Hey guys,

Weekly update time. Well, after my vague moan and whinge last week I wanted to see what I’ve got left in the old legs...because let’s face it, my last few results haven’t exactly proved much. I asked Glenn to set me a big old track session (3x2km, 3x1km, 2x400m, 1x200m) that I could dig my teeth into and see if there was still some fitness kicking around. Well if you can remember last Sunday then you will understand when I say that the weather was pretty ridiculous. After the first rep I actually had to take off my top because it was SO drenched that it was weighing me down. I think that the rugby players who were on the infield of the track thought that I envisioned myself as some kind of SAS-meets-Baywatch hero (I DO see myself as that but that’s a different point entirely). Anyway, I can’t pretender it didn’t hurt, and I can’t pretend that I didn’t have to dig deep, but I nailed the session, and was pleased, especially as the track was more or less underwater by the end.

Meanwhile, poor Todd (aka ‘Poor Man’s Jago’ – Jago being his younger brother- or even ‘Fat Leckie’, a hopefully soul-destroying nickname that James and I are trying, and failing, to circulate...thoroughly undeserved of course but he is a medical student with a gorgeous girlfriend so we are trying to protect our egos) the unlucky lad who smashed up both of his wrists in a nasty bike crash a few months back was doing a turbo-run session while preparing for his first race in 2 years (a European Cup in Holland this weekend...go Todders! And go James!). Anyway, the only place near the track where Todd could put the back wheel of his bike so that it wasn’t getting wet (imagine a slippery back wheel on a turbo...not good), left him precariously poking out from under said cover so that the insufficient guttering was overspilling right onto his neck. Honestly, I can’t imagine anything worse that a maximal turbo-run session while being subjected to mild Chinese Water Torture. Poor lad can’t get any luck at the moment...apart from the girlfriend...oh and the future glittering medical career...and the Heath Ledger good looks, at least so I’m told...by Todd...so maybe we can ignore that one!

On the Monday, the most interesting session was definitely the sea swim. This was mostly because the bad weather had still not abated, and we did our swim at low tide, so we were literally swimming through, with, and parallel to constant breakers. We did reps where we were swimming around a buoy, which was made rather difficult in that the waves were so extreme that you could only see the buoy when you were less than 20 metres away, so there was always a very distinct possibility that your trajectory (based on pure guesswork) would never take you within 20 metres of the buoy, and you would end up at Beachy Head before you realised how far the current had taken you. This added an interesting dynamic to the session, where James and I would take part in some kind of Mexican stand-off while we swam the first half of the rep into a big head-current, with wakes crashing over us, both trying to spot the buoy while keeping an eye on each other, and then the one who spotted it first would try to get the jump on the other one by sprinting off at an opportune moment. We would then invariably fight like malcoordinated flamingos while going 180 degrees around the buoy, both vying for the inside line, because the return leg from the buoy to the start/finish was so ridiculously fast with waves and a massive current pushing us that you barely needed to swim.

So anyway, since then I have been basically been doing pretty low level stuff, I think those two big sessions may have wiped me a bit, especially because they were done in conditions that can only be explained by the fact that Poseidon was throwing a tantrum because X-Factor is back clogging up Saturday night TV.

My next update should be from Spain, where I will be back in the cocoon of the GB squad environment. I will be sure to update you on whether Alistair has had a hair cut or Helen’s new favourite jam flavour is raspberry...gossip worthy of reporting!

Ooh it’s sunny outside. Smile.

Olly

Hi All,

Another week goes by, and the nights are definitely starting to draw in. Has anyone else noticed that? It’s always weird at this time of year, when the final couple of races of the season are looming large, and all the focus is on them, but the end of the season is so close that you can’t help but think about what the cold months ahead may hold in store.

Last winter for me was a tough one. I was coming back from 4 months of nothing, and it took such a long time to get myself back to a respectable level of fitness. During this time I had a couple of training camps with the British squad that weren’t exactly my greatest ever triathlon memories...a mixture of some (slightly unlucky) bad weather, the odd spill on the bike, a rampaging stomach bug and my epic unfitness amounted in a visit or two to Spain that I would rather forget. But not to worry, because hopefully this winter will be different...that’s what we say every year, hey?! 5:30am starts in sub-zero temperatures look like a breeze when the sun is still shining...kind of! No seriously, I have high hopes for this winter, because for me, a bit of warm weather makes all the pain go away, so hopefully I can get away somewhere with some good training partners where I can put in some winter miles without having to surgically attach thermal base layers and rain jackets to myself for the entire 3 months of winter.

Anyway, between now and then I had 3 weeks until the final important race of the year in Budapest, with the last 2 weeks of that likely spent with the British team in Spain. It’s a shame that we are not returning to Portugal as most people had hoped, but I’m sure that the location in Spain will have nice weather and good facilites. I have struggled in the second half of this season after a few races that seemed to be crescendoing towards an awesome peak. I think that maybe I’ve driven myself a bit hard to get from such a low level of fitness to being right on the edge of the breakthrough, and maybe now it’s catching up on me. Either way I’m going to try to give it whatever I have left in the build up to Budapest, and if I can squeeze a good performance out of myself on the day then, with the fitness I have shown in training...anything could happen! (but if not then at least I did what I could).

My younger sister had the joy of A-level results (well, technically AS level) on Thursday. In case you are wondering she did sickeningly well...does 100% in French count as fluent...native even? This reminded me of the good old days of slogging over endless Maths textbooks when I was a slightly more babyfaced 17 and 18 year old (despite being 24 I do still get ID-ed at every shop I go, even if I’m only buying some Haribo and a packet of football stickers), and it strikes me as slightly ironic that the only subjects at school that would have stood me in good stead for my current career as a triathlete (languages for races in foreign countries, English for blogs and columns) were the very ones that I gave up like a bad smell as soon as I finished my GCSEs. After reminiscing about this with a school friend, he reminded me of why I maybe struggled in my exams for English, by showing me a copy of his GCSE set text, which was a collection of short stories by William Hardy called ‘The Withered Arm and Other Wessex Tales’, which represented the way that I used to pass the time while I was supposed to be learning. On his pristine exam copy, which would be scrutinised by our teacher and examiners to ensure that it was a valid text that hadn’t been unfairly annotated, I had crossed out the word ‘Arm’ and written ‘Willy’, and then underlined the last 3 letters of the word ‘Wessex’. The things you should realise are:
• I spent a lot of time planning and executing this defilement of Ed’s books;
• This was not an isolated incident;
• I thought the whole things was witty and hilarious;
• I still think it’s witty and hilarious;
I hope this explains why my blogs aren’t exactly works of literary genius.

À bientôt

Well the wedding was amazing. Actually that sounded a bit too Gok Wan, but you know what I mean. It was so nice to see all of Henny’s (and my) family and friends, and get a proper excuse to dress up like a proper English gentleman and strut around the Cambridge University with an umbrella (as a decent cane substitute) frivolously throwing around words like Quad and Gyp like I was a real student and not a unqualified serf.

If any of you are already drumming your fingers while waiting to hear how I did in the two races that I have competed in since I last wrote then you are CLEARLY not getting my blogging habits...but I will have a go now, and please be mindful that I will be setting a new PB if I manage to not get sidetracked again within the next paragraph...(also they make quite grisly reading)...

The day after my sister’s wedding I raced the London Triathlon at Excel. I must admit that I wasn’t in the greatest physical or mental state to race, as a long day of ushering, along with munching on wedding food (plus all the trimmings) and champagne, had left me feeling more than a little f(l)at, and I had only barely dragged myself away from the disco and free bar on the Saturday evening, as at the time the rare family reunion was tempting me more than whatever lurks at the bottom of the London Docks. Anyway, I raced it, was 2nd out of the swim, HURT on the bike and shuffled the run, though still salvaged a 7th place, which I was satisfied with all things considered. To be honest I think it was a minor miracle that I even reached the finishing line, as a mixture of a new course and missing the briefing (and also my incompetence) resulted in a few mishaps:
• I missed the official swim warm up;
• I almost got out of the wrong swim exit (along with some others, until I noticed multiple bibbed men waving frantically);
• On the bike I took my feet out of my shoes 14km too early (no, seriously!)
• I almost took out a marshal, 3 cones and myself (and probably some athletes behind me) by being blissfully unaware of a chicane near T2);
So that was London! After a photo shoot in Tooting all day Monday, I arrived home from that very long weekend knackered, and realised that I had a mere 4 and a half days to unpack, recover, repack, freshen up, get to the Austrian mountains and race again.

To be honest, the less said about Kitzbuhel, the better (and I don’t think I’m the only Brit who would echo those sentiments, except Stu and Helen...massive congrats!). Well, maybe not Kitzbuhel itself, which is an amazingly gorgeous little secluded Austrian mountain town, which seemed to have been lifted straight from the ‘Sound of Music’ (authentically dressed frauleins included as standard). But in terms of the race, I was never really there, though had to give it a go as it was a World Champs Series race, but decided to call it a day early on in the bike (despite being in the lead group) to keep myself from needlessly increasing the hole I’ve been in since the Europeans....hopefully my decision will pay off come Budapest....4 weeks and counting...

Ahh, that was a good effort, but all that talk of racing has tired me out, especially as I only arrived back from the airport 20 minutes ago and all that travel has probably left me smelling worse than the inside of Shrek’s weird jockstrap-type-thing. I should go shower.

Olly

No no stop filling up my glass with Champagne…honestly no I’m racing tomorrow…well…well if you insist then you might as well fill it ALL the way, in for a penny and all that…

I’m writing this from Wedding HQ at my sister’s house. I have been pre-briefed and intinerized (if that’s not a real word, it should be), fitted and cravatte-tutored, goose-stepped, rehearsed, versed and prehearsed in everything I need to know for this weekend’s nuptials:

• The token baby has to go at the back of the chapel in case it starts gurgling…and if the gurgling exceeds 10 decibels, then I’ll slip it Emergency Pill A: Valium;
• The elderly members of the congregation need escorting via the secret shortcut route to the drinks garden, and if they start flagging/telling me war stories, I need to slip them Emergency Pill B: Amphetamines;
• And finally, I’ve got Emergency Pill C in case the groom starts acting up…I mean, it won’t matter how cold his feet are if he’s got a few thousand milligrams of Ketamine shoved down his gullet - I’ll just prop him up against the alter and nod his head at the appropriate points. No drama.

In fact, the one thing that I haven’t had timetabled is my trip down to the Docks for a local race that’s going on at Excel this weekend. Apparently some mates are going to turn up (the odd World Champion), and a few (12,000?) age groupers are going to be there too…all in all a very suitable crowd to try to take on with a mild hangover and fatty wedding food coursing through my unwilling veins. To be honest, I’m really looking forward to just turning up and enjoying the race, giving it whatever I have on the day and remembering what it was like to race before every Olympic distance race on my calendar was prefaced with ‘World Championship Series’!

So otherwise I’ve had a pretty busy week. I finally got round to watching Toy Story 3, which I can describe in one word: fantasicallybrilliantlyawesomecanthoseguysatPixardonowrong? In fact, outside of being a triathlete, the only other job that I could envisage myself doing would be putting my epic geeky Computer Science studies to very very hard work to get a job at Pixar Animation Studios…though I’m sure that I’m massively lacking in the departments of qualifications, intellect, experience, wit, creativity and all round legendaryness, and I am prone to doing the odd training session that reminds me that I’m actually quite useful at this triathlon lark when I put my mind to it, so maybe I’ll stick with what I know.

I also went for celebration drinks with Bodyworks’ resident Ironman UK Pro Champion Yvette Grice along with all the other hanger-oners (I include myself very much in that category, we were just enjoying basking in her reflected glory…I needed SPF 30 just to cope), though chief coach Glenn was sorely missed. He was haggling with hoteliers called Stavros in Kos with Sarah and their 4 girls…a relaxing holiday if ever I heard one. His absence has been noticeable, but not enough to stop me and James hammering a 15km tempo build run in record time…so fitness isn’t a worry.

Adios.

Well that didn’t go to plan! Unfortunately, as any of you who caught the London WCS on TV may have seen, my race was less than ideal...indeed it was by far my worst ITU race ever...by a good 15 places or so...

To be honest there is not much to say. As my last blog explained, my preparation was less than ideal, and on the day I just didn’t have the legs. Maybe I was far too tired, maybe I was far too rested (as a result of massively backing off because of the fatigue), but either way the magic wasn’t there and I had a shocker.

I must admit that the next couple of days weren’t the most fun. Picking yourself up after a big disappointment isn’t always easy, especially as I had an Open University assignment to get finished by the end of the week (that’s why this blog is a few days later than usual...apologies!). It also made me try to evaluate what was missing in my London performance, and indeed all of my performances this year, which have in general been improving towards a decent level (top 10 at Europeans), but still not doing justice to the kind of fitness and form that I have been showing in training, and the potential that I have shown in the last few years. Having chatted it through with some friends, family and colleagues, I’m tending towards the conclusion that I’m trying too hard...

This ‘conclusion’ may sound a bit ridiculous, and I’m certainly not implying that I’m training too hard (well maybe occasionally, but everyone does occasionally), but I mean in a wider sense. As a triathlete you have to dedicate so much of your time to the pursuit of high performance, and it can sometimes become all consuming. 25-30 hours of training per week, along with correct nutrition, hydration, stretching, sleeping, physio, massage, you get my point. However, without balance, without the ability to switch off and get away from it and look outside the confines of the next session or next race can result in a pressure cooker of emotions and intensity that do far more harm than good...or at least that is what I have often found. Hence why I think I’ve been trying too hard...

Well enough about my shortcomings, as I have a very exciting few weeks ahead of me. Firstly, I have something to celebrate...in that me and my dojo Wii parter Emma finally fulfilled our life ambition of decimating Waluigi and Dry Bones in a best of 3 fight to the death in Mario Party 8. The champagne flowed. Possibly (!) more importantly, later this week one of my sisters is getting married . I’m so happy for her, and can’t wait to see all of my family there, and Henny and Jon having a lovely day. After (hopefully) not too much Champagne, I’m going to head down to Excel to have a crack at London Tri the next day. It’s such a great event that I’m really just looking forward to going out there and enjoying having a good ding-dong with whoever of the big hitters is there. I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to make the start line on time, as Henny has been very honest with me and told me I have little to no chance with ANY of her bridesmaids...and the next week I’m off to Kitzbuhel for the next round of the WCS.

Before I leave for another week, I’d like to send a particularly massive congratulations to Bodyworks XTC’s own Yvette Grice who DOMINATED at the UK Ironman this weekend. Yvette is literally the loveliest person you will ever meet, and I can’t think of anyone who more deserved a breakthrough race. She trains incredibly hard, and works a desk job as well, and I hope that the UK and International IM scene recognises that she is a star in the making, and well worthy of some 2010 (and beyond) investment to help her turn full-time so she can take her performance to the next level. Also, 25-29 winner Sarah Lovelock smashed up her age-group...I hope Kona is prepared for an Eastbourne invasion!

Right all, I’ve just realised that my hip wound has fused to my shorts (what, I didn’t tell you that I managed to round off my week by stacking it on a corner on my bike?! Good times!), so I’d better go peel it off. Icky.