Asher Senyk

Asher Senyk Marathon man, iron man, bike man, nachos man...

 

Packing the rain jacket!

9:09 pm/ Zurich, Switzerland.

The bike is secure in the Transition area now – and everything is set for tomorrow. Ciara was quite surprise how much gear this Ironman stuff attracts – and also the amount of food I am planning to carry (Thanks Harriette) !!

But most of all I am looking at my rain vest – because the skies are looking pretty grey tonight. Anyway – fingers crossed it stays mostly dry.

I was looking at some of the other people doing Ironman – and there is a massive spectrum of abilities. More often than not you can tell the level of athlete by the type of bike. Oh man – I was surrounded by literally thousands of Franc’s and Euros’ worth of bikes… But as always – you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.

My afternoon was grand. Did a short 3 km spin to check the bike – she’s operating fine. The legs felt okay. I had a ‘row’ with one of the Security guys in the transition area – because he wouldn’t let me out of the area to get a bike pump. Anyway – it solved itself.

So now that the pasta dinner has settled, and we took a walk around the block. I have all my gear laid out – in sequence, and the only plan left is to set up breakfast.

My wake-up time will be about 4 am. Slow start – with little bit of Breakfast – trying to eat well as per my list of things to eat. Then walk to start (hopefully not raining yet) and drop off my clothes bags/ food bags/ and then find my bike – add some water bottles – and lay everything out and head to the water- with full wetsuit on ready for action. \

About to lay back and watch Borat again – for a bit of a laugh.

Ironman Zurich is 'GO!' - 833 #

Finally last night at midnight the bike turned like the stork in the middle of the night. I almost jumped out of bed and started building the bike at 3am.

Made it to the opening/registration yesterday. Stood in the pissing rain and listened to the briefing. Its been raining for 3 days now..on and off. So tomorrow I am expecting to wear warmer gear on the bike (arm warmers and gilet-vest).

Swam yesterday in Lake Zurich. Aww…it was lovely  – like a bath.

First images from IM Zurich:

Bike 1/ Super Bottle cage made by KONRAD of Cycleways2/ Street in Zurich. Helmet 4/

Packing for Ironman…Stressful!

Bike is packed – now its just the rest – like wetsuit, goggles, bottles bike gear, run gear and the rest….

Oh man….where do i start…?

ONE WORD ! ‘Legend Colly’

This is one really good example of guts, grit and determination ! Well done Colly. Top effort and brilliant man!

‘caption:’

Colly embarks on “Les Dix Alpes” (The 10 Alpes) on Monday June 21st 2010 in Como, Italy. The finish lies after 12 days, 1.100 kilometres and a multitude of beads of sweat at the waving palms on the boulevard in Nice, France.

The famous cols of the Tour de France: Col de l’Iseran, Col du Galibier, Col d’Izoard and Col de la Bonette will be traversed. In addition, some lesser known, but no less challenging climbs like the Simplon Pass, Col du Petit St. Bernard, Col du Grand St. Bernard, Col de Vars and Col de Lautaret will also feature en route to Nice. Nine passes above 2,000 meters plus the legendary climb to the ski resort of l’Alpe d’Huez. A lot of famous professional cyclists have fought out heroic duels here in the recent past; Federico Bahamontes, Marco Pantani or Lance Armstrong. It is now Colly’s turn to follow in their tiretracks and in the process raise vitally needed funds for Cancer Care West.

This event is being undertaken in loving memory of Martin O’ Gorman, a dear friend of Colly’s who succumbed to cancer in September 2009.
Colly will be incurring the cost of the cycle out of his own pocket and all money raised will go directly to charity. No money donated will be used as part of the cost of the cycle.

A special word of thanks goes to those who sponsored cycling equipment and nutritional products for the training and cycle; Richies Bikestore in Swords, Asher from CycleWays Parnell St…

http://www.collymurray.com/

Sunday's Last long run

As most Paddy’s were heading to church, I met with the local lads (Fintan and Paul) for a Sunday ‘long’ run in Phoenix Park. What a great platform to set the week up for a pre-Ironman Taper. While many would argue that 14 miles the week before Ironman isn’t a good idea – nor is it a taper – I don’t really believe in that. I think its most important to feel your body and know that it still can go the distance. The focus will be on recovering as quickly as possible today after the run. That is proper taper to me.

Anyway – this week is crucial for diet and rest/relaxation. I have plenty on my plate with the preparation before the flight – like packing up bikes, printing off documents and getting the whole nutrition plan sorted with ingredients etc etc. It always really accelerates at this point.

Some of the best things that I have done over the past few weeks is prepare myself better for the Ironman by eating properly. Last Ironman I was still enjoying tequila and Mexican food when I lived in Los Angeles and doing more miles on the bike. The difference is now that I have lots more on my plate – the preparation has been different. Anyway – I will try not to digress away from my point about food.

Harriette Lynch of Healthpro (and this is not a plug for her company) is a close friend – a mate that really cares about my performance. She first met with me a while ago and looked at my daily diary of food, and training program and simply sat me down and had a good chat about what I needed to do to fuel myself properly. Its made quite a change to be honest – I am ‘buzzing’ around at a great rate of knots now – and most of all don’t feel the lag in energy like I used to. Its most noticeable with in the mornings and evenings – when most people around me are tired – I am charged and contemplating training…etc etc..

Thanks to Fintan for the lovely Organic/ home grown ‘rocket fuels’ like cabbage, Basil, onions and beans (oh man..thats great stuff dude!)

So the moral of this short blog is GET YOURSELF OUT THERE AND THINK ABOUT FOOD – PROPER FOOD. SEEK HELP OF SOMEONE SKILLED! AND YOU WILL NEVER REGRET IT!

I am about to head off to the shop to get some Fish for tonight’s dinner. Home made Sushi is on the menu for this week!

Building a Time Trial Bike in 2 days!

Thanks to the lads from Rocket Riders for lending me a lovely Trek Equiniox 9.5 TTX frame. The luscious red-lightning frame was my pride and joy for a while, while I waited for parts and accessories to come in to build it up.

Unfortunately the frame didn’t work out because of a small paint-blemish on the frame turned out to be structural problems and it was not very suitable for the Ironman. So with that all said and done – I switched gears back to my Ol’trusty Litespeed/ TST Titanium frame used in Ironman New Zealand-2005.

While the frame geometry is best suited for a road position, this way really my only chance to get a bike together for the Ironman as I had run out of ideas and money.

What did I do?/ What parts did I use.

Frame: TST 54cm Titanium Frame-Handmade in the USA ($500) in 2004. http://www.titaniumsports.com/index.html

Forks: Reynolds Ouzo 1 Inch full carbon

Cranks: Bontranger Carbon X-Lite ( 175mm length)

Bottom Bracket: Special Ordered SRAM/FSA GIGA X-Pipe (model used that worked well was the SRAM GXP bottom bracket- universal model)

Chainrings: 53/39 Heavy gear for grinding.

Brakes: My boss’ Durace Brake calipers

Wheels: Roval Raptide

Cassette: Shimano 9 Speed DuraAce

Shifters: Bar-end -speed.

Tri Bars: Syntace (Germany) basic/old ones.

Bottle Cage/Saddle: Its a X-Lab version of the saddle carrier. I have slightly modified the hinges/ and added in Locking-nuts so that it doesn’t shake loose (*definite must)Be sure to secure your water bottled down by rubber bands/or hair bands… otherwise bottles can launch.

Saddle: Specialized Phenom ‘Brilliant’!! This is so comfortable. Its narrow on the sit-bone sections, but wide and cushioned on the middle of the saddle where you need it most. Really really comfortable..!! Great start. (note -its actually a mountain bike saddle)

That’s is about it to be honest. Really simple build up. Took about 24 hours to get it going – then did a test ride. It was fantastic.

Now the ride quality of the Titanium is brilliant. Its a bike for life man. Its fairly flexible and you can hear the brakes rubbing when pushing hard up a hill – but the ride quality out-weights this.

Carbon Wheels are lovely. Roval Raptide are amazing. Fast  -  mega light- stiff and responsive. The only thing that I would say is that the braking surface can be a little noisy if you brake hard.

Arrhhh…110Km for breakfast – Harden up Paddy’s!

‘Oh Smack!’ and that was it. All done – 110 km before breakfast. Happy days trend setters. GARMIN

Too much sport is Barely Enough and Happy Endings

Its a frenzy of couch time booked up for the next few weeks. My thumbs are bleeding from channel surfing between ‘World Cup Soccer, Wimbledon’ but now the big one starts on Sunday. TOUR DE FRANCE!

As they said in the Eurosport interview with Lance Armstrong ‘Its going to be a Happy Ending’

And for those sports fans following my training program – Ive had a cracker of a week. Since Sunday I have over 400KM on the clock on the bike and the biggest saddle sores to prove it! Later trend setters.

Bizzare way to get yourself over the border

From Ryan's to Chapo in 9 Minutes

I was challenged to publish my course and time on the bike after two pints of beer from Ryans Pub in Dublin to Chapelizod.

2.98miles/4.7 km in just a hair over 9 minutes. Post if you can beat that!

Garmin Details Here