Things I won't miss about Dubai triathlon!

Having waxed lyrical about what I'm going to miss about Dubai in a blog post that critics have described as "emotional"*, "heartwrenching"* and "Hemigwayesque is its absolute desire to discover the truth of the human condition"*, it's now time to tell you all what I'm not going to miss. I am, after all, a British journalist and, therefore, only build something up so I can revel in knocking it back down... a career on The Daily Mail surely awaits!

*None of these things were actually said out loud by anyone but could have been Tweeted by someone somewhere once, after all, who's to say..?

So... adopting my best transatlantic 'ray-dee-oh deee-jay' voice, here we go with the top five... (da da daah, da da daah, daaa, daa, daaah...)

5. The races. Not a dig at race organisers at all, they are marvellous and lovely people without whom we’d just be a bunch of idiots who train a lot, but my god are the triathlons in Dubai boring! There are two problems, as I see it. One: due to the whole traffic thing etc, they're always in the middle of nowhere on some godforsaken stretch of road that makes an hour on the turbo trainer seem like a riveting 60 minutes of scenic exploration. Two: as locations are limited, the race calendar is made up of these races being repeated many times over. 

4. The drivers. A few times, I ventured out on to real actual roads on my bike – usually hitting Al Wasl and the Beach Road early morning, but even bravely (OK, stupidly) attempting to commute to work by bike for some time… I still have not quite managed to fully unclench my sphincter. Sweet eight pound six ounce newborn baby Jesus, that is some scary stuff. I was only hit (very lightly) once on the bike, when an Indian driver attempted some sort of clever dummy, by indicating and looking one way, then turning the other – really tearing up the rule book with that sort of driving – but there were some close calls, in Nad Al Sheba especially, where the driving resembles a bunch of monkeys let loose on high speed bumper cars. Amazingly I was 'bumped' twice while out running in Dubai - don't want to make any general sweeping generalisations but both times it was by Arab women wearing full abayas, in heavily blacked-out windowed vehicles, at night... giving them the sort of range of vision that Stevie Wonder has of his keyboard.

3. The laps and laps and laps and laps. Granted, over the past few years the number of options for cycling in Dubai have increased but it still boils down to going around and around and around the same few places – whether that’s lots of laps of the NAS cycle path, the autodrome or Ghantoot, or a few less laps of Nad Al Sheba, Longtoot or Al Qudra. On the plus side, it certainly builds some mental fortitude!

2. The heat. An obvious one but there it is… put simply, my body does not operate well in the heat – so running when my body is so soaked with sweat that my trainer makes a squelching noise every time it hits the ground, and my tingling skin feels like it might explode into a human fireball at any moment is not really my idea of fun. Just as cycling into a fan oven for several hours is, in my mind, more akin to torture than anything edifying or enjoyable.

1. The early mornings. Number one, with a bullet! I’m not adverse to an early morning and I’m certainly not the kind of person who loves to sleep in all day but, still, 2.30am-6am is a time window during which - even by the extraordinary set of rules that triathletes live their lives by - everyone should be asleep. It is most definitely not a time at which humans should be up and riding. It is not the ideal hour for hitting the sea for a choppy dawn swim session.  And it is not a time slot that should be reserved for driving to Hatta. 

OK, rant over. Annnnnd breathe...

Bye, bye, I’ll Miss Emirati Tri

(see what I did with that title, eh?)

OK, OK, OK… so it’s been a while. And for that I offer up my deepest, sincerest condolences, yadda yadda yadda… Actually, what do you want from me? I’ve been damn busy. ‘How busy?’ you may ask. Lots of work on? Too much training? Few personal commitments?

Actually, I’ve been rounding up my life in the UAE (easier said than done), saying my goodbyes and have been a tad preoccupied with moving to the Netherlands, I’ll have you know. But now I’m there, and have been living in Amsterdam for one week exactly, I’m writing the blog I should have written a couple of weeks ago.

First up, let me say that the time was right and, even before I got here, I’ve been super-psyched about my move. Now I’m here, despite having to increase the overall size of my wardrobe by several thousand percent (coats, scarves and gloves are essentials for life in this here Netherlands, people!), I’m even more excited. But that doesn’t mean that there’s not some sadness attached to leaving Dubai.

There’s sadness attached to the place – I was lucky enough to leave while I still feel a lot of fondness towards Dubai and the UAE, rather than so many who are ‘just reeeeally over the whole thing, you know, man?’  when they make the move away. There’s sadness attached to the job – I think I had one of the best jobs in the world at Explorer – and the people. But what I’m going to miss, more than anything else, can be summed up in one word: triathlon.

Let’s take a pictorial journey through my time in Dubai…

2008: 93kgs and already many, many kilos lighter than at the same point the year before, I tackle my first triathlon in gym clothes, wearing a borrowed kids’ helmet and riding a borrowed bike. Sprint triathlon time: 1hr46.

2010: 85kgs and with a marathon and several triathlons under my belt, with a proper bike helmet and on my very own tri bike, I register a time of 1.17 for a sprint tri.

2012: 79kgs (going into the race…70kgs finishing it!) I complete my second Ironman. I now have many, many swim, bike, run and tri races under my belt and can cover the sprint distance in around 1.03.

What many will see there is either a dude who got himself into some sort of decent shape or a blogger who’s feeling a mite proud of himself. I’d disagree. When I look at those photos now I think of experiences (climbing Kilimanjaro, racing Ironmans, cycling tours across Thailand and Laos or Europe), I think of achievements, I think of a guy who’s happier in life and better at his job, and  I think of someone who wouldn’t have had the balls or ability to make the move I’ve just made before my tri adventure began. But, most of all, I think of all the friends I’ve made along the way.

The Middle East and endurance sport may not seem to be a match made in heaven but for me it most definitely was. So, when I look back on my time in Dubai, what I’ll always remember and be grateful for is that it gave me one of the things I love most and makes me happiest in the world.

And it taught me one thing. Wherever you are in the world, never let location be your limiter or your barrier. Get out there and make it count! While everyone else in Amsterdam is bemoaning the cold snap and the rain, I’m wrapped up and ready for action – after jogging around and around and around at Safa or Dubai Marina in 45 degree C, hitting the canal-side trails, parks and woods of Holland in the cold is a breeze.

As rubbish and silly a dedication as it may be, this blog serves as a huge thanks to everyone at Tri2Aspire, Dubai Masters, Cycle Safe, Tri Dubai, ABRaS etc etc… thanks for pushing me harder, faster and further, and for teaching me that pushing harder, faster and further is the greatest feeling in the whole, wide, lovely, great world.

 

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.

What’s in a name?

My blogging has been pretty woeful of late, but I think I have good reason for that. Y’see, this is predominantly a triathlon blog, documenting the high and lows of my racing and training, with occasional sideways glances at the sport and meandering journeys into the world of tri-surrealism.

And, of late, triathlon hasn’t really been on my mind. I’ve done a few rides and sessions here and there but consistency has been non-existent and I’ve also taken quite a few chunks of time off. Training hard has been replaced by working way too hard, then 10 days of eating and drinking way too much, while life has generally got in the way.

And then there’s the big news. As of the beginning of November, this blog, Desert Tri Tales, will be seeing something of a reboot, a rebranding, a rebirth if you will…  as it transforms into Triathlon and Tulips, or Remrandtriathlon, or Swim, Bike/Boat, Run or…well, I’ve not decided yet, but you get the point. This isn’t due to a newfound love of floristry, 17^th Century art or cruising, but, at the end of October, I’ll be swapping sand dunes and skyscrapers for canals and clogs as I move to the Netherlands.

If I’m being honest, I’ve been hankering after a move back to Europe for a while and the time was starting to feel right. Europe rather than the UK was always my preference – for whatever reason, lifestyle I guess, mainland Europe has always felt like a better long-term fit for me and I’d quietly decided to make a move back by the end of this year anyway. When a pretty young Dutch lass that I’ve been into for a decade or so suggested Amsterdam as a suitable destination, it seemed like the perfect fit.

Swapping THIS...

...for THIS.

So, there we have it folks. The times they are a-changing.

However, I do have five weeks left in Dubai and, although I’m not going to be around for any racing (and will then be moving to Amsterdam at the beginning of winter, so no more triathlon racing for a good six months or so...), I’m enjoying putting a nice big final consistent block of training in before I go. Sure, it’s not for a race or anything, but I’m just enjoying finding a bit of form, spending time swim/bike/running with friends and team mates, and getting to train outside while I still have the chance. And the Dubai weather seems to be obliging too, as summer is finally coming to a close it seems.

Swapping THESE LOCALS...

...for THESE LOCALS.

At the moment, it’s all giddy excitement about the move. But I’m sure there’s loads that I’m going to miss about Dubai too. But that’s a subject for another blog, I guess. 

Everyone is tri-ing it

Guess what… triathlon is cool!!!

Why’s that, you ask? Because it encourages a healthy lifestyle? Because it increases self-confidence? Because it improves productivity and overall happiness among those that participate? Because there are lots of cool gadgets you can buy?

Hell no! Coz the dude from Saved By The Bell does it, dumbass!

That’s right, AC Slater – he of the Soul-glo hairdo that was so Afro-licious that even T2A's Simon Kelly would envy him – now does triathlon.

And he’s not the only ‘schelebridee’ to get in on the triathlon act, either. Super-jock and regional wrestling champ AC Slater – sorry, I mean actor Mario Lopez – took part in the Nautica Malibu Triathlon back in 2009 and this is the epicentre of celeb tri. In fact, there’s a whole category just for famous folk.

Any young man in his early 30s out there will have fond memories of Teri Hatcher when she used to go out with superman. Although Superman dumped her long ago coz she has a face like a scary witch, Hatcher keeps her bod looking pretty darn good with a bit of tri – raising money for charity while she does it.

When JLo isn’t busy making up weird new names, she loves a bit of swim, bike, run too. She completed the sprint distance at Malibu in 2.23, which is longer but considerably less painful than most her films.

Jenny From da Frock - seriously, what the hell is she wearing?

Professional leaner and wooden actor, Matthew Mahogany, is big mates with Lance Armstrong and shares his love of endurance sports. Mahogany did the sprint in 1.30 which, let’s face it, is a bit rubbish for someone who has loads of money and no real job.

Nobody has ever seen Matthew Mahogany standing upright: true fact.

Mahogany leans on his handle bars.

The best Malibu triathletes, however, (best as in people I like most, not fastest) surely must be David Duchovny (climbs well over Twin Peaks), Jeremy Piven and Will Ferrell – who hopefully took part as research for a Blades of Glory/Talladega Nights/Semi-Pro style movie set in the world of Ironman!

Duchovny: has a star stuck on his privates.

There’s even an awesome celebrity triathlon couple in the form of Felicity Hauffman and William H Macy.

The UK equivalent of the Nautica Malibu Triathlon would be the London Triathlon, which the ‘always thought he seems like a decent bloke’ DJ and TV presenter Vernon Kay completed in 2010. Aside from him, the London Triathlon tends to attract some lamo Z-listers or rubbish relayers, like Dickie Branson, who did the swim in a tri relay a few years ago. P-Middy also took part in a tri relay, looking considerably better than Branson when she did the run at Blenheim a couple of years ago.

Vernon Kay: Even ex male models look silly in cap and goggles - good to know. 

The best celebrity triathletes (as in the fastest, not necessarily people I like the most) tend to come from the world of sport. The fact that they leave their own sport behind in order to challenge themselves in triathlon tells us one thing: triathletes are hard as nails.

F1 drivers, it seems, are fast around all courses. Jenson Button and Nico Rosberg can not only go close to 2hrs for Olympic distance triathlon (having access to a wind tunnel must help nail that aero bike position!) but both run around 35 minute 10kms, which is really impressive. Button won his AG at the Hawaiian Lavaman race recently and has even set up his own annual charity triathlon. Plus his supermodel missus now does triathlons. JB is a tri geek!

Cool personalised helmet on JB.\

Olympic rower and famous adventurer James Cracknell is a handy triathlete too, and has even represented the GB age groups team at the European Championships.

Rowers seem to do well. Rebecca Romero, who has Olympic medals for both rowing and track cycling, competed in Ironman UK earlier this year, qualifying for Kona with 11.10 on a notoriously challenging course.

Other athletes to take to triathlon include former 400m running supremo Iwan Thomas, ex England rugby international Nick Beal, plus a load of Americans I’ve, frankly, never heard of.

But you don’t have to be a former athlete, or even all that young, to be bitten by the triathlon bug.

 Former journalist and political aide, Alastair Campbell, now 55, has been a keen triathlete for a number of years, as has the 67 year old Sir Rocco Forte, who has several GB age group appearances to his name, as well as an impressive sub-12 hour time at Ironman Austria back when he was a mere 60-year-old whippersnapper.

Sir Rocco Forte

Have I missed anyone out? Any other A, B, C or D listers out there who like to try their hand at tri every now and then?

Review: POLAR RCX5

This review first appeared on the TriDubai website, earlier this month.

One of the advantages of being a writer – and a rambling, picaresque triathlon blogger – is that people, for some reason that I’m fully yet to comprehend, seem to trust your opinion. On the back of that, from time to time I’m approached by companies to review certain sporting products and I thought who better to share these reviews with than all you good, good members of TriDubai?

And so, for my latest review, I tried out the Polar RCX5.

The sports watch market has come a long way from the days when heading out for a run meant carrying nothing more than a stopwatch. As the science behind training has improved, so too have the ways of monitoring your runs, rides and even swims. Polar is a major player in the market and the company’s latest offering, the Polar RCX5, is aimed at the highest end, featuring HR monitor, GPS and much, much more to boot.

Like just about anyone in Dubai who’s ever watched the Tour de France or thought about going for a jog, I currently own a Garmin 310XT which (along with the newer 910XT) is pitched at the same level as the Polar RCX5 and, therefore, it was somewhat inevitable that I judged the RCX5 against the Garmin unit.

My first impressions of the RCX5 were excellent. It’s a quality piece of kit with the watch being extremely streamline and good-looking. The battery in the watch lasts as long as 12 months, meaning you can happily wear it as an everyday watch and, available in black and red, you’ll look stylish doing so.

What comes with the watch depends on which package you buy. All come with HR strap, the GPS sensor and the DataLink USB which allows you to download your workouts wirelessly to your laptop; cyclists might like to add the cadence and speed sensors, while runners can add a stride sensor too. The more accessories, the more data you can record.

All the features you’d expect are there; while the RCX5 can tell you your time, distance covered, current pace, average pace, current heart rate and average heart rate during a bike or run race, it’s actually in training that it comes into its own. The ZoneOptimizer feature ensures that you’re training at the correct pre-determined HR zones and intensities and one advantage that the RCX5 has over all its major rivals is that the HR feature still works in the water, so that you can monitor your intensity while swimming too.

You can pre-set all manner of programmes based on distance, time and intensity; the RCX5 works like a personal trainer, telling you when to go, how hard and for how long, as well as how much rest to take in between sessions.  It’s also easy to switch between a good variety of sports, making it an obvious choice for triathletes or adventure racers.

Once you’ve finished your workout or race, head home and upload your data on to polarpersonaltrainer.com. To be honest, this site deserves a full review of its own, but it can be as simple or complicated as you want, from uploading workouts so you can compare and contrast your performance over a certain course, to using the full programme that will tell you what to do when, how hard to go and when you need to take a few days’ break… it’s impressive stuff.

But this is mostly all stuff that you read elsewhere; what you want to know is how the RCX5 performed out in the real worlds and how it stacks up next to its competitors, right?

Firstly, let me assure you, this was no namby-pamby review over a paltry 5k run. Oh no. I put the RCX5 to the test firstly at Ironman Austria and then on an 800km cycle tour from Vienna to Belgrade. So both it and I got a good workout. For Ironman, I wore the RCX5 HR strap but also wore my Garmin 310XT on the bike (and used both units for several days of the bike tour) – not just as back-up but so that I could compare their relative accuracy.

I’ll start with the pros. The RCX5 is a beautiful unit which I found comfier to wear and easier to use than other units. It says much about its simplicity that I didn’t once need to look at a manual before setting up my screen display preference, and a variety of time and distance alerts to remind me to drink and take on calories during the Ironman. There are some excellent special features on here – for example, you can set the RCX5 so that, if you swipe it quickly over the HR strap, it’ll change to a certain screen. On the Ironman run, when I only wanted current pace and distance on the main display, for example, I could swipe over the HR monitor and change to heart rate zone and average pace and back far easier than fiddling around with buttons. I could have even used the same feature to record lap splits when I made the swipe.

I like the fact that the main unit doesn’t need to be constantly recharged and the syncing with everything from the foot sensor and GPS to the laptop are all quick and easy. Finally, while you can upload data to other third-party training programmes (such as Training Peaks), polarpersonaltrainer.com is by far the best and most usable of the manufacturers’ own online programmes. In fact, it’s the simplicity and usability across the board that makes the RCX5 an attractive unit.

Also, something that’s often overlooked but should be the major consideration when buying something like this, in terms of the GPS functionality providing the distance and speed/pace data, I found the Polar RCX5 to be at least as accurate, if not a little more so, than my Garmin 310xt, both over a complicated looped course (Ironman run) and longer point-to-point bike with plenty of tree coverage (say, the 100kms ride through Serbia, from Novi Sad to Belgrade).

Somewhat ironically, the things I like most about the RCX5 are also responsible for its drawbacks. The Garmin 310XT and 910XT are far bulkier, for example, with batteries that require recharging every 20 hours or so. This is because the GPS sensor is built into the wrist units, while the RCX5’s GPS sensor is separate. For Ironman Austria, I simply slipped the sensor into the rear pocket of my trisuit as I hopped on the bike and forgot all about it, but I wonder whether I’d have the time or presence of mind to do that during a shorter race, like a sprint or Olympic triathlon.

Also, while it’s very quick and easy to toggle between sports, the RCX5, surprisingly, still doesn’t have the option for recording transition times – not important if you’re a single-sporter and not so significant during something like an Ironman when transitions are responsible for just a few minutes during a 10 to 17 hour day, but extremely important over quicker races like sprint triathlons.

So, to cut to the chase, given that the RCX5 is in the same ballpark price bracket as the Garmin 910XT, if maybe coming in a couple of hundred dirhams cheaper, would I spend my hard-earned cash on the Polar? If I were simply a runner or cyclist, or even predominantly a runner or cyclist who maybe did a little of the other sport then the Polar RCX5 would get my vote.

If I were a triathlete or multisporter who focused almost entirely on longer distance racing, then it’d be a bit of a toss-up but I may well go for the RCX5 due to the superior and more consistent syncing between the watch and cadence sensors/footpods/laptop and my preference for Polar Personal Trainer over Garmin Connect.

However, as a triathlete who competes over a range of distances, I’d still opt for the Garmin. That’s simply due to the Garmin’s integrated GPS sensor and the ability to automatically record transition times rather than usability, but that’s enough to persuade me. Once Polar manages to put these two functions in its training watches, then the race for dominance will really heat up.

Info

The Polar RCX5 costs around AED 2,000 and is distributed in the UAE by Sport In Life (04 289 6002, info@sportinlife.ae). Contact Sport In Life directly for information on stockists or buy direct from www.sportsouq.ae.

Thanks to Sport In Life for providing the unit for review.   

Post IM update & video

Once again, my blogging has been conspicuous by its absence over the past couple of weeks. To be honest, that's because this is a triathlon blog and I can't really claim that a great deal is going on as far as triathlon and I are concerned.

I've returned to training a little but without a firm programme and that, coupled with a few days of illness and lack of races in the schedule, has meant motivation levels have fallen through the floor. Plus, my mind is elsewhere with news that I'm sure I'll be sharing on here in due course.

But I sense a renewed enthusiasm delicately taking root somewhere deep down in the soul and, rather than my enthusiasm for triathlon driving this here blog, I've decided that I may try and blog my way out of this current little slump. So, a few more posts to come in the days ahead.

In the meantime, someone recently sent me this really cool video all about Ironman Austria 2012 - which I raced. It's part of a series made my Ironman itself. Hope you enjoy!