the tri, and Just to finish off, here is a pic of my new bike (stolen from the chain reaction website).

Wrapped in cotton wool

When we are kids, we know no fear. We climb trees, jump over things on our bikes
and just generally do things that are insanely hazardous.
My son is only two, and I can only imagine the heart failures he will cause me as he gets older and more rebellious.
But.
The older we get, the more we move away from this fearlessness.

Obviously, this is in some ways necessary.
Risk taking is fun, but as we age and as our responsibilities grow,
we cant afford to take as many risks.
People depend on us.
We’ve got families and jobs.
However, so often people go to the opposite extreme.

They wrap themselves in cotton wool.
They get set in their routines.
Scared of change.
Afraid to do anything new.
So often, their lives become sheltered and closed.
Their perpectives shift, their minds narrow
And they become accustomed to the soft warm comfort of the easy and the familiar.

I find it frustrating when I subconsciously do this myself.
I see it in others.
And I will be quick to criticise.
But of course, I do it too.

Our society encourages this wrapping in cotton wool.
Health and safety laws and regulations discourage risk.
I spoke to a guy who was into fell running and I asked him what the appeal was.
At this point I had just discovered a love for running.
But this crazy mountain running stuff sounded a bit nuts to me.
His reason was that for many it was a stike back against the “nanny state” we live in.
His words, not mine.
Nanny state.
I like that.

I haven’t started running up mountains
Yet.
But I think this aversion to the nanny state and to wrapping oneself in cotton wool
Is one of the many reasons I have embraced training.
I actually have taken pleasure in donning a pair of shorts and a T-shirt and going running in snow.
Last night I went out and did speed work on a really windy night, with heavy rain.
It felt GOOD.

I love the fact that when I travel on business,
I no longer just see airport -> hotel -> meeting room -> hotel -> airport
I get to go out and see something of the places I visit.
This year so far,
I’ve run across the golden gate bridge.
I’ve run through a forest in Stockholm
I’ve run through Boston city centre and down by the harbour
I’ve cycled along the California coastline from San Fran to Corte Madera via Sausalito.
I’ve run in the worst snow in a decade in London.
And the beautiful heat of San Diego by Mission Beach.
Ive soaked up the natural beauty of greenlake park in Seattle
And the grim surroundings of a massive industrial estate in south-east England.
I’ve got mildly lost running through the streets of Frankfurt, Germany,
And All of this interspersed with my normal training in the less than scenic Newtownabbey, Northern Ireland.
Where despite the unexciting surroundings Ive been happiest by far,
because all those runs and bike rides end up with me going back home to my family.

Ive done all of this with a busy schedule by simply getting up a bit earlier, or going to bed a bit later and by just having the balls to get up and get out.

By not succumbing to the temptation
of the sofa
of the glass of wine
of the TV.
And by recognising the wrapping myself in cotton wool does nothing good.

The sofa, TV and wine are all much better AFTER a training session.

First Tri

I’ve chatted with a few people about triathlon in relation to what makes a person a triathlete. It seems that the consensus is that once you’ve done a triathlon, you become a triathlete. So I am proud to say that I am now a triathlete.

On Sunday I did my first triathlon. It was a sprint distance triathlon in Lisburn, a small town in Northern Ireland.
I had been looking forward to the event for quite a while. I hadn’t been training for the triathlon. This year my “A-race” is the Amsterdam marathon in October. So really I’ve been very much running focussed and have been doing some cycling (once or twice a week at best) more as cross training than anything else.
Swimming... well, let’s just say my main goal on the day for the swim was not to drown.

Coming up to the day, I had been hoping to have bought myself a road bike. However, circumstances had conspired against me on this and that hadn’t quite happened. My current bike is, as I’ve mentioned in a previous post, a heap of junk. It’s made by Reebok. It says on the frame that it’s made from steel… but I’m pretty sure some of the components are made from dark matter. There was no way I was racing on this thing. So luckily a good friend of mine is off sailing across the Ocean from Canada to Ireland at the moment, so I borrowed his half decent mountain bike. I went out for one training ride on it and it’s a lot lighter and easier to ride than mine so that was a bonus.

The morning of the race I got up at 6am to find that there was rain of biblical proportions and high winds. I had some breakfast and tried to work out whether I was going to need a bike, or an Ark.

The race briefing was at 8:30 am so I arrived in good time and collected my race pack and got myself inked with my number. I chatted to a few people here and there and everyone was very friendly. Most of those that I spoke to were first timers like me, which was a real relief.

As I set up in transition, I noticed a lot of NICE bikes, but was again relieved to see that there were other mountain bikes (I actually saw two others).

I was in the second swim wave, so I hung out and watched the first wave. There were four waves altogether and obviously it was working from slowest to fastest to get everyone off the road as early as possible. The first wave seemed to be really slow, and I noticed that most of the people were doing the breast stroke. Again, this made me feel a little better about my weak swimming. Once I got in the pool myself, once more I found everyone to be really friendly, and I positioned myself to go off fourth of the 6 in my wave. We all had a friendly agreement that if you wanted to pass you tapped the person in front on the foot and we would switch at the wall.

The swim set off and while it was tough going, I was happy enough considering my lack of training. I moved up from 4th to second and was second out of the pool in my lane. The guy ahead of me was about a length ahead of me and the rest of the pack were about a length behind me.

I ran out to T1 and made a last minute decision to wear socks. I had been planning on going sockless to save transition time, but had put some socks in my fancy transition bag just in case (my fancy transition bag was a trash bag). I decided to wear the socks as my heart rate was pretty high after the swim and I figured a few seconds break would be a good call.

I jumped on the bike and off I went. The ride felt good and the two lap course was nice. No steep hills and I managed to keep an average speed of around 18mph. Way better than any of my training rides and a speed I was very happy with considering I was on a mountain bike with standard platform pedals without any cages. I did pass two people on mountain bikes and am proud to say I passed a good four or five people on road bikes, a few of which even had tri/ profile bars.

Finally I came to the run. My T2 time was good as all had to do was park my bike and put a cap on. The run started well and my legs felt good but my heart rate was unusually high. I did the first mile at a decent pace but then had to slow for the second mile to get my heart rate down. For the third mile I managed to speed up again and finished well.

Overall I LOVED it. It was a fantastic experience and I genuinely enjoyed all of it. Going into the race I had 6 goals

1. Swim goal: Don’t drown
2. Bike goal: Don’t get hit by a car
3. Run goal: run it as strong as you can
4. Finish
5. Finish smiling
6. Finish smiling in under an hour and a half

As you can see, I wasn’t aiming tremendously high! I’m happy to say that I hit all of my goals. My final times and splits were as follows.

Swim: 17:12
T1: 1:37
Bike: 40:51
T2: 00:30
Run: 23:05

Final time: 1:23:13

I’m definitely happy with it. The guy who won the race did it in about 55 minutes. I came in 80th out of about 160… so again, I’m happy with that. Now I have some targets to beat! I know that with training I can shave a few minutes off the swim. On a decent bike and with training I should easily knock five or six minutes off the bike. Ideally I would like my run time to get under 20 minutes. That’s probably the most ambitious improvement though.

While doing the race I was already looking forward to the next one, which is September the 7th in my local area. I’m just about to mail off my application form!

The importance of goals and the importance of realism.

I mentioned before that I was going to start running a few pieces for beginners. Well, a few people liked the idea so here is the first of (hopefully) many of these.

One thing Ive discovered with running is that you have to have a goal. You need something to aim towards.
At first I thought this was perhaps just me. Well, obviously not JUST me. I realise that many people are “goal oriented” etc. I however am not really one of those goal focussed kind of people generally speaking. With running/ training though, I am. There are a number of reasons for this. First and foremost, I need something to kick my ass and get me off the couch when Im tired/ its cold/ its raining/ its snowing/ its midnight/ I don’t want to or all of the above reasons try to hold me back. I need a reason to do it. Something that says I have to do it, something that can stand above the snow, the exhaustion, the fact that Ive been on a 12 hour flight and my body clock thinks its 2am. I need something to drive me.
The more I look at it the more I think this applies to everyone. We all need training goals.
At the start it may be for you as it was for me.. The desire to be able to run 3 minutes without stopping.

My next goal was to run a 10k.
My next was to run a 10k without injuring myself.
After that a lot of my goals were about not injuring myself.
But I’ve kept resetting my goals.

Once you achieve you goal. You need the next one. In fact, for me, I need the next number of goals planned out well in advance.

I think this is advantageous for a number of reasons. The most important three being MOMENTUM, FOCUS and PERSPECTIVE.

Momentum is really important. There is nothing worse than having a goal, achieving it then thinking.. “now what?”.

The second key is focus. Knowing what your next goal is keeps your focussed. This is obviously directly connected to momentum.. right? So, for me my goal was a 10k. But while training for a 10k, I already knew that I wanted to do a half marathon. I hadn’t picked one at this stage, and injuries held it all back for a while… but I knew I wanted to do it, and it allowed me to focus on sorting out my injury problems.

Finally, and most importantly to me, is perspective. It’s important to have perspective. It’s also important to aim high. I’m not going to talk endlessly about this, I’m just going to explain how this works for me.

When I was training for my first 10k, I knew I was going to be doing a half marathon. This made the 10k seem not that bad. It was only 6.2 miles. I was aiming to do 13.1. IT reduced the size of the initial goal. It put it into perspective.

I’ve now done two 10ks and two half marathons this season. When I started training for the half marathon, this was also easily put into perspective.
I’m doing a marathon.
I’m doing it THIS YEAR.
That’s 26.2 miles. Thus, 13.1 doesn’t seem that bad.

Again, even the marathon.. I haven’t even started my marathon training plan yet… but… my GOAL is to do an Ironman triathlon next year. So all of a sudden the marathon doesn’t seem so insurmountable. It doesn’t seem like such a huge thing. Its just one in a series of goals. Each goal is a small step… but it’s also a giant leap forward for someone who couldn’t run the length of himself a year ago.

Finally, as I mentioned in the title. The importance of realism. I have lots of goals now. This season, another 10k or two. Two sprint triathlons, one Olympic length triathlon and a marathon.
I want to get my half marathon time under 1 hour 40. I want to get my 10k time under 40 mins.
The point where realism comes into it is to remember that if you’re setting yourself high goals, don’t set yourself up for a fall.
If I cant do the Olympic length triathlon this year, that’s fine. I will do it next year.
If I don’t think I will be able to do an Ironman in 2010? No bother, I will do it in 2011.
It’s important to be thankful for what you’ve got. To always look back as well as forward.
If I hadn’t got a PR in my half marathon last week would I have been pissed off?
Hell no! I couldn’t run a year ago and I completed my second half marathon.
So… For the more experienced folks who may have stuck with this for this long… If you’re about to kick yourself for not qualifying for Boston this year… before you do, how about allowing yourself to be amazed that you ran a marathon in 3 hours 30 mins? (or whatever your time was).

Aim high, but don’t beat yourself up for failure. Celebrate your successes, don’t even think of anything as a failure. Look at the part of it that was a success and celebrate that.

Hope this has been useful. If there are any specific topics you would like to hear me ramble endlessly on about, please feel free to leave a comment.

Back in San Francisco / Endurance

This week I am back in San Francisco.
Transatlantic travel can be totally exhausting. Regular trips to the West coast are really hard to take.
Interestingly though, I think as I train more (particularly endurance training) it is getting easier.

Endurance: the power to withstand hardship or stress; "the marathon tests a runner's endurance"

Basically, I'm finding that as I build my running and cycling endurance, its having a knock on effect of just building overall physical and mental endurance.

I flew over on Monday, which was a long day. I was up to travel to the Airport in Dublin at 5am. 2 hours journey to the Airport, 2 hours waiting around and an 11 hour flight later I arrived in SFO International airport. By this stage Ive been awake for 16 hours, but its only 1 in the afternoon.
I headed to my hotel, grabbed a cup of coffee and decided to go out for a run. Amazingly enough I managed to run just over 10k. It was about 3:30 in the afternoon by the time I headed out... which by my body clock was 11:30pm.

The biggest problem with the run was the fact that my hotel was at the top of the worlds steepest hill.


You can just about see the bottom. Running down this was virtually impossible so i sort of half jogged half walked.
For this first run, I had a destination in mind. I actually had to pop to Sports Basement to pick up a Tri Suit for my first Tri next month. I picked myself up a pair of Sugoi shorts and Zoot top. Man those things are tight. I'm by no means vain.. but I can be quite self conscious. Wearing these in public is going to be weird!
Anyway, shopping done I ran back to the hotel. I managed to run all the way up the hill right until the last block.. where the incline had to be close to 90 degrees.

I had to give up and walk. There was just no way I was running up that!

The next morning I woke up superearly, like 5am or something, and headed out for a run again. I planned on doing a run across the bridge again, but was undecided whether that would be Tuesday or Thursday morning... I decided to just run and see where I ended up. Once I saw the bridge through the mist, my mind was made up and off I went.. I couldn't resist the call...

I do love the Golden Gate bridge, and as Ive said before, its a pretty awesome feeling to run across one of the wonders of the modern world.

My camera phone really doesn't do it justice at all, but I do like to take a few shots while out running.

I ran across the bridge and on the way back, weirdly, had to stop as there were guys doing something maintenance related. At that time of the morning, there weren't a lot of people around, but there was me, a few more runners and about 10 hardcore looking cyclists all waiting by the time they let us through.


After that, my run was undisturbed and I had a nice easy 14 mile round trip that took me about 2 hours 13 minutes. Once more, I walked the last block of the hill.

While on this run, I had been watching the cyclists and thinking how much fun it would be to ride across the bridge as well. I popped into a bike rental place on my way back and picked up a leaflet. Turns out they rent some nice road bikes. The next evening, when I was finished work, I popped down and picked one up. It was a Giant Defy 2.. and man was it awesome.

Back home I ride a mountain bike that isn't even made by a bike company.
Seriously.
Its made by Reebok.
Yeah, the shoe company.
Its, to put it nicely, a heap of crap.
It weighs about 4 tonnes, and cost less than £100 new.

So, when I got on this £800 racing bike... Imagine the difference. I could easily lift this thing and carry it under my arm. Riding it was so easy compared to what I was used to. I could get it up to 25mph on the flat without really feeling like I was straining. My bike at home hits 25 mph going down the steepest hill i can find with me pedaling all out.

So off I went on a spin. I headed across the bridge and went up the hill and I saw this lovely view.

See that long, windy, very hilly road? Yes, I went down there. Many was that exhilarating. Scary too.. a bit... but really good fun. Amazingly enough, climbing it again on the way home wasn't even that bad. What a difference a decent bike makes!

I followed this really pretty road out to Sausalito
Once I hit Sausalito, there was a really nice cycle path.. so I just kept going.

Eventually, somewhere, I came off the bike path, cycled up a hill and decided that this sign was telling me it was time to turn round...

The view from this point was quite breathtaking... again, the crappy cam phone picture doesn't do it justice, but at least you get an idea.


On the way back, once I came across the bridge, I turned a different direction from the way I came and took a spin up into the hills, then down through golden gate park and back (eventually after getting totally lost a few times) to the hotel. I ended up riding 33.91 miles. The longest bike ride of my life!

The next morning, I rose early once more and headed out for more of the same. This time I went a bit further on via another route and ended up in a place called Corte Madera a pretty little town. I stopped off here and popped into Pete's Coffee to grab a caramel latte. When I came back out someone had left a little present for me in my bike helmet...

A cute little toy monkey.
Kinda weird.
But nice.
I put him in my bag and he will be joining me on my journey home.
I can only guess that the kid who owned him saw the helmet hanging there and thought that looked like a comfy bed for the monkey. Bet they didn't expect that it would result in their little toy monkey flying halfway around the world!

After my coffee, I got back on the road and headed back. With sadness I handed the bike back and wandered down to fisherman's wharf for some quality recovery food... Clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl. Tasty

Total distance for the day was 36.32 miles. At one point though, I had paused the Garmin at a traffic light and forgot to hit start again and may have lost out on a mile or two, regardless it was still another longest ride ever.

In total over a period of 24 hours I manged to ride 70.23 miles and had 8,644 feet of climbing... And I enjoyed every bit of it.

Before and After / Family running

I'm merging two topics together here. Y'know, because its my blog and I can damn well do as I please.

First up.. been planning on doing this for a while.

I ha vent been running / working out long. I started in summer 2008. There were a variety of reasons... probably foremost of which was my spreading waistline. I used to be a SKINNY guy. And man do I mean skinny.. underweight, malnourished looking. Often sick looking. So, it was rather a surprise to discover one day that I was a fat guy.

I wasn't Gilbert Grape's mother fat. But for me... a skinny guy.. I was big. My BMI said OBESE. In about 2.5 years, my trouser size had gone from a 30 to a 36.
That's a hell of an increase.
Now, a year and a bit later, Ive got rid of most of the excess weight. I'm still not exactly where I want to be. There is still a bit of excess body fat I want to get rid of, and I still have a lot of toning up to do... but on the whole I think its time for a before and after photo.

First up, a nice shot of me and my proud stomach with my lovely wife taken in June of Last year. Shortly after I began running and long before it had a chance to do me any good. You can click the image to see it in all its glory.

What a damn fine specimen of manhood. Check out that double chin. Check out those moobs. Admire the prominent gut. A lot of wine, GOOD food and hard work went into sculpting this Adonis like physique.

OK. Skip forward one year. I have not done any crazy diets. I still eat a lot of junk food. I still eat a PERIOD. BUT, Ive worked out a lot more. I run, bike and occasionally swim. To be honest, the running was all I did for the first 6 months or so. Ive really only started the biking this year. Since starting the cycling and swimming Ive found the weight loss easier. Although that's because I now train at least 6 days a week.

On Wednesday night I did the Craigavon 10k. I dragged my long suffering wife and long suffering son along for the ride. Well.. not just for the ride. I signed them up for the 1km family run. Which was a lot of fun. So, my photos to show the weight loss were taken on that night... First up... me and the lil guy finishing the 1km race, and yes... he beat me.

Now.. don't get me wrong. I'm not a vain guy. I am no model. But I'm proud of the fact that i manged to go from overweight couch potato, to something that resembles a fit human being.
Ive enjoyed the journey and at some point, very early in the process, I became obsessed with running. I'm also sorta obsessed with the idea of triathlon, but until i do one, I cant say much on that.

So, I ran the 10k. My first 10k was a disaster.. I was injured and dragged myself round the course. My second 10k, my target was to do it in under an hour.
I did it in 48 Min's and 30 secs (ish)
Which amazed me. I was really happy with this time.
My only aim with this 10k was to beat the last time... but I am in base training at the moment, have done no 10k prep and virtually no speed work.. So I was REALLY happy when I did the 10k in 45 min 49 seconds. Shaved nearly 3 minutes off the last one. Totally over the moon with this time.
The best thing was, the next day I felt fine. No stiffness, no pain, no injury. After the last 10k I was unable to run for a good few days and ended up having to see a physio and podiatrist. This time round, in the right shoes with orthotics.. faster and no pain.
Excellent.
In fact the next night i went out for a 13 mile cycle.

Anyway, here is me mid 10k. It was a very hot night so I was throwing cups of water over myself while running... so basically.. the wetness on the shirt isn't all sweat.
I really enjoyed this run. I'm off to San Francisco again next week so will do another run across the Golden Gate bridge. Will undoubtedly blog from there.

Ive also been thinking of using this blog to put together some advice for beginning runners and first time wannabe triathletes. If anyone would like to see bog posts on this subject, please leave a comment.

Just to finish off, here is the before and after... side by side.