unironedman

Do you come from a land down under?
Where women glow and men plunder?
Can’t you hear, can’t you hear the thunder?
You better run, you better take cover…

‘Down Under’
Men at Work

The week has drawn to a close with yet another Winter storm. This one was Gertrude, and no sooner had she swept clear of these Isles to batter our Norwegian cousins than it seems Henry is due to step in and take over.

In the midst of the maelstrom, Saoirse took Holly out for a walk, and she came home so dirty that we had to give her a bath. Holly that is. Though by the time we’d finished, we all needed a bit of a scrub.

Suffice to say, she wasn’t overly impressed with the whole bath idea. But on the plus side, her coat is lovely and silky these past few days.

The weather also claimed the power for about three hours. I had the evening planned out: finish off some pressing work in the office, watch a bit of Leinster on the telly, then catch some of the United cup game, and make some dinner. And then the power went. With much of the work on the computer as well.

We always have lots of candles in the house; not that we get a lot of power cuts per se, but it’s always good to be prepared for the odd one (and the Zombie Apocalypse). After a couple of hours, I cracked, and caught the last bit of the game in the local pub, which was spared the cut, though the power did flicker every once in a while.

Saturday was spent stacking some firewood, followed by a 7k run or thereabouts in the Park, with the head-torch, and then preparing for guests that evening. A lovely night was had, and when our guests had departed the next morning, I finished off the log stacks.

These two decent log stacks represents the guts of 2 tonnes of firewood and will keep us going into Summer. It’s also a reasonable workout. Speaking of which, one of my fire service mates gave me some advice on my gym routine. He spends a lot of time in the gym, and whilst his workout would be very different from mine, he understands what is required to get whatever it is you are trying to achieve, and therein with many a training session lies the rub: what is it you are trying to achieve?

I have started following Rob Cummins blog recently. You’ll find it here, and it’s got some great advice from a guy who’s been there, done that, earned the T shirt (and even sold a few as well, as the owner of WheelWork Triathlon store near Dublin). One piece of good advice is always set out to train with a goal in mind. Otherwise you can be inclined to wander. I would subscribe to the philosophy that it’s better to be out doing something than sitting at home doing nothing, but if you are going to the trouble of hitting the gym, jumping on the bike, or into the pool – whatever it is you are doing – you may as well have some set goal in mind. And my mate in the station was quick to seize on this. So my gym routine might get tweaked a bit, with any luck.

I was confined to barracks again today, so I finished off the weekend with a spin on the gym bike.

It’s not quite what I had planned to do, but the legs don’t know the difference. After a 10 minute warm-up, I alternated between ten minutes fast, then 10 easy, and then a warm down at the end. 35 kms all told.

Okay, so I haven’t broken any land speed records, or run any marathons. But at least the firewood’s in for both us and my parents. And the week’s training hasn’t been too bad.

Tús maith, leath na hoibre.