Time away is precious .....La Garenne - France

Juggling a full time job and trying to train anything between 15 and 25 hours a week isn’t easy……
I’m fortunate that in the 10 years I’ve been at the Daily Telegraph I’ve accrued 30 days holiday. I’d like to say that over the last 5 years that I’ve taken some leisurely relaxing breaks, but when the truth is told most of my spare time is taken up by either training camps or travelling to races. I’ve raced in some fantastic locations around the world, and after a race there is always an opportunity to unwind and kick back a little and soak up the culture...

I’ve just come back from France. Richard Hobson, my coach has a business based just an hours drive from La Rochelle http://www.livingfrance.org/index.php They have six gites that they let from March to October, and I stayed there for a week to train with Richard and take advantage of the warm dependable climate. The surrounding area comprises of pure agricultural land, fields and fields of sunflowers, which seem to be the main crop surrounding their properties. Once you’re in this region of France, it really becomes evident how much of France is devoted to agriculture. There’s even a vineyard just across the lane, which sells a very drinkable wine at just €3 a bottle.

The terrain is rolling and hilly, there are no real mountains, but it’s certainly not flat!!! Smooth traffic free roads….. I just love it…

This undulating countryside was perfect for my training. We would ride for 5 hours a day and see maybe 2 cars and a couple farmers harvesting their crops. Not like the traffic congested roads I’m used to riding on around Surrey and Windsor. Before breakfast I’d hit the trails for a run around the property. There are endless trails through the woods and farmland that are easy to pick up and I’d run from a steady hour to a more intense 30km off road weaving through the woods and fields….. I love this, it’s a real opportunity for me to de-stress from my Monday to Friday, grind at work. I’m racing The Danish National Championships http://www.tri09.dk/ in August and than the big one….. My Ironman World Championships Qualifier for 2010, Ironman Wisconsin http://www.ironmanwisconsin.com/ on the 13th September and this has really given me the base I need. 7 weeks to go and counting….

Use Your Commute To Go Faster!!

Vince Kamp is both a triathlete and an awesome mountain bike racer, a great friend, advisor and confidante. We've spent many hours chewing the cud about racing, improving and smashing our opposition. He has completed four Ironman races and four 70.3 races with a 3rd place finish at IMUK and 3rd place at World Champs 70.3 Clearwater Florida.I climbed up on to the over the top scaffolding podium full of nervous energy. The tall man in front of me was blahing something through the microphone, which distorted with every letter ‘S’ he pronounced. He grabbed my skinny wrist and thrust it into the air announcing me the winner of the ‘Bluebell Cup mountain bike race’.
The handful of people standing around applauded. I think my parents even cheered a bit. The announcer shoved a small trophy into my hands and yanked my hands back into the air with enough enthusiasm to nearly dislocate my shoulders.
‘So Vince, what kind of training have you done to prepare for this race?’ He asked, his voice echoing around the caravan park.
My cheeks flushed with embarrassment. Uh oh, I thought. I searched around the crowd for my parents faces, hoping they would have the answer.
‘Er....I have a paper-round.’ I said quietly.
‘Sorry, Vince, speak up a bit please.’
‘I have a paper round’, I said leaning in too far and clinking my tooth on the metal mesh of the microphone. At that moment, I saw my Dad’s face. He smiled and shook his head.
I was quickly ushered off the podium to make way for the elite prize giving.
What the announcer did not give me the opportunity to explain, is that I had two very long paper rounds and for 6 mornings a week, from age 10 till 16 I may have been the fastest paper boy in the south East. Although I didn’t know it then, I was brick training the hell out of my juvenile body with high intensity intervals. I would sprint the driveways, leap over walls and sprint back to my bike, then sprint on my bike to the next road and go again. I would then ride to school, doing the same thing, I was totally smashed every day.
The point of this anecdote is that not everyone has the opportunity to follow a nicely structured training plan with built in recovery, threshold and high intensity sessions. Work, family and social commitments are often just too unpredictable to really follow a decent plan. Before you know it, you miss key training sessions and then get stressed trying to catch up. Sooner or later you’ll put yourself into a hole you can’t climb out of.
I know this, I’ve been there. But it didn’t take me long to realize that I needed to change things back to the days of the paper-round.
I raced several half and full Ironman races at the sharp end of my age group with baby at home and a stressful job.
So how do you stay fast without the time to execute well defined training sessions?
Use the commute.
If you can bike to work, make the route at least 45mins long, get in the usual 10min easy pedalling warm up to get heart rate up and muscles firing, then build the route into interval sections. For most commute journeys, steady tempo is just not feasible, there are traffic lights, pedestrians throwing themselves in front of you and damn cars everywhere. There is just too much recovery built in, so you have to really smash it for the sections of the route that you know are going to be uninterrupted. Time yourself for these sections or try to hit a certain speed, better yet have power targets to hit. Build the motivation in the recovery set before you hit that certain road, ‘I’m gonna smash 450W for this whole street.’ Then reward yourself with really easy spinning recovery so you can hit the next interval at the correct intensity again.
I hit my morning commute without any breakfast on board and just take a bit of fruit juice mixed with water. Despite what you may think, you have plenty of glycogen from last night’s dinner to get through 45mins of high intensity intervals and your metabolism will be properly ramped up for when you do chow down at work, so you will replenish when insulin is at its peak.
There is plenty of research that shows the benefits of high intensity intervals on increasing cardiovascular fitness (read endurance fitness) and fat burning. Save your tempo rides for the country lanes at the weekend.
You can do the same with running, you can use a run, walk strategy to make sure you really hit vVO2max (velocity at VO2max) for the intervals. Take a look at Bobbie McGee’s blog for some real insight into run walk training for triathlon.
Use your commute to your advantage. The commute can be used for excellent high quality training. It just takes a bit of planning.

I agree with Vince, living 20Km from work gives me the perfect opportunity to both run in or cycle in and home, adding a little extra distance in Richmond Park on the way home to make up 2 -3 hours of ride time. Utilising this dead time is paramount to my training strategy.

Too cool for a helmet?

With the coming of the summer at last.... Hooray!!! comes a new road user, the fair weather or summer commuter. I'm all for this... if it were up to me I'd adopt the same sort of system that you see in Holland or Denmark. The roads have designated cycle lanes and cyclists have the right of way, when crossing the road at junctions, very much like the rights given to pedestrians at pelican crossings here at the moment. These sort of systems are safe and allow individuals who are neither road safe or bike competent the safety of their own lane.

Unfortunately this is neither Holland or Denmark, and most motorists in UK despise cyclists more so than the old fashioned milk floats that they used to overtake. They will cut you up, attempt a left turn in front of you and force you into the curb. As an urban commuter, you must be streetwise, second guessing drivers by trying to predict what will happen in front of you. Be aware of parents on the school run, these are often the worse offenders. Often trying to ferry the kids to school with only one eye on the road and the other on the argument going on in the back seat, the chances of them noticing you are slim....

Be aware also of pedestrians stepping out in front of you whilst either on the phone, or listening to their Ipod. Pedestrians will often take one step into the road before turning to look up the road in your direction. Of course this is where you are most likely to be.....and Its fair to say that at a speed of over 30kmh both of you will take a tumble.

In the time I've been riding, I've had lots of crashes, some of them in races where I was careless taking corners too fast- my fault, and some of them where I was taken out by another rider who clipped me - not my fault. I've been hit by cars, been over the bonnet and even been over the roof. I've hit pedestrians who have stepped out in front of me. I've been unconscious, bleeding and lost whole shards of skin, ripping off my Lycra cycling gear in the process. I've been taken to hospital and stitched up but despite this I still love cycling!!!!

There are some things that you can do to avoid this... riding defensively, signalling etc, but my saving grace has always been that I wear a cycling helmet!!! So far I've been through maybe 6 helmets which have all cracked on impact, serving their purpose and protecting my head. I've seen guys hit the deck at 50kmh and be OK.... their helmet detonating on impact saving their skull, very similar to how a car's crumple zones work. They may have picked up some hardcore road rash, but they'll live to ride another day.

So if you think helmets are just not cool - Think Again!!

Motivation..... Jaco Geyer - Marathon des Sables 09

It's interesting what we think about when we race and what drives us. I'm lucky as a number of my friends and peers are always on the hunt for extreme challenges. Their achievement's are both inspirational and motivating. When you re having a dark moment in a race these are just the nuggets that I draw upon to give me the ability to push on when your body wants to shut down....

Jaco Geyer is also an Ironman Triathlete, but he has just completed the Marathon Des Sables and here is a snippet from what he calls the Long Day..... Only 92KM

"When the challenge lies ahead, you need to break it down into smaller stages to get your head around the mammoth task ahead of you. The goal was to complete the 92 km in one day - we started at 09:00 and i wanted to cross the finish line that day before 24:00. The terrain varied from salt flats, rocky fields, dunes, mountains and very muddy wadis and the sun had no mercy. With danger of severe sand storms I was forced you to cover my nose and mouth with a buff to shield myself from the wind and dust to help with breathing, and excessive water loss.

The day started slow, with reminder of the ITB trouble in my leg - but there's not much you can do when you're out there in the desert. You've set yourself a goal and you want to reach it because that is why you are there. A few painkillers made the running more bearable and once you're in a rhythm, you forget the pain and push on.

The day consisted of 7 stages, each ranging between 12 and 18 km. When I reached checkpoint 4 (at the 60 km mark) I felt a bit rough. The painkillers had worn off and I could feel the ITB pains crawling back; However, I was 2/3 of the way and I still wanted to achieve my goal. I was attended to by one of the volunteer doctors and between my English and his French and a lot of gesturing, he managed to alleviate the pain by applying a bandage just above the knee to keep the ligaments in place....And then I was off again.........

The sun started to set and I reached checkpoint 5 just as the last rays of sunlight disappeared. I was at a very low place, physically and emotionally I was spent. I had another 20 km to go and it seemed like my goal of finishing before midnight was slipping away. For some strange reason, I allowed my mind to tell my body that it is OK to not make it before midnight - that it is OK to walk for a full 10 km. I did not have any energy left, but could not stand the taste of another energy bar or gel. But somehow, my mind did take over in a much greater way - it dragged me through the second to last stage with no energy left.

I reached the last checkpoint. It was 22:00 and I know I could cover the last 12km and still finish before midnight. My mind took control again, and with my spirits lifted, it felt like I sailed through that last stage. I couldn't feel the ITB pain or the hundreds of rocks I kicked in the dark. I knew the end was near and I knew I was going to reach my goal. I crossed the line that night at 23:30hrs"

Jaco's journey wasn't just about the Marathon, its was a journey of both faith and self development. The level of mental strength that an event like this requires is off the scale....

let alone the stress that you put your body through!!!

All credit to him and the hard work he's put in....needless to say I've just added this to my list of things to do before I'm forty....

Choosing a coach...

Stepping up from a recreational athlete whose goal is merely to finish, to a competitive athlete who has either a time goal or qualification place at stake is a big step. It requires a conscious decision to up both your game and your training commitment. The first step should be to join a club. I'm a member of Ful-on Tri and regularly swim with the guys there. Ful-on Tri is a great Club based in West London, well organised and well run. The club Head Coach - Alan Hanley sets the weeks training schedule. Members can dip in and out of these sessions, but the general idea is that these sessions provide the base for development and improvement. This should be the first step for many athletes looking to make faster improvements. The structure of a club offers a number of benefits from having training partners to a social network. For many athletes the club structure offers them every thing that their level of commitment and time constraints allow, but for a few willing to devote further free time, hard work and perspiration there lies an alternative or complimentary path..... the personal coach

A great coach is not easy to find and requires a very unique set of talents and skills. Choosing the right coach is a difficult decision. The coach has to understand you, the way you think, what drives and motivates you and on the flip side, what turns you off and de motivates you. They need to be able to push the right buttons to help you achieve your goals, being able to communicate their ideas and strategy. Its really important that the athlete believes in their coach. There needs to be complete trust and respect. Often coaches have had a historical background in the sport and this respect stems from their historical achievements, but this is not always necessary.

I met Richard Hobson in 2005 I went on the Volcano Triathon camp in the early season with a view to kick starting my fitness. I struck a great friendship with Richard on the camp and I really bought into the Tri-living philosophy

'Everyone can always improve, no matter what age and what ability. I always believe this and as long as the athletes I coach believe this then they will improve'

It was shortly after that he began coaching me. Since then we have worked together to help achieve my goals. My advice is to take your time in selecting a coach, there are many that will farm out a generic program dependant on the distance that you're racing, but there are others who will take the time to listen, who lead by example, and are prepared to motivate and innovate....

A coach like this will inspire and empower the athlete to realize and develop their potential. This is the coach that will help you reach your goal......