Now just hold that coin in-between the cheeks of your…

That’s right I’m going there! From I have learned in my little experience of triathlon, most injuries seem to stem from two common problems. Poor core strength or poor glute strength. In my case it’s my glutes that are the biggest problem.  One solution that had been mentioned to me by several people is to imagine you are holding a coin in between the cheeks of your bum!

Over before it started?

I had planned to tell you my big plans to participate in the National Series this year, to do two Olympics for the first time. But as my infuriating niggles have refused to go away that plan has continued to change. I wanted to manage my expectations so that I wouldn’t get stressed out or disappointed by being injured but still have time to complete some goals. That resulted in removing the National Series from my plan. Just aim to do one Olympic, sure I’m only in the sport for fun anyway, I told myself. I reduced my mileage but the niggles kept getting worse. I stopped running altogether with the hopes of sorting out these niggles once and for all. In the meantime I changed my goals again to exclude an Olympic. I would just focus on a handful of sprint races instead. Last week I wasn’t able to swim or cycle without pain and had to stop all training. My goals became very fuzzy. After a few days of no training I was still sore and realised then that I was swollen too. I headed straight to the physio. Not only do I have iliopsoas tendonitis, I also have a hip impingement.

End of 2011 Season

I was going to write a blog about my plans for 2012 but I realised that I should really wrap up 2011 first! I never told you how my 2011 season ended. The last two races of the year were TriAthy Sprint and Carrick-on-Suir triathlon. The previous year, my experience of triathlons was coming out last in the swim and then being able to pass some people on the bike and run. My swimming improved from 2010 to 2011, I was now coming out of the swim in an ok position which meant two things.1) I was now surrounded by athletes who knew what they were doing and about to annihilate me on the bike and 2) I was now exhausted….sure I could swim faster but it meant I had trouble doing anything else after swimming!

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 3,900 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 3 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Hell of the West 2011 – An Average Athlete Point of View

When myself and @gragraob were in Kilkee watching the Hell of the West Triathlon we saw a guy running along with a camera and here is the awesome video he made!!!

 

Gatorade Dublin City Triathlon to attract participants from across the world

Participants will range from top elite athletes to new entry triathlons and even Boyzone star Keith Duffy!

Arrangements are being well advanced for Europe’s largest city park triathlon, the Gatorade Dublin City Triathlon on August 28th next, with entry now open to the public.

The phrase of the day is “catch up”!

According to wiki “Catch up stroke: A variation of the front crawl where one arm always rests at the front while the other arm performs one cycle.”
400m of this drill in the pool this morning and my arms were about ready to fall off, why? Because I was trying to play serious catch up with my training! It has been a busy month and a half so I thought I would write a catch
up blog…getting the theme yet?

Fingal Sprint Triathlon 2011

I remembered why I liked triathlon this weekend! On Sunday I took part in the Fingal Sprint Triathlon, organised by fellow Dublin Club ‘3D Tri’.

I couldn’t wait to write this report. Admittedly, I have yet to write my report on the North Tipp Sprint two weeks ago. I must say it was a well run race however I just didn’t enjoy it as much as I had hoped. I found the run difficult and fought a lot of demons in my head. I came out of that race feeling a little defeated. Whilst my swimming has improved tenfold, my running and biking were going a bit backwards.

My first duathlon!

On reflection, my first duathlon wasn’t bad at all. My main concern for this race was to keep my nerves under control and not to blow up too early… mission accomplished!

Thanks to @m_j_fisher for the pic!

On the run up to the event, they changed the course of the Open Race several times; I guess to accommodate the road closures, the European Duathlon Championships and for safety reasons as our race would involve less experience athletes. The first run was actually 3.8km, the cycle was 13.2km and the last run was 2.9km.

Sa Calobra – Mallorca Cycling

I’ve been a very busy girl lately, so I haven’t had the time I needed to update the blog. However, this is a good thing because I stopped myself from going into a slump due to not being able to run for a few weeks. Instead I got stuck into my swim training and cycling.