Some man for wan man!

Check this crazy guy out, http://corkrunning.blogspot.com/2011/10/100-year-old-sets-new-marathon-record.html  and also there is a piece on there about guys on running streaks of 30 years or more, one guy from east cork has run every day since 1986! and ron hill of the running wear has everyday since 1964!!!

I personally did a nice hour on the bike last wednesday with si and carol followed by a hard 30 mins on lough hyne and oon Friday i went and did 2 thirds of my 3 pod route in Glengarriff, so amazing with the auburn colors and falling leaves, for me its the best biking on the road in Ireland. I just love it over there and plan to explore the hills for running over th winter and spring.
Resting up now for the South Coast thing on Saturday, which will be tough enough if the weather is shit, either way the piss up after should be great!! :)

My local Mountain Bike Trails

http://www.pinkbike.com/video/182634/

There is loads of xc (easy) stuff as well thats is not shown.
Lots of shots of Alex N in the red top.

A busy weekend

 http://www.liffeydescent.com/Photos_2011/AlbumID/2614-127/Page/1.aspx  the link left shows competitors on the first weir at Straffan Co Kildare. We are in the wave! see if you can find my orange helmet

So on Friday morning i made the trip up to Dublin for the Liffey Descent, which for those who dont know is one of the worlds premier white water martahon canoe events. I would be paddling in a touring double with fellow Drinagh man Dave Glaswell. We overnighted in KIldare with a good friend of mine, Emma Lucy, nice veegie lasagne! and creamy pints in Bardons of Killcullen not to mention the great conversation. We headed out after watching a dissapointing rugby match on the saturday morning. Dave did the shuttle which took ages so i just sat in our kayak and chilled, its a great spectacle everyone running around with different types of canoe and kayak and all sorts of participants from the full on serious muscle guys to the shirt weraing fancy dress lads in open boats. Eoin and gordon 2 good buddies of mine did it in an open boat and had a good time, despite paddling into a wall!

We had a horror show of a start but recovered after our second swim to style all the following weir's and come in 16th in our class in around 2.50, not what dave was hoping for but a grand day out none the less. I should and probably would (if i was still living in Galway) get my act together and do this in a K1 which is the blue ribbon category and would be challenging to get down from a 'not breaking my boat point of view' I found the 3 hours flew by and i could have done double the distance, the long runs and cycles of the last 4 months obviously paying off.

Photo above is us just after dropping over the wrens nest weir. That night i went out with Gordon to the after party and i would say lost 3 or 4 pounds in sweat such was the effort i put into dancing! Good ould night out. Stayed in GOrdon's camper van near jervis street, got 6 hours sleep, then up drive to westcork, change into running gear and rocked out a steady 17km fairly wet run. Which was so nice as my leg feels a lot better and just to back running was amazing, i felt super at the end and would have loved to do another 10km but i said i owuld be prudent and not chance the leg so soon. Man did i sleep last night! What a weekend of traing for the 24 hour race at the end of the month! i was awake 37  out of 43 hours and did a marathon kayak race, partied hard and ran nearly a half marathon (it was hilly), a busy weekend indeed.

The liffey descent

So in a past life! and every now and again these days i am a white water kayaker. I paddled at expert level (if i do say so myself!) usually hitting grade 3 and 4 white water and often nailing grade 5 lines aswell, until i over dosed and decided to try other stuff in life, i.e have kids, run, cycle etc :) anyway now and again i venture into the white and watery world of water and this weekend i am heading to Dublin with long term friend and paddler extraordinare David Glasswell to compete in the Liffey Descent, Ireland's and indeed Europe premier white water marathon. They really come form all over the world to this one. ave is intent on breaking 2.30, which is a hefty goal but sure we will give it a blast. Should be fun! here is a taster,http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VV_DyBTjRU

Wet 'n' Wild

Don't get excited its just another road ride in the shit weather we are having, i was 100% soaked to the skin 18 mins into this one! but still enjoyed the 2hr 35 min hilly ride. It brightened up nice (ish) at the end too.
Here she is http://ridewithgps.com/users/25361/routes 4300 feet of climbing and it felt like i only went up the road a bit and back.The return ascent of mealagh valley climb (from the dunmanway side is 16% !) thought if felt hard alright :) Shit day but as always great to be out riding.

You need to find a trail like this in Glengarriff, Simon!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFCjaKhbHMk&feature=player_embedded

Good god that looks like some craic!

Running in winter.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjDLorXfkao&feature=related

Click and watch the invisible link above! 266 times up the same hill, wow, he loves that hill, and its hard to argue it looks amazing, like lough hyne of carraigfadda at altitude! Seems like a cool guy and an unbelieveable runner.

Cycling 101

So with the 24 hour non stop adventure race only a month away and with my running injury i am back on the bike and yesterday was looking to get a long ride in, well 101kms later i arrived home happy and tired, i was riding for 4 hours and 5 minutes. Its the longest ride i have done since May and there was 3 fine hills in there aswell, 2 of which came in the last 30 mins and whilst i did not fly up them i felf comfortable enough. So a class day out and a rare ascent of Mount Gabriel which is the Westcork version of L'alpe d'uez, cool and misty. All in all a mighty day out, felf great after and not to bad today.

Barefoot running

So its a world wide craze for a couple years now and a study released last week suggests that it only is helpful if you actually fore foot strike  and that if you heel strike when barefoot or in minimalist shoes it can actually exasberate injury. I am and always have been a barefoot fan, as a kid i raced cross country and interchanged between spikes (about as minimalist as you get) and barefoot, when i ran as a 5 to 10 year old at sports meets (which were fading but still popular then) i always ran bareffoot and i can remember the feeling that over a 100metre sprint i never felt as fleet of foot as i did when bearfoot. I did over the years since go for the odd run on grass barefoot but not to improve my foot strength or technique or anything fancy and structured, rather just to feel the earth and grass beneath my feet, simply for the purity of it, it felt great to be outside of my sweaty shoes, some of these were in the USA in 2001 as i found my feet sweat at an alarming rate!

I just read 'born to run' and its a must read for anyone who has ever run! an absorbing read and even if you think the whole thing is pointless alternative hog wog, its still interesting to hear another view on what we all kinda believed as gospel, (wear cushioned runners, replace them every 500 miles, pronation neutralizers etc)he makes a good argument that its all just commercial marketing and totally unsubstanciated by any proper research. However there are runners who trot along for many many miles in modern shoes and do not get injured and whether you would be less prone to injury with or with out runners is down to more than just what is or is not on your feet. What i think is that the barefoot thing has clearly a part to play and everyone should do a little (20 mins a week) sans footwear. With this in mind i did a km onthe road! last sunday and yes it hurt but i was skipping along like i was on hot coals as they say but of course i got a bit of a blood blister, no big deal though, i did not run all week as i hal a shin splint type thing going on, (so aannoying) and on friday night i did 4 km bare foot in the local pitch, it was so wet and fun, i slipped on my ass whilst turning at one stage :) i felt lite and my cadence was definetly faster, so yeah a lot of fun and a great work out.

I still am injured though and will have to give it another week of total rest from running, so back on the bike for some more hills which i enjoy alot an dthank god too cause i would go mental otherwise, might even go swimming! so in a way it could be a good thing for me, in ther long term but god all i want to do is go out and run. I should be doing the cork to cobh right now and not sitting here writing this but sometimes things just dont turn out the way we want, still i can hardly really complain as i am healthy and happy and there is a lot of people with real problems and so much worse off than me.