You came back!

Why? Last week I tried to give a break-down of my training week and all I ended up doing was talking about some chick-flick!

Anyway...this week has been a bit of a lonely one. My housemate James (the ‘angry’ one from my first blog) has been away. This may not sound like much of an issue, but in my house we have a simple system...he cooks, I clean. This is partly because he is good at cooking and I don’t like mess, but also partly because my culinary skills are what you would call ‘functional’, ‘utilitarian’, or maybe ‘military’, in that I can stay alive by gnawing on a burnt chicken carcass but it won’t necessarily taste nice.

I think my issue is that I have neither the patience (nor skill) to prepare anything that takes longer than about 5 minutes. I will pick up a cook book, but promptly put it down when I notice that every recipe involves some combination of the words ‘pre-heat’, ‘marinade’, ‘simmer’, ‘leave to cool’, and others that imply some kind of down-time in the whole cooking process. When I get back from a swim/bike/run I’m so hungry that I preferably need calories injected intravenously into my bloodstream, but I usually revert to the next quickest method...the trusty stir-fry. Always the stir fry. Quick, easy, ticks the boxes nutritionally, but there’s only so many times you can eat the same thing for dinner before you start dreaming of Delia Smith and Jamie Oliver chasing after you with egg beaters trying to force you and a confused coriander sprig into a food blender. Very odd.

So apart from my interesting sleeping habits (3hrs on Monday night, 10hrs on Tuesday night), the week has gone well. I had a really good run session in Friston Forest on Sunday, scaling ‘Heartbreak Hill’ in record time at the end of a 90minute fartlek session. I’ve also hit a couple of PBs in the pool, for 25m and 50m, though both of them came about as a result of my fragile ego being threatened by a 14 year-old Harry Potter look alike (come on J.P. you know it’s true! “ACCIO GOGGLES!”) who was getting within sniffing distance of me on the respective swims. So much to Glenn’s (my coach) amusement and dismay, I suddenly found an extra 0.7secs per 25m. Pathetic isn’t it! I’m just saying it how it is!

Recently I’ve been giddly like a triathlete who is about to ride a Cervelo S3 with the impeding excitement of...riding a Cervelo S3! To explain, for the last couple of years I have been bombarded with recommendations to “sort my life out and get a proper bike” by anyone who has touched any of the range of these Canadian creations, and having had few goes on James’ S1, I finally understood why the Hawaii Ironman transition area is filled with more Canadian carbon than your average NHL convention (hmm...that simile only works if ice-hockey sticks are made of carbon-fibre...I’m going to run with it anyway!). The guys at The TriStore (my local triathlon shop) have pulled out all the stops and sorted me out with an S1 to train on and an S3 to race on. I’m absolutely loving the stiff and responsive S1 frame, and I haven’t even revved it up fast enough to appreciate its main selling point: the aerodynamics. In fact, I think my head is going to explode with excitement: April 6th = S3 build day, April 7th = Lord of the Rings is released on Blu-Ray! No prizes for guessing what that week’s blog is going to be about!

My week concluded with something that is actually relatively interesting (no really!) The University of Brighton are organising a travelling exhibition of photographs and MRI scans of 6 athletes who are affiliated with the university who are aiming for the 2012 Olympics. I went over to the BSMS campus this morning to be scanned, and I was told that they wanted to capture images of my heart (triathletes have strong cardiovascular systems) and abdomen (to highlight the high muscle to fat ratio of a triathlete). I’m really looking forward to seeing the finished images, though slightly relived to hear that the zip on my shorts distorted the images that they tried to take of my ‘pelvis’ (“Yeah Olly we are interested in your glute muscles etc!”). I’m not sure how excited I would have been to have an MRI image of my man-bits on display for the world to see!

And with that horrific mental image, I will leave you for another week.

Happy training!

Olly

Hello again! Welcome (back) to my blog for allyouneedtotri.com.

Since my last post, I have had a week of downs and ups...in that order!

Firstly I should explain that when I say ‘week’ I am talking about a training week, which for me starts on Saturday and ends on Thursday, with Friday as a very easy day or even a day off (if I’ve earned it!).

Saturday as always was a steady day, with a long(ish) steady ride followed by a relatively easy run for an hour off the bike. On days like this you can never really read too much in to how you feel as the intensity is too low to find out anything deep and meaningful about yourself, but the signs were there that I wasn’t firing on all cylinders...little did I realise...

Now we find ourselves on Sunday...Sunday 14th...Sunday 14th March 2010. That was not a good day. To be honest the pain of it is still too close, so I don’t really want to talk about it, but I will, because I’m just that kind of guy (you know: kind, giving, informative and incredibly handsome). Ok. Here goes:

• Sunday 8:30am. Tempo run. 1hr. First 30mins OK but heart rate too high. After 30mins I start tying up. 40mins: KABOOM! Run last lap in 18mins, at least 90secs slower than expected. Not fun. Not cool.
• Sunday 10:30am. Swim 90mins. Blagged it until we got to a best effort 300m. After 125m KABOOM! Legs fall off (metaphorically of course), Niall almost swims into the back of me without realising, pace drops off to something unmentionable.
As I said, not good.

Now I’m not the kind of guy who takes that kind of thing very well, so after extricating myself from the pool, I stumbled home and adopted the Bridget Jones approach to coping with difficult situations. I put on some power ballads, devoured a huge tub of ice-cream and smoked a packet of cigarettes...well almost, I can’t remember what I ate but I’m sure it wasn’t steamed fish and veg and an artichoke smoothie (or whatever athletes are supposed to eat), and I replaced the cigarettes and power ballads with something even more sinister and even more shameful...ladies and gentleladies of allyouneedtotri.com, I snuggled down on the sofa and put on a movie called ‘Stardust’, and you know what, it “put a massive smile on my face”.

At this point in proceedings, I would like to ask a favour of you. Like one of those adventure stories that you read in primary school (or maybe it was just me), I want you to proceed to the appropriate part of this blog depending on whether or not you have seen or know of the aforementioned film. If you have, proceed to point 1 and DON’T READ point 2, and vice versa. (NOTE: you all know about internet fraudsters and CCTV and what not and let me tell you now, it’s all true, so if you read the wrong paragraph I WILL find out and I will identity-fraud you into oblivion...you have been warned):

1. OK, so you’ve seen/heard of the movie. Let me make this clear, it was a moment of weakness, yes I enjoyed it but I regret it, I think it would best for all involved to just forget it ever happened and let’s not talk about it again OK? Don’t forget that I have a macho reputation to maintain. OK good, you may proceed to the paragraph AFTER point 2;

2. You haven’t seen the movie? Great. Well all I need say about it is it was directed by the same guy who directed Layer Cake (gritty London gangster movie with a drug-dealing Daniel Craig and Sienna Miller in her delicates), which means that Stardust (a film that “put a massive smile on my face”) is definitely a man’s film about violence and boobs and stuff, and definitely not a fairytale with 3 wicked witches and a fallen star and a quest for true love...ahem.

I get sidetracked easily.

So after Sunday and “the-DVD-that-won’t-be-named” incident, my week improved. I found out that my less-than-stellar performances on Sunday were caused by a low-grade virus, and Monday (solid 400s in the pool, 60mins run and gym) was an improvement. A hard swim and turbo, along with a long run on Tuesday took the spark out of my legs for a steady Wednesday, though I was just about able to muster together enough to hit Thursday hard.

Thursday is always a decent day, coming at the end of the training week and with two important sessions. The swim was hard 50s on a quite a long rest, and I was getting down and dirty with some 28s. The run session in the afternoon was the first time I’ve been on the track in months, so Glenn set me up with some race-pace (20kmph) 1km efforts, which I tackled with more ease than expected, despite Gary Brickley (physiologist) pricking my thumb after every other rep to get my blood lactate levels! I also had Joel Filiol (head coach the GB team), and Clare and Dan (physio and S&C coach) coming down to see us cracking out the pain faces and heavy breathing! Gooooo team!

Things seem to be moving in the right direction, so hopefully “the-DVD-that-won’t-be-named” can gather some dust for a few months. If not you guys will be first to hear about it!

Happy training!

Olly

(This blog entry first appeared on (and refers to) the newly launched allyouneedtotri.com)

Wow, check out the new site huh?

Did you know there is a Coaching Service registered on the road that my parents live on? My parents don’t. I don’t. My two training partners who also live on that road don’t...but allyouneedtotri.com does.

I’m impressed.

Anyway, enough of the shameless plugging! Who am I and why I am taking up space on this brand new sparkly site?

Who am I?: For those of you who know of me, hello again, and yes it is me with the silly eyebrows and big nose and constipated ‘race face’ who seemed to be doing quite well and then suddenly disappeared for 2009 for no apparent reason. If you don’t know me, I’m a 24 year old elite athlete who won some stuff as a junior and was just getting used to a bit of success as an elite before a rather bizarre 2009 which amounted to not a lot of racing....more useless information at my website ollyfreeman.com.

Why am I writing: What’s that thing about infinite monkeys and Shakepeare? I think that’s the approach here...

So what have I been up to? Well as I said, my 2009 was a bit of a non-starter. It started off with a lot of excitement and positivity after a 2008 season which (apart from the Olympics) went almost as well as I could have hoped. As the winter progressed, and I pushed myself harder and dug deeper, my body just kept on giving and following a 6 week training camp in the States I was in the shape of my life. However, soon after returning I went to Korea for a World Championship Series race and got a stomach bug which resulted in a disappointing 12th.

The day after I returned I was out on my bike and a friendly motorist decided the best way to communicate to me that he didn’t think cyclists should be allowed on the road was to knock my lights out (I think that’s the expression...I mean he punched me so I was unconscious!). Apart from the fact that my face smarted a bit for a few days, I got injuries in my shoulder, rib and hip from this incident, along with trying to move house, take my Open University exams and race World Championship Series races, it meant that I was fighting a losing battle to try to get back fit. Unfortunately other personal circumstances then came along that meant that the decision was made to call it a day for 2009 and try to re-set for 2010...so here I am, after 4 months out of the pool and off the bike, trying to whip myself into respectable shape for 2010 as a springboard for 2012!

So far this winter has been...interesting! It has certainly been more bumpy than last year, as a 4 month break lets the body completely forget what the stresses and strains of training full-time are like, but I’m getting there. Hopefully this blog will help keep you guys informed of how it’s going, and give some insight into the trials and tribulations of an elite triathlete...a profession/lifestyle/career (or whatever you want to call it) which can be filled with the most magnificent joys, but one which also requires 6am swim sets...enough said!

I will introduce you to my enigmatic coach Glenn (multiple British and European Champion, he knows his stuff), who has guided me through my myriad (mostly self-inflicted) dramas since I was a pre-pimply 14 year old. Also you’ll find out about my training group, who include a trainee doctor, an artist, a man who has had a brand of washboards names after his stomach, a wannabe DJ, a guy who races tractors (he denies it but he SO does) and the angriest man in Britain...fact. Some of them are quite good at triathlon as well.

Also, if you’re lucky, you may find out about me. I feel I should warn you that I am the kind of guy who gets irritated when people mis-quote Lord of the Rings (it’s “You SHALL not pass” not “You CAN not pass” you idiots), so don’t say I didn’t warn you when Avatar 2 is announced and I dedicate 3 consecutive blogs to discussing whether the characters’ skin is blue, azure or aqua-marine. I’ll try to stay on topic though.

Anyway, until next week, enjoy the site, enjoy your training, and be back soon.

Olly

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