Making the big decisions

Other than the fact that we both only came to triathlon in our late 20s, there is almost no other way in which my triathlon career resembles that of Chrissie Wellington:

Wellington is a force of nature who stormed on to the Ironman scene in 2007 when she disproved the popular belief that you couldn’t win on your first visit to Kona by becoming World Champion – a feat she repeated in 2008 and 2009.

I limped through my first triathlon with a banged-up old mountain bike, enormous stitch and calf strain – a feat I’ve not repeat again and again but only due to buying a slightly better bike.

Chrissie has smashed Ironman world records year on year.

I once smashed my alarm clock when it made me get up at 4am for a race.

So dominant is Wellington that when she shows up at an Iron distance event these days, the question isn’t whether she’ll win but how many pro guys she’ll beat (known in tri circles as ‘getting chicked’) – the answer to this questions in Roth, Germany, this summer was all but three of them –Chrissie came 4^th overall.

I sometimes get chicked. I’ve been to Germany.

But, for this week at least, I feel I’ve shared an emotional and competition based bond with the great British champion. After those three back-to-back victories at the World Champs in Kona, Hawaii, Chrissie arrived on the Big Island in 2010 as the reddest and hottest of favourites. But, to the surprise of everyone, she pulled out on the morning of the race due to illness.

This year, she was again such a red hot favourite to regain the title that, were she any redder or hotter she’d have been sponsored by Tabasco and leaving a Back To The Future style line of fire tracks behind her on the bike. But disaster struck again when, a few weeks out, Chrissie came off her bike on a training ride. To cut a long story short, she bashed up her body pretty bad and it was touch and go whether she’d make it on to the start line. But she did. And she won. But she described the decision of whether to race – both in 2010 and 2011 – as the hardest of her life.

Do you accept that you’re not at your best and race anyway or do you pull out until you can give a proper demonstration of your training, fitness and race readiness?

That’s what I’ve been asking myself this week. You see, while Chrissie had to decide whether to defend/regain her crown in the biggest triathlon on earth (‘the Superbowl of triathlon’) in Kona  Hawaii, where 3,000 of the very best pros and age groupers go toe-to-toe over the gruelling Iron distance (3.8k swim, 180k bike, 42k marathon run) tackling Hawaii’s legendary winds and iconic scorching lava fields in spite of her debilitating viruses/injuries...I have to decide whether I’ll do our little local sprint (750m swim, 20k bike, 5k run) against 250 athletes here in Dubai which is also quite hot, in spite of having been a bit fluey and having had a chest infection for the last week.

I know, right? The parallels are un-freaking-canny! Like, spooky?

Well, I may have only managed a couple of swims and a bad run in the past 10 days due to doctor’s orders, but there were a couple of decent weeks of training before that and the entry fee has been paid now, so, barring any Chrissie-style virus on the morning of the race (I guess one advantage of not having been allowed to ride is that I couldn’t crash!) I’ll be there.

I may not be chasing world records or world titles – a top 10 would be nice, as would a PR – but I’ll still leave it all out there, with everyone else. Coz we’re triathletes and whether best in the world or first-timer, that’s what we’re there for – to push ourselves. And sometimes, that’s the very best medicine. 

Triathlon book reviews!

As I told you a few weeks ago - come on, pay attention! - I ordered a few triathlon, running and cycling related books from Amazon. These arrived, quick and cheap, last week, and so I hungrily devoured the rest of the book I was reading in order to get on with these. Which I’m flying through. So. I thought I’d share my thoughts on the first: I'm Here To Win, by Chris McCormack.

For those who don’t know, Chris McCormack - known to everyone in triathlon as Macca - is a bold, brash Aussie who’s one of the most successful triathletes of all time. As well as lots of wins at short course stuff, he stepped up and won loads of Ironman races, including the World Championship in Kona in 2007 and 2010. 

This book is part memoir, part training aid and the majority is based on what Macca calls his ‘masterpiece’ - winning Kona in 2010 when nobody gave him a snowball’s chance in a Hawaiian lava field of winning. In I’m Here To Win, he explains how.

Now, I love triathlon and Ironman, so I enjoyed reading this book, but I’m not sure who else would. The other problem is I love triathlon and Ironman, so I already knew a lot of this stuff. There are some great tips in here for beginner triathletes, weekend warriors and those reaching the top of the sport, but nothing you’d not find in more detail in a decent training book.

Macca is famous for his mind games and trash talk and he explains why he does this, thow he does it and the effects it has. This part is interesting but only really applicable if you’re right at the top of the tree and need to out-psyche another athlete who’s on a similar level. For 99.9% of triathletes, this isn’t the case. I’ve a couple of friends who are starting to get into triathlon - it doesn’t matter what mind games they employ in their first season, I’ll thrash them because I’ve a couple of years more experience and training than them. Equally, I could do an amazing job getting into the minds of those who win races locally, but they’ll still beat me because they’re significantly better! So, that’s why I’m not sure who the audience for this book is meant to be.

For what it’s worth tho, I did enjoy it and have been inspired to think a bit more critically and analytically about my strengths and weaknesses and how to race.

Anyway, enough book corner. Time to catch you up on my training. The weekend was supposed to be the end of the really tough stuff - ha, little did I know. Sunday was an easy day with a spot of stretching in the morning and a swim session in the evening - 3,150 metres in total most of which were pretty steady.

Monday morning, I devised an awesome fun sprint workout. I’d noticed an empty parking area next to a brand new building just around the corner from my apartment. It’s shaded and the buildings around it give it great shelter meaning you can get away with a cheeky swig of water here and there without being seen (still Ramadan here, remember!). The parking lot has five parking bays marked length ways so i did some shuttle runs starting with jogging to first line, sprinting back, jogging to second line, sprinting back...etc etc...Mixed that in with some timed shuttles: live 5, back, 4, back, 3 back...trying to beat my time each go. The car park also has an underground section with a steep slope each side so I did some jogs down the slopes and sprints back up the other side.

I covered around 5km in 45 minutes in total - not bad for sprint work with some good rests in there. More importantly, had a lot of fun doing it. These sessions, what I have termed ‘quality’ sessions will become more and more frequent now as I trust in the endurance I’ve built up and try to add some power, technique and speed. I love being creative with these session too - a lot of fun.

In the evening, it was to the gym for 70 minutes of hill simulations on the ergo static bike. How do you simulate a hill? Well, effectively, all a hill is is extra resistance meaning you have to push harder on the pedals to lift your weight up the hill - cycling into a wind or trying to push a big gear is much the same. Therefore, I did some easy spins mixed with 3, 5, 8 and 10 minute long efforts with the resistance cranked right up to full. Looking forward to riding 140k back in North Wales on Thursday to test this hill riding theory out on some real rollers!

And today’s training? Ah, that’s for tomorrow’s blog!

So, 26 days and counting. Nervous but confident (at least was confident until earlier today when an experienced IM racer who trained on the IM wales course named it the hardest IM race out there!).