Brokebike Mountain

For someone with an acute fear of heights and skull-crushing vertigo so bad that looking up at a tall building can make them topple over, there are very few things scarier than being on a road 1300m up that has a 1k sheer fall on both sides. Except maybe being on that road on a bike. In a hurricane. For that reason, getting through my inaugural Jebel Hafeet training camp (an annual event for my tri team) was as much a question of bravery as it was physical effort.

So, what does a weekend mountain top training camp look like? Thursday evening, I checked into the hotel and took my bags to the room, where I proceeded to empty the cans of Sprite and Heineken from the mini bar and replace them with Gatorade, protein shakes and Red Bull. Energy requirements are always a priority!

Some of the guys who’d arrived earlier headed out for a small jog; with the stress of the laughably inefficient check-in process fresh in my mind, I decided to miss the run, get my stuff sorted and meet the rest of the team at the pool. This camp has a reputation for being brutal and I was fairly sure I wouldn’t get to the end of it thinking “If only I’d had the time to get an extra light jog in...”.

So, Thursday PM: easy warm up and smooth, light chain gang swim (2 lengths, last one in first one out) of around 1,000m.

It takes a real man to wear pink goggles! (thanks to Alex Jacobs for the pics)

Shortly, it was time for dinner and we learnt the drill for the following day before heading back to our rooms to prep our gear and try to get an early night. My roomie for the camp was Illinois Pete, who proved to be great company for the beasting ahead. We had a chat and a laugh, spoke about our fears for the next morning (neither of us had done the camp before) then both tried to sleep. Pretty unsuccessfully. Whether it was nerves, the prospect of a 4am get-up, the unfamiliar surroundings or a bit of everything, I think I managed an hour all night. Talking to everyone the next morning, it seemed like most the others were in the same sleepy boat.

Friday AM: the hellish duathlon – ascend Jebel Hafeet to the hotel (10km, almost 1,000m altitude) straight into a 5km run from the hotel to the summit (300m of climbing in that too)...then do it all over again (with the top guys ascending Hafeet for a third time!!!).

One section of the climb up Hafeet

This was an extremely tough morning and I could almost immediately feel my lack of any consistent training on the bike for the past two months. I also discovered (well, already knew) that I’m a woefully bad climber (both bike and run) and that the heat does me few favours! That said, I found my pace (‘very very slow’ – one notch above stop moving and fall over) and plugged away and I could definitely feel the benefit. It was a little frustrating at times – I was very conscious of just how much weaker I was than I had been back in January, but hanging tough and pushing myself while remaining sensible was the name of the game.

Getting up out of the saddle to climb Hafeet

Friday AM part 2: straight to the pool for an easy 700m or so.

Finally, it was time for breakfast. I spent a few hours at breakfast, eating, drinking coffee and chatting to team mates, including the awesome Captain Carl who, at 59, had just posted an awesome 10:40 at Ironman Melbourne. He was just there to chat and soak up the atmosphere (taking a few weeks off training after his IM) which tells you a lot about what a team brings. It’s like a family. It’s also great to hear the experiences of everyone else – without sounding too hippyish about the whole thing, it’s like we all learn from each other’s mistakes and benefit from each other’s successes. Everyone is always keen to pass on a wise word or tactic.

Some slept that afternoon – I lay in bed and had a nap while listening to a bit of the Guardian football podcast but couldn’t really sleep. I headed down to the lobby to enjoy another coffee and a bit more chat with team mates then, at 4pm, we headed down to the bottom of the mountain to a long, flat dirt track.

Friday PM: 100 minutes of dirt track run repeats.

The whole team ran 4 minute repeats; the idea being that we ran the first one at around 80%maxHR, made a note of where we reached, and tried to hit that point every time (in one direction and, of course, back to the start in the other direction). There was a minute’s rest after each repeat. Based on my heart rate etc, it seemed like 4:50 pace would be reasonable for me – extremely tough, especially as we did more and more – but not unrealistically so.

On the dirt run

There was a great support team of parents, spouses and injury hit athletes at the start line who were ready with water, ice and Coke after every other repeat and they were godsends – it was very hot, dry and dusty out there. I found the going tough but managed through to 12. By then, there were people dropping after each rep, or having to take a couple of reps’ rest, but I was determined to keep going and was chuffed to make it the full 20 reps with just a handful of others.

Friday PM part 2: After being returned to the hotel by one of the hotel’s drivers (the uphill Schumacher), it was back into the pool for around 1,000m as a chain gang, with the pace getting a little faster. As I’m sure you can imagine, this swim was cramp-tastic with almost everyone letting out at least one little yell of pain as their calf spasmed after pushing off the wall too hard!

Dinner that night was accompanied by three pints, which did the desired job and left me plenty tired enough to sleep.

Saturday AM: “the world’s toughest triathlon”

The idea was that group 1 (elites) would do: 2,000m swim, 12 x laps (ascents and descents between the hotel and the summit i.e. 60km with around 3,500m of climbing total) and finally run 2 x laps (10k with 600m climbing). Group 2 would do a 1,500m swim with 8 x bike laps and 2 x run laps.

In the morning, however, it was blowing a gale outside and coach made the decision to cut down the race. That meant 10 x bike laps for group 1 and 6 x laps for group 2.

 I decided to go out with group 1 (for the long swim) but aim for 8 laps instead of 10 and, in the end, I think that was the right decision, although I don’t think I was happy at any point during the bike or run. Frankly, the wind made it utterly terrifying.

Holding on for dear life!!!

If anyone ever needed proof of the benefit of being part of a team then it came for me at the end of this session. Group 3 had done an aquathlon rather than a tri, due to the conditions, while plenty of other racers had also finished or been told to stop. There were about 6 of us left out on course and, with a kilometre or so to go and Suzy Q running on my shoulder, coach drove up beside us shouting “gloves off guys – 1k to go and you’re racing it home”. My legs were in bits after the weekend but I managed to wind up the pace once, then again and, as we hit a nice long descent, I picked it up again. I could see everyone who’d finished waiting by the hotel drive, cheering us all on and, although I was confident that Suz hadn’t been able to keep up, I dared not look back until I reached the hollering crowd to be welcomed home with high fives and Coke... simply awesome!

Last night, back in Dubai, a group of us celebrated a good training camp with dinner and beers down at Barasti and that was also great – don’t think I’ve laughed so much in ages.

I feel I gave all I had to give this weekend, although I don’t think that I showed what I can do more generally – it’d have been great if this camp had come a couple of months earlier when I feel I was in better shape. However, I learned a lot and know what I need to work on. My team mates are inspirational and, although I may never be a mountain goat like the awesome Suisse Marc, I know that learning to suffer in the mountains and over hills will make me a far better athlete overall.