Back at it.

A new blog… Finally.

I knew I hadn’t updated this in a while but didn’t realize it was a long as New Years …  better late that never.

It has been fairly quite since, hence the lack of blogging.

January and February I was on a five week placement in a Primary school as part of my degree which was brilliant but knocked my training a bit with being in Scotland in winter with snow at least once a week and constantly picking up colds and bugs with being surrounded by small kids.

I have been to Spain twice since then with the Irish Triathlon Squad, trying to get my fitness back. I have made a video from these camps which I hope you will find interesting, you might have already seen it but I might as well link it to my blog. I will hopefully make a few videos from time to time as a rather enjoy it, regardless of the fact that I don’t really know what I am doing and am just really playing about, but its something different I suppose.

 Last weekend I raced my 1^st triathlon of the season, European Premium Cup, Banyoles, Spain . I had struggled with a strained calf in the weeks leading up the race, and was told not to do it incase I was to set my self back further, but I was going for different reasons, I hadn’t raced in 7 months and I wanted to see where my swim/biking was, it was a process based race not end product.

I didn’t have a great race, I felt swim fit but made stupid mistakes tactically which comes from race experience and sharpness; the whole reason I wanted to race therefore gaining what I wanted from the race. I have hopefully made the mistakes and learnt from them, hopefully not making the same mistakes when it matters. I was happy with my biking, so its about getting my run back up to where I want it and start getting some good results.

I have now reevaluated my race program and the main focus now is getting in some good run shape.

I have yet to find any photos from the race but when I do I will stick them up.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year,

I know that is a wee bit late but, better late than never; I have decided to do something different, and instead of writing a long boring blog post about how last year went i decided to make a short video from my races last season, Hope you enjoy.
It might not play on mobiles and iPads but I'm  trying to fix that, so check it out on a computer if you get a chance.

Russell

Exciting news.

Finally getting around to posting a wee update, it amazing how you find time to do things when you are supposed to be revising;

Procrastination … Never!

So … What have I been up to; I suppose in race wise, I decided to give a Cross-country race a bash to get some single sport racing in and it is just a good hard session and great fun.

I raced Scottish University Champs; last year I came 5th and was looking to improve on that, unfortunately I came 5^th once again. I wasn’t too gutted about it as the course was not suited to me, I know I am still not a physically strong runner so on such a wet muddy course I was actually very pleased with my performance and probably took more from it than the previous year.

That performance has also qualified me to represent Scottish University Sport at the Great Scottish International Cross-Country in January and also my University at BUCS in the New Year as well, so still plenty of Cross-country racing yet to come.

My big news at the minute is that I have just been signed for a Division One, French Grand Prix Team for the forthcoming season.

TCG79 Parthenay

I will hopefully race against the best in the world at the unforgiving French Grand Prix series gaining valuable experience through furiously fast racing.

So that is something extra to look forward to during the season.

In the nearer future I will be running another cross-country race on Saturday; the East District Scottish Champs, so hopefully I will be able to get a good performance out of that.

After that I will be heading to Aguilas, Spain, my usual warm weather training base for a 10 days intensive training before Christmas.

So hopefully I will be able to cram a few more updates before Christmas.

Russell. 

Lakeland Bikes Enniskillen

I am happy to announce that I will be sponsored by Lakeland Bikes Enniskillen for the 2013 season.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Lakeland Bikes for agreeing to sponsor me and showing their belief in me as an athlete to perform and help promote such a fantastic shop.

They will be my main equipment sponsor providing me with all my racing and training needs. I will post photos and info on all that I receive from them, to give you an idea of the fantastic Bikes, Kit and Equipment that they sell, you can also have a look yourself on their fantastic new website www.lakelandbikes.co.uk

I very much recommend that you check it out and you will not be disappointed, the site is just new so will be rapidly updated so just keep checking back on a regular basis.

It has been confirmed that I will be racing on what has for a good while been my dream bike, I could not believe that someone would be willing to sponsor me one.

                                               A Cervelo S5

It is not only a fantastic looking bike, it is insanely aerodynamic, fast and stiff.

Have a look yourself it is a work of art.

Alanya European Premium Cup.

After not being selected for World U23 Champs, I decided to make this race the last one of the season.

It took place in Alanya, Turkey, a country I have never been so it was very good to have another country marked on my map of where I have been. I have fairly collected new countries this season. I will do a blog rounding up this season in the next week or so but I will focus on this race just now.

I am currently sitting on a flight home very tired and sore but looking forward to a bit of rest before hitting winter training and working on improving for next season, at the same time glad that I finished my first season as a senior/ U23 on a high.

Yesterday I came 14th in a very good quality field, and had a lot of positives to take away from it as well.

The race result was created by having a very good swim. I had a bad reaction time off the start but a very good dive that allowed me to gain half a body length on my surrounding athletes and allowed me a clean swim TI 1st buoy. I was the first person to get to the buoy from the left hand side and was almost too far left so lost a few positions to get on the right side of it.

I ended up getting a kick to my goggles very like I did in European U23's only this time I was in a very relaxed state of mine and was able to reassure myself that I could get back to pontoon and get them fixed before I dived back in, an that's what I did.

I found the second lap of the swim very easy but knew I was comfortable in front pack and in a very good draft so was content in saving energy so that I was not red lining running to transition.

Transition went smoothly and got onto the bike in front pack, the pace was fast with a high caliber of athletes such as Vasiliev, Supunov, and Bryukankov jnr  to name but a few.

The rest of the bike was hard, although the course was completely flat 90% of it was on brick style cobblestones and not Tarmac which required keeping the power down and taking a lot out of the legs. As well the bike pack was being dictated by the Russians as they made up half the pack, putting in large bursts to try and get away instead of us all working together.

Front Pack

I managed to stay in the pack by the end of the bike and on to the run safely. I felt incredible tired and flat on the run but pleased with my efforts so far but it was still far from over.

The run consisted of 4 laps. Lap one I felt flat, lap two I thought I was getting into it lap three was hell, and lap four I was able to pick it up a bit which allowed me to run my fastest 10km of a bike at 34.10. I know this is nothing special and not really representative of my flat out 10km time but that is all about adapting to this new distance. It takes time and thankfully it is going in the right direction.

Glad to see the finish line.

So all in all I was happy with my performance and achieved the targets I set out to, with the added bonus of picking up some points to give me the chance of starts next season and better start numbers in those races.

Thanks for reading and sorry it was rather long but it helped punch in some time on my flight home.

Cheers Russell.