It is great to look back at the year and see how it played out. Going into 2015 I had an early target of a half ironman in February and Ballycotton 10 mile in March. I also wanted to improve on my Ballycotton Summer series position from 2014. Everything else would be a bonus.
Highlights
With so many highlights from the year it is hard to narrow it down. It was amazing to complete my 1st half distance triathlon in Wanaka and an experience I will never forget. You can read more about that here. To then go out and break my 10 mile PB in Ballycotton set me up nicely for the year. I broke my 5km PB on 3 occasions and currently stands at 19:10 which I got in Cloyne 5k. My 10km PB was broken on 2 occasions, the 41:41 in Courtmacsherry 10km is something I’ll aim to beat in 2016. A new 5 mile PB in Shannagarry, a new 4 mile PB which I managed to get in 2 Bhaa races and lastly a new marathon PB in New York (write up here). Breaking into the top 50 in the Ballycotton Summer Series was the highlight of the summer. You can see the ups and downs of that here. It was also good to get my 2nd Olympic Distance Tri done. That was in a rain soaked Dublin and managed a PB in very tough conditions. Check that out here. Doing another destination race in Amsterdam was great prep for New York. I took it easy in that half and still managed to put in a good time. How the training run went can be seen here. 2015 was also the 1st time I competed in the Lee Swim. I always wanted to attempt it and this year was the 1st time I felt I was able for it and delighted I tried it. I’ll be back in 2016 for sure.
My overall mileage for the year was:
Swimming: 110km
Cycling: 1825km
Running: 1064km
Goals for 2016
My goals for 2016 are simple
Races
Complete Full Distance Tri
A new Half Marathon PB
Target a Marathon and break 4 hours.
PB in Ballycotton
PB in Lee Swim (with currents in 2015 that may be hard)
Distances
Swimming: 150km
Cycling: 3000km
Running: 1100km
Back to training
All those goals are great but they are all dependant on staying injury free. After the last couple of weeks I really wanted to get going again. Physio on Tuesday gave me confidence to get back out there again. It may not have been as active as I wanted it to be but it was a hell of an improvement and I didn’t want to go out too fast again. I did a slow 46 min turbo session on Wednesday just to ease my way back into it. It was slow but with Liverpool match on it was good to get through it.
I took Thursday off before a good one hour turbo session on Friday. I felt good after it which meant I’d give a run a go on Saturday. I followed up a wet 5km run with a 2.1 km swim. No soreness after it so the confidence is back. Sunday was the biggest session in a while. A good brick session of 32km cycle and 8km run.
Huge improvement on the last couple of weeks. Rest day on Monday and increase the distance again.
Breakdown
Mon – 1.75km swim – stopped due to back stiffness
Tues – Physio – a good rub down and stretches will help out
Wednesday – 46 mins turbo (18km)
Thursday – none
Friday – 60 mins turbo (27km)
Saturday – 5.5km run, 2.1km swim
Sunday – 32km cycle, 8km run
Week 6 plan looks like this:
Mon – Swim
Tues – 1 hour run
Wednesday – 45 min cycle (Indoor), 15 min run
Thursday – 1 hour cycle(Turbo)
Friday – 1 hour run
Saturday – 2 hour cycle
Sunday – 1 hour run
That may be too much of a jump for now but I’ll try get as close as I can to those distances.