Wacky races - 2013 race schedule

One of the biggest advantages of having moved back to Europe - other than hot chocolate on a cold day, and, y'know, actual culture and trees and stuff - is that there are so many events to choose from. With that in mind, over these winter months when snowfall, sub-zero temperatures and 4pm sunsets have made summer triathlons feel a long way away, I've diligently gone about building my race schedule for the year ahead. 

I've mentioned on numerous occasions that Dubai was a wonderful place to discover triathlon but, due to the 12 months a year schedule if you're doing a big summer race, it also had its drawbacks.

With those drawbacks in mind, this year's race schedule (my first ever European summer schedule) looks a lot like this:

10 Feb - Schoorl Half Marathon

10 March - The Hague Half Marathon

14 April - Rotterdam Marathon

11 May - Rat Race Dirty Weekend

16 June - Berlin Ironman 70.3

14 September - Challenge Almere-Amsterdam (half iron distance)

As well as these, there are a couple of bike sportives I'll tackle in spring, there's a canal swim race in Amsterdam at the end of summer, and there are a few local sprint tris I'll do either individually or for my Tri Club (draft-legal... should be fun!) but, essentially, they'll all be parts of the build for the bigger events.

It's a schedule I'm excited about for a variety of reasons. Firstly, in spite of having done a couple of full Ironmans, I've never done a half IM so looking forward to trying a couple of those. Secondly, as I wrote in my 10 triathlon resolutions for 2013, I wanted to try something different and exciting this year and the Rat Race Dirty Weekend (the world's biggest ever obstacle course - 200 obstacles over 20 miles!) is certainly that.

Significantly, it's the sort of season I didn't manage in Dubai where I feel I just trained continually and maybe looked to peak once during the summer for an Ironman. This summer, I'll look to peak for the Rotterdam Marathon, Berlin 70.3 and the Half Challenge Almere-Amsterdam - my A races that are all nicely spaced out. Thanks to this, as well as the weather, it also means that during the early season I can focus on my run (my weakest discipline) like I never have before, while swimming and cycling take a back seat for a while before being picked up in the spring.

Finally, I feel like it's a schedule that's going to help me see some significant improvements as I build up for another Ironman in 2014 and look to shatter my 10.59 in Austria. I might be wrong - it could turn out that I'm just the kind of athlete who benefits from 3 swims, 3 bikes, 3 runs a week all year round, but I don't feel like that's going to be the case. Best of all, it's a schedule that has me super motivated and just champing at the bit to get out there and start racing again. It's been a while...

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.

Break and entry

So, for 10 more days at least, this remains a desert-based blog. The big move to Amsterdam means that this year’s race season is really over before it even begun as I’ll be leaving Dubai before any of the local races kick in, and arriving in Holland a couple of months after the summer season has ended there. All of which is likely to result in around nine months between my last race and my next!

So, I’ve been relaxing, putting my feet up and getting fat, right? 

Well, not too much as it happens. Even though I know it’s not really with any particular goal in mind, I’ve kept up the training just coz I enjoy it and know that, come 1 November, my training will take on a whole new form entirely as I juggle a lack of races with cold weather and hitting the gym a bit more.

It is, I admit, quite hard to keep motivation levels up at times and there’ve been one or two sessions that I just couldn’t drag my ass out of bed for; I’m a firm believer in goals and, for me, racing is the goal that keeps me going.

With that – and a long, cold winter (having not had to put up with a northern European winter for more than a decade, I’m probably exaggerating it somewhat but, in my mind, it looks something like Beyond The Wall in Game of Thrones) – in mind, last week, I went race mad. After the break, time for the entry… so to speak.

Winter run training?

Having failed to get into the London Marathon through the ballot, I entered the Rotterdam Marathon which takes place in, well, Rotterdam (think that’s how the race got its name, but I can’t be sure about that…) on 14 April. As the last two marathons I’ve done have come at the end of 3.8km of swimming and 180km of cycling, I can’t wait to see what I’m capable of doing in a straight running race.

Liverpool or Rome..?

A few weeks after that, I’ll be heading to the UK for something completely different altogether. The Rat Race Dirty Weekend is being pitched as the world biggest and toughest ever obstacle course – 200 obstacles in 20 themed zones, with 20 miles of running (five-sixths of a marathon) in between. Basically, I’ve always wanted to tackle one of those crazy army/game show assault courses and, when I saw that and the words ‘toughest ever’ I knew I had to have a crack!

Well, if GI Jane could do it...

Couple more race ideas up in the noggin at the moment but just going to allow them to soak and brew until I make a firm decision. Even just those two events have given me some real motivation and helped me to plan my winter training. It’s a simple but good tip that I find always works: if you’re having trouble focusing on your training, get yourself entered into a race. Everything becomes far clearer.