Get Ready For The Dubai Tri Season

Bright and early tomorrow morning, our local triathlon kicks off here in the Middle East with the Aerofit Sprint Tri. And I do mean bright6 and early – due to the heat and the logistical issues of closing roads down to drive-happy Duabians, all our races kick off at an ungodly (should that be an un-Allahly?) time. Tomorrow, the gun will go of at 6:15am, which means a 4am alarm call for me.

This series has been the bread and butter of the local tri scene for a while. There area other races but this one takes place almost every month throughout winter and so is a god chance to test yourself and see how training is progressing. For beginners, it’s also a really nice and friendly way to get involved – well, it’s how I started.

Although a ‘sprint’ tri, in the past it’s been a little idiosyncratic in that it’s been a 750m swim around a seawater canal (following the canal in a semi circle so no buoy turns), followed by a transition that involved running up 50 steps (my quads are burning just thinking about it), a 26km bike and, finally, a run that measured around 5.6k.

For this year, however, the course has changed slightly to be much closer to a traditional sprint with a slightly longer bike ride of 22km the only deviation from the traditional 750-20-5 set-up. It’s also a loop swim in the sea.

I’m really excited to get racing again – I love the atmosphere and  camaraderie or racing – although, if I’m being honest with myself, I’m not expecting much in terms of my performance. It’s less than three weeks since Ironman and I’ve done next to no training since then – you’re really only supposed to pick it up again after three weeks. On the small runs I have managed, my legs have been slow and heavy, as if they’re made from some particularly hideous lead and treacle alloy. Then there’s the fact that the training you do for short stuff differs markedly from the way you train for the long slog of Ironman, so I’ve little speed in my legs anyway.

Entries are capped at 250 for these sprints and demand is high so I had to enter weeks before Ironman. I decided I’d feel awful if I’d fully recovered and was raring to go and couldn’t race coz I hadn’t entered; now that I’m entered, I figure I may as well race. Worst case scenario, I’ll try to hammer out the swim and bike and pull up for the run if I feel I might do myself any damage – if I feel OK, I’ll carry on. It’s not going to be fast, but it’ll lay down a marker on this course for me to try to improve on as the season and my fitness progress.

Anyway, between now and the start line lies magazine deadline day. This means I could get out of work anywhere between 6pm and 2am…which has happened before and isn’t the ideal preparation for a triathlon, no matter how short. So, two days of endurance events the way I see it!

Check back over the weekend and I’ll have a full race report for you along with some pics of the first race of our local season. Cheers!