Sean Conway is an ultra-endurance athlete. But he is also a pretty normal guy. Until 30 he was a photographer before deciding his life as boring and quitting to do cool stuff. He cycled around the world, completed a triathlon along the entire British coastline and last year set the world record when he completed 105 full distance triathlons in 105 days.
The talk was him telling his life story which was highly entertaining. Plus I got a signed book.
If you like following this kind of thing, Sean said Jonas Deichmann is going for 120 triathlons this year. Sean and Jonas have been friends since Sean took the self-supported cycling across Europe record off Jonas: some friendly competition going on at the moment!
It’s less than 100 days until Paris! TCD put on a small exhibition last week and had some cool stuff: Olympic torches, kit, medals and display boards on famous athletes.
We went to Westport last weekend. It wasn’t the stunning success we hoped for.
The idea was to get there in plenty of time and have some exploring time on Friday. But it took 5.5 hours to drive across the country meaning we were not there until late and was late to bed.
In the morning I did the marathon and recorded my first run DNF. I wasn’t in a great state by the time I got back I had a shower, changed and went down to collect my bag. But then we got hit by another rain storm and got soaked again.
We went to the beach on Sunday but it was freezing. Then we headed over to Croagh Patrick for a little walk in the foothills but when we got there the car park didn’t accept card or mobile payments so we couldn’t pay. And then the rain started again and properly lashed it down.
There were some highlights, though: Westport itself is a nice place with plenty of bars and restaurants and we had some good meals in The Wyatt, Servd and Woodfire.
I booked this race a while ago as a chance to take a trip to Ireland’s west coast. Then I picked up an injury and haven’t run much for the past two months. Still, I was armed with some good distance in me and sign-off to run from two physios. I actually suggested I should skip it but they said it would be fine: must be the first time a phyio has talked a runner into running!
The race starts in the quay and takes in a two laps of the green way before heading out along the coast road. The course is described as having some hills but probably nothing that counts as a hill in Yorkshire. There was sunshine before the race. But then the gun went and the rain arrived. It rained a lot for the first hour and it was real stinging rain pelting you in the face.
The rain wasn’t the worst of it, though. I couldn’t shake the feeling that my ankle would give out at any moment andI would be stranded. I knew that was ridicious but it kept distracting me and no amount of psychological tools was shifting the feeling. I tried to keep going as long as I could, which took me through the half way point, but with another 7k to go until the turnaround to come back into town I decided it was too much and called it a day. A big thank you to the marshal and Kevin for giving me a lift back.
It was disappointing as I don’t think I have ever had to DNF on a run before but I live to fight another day.
In 2018, I launched my course Triathlon For Beginners and subsequently set up a Facebook group to facilitate peer support. Six years later and I am pleased to announce the group has now hit 100,000 members.
My Running For Beginners group did the same in January.
I have some battle stories from what spammers will try in a group that size 😆. But it has been wonderful to watch so many people sharing stories, encouragement and support.
With Storm Kathleen sweeping over our islands I wasn’t sure what parkruns would be on. There was a nervous wait from 8:00 to 8:30 as I refreshed all of the Facebook pages hoping to see someone would confirm their parkrun was on. Royal Canal parkrun were the first to confirm so was delighted to join them.
The course is an out-and-back that starts from the town centre. It is pan-flat with no locks on the course. I set off thinking I would not be able to match last week’s time, especially as there would be more of a headwind coming back. But as it happens, I managed to set another walking PB of:
33:38
It was my first visit to Kilcock and it looks like a beautiful place.
I’m a British Triathlon certified strength and conditioning coach and I teach a course on using bodyweight exercises to build strength that you can do at home. It has been available via the Resilient website for a while but yesterday it became available on Udemy, too.
After five weeks of resting and physio, I’m still not able to run. So, thinking about what old man sports I could do, I decided to watch a race walking tutorial and see if I could improve on my 5k walking pb of 35:38 set earlier this month.
It turns out that with only a basic understanding of the technique, the answer is yes! I managed to take over a minute and a half off my time and achieve a new pb of:
33:57
I was expecting some soreness after and I did get it but not where I expected: my arms were the most sore and continue to be so.
I’m delighted to be running again.
Tolka Valley was the last parkrun I needed to tick off the Dublin set. A nice small affair with a field of 38 runners and plenty of volunteers braving the rain to support the event. Nice views over the city, too.
Last week, Vaughan Gething became the First Minister for Wales. This made him the first black leader of any European country. But also marks another diversity milestone: all four of the top jobs in the UK (prime minister and three first minsters) are held by women or persons of colour.
For international context, Rishi Sunak is currently prime minster while Humza Yousaf is first minister of Scotland and Michelle O’Neill is first minister of Northern Ireland.