Last evening I was so
pleased to see new lady Christine Holyoake turn up for the club session so soon
after she was hit by a taxi on a roundabout close to her home. Her legs were patterned
with bruises but she seemed otherwise normal. Her very first pool based, sprint
distance triathlon will be held in Woking and is
just two weeks away now.
Her swimming has come on in
leaps and bounds and last night she was right on my feet for the whole set. She
has been out on her bike since that collision and has not had her enthusiasm
curbed at all.
I was tired last night after
running four days on the trot but that didn’t make much noticeable to my swim
pace, although I did get cramp towards the end of the set but still carried on
swimming, I just had to try to concentrate on a song in my head for the purpose
of thinking of something else other than the cramp. Steve did notice and asked
if I had cramp and when I nodded my head in affirmation he told me to bite my
cheek or something. I think my method was best. It was one of my favourite
songs to swim to. ‘Could we start again please’ from Jesus Christ Super star, in
the show it is sung as a duet by Mary Magdalene and Jesus but I was listening
to the version sung by Ramin Karimloo. I consider myself blessed that I can
turn on music in my head whenever I need to. My favourite warm up/swim down
song is ‘Hey There’ from the Pyjama Game sung by Hadley Fraser. I have a good
swim pace song library stored away in my head. Swim sets at the bottom of the
page.
Accuweather are to blame for
the change in training schedule this weekend since they plainly said that Littlehampton
would enjoy a Sunday that was not too cold, had only 4% chance of rain and that
being late afternoon and a slight WSW 14 mph wind.
When we got up this morning
it looked like a false promise but decided to take our chances on getting the
bikes out.
We rode to a very quiet spot
that has a one mile long hill that is not too beastly and rode to and fro on
that for a while to get a little hill training in. Later we dropped down to the
coast joining a regular flat route at its furthest point and riding back home
straight into what was by that time a strong wind from the west. Both Steve and
I had aches and pains after having a very good week training behind us and in
fact we did not stop for the usual coffee and cake on the way home because
Steve said that if he stopped he might not get on again, so we plodded straight
home where we had a nice soak in hot water.
The rest of this weekend we
have been glued to the box watching the new Triathlon Super League that was
really exciting and entertaining in the multi event format with I think two to
three races per day that was very refreshing viewing.
The venue was Hamilton Island, Queensland,
Australia which
I strongly recommend you look at on Google maps, tropical and a half and
spectacularly beautiful.
The Co Founders are Chris McCormack,
who we all know well along with two other men Michael D’Hulst and Leonid
Boguslavsky. There was big prizes money involved.
They had obviously got some
serious backing from somewhere although the only company name I can remember from
TV due to all the signage on the course was BOLLOX Energy Gels. Wonder why I
can remember that?
Don’t take this as gospel
but the races were something like this:
Day 1.
3 sprint tris.
1. Swim-bike-run. 2. Run-bike-swim.
3. Bike-swim-run
Day 2.
1. Bike time trial
Swim-bike-run-bike-swim
Day 3.
Was three mini tri’s.
Swim-bike-run (then a break),
swim-bike-run (another break), swim-bike-run.
Overall winner after the three
days of racing was South Africa’s
Richard Murray who looked very pleased with his cheque for $100.000; yes, he
took home one hundred thousand dollars, a great pay cheque for a weekend of
work.
Apart from the big
disappointment of Alistair Brownlee being struck down with flu or something
equally horrible, it was excellent viewing and I am sure we will be seeing a
lot more of these events. I for one am looking forward to the rest of the series.
It reminded me or a weekend of races that we did in our early years of
Triathlon. It was run by I think Phil Templer, was that near Holmpierpoint? I
am not sure but that was great fun, a real blast.
The Eton Sprint weekend
comes nearest to that now I suppose and maybe they could get more fun for the money
stitched in to that weekend.
Lane 1
1 x 400
1 x 300
2 x 250
4 x 200
6 x 100
Lane 2
1 x 400
1 x 300
4 x 200
5 x 100
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