The clothes make the man – in triathlon at least

There are loads of sayings and little snippets of advice that involve the threads we wear. “The clothes make the man,” “Dress to impress,” “Wolf in sheep’s clothing,” “The emperor’s new clothes,” “Dressed to kill,” and “Dress for the job you want, not the one you’ve got”…

I’ve always had a bit of a basic, whatever-fits approach to training and working out attire but, over the past couple of years, that has changed significantly.

It was 18 months or so ago, at a big race, that I was chatting to a really top age grouper (sub-9 hour IM guy, it turned out). We were both smugly ridiculing the hundreds of all-the-gear-and-no-idea racers who, by the looks of them, had spent more time shopping at the expo than doing any training; the result being that they all now looked the same – same warm-up pants, same ‘cool’ jacket, same branded visor…

I mentioned to the guy I was chatting to (Norweigan fella, if that helps you paint the picture more clearly) that I just tended to grab any old crap in sports shop sales and mix and match for training. “No, no, no, Matt – that won’t do at all!” he said to me completely seriously, before dishing out the triathlon sartorial advice that I now follow without question (with one exception but that’s coming up…).

His advice was that you should have one or two sets of good quality swim gear, bike wear, and run kit. You don’t need all the fancy track suits, triathlon t-shirts, race visors… you don’t need a wardrobe that looks like a rainbow threw up I it, stuffed with 20 different TdF team bike kits. But one or two good, good quality changes for each sport.

This wasn’t to look good. This wasn’t about saving money (although, ultimately, once I started buying one good pair of bike bib shorts rather than 5 sets of cheap, rubbish shorts, I did save money in the long-term). The reasoning went a little something like this:

·         If you dress like a cyclist, you’ll be treated like a cyclist

·         If you’re treated like a cyclist, you’ll feel like a cyclist

·         If you feel like a cyclist, you’ll train and ride like a cyclist

·         If you train and ride like a cyclist, you’ll become a better triathlete

(Obviously, the same applies to swimming and running too.)

I also find that this process has helped me mentally. When I head to a run workout now, I dress and feel like a runner and, therefore, I push myself to compete with other runners, rather than thinking “well, hey, I’m a triathlete so I don’t have to be quite as good as the rest of these guys…”

With all this in mind, here are some simple tips to get you started:

·         When you wear your goggles around your neck before or after a swim session, you might be thinking “useful and won’t lose them” but all the swimmers are thinking “tool”.

·         ­Unless you’re an Olympic hopeful in the pool or are clocking 25km or more a week in an ITU-style training schedule, the above applies to taking flippers to the pool.

·         Tri suits are for tri races – not bike rides.

·         Tri suits are for tri races – not running races.

But there’s more to this than not looking like an idiot and improving your training. You see, the proper sport-specific kit is almost always the best and most comfortable thing to wear.

As I said earlier, I’ve been sticking rigidly to this ‘dress for the occasion’ principle now for a good 18 months. Except once: my first bike ride after moving to Amsterdam.

I knew it was cold, a little wet – certainly different conditions to those I was used to experiencing in Dubai. But I didn’t need any of those fancy, expensive winter biking clothes, I decided – with all their waterproof this and windproof that. I layered up with what I had, put on a pair of woolly mittens and headed out for what proved to be 90 of the most unpleasant and painful minutes that I can remember. By the time it started raining – and we were a bit lost and 45 minutes at least from home – I’d decided that crawling under a tree to have a little cry would be the best course of action; however, my hands were too cold to actually press on the brakes to stop, so I just had to keep pedalling.

Before: a bit cold

The next time I went out, my road bike was sporting mud guards and I was kitted out in shoe covers, fleece-lined long bike knicks, a proper windproof jacket (with waterproof in the back pocket) and windproof and waterproof lobster claw cycling gloves. The 2 hour ride was a cosy delight.

After: wrapped up, toasty and ready to ride.

Lesson learned - being unsuitably attired is not a mistake I will be making again. It’s not vanity, it’s not showing-off – it’s just the best way to make sure you don’t end your ride weeping under a big tree…

What's your biggest challenge?

One of the things I like best about triathlon and endurance sport is that there is always some sort of challenge that needs to be faced and solved... or endured, at least. The physical challenges are, of course, the most obvious examples; however, often more difficult are the mental challenges that swimming, biking and running can throw up. Then, maybe toughest of all, are the logistical challenges.

You have an early meeting but need to fit in an hour on the bike…

You need to pack swim kit, work clothes, running gear and a change of clothes to meet some friends for a drink and need to get it all into one bag…

You have a brick session – an early long ride (likely to be cold) followed by a medium distance run (likely to be hot by then); how many changes of kit, water bottles, sports drinks, energy gels and bananas do you need to get you through and where will you keep them..?

To me, triathlon often seems like less of an endurance sport and more of a complex puzzle.

While living in Dubai, the toughest equation to solve often involved the year’s biggest races being in or around summer when temperatures in the UAE were tipping over from ‘Megan Fox’ to ‘Jessica Alba’ on the hotness scale (which is way more fun than a thermometer). Therefore, the solution to the training quandary often involved very early mornings, pre-frozen water bottles and cooler boxes left in the car.

Ahhhh... let's just take a minute here... OK, carry on reading.

Recently, I’ve been faced with a completely different problem:

The cold is an issue, of course – especially where cycling is concerned – but the bigger problem is that it has snowed two or three times in the past week or so, without once getting out of minus temperatures, so you can imagine how precarious the roads, bike paths and pavements are at the moment.

This doesn’t matter too much for cycling – it’s still very early in the season and a few half hours here and there on the home trainer will do the trick for now – however, having begun my training for the Rotterdam Marathon, it most definitely does affect my running.

And, so, I’ve had to hit the gym – an obvious solution, maybe, but I have always had a hate-hate-hate relationship with the treadmill. After 10 minutes, I’m bored senseless. But the training schedule says what it says and won’t wait for the roads to dry and temperatures to rise and so, yesterday, I headed for the gym ably supported by my MP3 player and an iPad with a couple of shows on it and, for the first time, I blasted out a steady half marathon (21.1kms) on the treadmill.

And this is where the logistical, the physical and the mental all collide – OK, it was just a mid-paced training run but I managed to knock out almost two hours on the treadmill – my sworn enemy! – and the motivation and positive energy I got from achieving that were enormous. Life threw me a curve ball, and I adapted and just got her done – winning the logistical, physical and mental battles all at once. And that, as much as anything, is what triathlon training is all about. While everyone else says "I think I'll skip my run/gym visit today", we just have to man (or woman) up and get 'er done. 

And, to my mind at least, this is a pretty good lesson to apply to life on the whole.

New year, new start

Well, what a year 2012 was. Personally, the changes were immense: from Dubai to Amsterdam; from living alone to shacked-up bliss; from Managing Editor to, erm, well, freelancer/job seeker... But it was a breakthrough year for me in terms of triathlon too, and that's something I'm hoping to continue into 2013.

This year, I spent Christmas and New Year at my folks' house for the first time in around five years and it was terrific. I caught up with friends and family, ate, drank and was merry. The girlfriend was there for most of it too and it was fun to show her the way us Brits celebrate Chrimbo and New Year (the traditional pantomime was a bit of an eye-opener) ... as well as introducing her to the football Mecca that is Goodison Park.

After a bit of northern uproar, we headed down to London Town for some more thrills and spills... maybe a few too many as, by the time we got back home to Amsterdam, I was sick as a sod and spent the next couple of days shaking like a nodding dog in the back of a bulldozer, with a head that felt as if it had been used as the ball for a Stoke vs West Ham match.

This long-winded, overblown and probably, now I think about it, a bit unnecessary exposition is basically my version of the school boy's "the dog ate my homework, sir" excuse. I'm supposed to be two weeks into my marathon training programme now and, instead, I've done two sessions.

I didn't mind missing a few sessions while back in the UK. I've put in some solid base miles (following the MAF principles) in the previous months, so an extra few days of enjoying myself wouldn't hurt, I decided. But I was eager to dive right back in as soon as we got back Dutch side, so the flu virus that wiped me out for a few days was a kick in the teeth.

One thing I did learn last year was that ignoring illness, injury or fatigue doesn't work. So I accepted defeat, rested up and waited... I was champing at the bit by the time I headed out this evening and, although it was only a little 7km run at 5.25/km pace, I was happy and excited to be out. That's one of the real benefits of taking breaks - something that doing triathlon in Dubai didn't really encourage - you need to get a little fat and lazy sometimes; you need to wake up and think about what chocolate bar to eat first rather than how far to swim that morning; you need to measure a day in pints rather than kilometers... That's where motivation and true long-term results come from, I think. It certainly seems to be the case for me, at least, because I'm now more excited about getting race fit again than I have been since Ironman Austria back in July.

And so it starts... I'm happy to be back in proper training and that means that normal service is resumed in terms of the blogging too. So, good news for those of you who get easily bored in work... You'll be hearing plenty more from me soon enough.

So far so good...

Well then, it’s been just over a month since I made the big move, said Du-bye to Dubai and Hola to Holland, and so far so good. I have to admit that I miss my friends and training groups back in Dubai, of course, but I’m absolutely convinced that it was the right move at the right time. I like that I left Dubai on a high (no Dutch jokes here) and while things were still good – my memories of the UAE now will always be positive, and I’ll definitely be trying to get back for occasional visits.

And what of Amsterdam? Well, the obvious thing first – it’s bloody cold, but, other than on a couple of occasions (more of those later), that’s not bothered me so much. Maybe it’s because I’ve spent most of the past decade living in Spain and the UAE, but I’m kind of enjoying the novelty of an actual, real winter. Coats, gloves, cappuccinos, hot chocolates and oliebollen… winter has its advantages. And for every mind-blowingly crappy day, there are days – like today – when the sky is blue, the cold is crisp and the leaves are on the ground… it really is beautiful.

Amsterdam

I really feel like I’m finding my way in the city/country now. I have my bank account and citizen’s number, so I’m official. I really like our apartment and the area it’s in too. The first few weeks maybe felt like a bit of a extended holiday but now it’s real life doing real things (with the exception of the working from home everyday part).

And, while Dubai had its advantages, I’m really lapping up all of the proper ‘European’ things on offer in the Netherlands. The parks and canals, stopping in cafes for beers and bitterballen (the Dutch, it seems, have a strange but tasty obsession with food in ball shapes!), heading to small art house cinemas (Pretentious? Moi?) and just wandering or cycling around the streets to discover new places and see new things.

We’ve visited Glow in Eindhoven – a cool, week-long art experiment when the buildings become light shows. We have tickets to a couple of festivals and music events next summer. There are weekend breaks planned. Gigs to be watched. And I haven’t even gotten around to seeing the museums, markets, the Heineken Experience or the pancake boat yet! But all in good time…

Images from GLOW in Eindhoven

But this isn’t some fancy-Dan (or fancy-Dam…groan!) travel blog or expat relocation guide, is it? It is, or at least it tries to be, about triathlon. So, how’s that going?

Well, we live in a great place as far as training goes. Firstly, we’re between a few parks, all of which have run tracks around or through them. I can do a lap or two for short runs while they can be combined (usually by following a canal or two) to create longer runs. There’s even an official 22km trail through three of the parks, while the nearby Amsterdam Woods (I’ve not been there yet) has 12, 15 and 21km trails through it. I’ve also tried a city run and a run down the Amstel river – after the same one or two loops of Dubai, this feels like an embarrassment of riches. Especially when the backdrop is misty parks, canals with ducks, geese and herons perched nearby, and woodlands with a thick carpet of autumn leaves underfoot.

The Vondelpark has a nice 3.5km run loop

Came across these dudes while running along the nearby Nieuwe Meer (the lake is pictured below) 

The local 22km loop - we basically live right in the centre of this

Running has been the main focus just to keep a little fit for the time being. I’ve ridden twice – once a couple of weekends back while visiting my fried Joe in Spain, we headed out and did a nice 90km jaunt through the hills of Andalucia, stopping only to experience the ‘traditional delicacies’ of the world’s worst tapas restaurant. And then, last week, I tried a ride here with Hamish, who also recently moved to Amsterdam.

At this point, I should explain that I only began the whole riding/triathlon thing in Dubai so cold conditions have never really featured too heavily. Expecting it to be cold out, I dressed in my warmest cycling gear – the sort of thing I’d wear for a cold winter morning in Dubai. Turns out that there’s quite a difference between a cold Dubai winter morning and a cold Amsterdam winter afternoon… we only made 45km in the end as the heavens opened and sent a downpour; I, of course, had absolutely no waterproof clothing on.  To cut a long story short, I had to get a neighbour to let me into the apartment as I couldn’t use the keys, so cold were my hands, and it took me 25 minutes of being inside before they thawed enough to take my gloves or shoes off.

Anyway, never one to need telling twice, I remedied that situation by immediately going online and buying proper winter cycling gear. Of course, I haven’t ridden since!

My favourite place for training is called Sloterpark. It has a +6km mainly woodland run track around a giant lake. Being around 1.5km from the apartment, this makes a perfect 10km run. Better still, on the far side of the lake – around 10 mins bike away – is a giant sports centre with a 50m swim pool. This is home to the De Dolfijn Masters and Tri Clubs. It’s also where my awesome gym is located. Just over the road is the running track where the tri club holds weekly track workouts. During the summer, you can do open water swims in the lake. Oh, and there’s a pretty good annual triathlon in this area too. I love having all of this so close to hand.

Running in the Sloterpark

Canalside path leading from home to Sloterpark 

The lake at Sloterpark

Triathlon is a pretty expensive sport, but it’s much more accessible here in Europe. De Dolfijn Tri, for example, costs €365 a year, which can be paid in monthly instalments (and includes an annual race licence).  This basically means that €7 per week gives me 5 coached swim sessions, a coached track run per week, a couple of bike rides per week between April and September, plus all the other social and support benefits of being in a club.

There’s another bike and tri group called Cylodam – which is maybe a bit less formal but bit more social – and their fees are just €25 per year, so I’m joining both; I love the social element of training and triathlon, while also needing as much variety as possible in my training, so the more options for rides or runs I have the better, is how I see it.  

So, basically, I’m back in training now. Not tri training per se (or at least, not in the way I've done it in Dubai), but training to maximise the potential for 2013 being my best season yet. What does that mean exactly? Well, I’ll get into that next time.

Overtraining Part 2

So, where did we get to?

Well, once I'd established I was overtrained (not to mention pretty ill, too), there were two questions: how long had I been in this slump, and what did I need to do to recover? The two are inextricably linked as recovery depends very much on how long you've been overtrained for.

Triathletes are achievers. We may look for free time here and there – bike fits to aero helmets – but we also understand that the road to improvement goes through the towns of Dedication, Hard Work and Consistency (which, come to think of it, sound like the sort of towns that Westerns are set in).

This is, in many walks of life and training, good; but it means that when a triathlete suffers a bad result (as I did this weekend due to overtraining/illness), it's easy for them to do the maths and decide that they must need to train more. Why not? It seems logical. However, by doing so, we're just digging deeper and deeper. So, if you can't dig yourself out of a hole, what do you do? Just stop digging.

Looking back, I raced an Olympic distance race in the first week of Feb and did well, feeling good. I trained well that week, and did the Wadi Bih run the following weekend. Again, I felt OK, but to make up for the lack of normal Friday training that week, I put an uncharacteristically big day in the next day. I then started feeling run down and ill (stomach bug and flu-like symptoms) during that week but perked up enough to start the RAK Half Marathon, which I struggled with and, looking back, felt flat at. So, that's where I think the problem occurred which means I'd only been overtrained for a couple of weeks – good news.

That generally means around a week or so of total rest, a couple of days of active recovery (gentle runs/walks and spins on the bike that aren't hard enough to engender a 'training effect') then beginning to train again with shorter, harder sessions initially, adding time and distance gradually.

There are other things you can try to ease the OT syndrome too – staying well hydrated, proper nutrition and massages will all help you along the road back. For me, however, there's a slight difference – I'm not just overtrained, I'm ill too. So, armed with my newly-discovered 'sensible approach to triathlon', I made recovery my first priority and decided I wouldn't jump on to a bike, dive into a pool and don a pair of running shoes until I'd totally kicked this flu's ass.

But recovery isn't enough – I also want to put in some precautions to stop me making this mistake again. So, I've decided on some new rules. Key to these are understanding the theory of 'overcompensation' or exactly what happens when we train. I may be preaching to the choir here, but this has really helped me to get my head around the importance of rest and recovery. Put simply, training doesn't make us fitter – recovering from training does.

If I do a 5 hour bike ride and put my body under the stress of doing such a ride, that, in and of itself, doesn't make me fitter. In fact, it makes me less fit as it breaks down muscle etc... What makes me fitter is my body saying “Sweet effing Nora that hurt – I'm going to recover and, when doing so, I'm going to recover even stronger than I was before so that kind of stress never happens to me again.” Therefore, rest without recovery is just breaking down the body time after time.

So, the new rules state that, on my programme, I add recovery aids just as though they're training – whether that's 'protein shake and ice bath', 'wear compression shorts and socks today' or 'rest is essential this morning', it now features on my March programme.

My next rule is that, as someone who usually loves and embraces training sessions, if I feel down and unenthusiastic about two sessions in a row, I take a step back and take a day or two off – a bit of hard work and discomfort is always to be expected when you're training for triathlons and Ironman but my enthusiasm levels, I'm learning, are a remarkably accurate indicator of health and wellbeing.

As are my lymph glands. Annoyingly sensitive, they swell at the first sign of infection or virus. And when they do, in future I'll take note.

The final one I'm going to call my 12 hour rule. This only applies to big training days during the week but training and my working day should never exceed 12 hours. This is fine – my big midweek brick is usually a three hour session after a 9 hour working day. However, if that working day becomes 10 or 11 hours, then the session has to be missed, shortened or swapped up for another day accordingly.

So, there's my guide to overtraining – hope it's of use to some but really hope it's never of use to most. More than anything, the message I've taken from the past week or so is to be sensible rather than obsessive – we do this sport for fun, self-improvement, to socialise and for general enjoyment. Not to pay the rent of put kids through school. In the grand scheme of things, a week off just doesn't matter.

Rest for the wicked

It’s been three or four days since I last posted and, given that last time I reported that I’d been hit by a dose of the often-deadly man flu, many of you doubtlessly feared the worst and thought that maybe I didn’t make it.

Fortunately, I’m a brave soldier with a steely nerve and a robust immune system. Even in the darkest moments, when I was sneezing my way through a pack of tissues, dropping Strepsil like Smarties and downing yet another glass of OJ, I refused to give up hope. ‘Not like this,’ I said. ‘Not now.’

Amazingly, I have survived but medical students of the future will not study up on my case just yet because I’m not quite out of the woods. I thought I’d kicked this man flu’s ass yesterday but today I feel a little run down again and the dreaded ‘tickly cough and sniffles’ have returned. But not enough to stop me racing in tomorrow’s Aerofit Sprint Triathlon down in Ghantoot.

In fact, aside from the obvious inconvenience of basically being on death’s door, it’s been an enjoyable week as I took almost three full days off training and have gone very, very easy for the rest, with just one swim, a one hour bike ride and 90 minutes of running to show for the week. And, again, other than being ravaged by a life-threatening man flu virus, my body feels good – rested and recovered for the first time in a while.

This actually reminded me that my best two performances this year came on the back of small bouts of illness – and, therefore, enforced rest. So, rather than the usual attitude whereby extended rest days just remind me of what I’m not doing, I’m trying to think of this week (and next... as I do a small taper for the Abu Dhabi International Triathlon) as ‘improvement recovery’ – a necessary time required in order to continue my progress not ‘missing out’.

The lull in training has also given me time to reflect and there are a few conclusions.

 This may well just be a bug that’s going around that I’d have picked up anyway (half of Dubai appears to be under the weather), but I’ve been going too hard for too long. That’s not necessarily about training – just training combined with 60 hour/ 7 day working weeks and trying to keep up something resembling a social life. I can and (as IM Austria approaches) will train more but I need to find a balance. If work does take over for a few days or a week here and there, then sessions have to give way rather than be rammed in at 10pm or 3am... that simple.

Like anyone who rushes from one thing to the next discovers, you may do more things but the quality suffers. I suspect that, although I’ve been racking up some good kilometres over the past month or so, the quality hasn’t been great. I read a really good piece of advice about that recently which said you should identify your three (probably one each sport) key sessions each week and hit them hard. The rest you cruise. I like this sort of simplification and will be trying it out in March.

So, ready, sniffling, and sort of raring to race. And aside from the race, this weekend I’ve around six hours of training to fit in. Sounds a lot but not that much.

Old me: Easy. Smash the race, get yourself to a brunch, grab a few hours’ drunken kip, sea swim, five hour bike ride, coach dirt run and then make it to the pub for a football/rugby beerathon!

New me: It’s a big weekend of both training and racing. Smash the race. Focus on recovery, and have an easy day of chores, a movie and maybe even a well-earned nap. On Saturday, keep the sea swim steady (it’s not my key swim for the week), cut the bike ride to an easy 2.5-3hrs and see how the legs feel for the run. If there’s time, a couple of drinks watching Wales smash France in the Six Nations would be lovely – but, if not, just watch it at home.

I guess sometimes, when you come this close to man flu-related death, it just makes you look back on your life and make some changes. And nobody, as we’re always told, ever lies on their death bed and utters the immortal words “I wish I’d spent more time in work”. Although I’m pretty sure plenty of people have looked up and friends and family, as their grip on this mortal coil slowly started to loosen, and whispered: “Bugger, if only I’d stayed between 60-65% maximum heart rate on my Monday night bike rides...”

Beat The Heat - advice for training in a very hot climate

Ha! In your face heat!


So, after suffering something of a setback during my morning run thanks to Dubai's thermostat being nudged from 'volcanic lava' to 'actual hell', last night I headed for Dubai Masters for a swim session. The nicely chilled water reminded me just why I was enjoying swimming so much at the moment!


In fact, the pool was so chilled that I managed to wear my wetsuit for the whole session - swimming in a triathlon wetsuit is quite different as the suit makes you very buoyant and changes your position in the water; it's important to get used to this, as well as where the wetsuit is a bit tight and limits your movement and discover anywhere it may rub a bit. As the sea here in Dubai is of the sort of temperatures at which chefs send lobsters to their untimely deaths, the pool in my only option. It's a lot of fun swimming the session in the wetsuit - I was the strongest swimmer at last night's session anyway but add the suit and I looked like pre-spliff Michael Phelps in there!


Anyway, did 3,500m total and am getting more and more used to swimming in the wetsuit which is good. I'm generally swimming really strongly overall which bodes well for Ironman but also thee season ahead.


This morning, my programme informed me, I was scheduled to do some shorter, quicker runs. Obviously, after yesterday, I was not looking forward to running again. Sure, the distance was much less but the intensity was supposed to be much higher, which means a faster heart beat and higher core temperatures. Fortunately, yesterday before swimming I did something very wise indeed! I did a spot of shopping...


To paraphrase those Mastercard adverts:


2xu lightweight running cap: 60 dirhams (10 quid)
Bag of ice: 3 dirhams (50p)
Having a freezer box full of ice flakes to shove in your hat and down your top every loop of the track: PRICELESS!


So, it wasn't pretty, but I got through the run session - 1.5k slow warm up and then 10 x 400m fast runs with a 200m easy jog between each. The temperature when I finished a 6.15am? A mere 44C!


Obviously, I only have another week till I'm back in the UK - keeping up training in this kind of heat would be plain stupid - but I think this does serve as some sort of example of what it takes to do triathlons, namely a good dollop of dedication and a soupcon of resourcefulness.


It's not always about training for an Ironman in melting hot conditions; it may be fitting in a lunchtime sprint session because you've had to work late all week, or adding some cross-training because of a running injury, or getting a flat on a training ride and using your skewer to wrestle your tyre off because you've broken your tyre lever... triathlon is a pretty good metaphor for life in that it will throw enough things at you to beat you. If you let it. 


Or, you can see a problem as a challenge and then it's time to start looking for a solution. Even if that means a hat full of ice cubes.


Anyway, hit the gym for an hour of intervals on the stationary bike (cranking up resistance but holding cadence at 90 rpm) which was pretty tough but tomorrow is a nice, easy day with a touch of stretching in the morning (i.e. bit of a lie-in!!!) and just a steady one hour masters swim in the evening. Before the last off the truly GIANT training days on Friday (165k ride, 12k run).

39 days and counting

So, we're just under 40 days from Ironman now and I've decided to change up the way I do these blogs. Instead of the random musings which have been common until now, I'll attempt to blog on a daily basis from now on in and tell you exactly what I've done in terms of training (and general preparation) that day and why...and mix that in with a healthy dollop of random musings! The hope is that, if you're about to bite the bullet and take on your first Ironman, or any triathlon, then this may help, and for those of you (the majority) who'll never tackle anything like this, then you'll get a privileged and detailed portrait of how you prepare for something like this.

I'm currently on a rest/recovery week; as I've said before, it's essential that athletes have an easier week once a month as it helps to avoid injury/illness/blowout, while giving the body a chance to recover and catch up with those fitness gains and, just as importantly, keeping you eager to train. I'm at that point now...can't wait to get back to the hard stuff! The weekend promises to be a tough one, which is fine by me.

Today was just a swim day (normally I do two sessions a day but during an easy week that's down to one a day most days). My programme required 75 minutes of swimming; as the masters sessions I attend are an hour long, I got there early and did a few hundred metres on my own. It was a quiet session and far shorter than usual, concentrating more on technique. Tho we did a main set of 6 x 200m (that's 6 x 8 lengths in your local pool), getting less rest and faster with each one.

It's funny how we change. As a kid, I was a very good swimmer but, I'll now confess, a dreadful trainer. I hated training, tended to just go through the motions, avoided sessions where possible and was lucky enough to pull off decent race times in spite of that. I specialised in shorter sprints, mainly butterfly and backstroke.

Now, I'm a triathlete, so it's all about long distance freestyle...like a 100m runner becoming a marathoner, the theory is similar but they're almost different sports. I also love training hard now. Train hard fight easy, as the army like to say. For that reason, I love long swim sets that get progressively tougher – making those who want to keep up with you hurt from the beginning and then turning the screw to get tougher and tougher. Worlds away from how I used to be!

So, 39 days and counting...and, without wishing to tempt fate, I feel physically great (fingers crossed and touching wood). I've not really suffered from any of the most common injuries, aches and pains that most first-time Ironman racers get in training. This means I'm either killing it or am not doing enough and in for one hell of a shock... it's always tempting to think the former and pile mile on top of mile but I need to trust in the programme. That's my motto for recovery week, trust in the programme!

Hasta manana.

Ironman and me

I was one of those kids in school – maybe you were one too; if not, you definitely knew the type. In a junior school where sporting ability seemed to be valued above academic prowess, I won the much coveted 'sportsman of the year' award in my final year. In high school, I represented (and often captained) the school in football, rugby, tennis, cricket, athletics, basketball and, of course, swimming. In short, I tended to be pretty good at anything I tried.

But swimming was the one I took seriously and trained hard for. By the time I reached around 17 and it was clear I was never going to become an Olympic champion swimmer, I started to lose interest and 'sized down' from the excellent regional club, City of Chester, that I trained with and swam for to the local Mold swim club. On the noticeboard at the sports centre in Mold is the first time I remember seeing a triathlon – it's easy to forget just how young this sport is sometimes. My interest was piqued and I decided I'd be pretty good (how much do I wish I'd started back then, but I guess things happen when they happen for a reason) but I never got around to it.

Around the same I first became aware of Ironman due to the legendary race of 1997 when the coverage of Sian Welch and Wendy Ingraham racing for the line on hands and knees (neither could stand without their legs buckling) was shown around the world. When I learned what they'd just done – 3.8km swim, 180km bike and a full 42km marathon – I was amazed that any human could push themselves like that. Then, to want it so bad you'd actually crawl...and all this was for FOURTH PLACE!

Skip forward a few years and I spent the Easter before my uni finals working in Portugal. Each morning, I'd get up and do a small swim in the hotel pool and one of the guys working there asked me to do the swim leg for a team triathlon against other hotels. Unfortunately, I had to leave the weekend before.

Finally, as I've explained before, the perfectly timed combination of a get fit kick and an invitation to be part of a media team to cover the Abu Dhabi Adventure Challenge did see me enter my first tri and, as I've said before, I was immediately hooked. But, even then, it was always going to be a sprint here, maybe an Oly distance there...Ironman was never on the cards.

As the months passed and I enjoyed tri racing and training more and more, I guess I started devoting a little more time to it here and there. I remember turning up to swimming one night and one of the girls there who is into multisports herself asked how my training was going. Ok, I replied, telling her the run and ride volume I'd done that week. 'You're training for Ironman,' she said. I was; I just didn't know it yet.

As I've said, I love everything about triathlon and read anything I can about races, athletes, training protocol, supplements etc. I can name the last 20 Ironman World Champs in order off the top of my head and so I spent a whole day last October following the World Champ race in Kona online. I was nervous, excited...it was like cup final day. That was when I knew I was going to race IM this year.

It's funny how things change incrementally, so you never really notice how far you've come. I think it's important to look back and appreciate that journey and your achievements. I bought my first old, secondhand bike from a friend I'd met doing the Adventure Challenge who was training to do his first Ironman. The night I went to see the bike, he was heading out for a 26k long run. “There's a word for that, mate – madness,” I said at the time. Now I just call it Tuesday.

Tri Ramadan

So, Ramadan has arrived. For those who’ve never lived in an Islamic country, you may well wonder how it affects the lives of us non-Muslims living here.

Initially, I have to admit, my first Ramadan was a bit of a culture shock but once you’ve been through it once, it makes very little difference. In fact, it’s like many things in Dubai – people back in the UK often ask me what it’s like: ‘Hey, is it true you’d be arrested for walking down the street with a can of lager?’ Well, yes, but how many times do you walk down the street with a can of lager in the UK? Unless you’re a student or a tramp.

What I mean is that all the things you need to consider for Ramadan seem consequential, but they rarely make that much of a difference. Essentially, non-Muslims can’t eat, drink or smoke in public during daylight hours. So, most cafes and restaurants are either closed or have a giant blind they pull down. Our workplace is pretty western (as are most here) and, therefore, we allow water and coffee to be drunk at desks but ask that people eat in the kitchen area…as they do all year! At home, do what you want – fill your boots.

Bars and restaurants can’t serve alcohol until sunset. Although, to be fair, that happens at around 7pm…if you can’t wait till 7 for a drink, again, you’re probably a student or on your way to a life on the street. Bars can’t play music or entertainment during Ramadan which makes the atmosphere a little odd, but then it’s the height of summer and hardly anyone goes out at this time of year anyway.

But Ramadan does, of course, affect the active. Gyms are fine – it’s understood that it’d be dangerous for people to workout without fluids and, so, these are simply sort of ‘no go’ areas for Muslims during daylight hours.

But what about me? I like to do as much of my training as possible in the great outdoors. Well, evening sessions are fine – it’s dark by the time I get home from work and head out, so it’s (sweaty) business as normal. Mornings are more problematic, as sun-up tends to happen around 5.

Swimming is the easiest discipline to deal with. Even though the water is cooled you definitely still need to drink during the session. Even in water, swimmers lose about half a litre of fluid in sweat during a one hour session. But my masters club is pretty western and, like the gym, it’s a case of don’t come if you don’t like what you’ll see. Cycling and running are less easy though, as they happen out there in the real world, so you can’t control who’s looking.

For the weekly long ride, it’s a case of hydrating beforehand and then grinning and bearing it until we get out of town, then it’s pretty safe to drink away as normal until we head back into civilisation…unpleasant, but doable.

Running needs to be cannier – and I’ll probably head to Safa Park to do laps. It’s around 3.5km around the outside of the park and there’s public toilets on either side – I’ll carry my drinks bottle and just have to dive into the toilet quickly each time I pass to take a swig! Which won’t look dodgy at all.

I also think the gym will be seeing more action when it comes to the shorter bike/run stuff. On the positive side, once this week is over (I’m really busy in work) it’s down to Ramadan hours (9-4) which means more relaxation, visualisation, stretching and prep time…or maybe more time lying on the couch watching Spaced DVDs.

Hitting the Ironman training wall

I guess that, during anything as difficult, or indeed long, as an Ironman training programme, it's inevitable that there'll be peaks and troughs; although I've had some tough sessions so far, I'd not had what I'd count as 'an absolute mare'...until today. Tonight I hit the wall.


Now, in the marathon, I've found the mythical wall that everybody hits to be less of a sudden, insurmountable object and more a 5k long swamp filled with treacle - enough to slow you down and make it hurt, but not to stop you completely. In IM training, however, it seems that the wall lands like a hammer blow right in the pit of your stomach and then tries to tear your entire body in two. Today marked the exact midpoint of the middle week of my training, so I guess if there's going to be a wall, then that's as good a place for it as anywhere.


Today was my long run day. Due to the extreme heat, this means a medium run in the morning followed by another slightly longer run in the evening. As I've said before, my body doesn't usually respond very well to running first thing, but the last couple of weeks that situation has improved and that proved to be the case again today. I flew around 14k at my heat-adjusted easy goal pace of 6:00/km.


This evening, it was going OKish until the 8k point (halfway for the night and 22k for the day). Then, it was certainly not going OK - in fact, Monos god of pain made a beeline for Dubai and landed slap-bang on top of me. I put this quasi-death I suffered down to one, or more likely a combination, of two factors...


Firstly, I started suffering hideous gastro problems. This isn't unusual for long distance racers (triathletes, runners. cyclists...whatever) as when you do endurance events, the body intelligently sends blood to the areas that need it most (i.e. the heart and muscles)...not the stomach, which closes down, which isn't good. I'm a bit concerned as tonight was the first time that I ran using the exact energy gel (Gu - chocolate and mint chocolate mixed with water - 100cals and 20g carbs per shot) that I was planning on using for IM and the exact sports drink (Gatorade orange thirst quencher - 100cal, 28g carbs per bottle) that'll be available on the course. However, I think my problems had more to do with a fairly hefty chilli con carne and sweet potato late lunch I had.


Secondly, just when we thought Dubai had reached maximum oven-ness, old Madre Natura decided to dial it up another couple of notches. It was 42C when I started running and 'just 40C' when I finished at almost 10pm. In these conditions, the body is working so hard just to, well, not keel over and die, that the rest is kind of secondary.


All of this said, a really bad session is only one that you don't learn from. I won't be having chilli before a big run again. I'll also try the gel/drink combo out on my 135k ride this Saturday - if it causes GI problems, then better I know now and try some alternative brands till I stumble upon one that suits. I was pleased with how I dealt with the setback - after a timely pitstop at a small shopping centre with a toilet, I dialed down the pace to little more than a jog and walked for 2 mins every 1k or so to take in fluids while walking rather than while my belly was jigggling about. Most importantly, after throwing up a couple of times, I finished the run - proving to myself that I've the mental strength but also that I'll be able to react to difficulties that pop up during the race. After the run, I also showed myself that I can down a 1.5l bottle of water in one gulp...impressive stuff, right?


The final lesson? Next week is my final easy rest week. From then on for the final month, there'll also be a focus on quality rather than pure volume. But simply put, I don't think much more than 20k a day is possible in these conditions. Anyone who's seen me train, race or, indeed, climb Kilimanjaro, knows that I'm not found wanting when (and forgive the colloquialism here) it comes to showing some balls. I love to train hard, I'll keep pushing my limits and, if I stop, you know it's because I've spent every last ounce I had plus a few more. I don't want IM training to be easy - it should be a right of passage, a test - I want to reach that finish line and for it to really mean something. But I'm aware that this attitude isn't always the healthiest. Tonight, simply put, did my body no favours at all and probably risked injury or illness. Idiot!


So, decisions to be made. I think I could eek a little more out of a morning run and maybe just get through an easy 10k in the evening on long run days from now on? Maybe (very reluctantly) the treadmill will have to play some role in long run days in future? Or, just as I've based my long run training on recent marathon trends for splitting the run into a morning and evening run, a lot of coaches are now prescribing two back-to-back days of quality, slightly quicker mid distance (i.e. 15k at 5.30 pace in this heat) runs...I think I'll give this a try in a couple of weeks' time.


For now, I'm just glad the day is over. Seven hours sleep then it's time to hit the gym for an hour on the bike...and tomorrow is a whole new day. 

Unexpected results of training for an Ironman

You expect the sore legs, extreme hunger, lack of social life, looks of ‘are you actually insane?’ from people you talk to, and even the saddle soreness. But training for Ironman has revealed a whole load of other things that not one IM programme or Beginner’s Guide To Going Long book has ever one told me.

1. Learn to be less precious about your body. Heat rash, nails falling out, bloody nipples, whole strips of skin being worn away…all par for the course.
2. You’ll end up doing more washing than the average small hotel.
   Two workouts a day + 40 degree temperatures = a constant flow of washing through the machine.
3. Some people will get defensive and tell you about their prior athletic achievements. Now, it’s nice that you’re sharing, and I always encourage anyone to get involved and be passionate about sports (particularly endurance sports) but no, just coz you were ‘pretty useful on a BMX’ or ‘got all your swim badges’ three decades ago, you still couldn’t do a triathlon without training and, while I may not be Andraes Raelert, if you came swimming/riding/running with me, it’d make you cry like a little girl.
4. If someone told you that sticking feathers in your hair and flapping your arms like a chicken would cool your core temperature by even 0.01°C, you’d do it in a heartbeat.
5. Baths are awesome – hot, cold, steaming, filled with ice…they all soothe my aching body.
6. Vaseline, Body Glide, chamois cream…anything that reduces chaffing is worth its weight in gold.
7. My car requires less upkeep and servicing than my bike does. By this point, it’s also probably worth less than my bike.
8. You can ridicule me as much as you like, wearing compression tights after a hard session is a luxury I’ll never give up. Baggy trackie bottoms the rest of the time!
9. Those who don’t do this will never quite comprehend the sheer guilt-free bliss that is an eat-and-drink-as-much-as-you-want brunch after a 6 hour brick workout!
10. 6 hour brick session + drink-as-much-as-you-want brunch = lightweight disaster.

Progress and motivation

Another week of training complete and, well, I hate saying it coz surely it’s sure to come hurtling back like a malevolent mosquito set on biting me on my ass, but…whisper it…I’m feeling pretty confident.

This was arguably my biggest week to date and as big a week as I have scheduled. In total, I managed 11k swimming, 277k cycling, 58k running. Most significantly, this week contained both the longest ride (163k) and the longest run day (32k) that I’ll do.

Now, I know there are a few doubts – as I do more than half that ride in part of a group, you benefit from group riding dynamics. We also get a couple of quick rest stops to refill our water bottles during the ride. The run I have to do as half in the morning and half in the evening due to temperatures. Again, I factor in fairly regular stops to rehydrate.

However, I’m choosing to ignore those doubts. Two runs in a day, most coaches now tell us, is just as good as one long run, if not better. After all, it’s not as if your legs have a chance to recover in the 8-10 hours in between, so the second run is still done on tired legs. The only difference being that you’ve had a chance to get some food and drink on board – but I think the fact that the IM marathon won’t be taking place in 40 degree heat outweighs that. Same goes for the cycling – not to mention that I won’t be doing it after a week of heavy training and I’ll be well rested and properly fuelled. Plus, just as there are times when the group pulls you along when riding, there are times when you have to keep feathering your brake to avoid hitting the wheel in front.

So, all good so far and I’m feeling great – OK, slightly tired legs but today is a recovery day (just stretching this AM and easy swim tonight) – not to mention motivated.

People often ask how you manage to keep your motivation while doing something like this. I don’t think there’s any single one thing – you have to take inspiration wherever you can find it. This week, that hasn’t been hard. Firstly, I been watching those awesome riders in Le Tour de France put in such monumental work each day. The way Schleck and Contador attacked some of those mountain stages was heroic – as was the way Evans refused to let them out of sight. And Evans’ TT performance deserved le maillot jaune. Then there was the news that Oscar Pistorius (the Paralympian athlete with carbon blades for legs) got a 400m PR in Italy which qualifies him to be picked by South Africa for the full Olympics. Again, heroic.

But there’s the small stuff. I really like inspirational phrases and quotes (I’ll share some with you soon) and, so, when I see a new one, I print it out and stick it on my wall near where I keep all my swim/bike/run gear. The greatest one, however, is that mental image of me coming into the final couple of hundred metres of the Ironman – of crossing that line and knowing what it has taken to get there. That’s the image that I keep readily available in my mind for 4am starts or when I have to dig deep.

So, why do I want to ‘become an Ironman’ so much? That’s hard to explain but I think this video (for IM Hawaii) comes closest: