The Dream Team

This weekend marked the next chapter in my ‘tri career’ as it was my first set of group training sessions since joining Team Tri2Aspire. And I have to say, I really enjoyed it.

Being the type of person who likes to dive in head first (swimming reference...see what I did there, eh?) I guess this was the perfect weekend to start – it was Eid Al Adha here in the UAE which meant a four-day weekend for most folks. For us, that meant extra training sessions.

So, I popped my T2A cherry with a 120km group ride on Friday morning, which was a good session and a nice way to meet a few more people. We all have slightly different programmes to follow but mine had me jumping off the bike and doing an 8k run – my legs had me doing 6k instead of 8 tho, as they were in bits from a 23k run earlier in the week.  

The following morning, we were all on the beach at JBR at 7am for a sea swim session which I really enjoyed. A bit of warm-up and a few sprints were followed by an all-in race of about 900m. I sat on the feet of coach and Ian LP for the first 450m and then smashed the second half as hard as I could. I just beat coach to the beach but we were all at our absolute limits the whole way in, which was really knackering but cool. On the bad side, I got my first ever jellyfish stings – another, less desirable, cherry popped!

After a few hours at home, that night I tackled what the guys in the team have affectionately named the Coach Dirt run. And a fine name that is – it is dirty. Not in an unclean way; more of a filthy, disgusting, hideous painfest from hell...y’know, that kind of way. It involves an 8.5k cross-country run on tracks and dunes, followed immediately by a 5k all-in race back, with us all being set off at handicapped intervals based on our run times. I went out way too fast and then died a long, painful death...not a good performance but I know I’ll improve.

On Sunday morning, Longtoot called again – laps on the bike. I managed 95k (programme said 75k, but some others were carrying on for 120k, so 95k seemed like a good compromise with me having to get to work...as I said, it was a holiday for MOST folks!). I swam my ass off with Dubai Masters in the evening and then managed a few pints for a mate’s birthday before dragging that ass out of bed at 6am ready for another tough sea swim session, which also included runs up and down the beach between ‘laps’ of the buoys. Can’t wait till Wednesday for a day off, I can tell you.

I’ve found it tough but not undoable at all – I think a lot of the difficulty is because I’ve just been doing fun/light sessions since IM, so this is the first period of extended training in a few months.

And, as a newbie to team triathlon, what do I think of the set-up? As I explained before, I’d been reluctant to join a team as I enjoyed training solo and setting my own sessions – I wasn’t sure what a team would add to that. Now, however, I’m a convert.

Firstly, as there are always others around, I’ve found myself pushing harder in most the sessions – in fact, coach makes small races a part of the sessions, so I pushed much harder than I would have if I’d trained alone. Secondly, triathlon isn’t always the most social of pastimes due to the early morning bike rides and I can go weeks without seeing mates, having a drink or going out. Last night, I had a friend’s birthday drinks and was determined to get along and not cry off, as I have in the past due to training. It was a fun night and I didn’t get home till 1am and had to get up at 6am to make it to the sea swim – if I’d been doing it alone, I’d have definitely sacked off the session and probably stayed for a few more pints too. I guess you could call this accountability, but it’s also motivation. Finally, most sessions end with the whole team diving into a cafe for coffee or breakfast and I can’t explain how nice it is to sit and chat with people who are just as infatuated by and geeky about triathlon as I am! That social element is the real kicker, in my view. So, for the foreseeable future at least, I’d say there is an ‘I’ in ‘team’. Or a ‘me’ at least, to push this awkwardly contrived sentence to its disappointing conclusion.

I’m looking forward to getting a few more weeks under my belt and seeing the effect that this training has on my times. Although, after four early starts in a row balanced with work and a couple of extra sessions, right now I’m more looking forward to getting home, bashing out a quick Swiss ball/weights sesh and then getting my head down early. For most people it’s a boring early night, but as triathletes we get to call it ‘recovery’!