An expensive day 2 in LA

Baywatch pose, on the Baywatch beach, just after I had been smashed by 2 waves because I'm too lazy to breathe to my right and check out theoncoming waves.

Baywatch pier

Spent the day before the race relaxing and doing some very easy training and having a look at the course...awesome! Although we haven't actually seen T2/the run course/finish as it's 15 miles from the race start where our hotel is. Not so good was having to spend (well getting Olly to spend) $300 on a helmet for us both as our helmets didn't have a CPSC sticker (even though they are CPCS certified - a compulsory USA safety standard)...what a ridiculous waste of money! Looking forward to the race tomorrow, it's going to be a massive learning curve but should be good fun...providing Jaws isn't having a swim at Venice beach as well.

living the dream in the virgin upper class lounge @ heathrow

wow....knowing oliver freeman occasionally has it perks! eggs benedict, smoothies and free lollipops and appletiser, does life get any better!? arrived in LA yesterday afternoon for the race on Sunday. Will give a proper update tomorrow just to make you even more jealous

olympics = no time to blog

unsurprisingly i've been glued to the tv for the past week watching the olympics...however i have managed to peel myself away to bank some good sessions. the run last saturday went really well, it was one of the glenn cook specials so i'm obviously bound to secrecy but it is basically a ~ 45min threshold run, i hadn't done the run since pre-vancouver so i was pretty apprehensive goin into it - if you're not fit it is a truly miserable experience! - i needn't have worried thouh as i was able to hold some of my best ever times and felt really strong. the rest of the week consisted of a couple of hard swims along with a track set of 10x1km and an emotional piece of bonkage (*innuendo bingo*) with freeman as we attempted to do some 'non-drafting' (i may have not quite perfected the art of this...sorry olly!) solid riding.

i was a zombie yesterday evening however a much needed rest day has done the business and i'm ready for another hard week before the taper starts for a quality trip over stateside.

apparently the london tri is on tv on sunday @ 7.55...you may get to see me being lapped on the run...sweet!!

put your hand up if you can JOG a 9.92!?

how easy did this guy make it look???? he literally jogged the final 60m and still ran one of the quickest 100m of all time. i had to watch it about 15 times to believe it. i'm loving every second of this olympics, it's even making me want to go swim training which is very worrying, although i soon realise i'm not mr phelps when i struggle to do 150m in the time it takes him to swim 200m.

training's gone pretty well this week, i recovered from london surprisingly quickly and was able to complete a couple of solid swim sets and do 2x45min runs with no problem. i've got my first hard hard run in the forest tomorrow which will be a true test of the old shinnys so we'll have to wait and see how that goes before getting too excited.

i also found out today that steph twell is a friend of a friend of a friend, admittedly a fairly tenuous connection but it does mean i've got another race to really look forward to (along with about 50 others).

ps apologies for the embarrassingly short update but there's another 50hrs + of content on the BBC website for me to work through!

the olympics...the best thing in the world...ever!

" yeah i dived in, did a bit of fly kick, cruised the 1st 50m, goggles filled up, couldn't see what was going on, kept the pace steady as i've got some more business to look after....oh and i won my 10th OLYMPIC gold medal and broke the world record" - WHAT A MAN!!!

London Tri 2/3 of a 'Race' Report

Given how little racing i've done i can't really avoid writing this one up...even if it wasn't the best of results...

We arrived at the race on the saturday as my lil' bro Taco and the other Bodyworks XTC amigos were racing in the youth race. It was really good to see the guys race, their thoughtful and aggressive approach to racing definitely made me buck up my ideas for the following day! However traipsing around Excel (the mahhosive building where the triathlon is based) meant that my legs were tired and flat by the afternoon...schoolboy error!

Come race day I was feeling really really really stupidly legs-shaking running to toilet nervous, i shouldn't have been feeling like this given that there was zero expectation/pressure (I had only been running for a couple of weeks after having 8 weeks off with shin splints since vancouver), however i was and it was leaving me feeling drained and pretty negative.

The race start was an absolute fiasco, there is not way you can get 60 highly competitive athletes to line up perfectly for a deep water start...you just can't!! Not to mention a false start where we swam well over 100m before the kayaks ploughed into our path in a dangerous stopping manouvere. Once we finally got going I started to feel a bit better but I was definitely lacking the sharpness to be able to move up in the final 400m to secure a good position coming into T1. T1 felt like i had slipped into slow motion, missing the front pack by a matter of 5 seconds. These 5 secs were to prove very costly and an emotional 7km of painful riding ensued as I desperately tried to hook back onto a seriously shifting front pack, eventually I got back on with a couple of other guys however the pace continued to be fast, which never allowed me to settle or feel comfortable...despite this I was the 1st in and accelerated out of the last dead turn and found myself with a cheeky gap that only a few guys bridged up to before T2 (if nothing else I grabbed some crafty TV time).

The less the said about the run the better, it was always going to be tough to blag a 10km off so little training and the hard bike put pay to even scraping a decent 5km before popping. So I was straight on to survival mode and ploughed around the run feeling slow and miserable. The good news is is that there was no shin pain and hopefully i will be able to resume the hard runs that should get me back in the mix within a month or so...

Beijing Olympics, fact or fiction?

Such stories about the reality of being a chinese citizen litter the internet. It is unsurprising that the horrific stories, which would not normally be told but do obviously sell papers, have appeared but that does not detract from there pertinence. Jacques Rogge has incessantly trumpeted that bringing the Olympics to China, and hence the eyes of the world, will instigate change however I can't but help feel the apathetic West will rush to forget these issues at their earliest convenience. Perhaps that is why it is so important that every athlete involved in this 'spectacle' (we must remember that this really is spectacle and not a celebration of New China), leaves China as an ambassador for change and does not permit the world to turn their voyeuristic attention to the next 'tragedy' and once again miss the opportunity to improve the lives of millions.

to smashed and back again

the end of last week was pretty miserable, 2 weeks of consistent swimming and cycling (basically 2hrs of swimming and 2hrs of cycling everyday, with plenty of intensity) put me into a pretty big hole and by thursday evening all i was capable of doing was crawling into bed after eating everything that wasn't nailed down in a desperate bid to recover. friday was an easy day and thankfully i'm feeling much better today. it always amazes me how dynamic but also unpredictable the human body is, i've literally gone from thinking that i would need a couple of days off to looking forward to another weeks hard training...a complete physiological and psychological reversal, perhaps i should save that disscussion for another day.

not so good was having to stand one of my best mates up tomorrow as i have to train instead, being selfish and narcissistic is undoubtedly the hardest part of being an 'athlete'. i try hard not to indulge it but sometimes the decisions are unavoidable, i'll just have to make sure that i nail the session tomorrow to justify my choice.

things could be worse...

well, long time no blog...you can blame le tour for taking up all my free time for the last 'few' (10!!) days. training's been going really well, i'm not really running yet but will hopefully be starting to soon, London's looking more and more like swim, bike, jog :-(

i had to go to the hospital today to see a cardiologist about my pigs heart. a few years ago i suffered ~ 4 episodes of heart palpitations where i would be aware of my heart beating faster than usual whilst i was sitting down following training. this lead to me being referred for a cardiac screen via CRY, as expected the palpitations were attributed to my training and not considered to be a problem however an incidental finding was that i had a bicuspid aortic valve - this is the valve between the left ventricle (a pumping chamber in the heart) and the aorta (the trunk artery of the body), it should be a 3 flap valve but mine only has 2 flaps.

being 17 and obviously immortal i didn't pay much attention to the diagnosis and just pottered on ignoring a couple of outpatient appointments and soon forgetting about the 'problem' altogether. however eventually i was nagged into getting my arse back in gear, which is how i came to find myself in a sweaty Eastbourne DGH consultation room this afternoon. after being told off for going awol (and more importantly wasting valuable NHS resources, i won't ever do this again) i was told that competing in triathlons was a pretty bad idea. this was because the problem valve caused my heart to have to work extra hard and this, together with intensive training/racing, meant that my heart had grown (undergone hypertrophy) and was too big (clearly i've got a lot of love to give).

cue a round of negotiations between me and Dr Cardiologist that would have made the UN proud, we eventually agreed that I could continue training hard but i would need to stop training hard around the age of 30 and definitely give up caffeine...deal!! needless to say it wasn't a discussion that i ever dreamt i would be having and i sat in the waiting room feeling a bit numb, whilst i was waiting for the discharge papers i overheard/earwigged a conversation another patient was having with her husband after being diagnosed with valvular heart disease and angina, she had been told that she we need an invasive operation and, more importantly to her, that she would need to stop picking up her grandchildren...i have to give up diet coke...things could be a lot worse

tour de france = crikey!

what a stage!?...it literally had everything, the coverage just couldn't do it justice...there literally needs to be 3 split screens to even get half of the action. yet again team csc showed that they are the best team in the world with near faultless tactics, although obviously you can only execute that sort of race if you have andy schleck as your domestique. watching it certainly made mine and freeman's epic ride today feel a little less epic!!

interesting results at Kitzbuhel, Rana has appeared from nowhere, he's got to be in the mix for a medal in Beijing now after such a storming run.

the dunsfold sequel (dunsfold part deux)

i wouldn't bother going to watch this one...much the same as the original 2 weeks ago...started off with the 2nd cats although this time we were truly awful in the chase, i'm not sure if it was the wind or if i was just feeling carp but working up to the lead felt sooooo much harder this time. we got to within 100m of the pack and then it splintered with guys trying to bridge across, luckily i caught a ride and went straight to the front as we were coming up to a prime and i figured it might kick off, sure enough the sprint was on and I rolled through with them, however i kept the pace on to find me and shunty along with another guy escaping off the front. cue 10 mins of quality three-way work before shunty wisely decided to hot foot it back to the pack given his upcoming race....wise wise wise move Mr Hunt!! i carried on with my compadre (who was unfortunately stronger than an ox and was slowly sucking my legs off) until 6 guys bridged across...by then i was done and rolled through oblivious to the attacks...job done...but i really need to stop picking these unnecessarily succesful breaks!

training's been going well this week, gradually starting to find the form that i stumbled upon at the beginning of the year. i'll leave you with this recommendation:

it really is the best thing since air in tyres (genius idea)...it makes those hot sweaty rides (stop sniggering undies!!) so much more comfortable...and no i don't get given it free!!

ps you snooze you loose...i'll have to roll over the competition for another time.

it's competition time folks

right then, in an unashamed attempt to beat sarah and have more than 20 hits, i’ve put together the competition of a lifetime*…all you have to do to win a sparkly £10 voucher from the Tri Store is to predict the men’s podium at the BG Tiszaujvaros triathlon world cup this weekend, if you don’t know anything about triathlon (and even if you do) have a look at the start list and the seedings for the race and you can have an ‘educated guess’. post your prediction below, together with an estimated time gap between the 1st man and the 10th man – this will act as the tie break in the even that more than one person proves themselves to be a budding triathlon pundit, if you can also post your name and 1st 5 letters of your email address with the prediction…to stop cheeky people posting more than 1 entry….good luck!!!

t

T & Cs
Prize = £10 voucher to be spent at the Tri Store, voucher has no cash value. The voucher can be used in conjunction with a mail order purchase, however the Tri Store reserve the right to charge a postage and packaging fee.

competition closes 1hr before the start of the race
My decision is final….it’s only a little bit of fun!!!
Competition is open to employees of the Tri Store however an alternative prize will be offered…namely a 45p can of coke from Mace (it was going to be a cake but due to the recent trade embargo i’ve had to withdraw this offer).

* if you’re a fruitfly.

my readerships' (briefly) in double figures!

thanks to a mention from coach cook my readership jumped to the dizzy heights of over 10...i may have done a little dance to celebrate.

training absolutely toasted me last night, we swam hard in the morning and then I had a steady x-train (due to a very annoying post vancouver calf injury, which is still bothering me...ahhh!!!) before we hit the turbo - 8 x 3min @ race pace [2min rec]. unfortunately me an olly were the naughty boys in the corner and got a ticking off for having a chat on the 2nd rep...cue us nailing ourselves into the ground for the next 6 reps in a desperate bid to gain redemption. my legs were in tiny little pieces afterwards and to make matters worse they remained restless and kept me up until the early hours of this morning and I had to miss swimming (not my finest excuse). in hindsight i think it was a case of not drinking enough following the session and i should probably of had an ice bath to shut the muscles down instead of jumping straight into bed...lesson learnt!!! easier day today so hopefully they will be recovered for tomorrow.

sarah's got her race report up...having spoke with my reliable source she appears to have downplayed quite how much time she lost on the run...STOP being so modest!!

t

The doper's redemption

David Millar appeared to have it all, until a poor Tour led him to sign up to the Brotherhood of the Needle and he found himself locked up in a French jail....good Sunday Times article here.

And a massive well done to Sarah Lovelock...rocked to 2nd place at the CowMan on Sunday!!

all aboard the freeman express

freeman puts the hammer down in hamburg today and gets a podium finish...bad to the bone! not sure what happened to kahlefeldt but i'm sure it will come to light in the next few days.

training + more training = cooked

i'm pretty cooked tonight, last few days have accumulated to leave me lying on the sofa trying to find the energy to make it into bed. dunsfold went well on tuesday...a little too well...Glenn had told me to stay active and possibly instigate some breaks. i set of with the 2nd cats (all 12 of us) and we quickly got organised in pursuit of the 3rd/4th cats with some slick through and off. the pack was reeled in after 3.5 laps and i went straight to the relative safety of the front, next thing i know it's kicking off for a prime sprint and i'm following a wheel into a 7 man break....uh oh...this is gonna hurt! 6 laps later and after some solid team work and leg burning action our break gets caught by some committed riding from a few of the 1st cats, i stayed near the front for the final 2 laps but the power was gone so i just rolled over the line...job done.

olly's racing in the Hamburg World Cup this SATURDAY (not sunday), ch-ch-ch-check it out on the tricast should be a cracking race

t

Sodium phosphate loading improves laboratory cycling time-trial performance in trained cyclists.

Sodium phosphate loading has been reported to increase maximal oxygen uptake (6-12%), however its influence on endurance performance has been ambiguous. The aim of this study was to examine the influence of sodium phosphate loading on laboratory 16.1km cycling time-trial performance. Six trained male cyclists (V O(2) peak, 64.1+/-2.8mlkg(-1)min(-1); mean+/-S.D.) took part in a randomised double-blind crossover study. Upon completion of a control trial (C), participants ingested either 1g of tribasic dodecahydrate sodium phosphate (SP) or lactose placebo (P) four times daily for 6 days prior to performing a 16.1km (10 mile) cycling time-trial under laboratory conditions. Power output and heart rate were continually recorded throughout each test, and at two points during each time-trial expired air samples and capillary blood samples were taken. There was a 14-day period between each of the supplemented time-trials. After SP loading mean power was greater than for P and C (C, 322+/-15W; P, 317+/-16W; SP, 347+/-19W; ANOVA, P<0.05) and time to complete the 16.1km was shorter than P, but not C (ANOVA, P<0.05). During the SP trial, relative to the P, mean changes were mean power output +9.8+/-8.0% (+/-95% confidence interval); time -3.0+/-2.9%. There was a tendency towards higher V O(2) after SP loading (ANOVA, P=0.07). Heart rate, V (E), RER and blood lactate concentration were not significantly affected by SP loading. Sodium phosphate loading significantly improved mean power output and 16.1km time-trial performance of trained cyclists under laboratory conditions with functional increases in oxygen uptake.

Folland JP, Stern R, Brickley G.
J Sci Med Sport. 2007 Jun 12.

james adams - 1st out the water @ the WORLD junior triathlon championships

hurting on the run but having laid the smack down on the swim in his world champs debut. james is also sponsored by the tri store and a member of team bodyworks xtc.

had a lovely jubbly mountain bike ride yesterday with all the other guys that work at the tri store. i took the opportunity to ride the enduro demo bike (mainly because Lawrence had nabbed the Epic) and i was pleasantly surprised with how well it rode as a cross-country bike, admittedly my pitiful bike handling skills (and lack of any bravery) meant that i got nowhere near to maxing it out on the down hills but i certainly enjoyed the plush ride and it climbed and rolled exceptionally well considering its weight.

i would also like to take this opportunity to apologise for my less than garmin-like route planning skills...although in fairness it wasn't boring...even if we did get cut into a million pieces by those pesky brambles. i think i had just about been forgiven by the time we sat down to dinner for some nookie...or is it gnocchi!? [insert picture of said food here]

hard swim this morning with some 1500m pace and threshold work and i'm off to dunsfold tonight to be given a schoolboy lesson in cycling.........yet again!

t

hutbox time

we did a 3 man 15 mile tt today, the dream team consisted of myself (obviously), freemanator, and the bittster (James Adams). now, given that i hadn't ridden with olly in a while, i had forgotten that he tends to shove me into a nuclear bomb-proof hurtbox double lock it and sit on the lid...ignoring my screams of mercy for the entire 15 miles. unfortunately (for me) he was true to form today...i actually thought my legs had caught fire at one point as i desperately tried to come through on his wheel. an honorable mention must go to the bittster who put in some very solid efforts and hung tough throughout. i'm off to bed

t

SHOUT out

the lovely sarah lovelock mentioned me in her blog so i thought i better return the favour, i figure if we pool our readership we might both get our readership into double figures...however given that her blog is much better written and far more interesting i reckon this could well backfire and my readers will just upgrade and start reading hers...charming!!!!

had an awesome ride with mr freeman this evening 3hrs of easy riding, shooting the shit and enjoying the sun - not enjoying the f***ing wind though, we've had a week of lanzarotesque gales and it's getting ridiculous...although admittedly i'm not doing marathon 5hr rides like some lunatics (that means you sarah & simon) so i really should stop complaining.

t

worrying

so the cheats might not be getting caught:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/26/sports/26doping.php

t

ps i think i'm going to give up following a team...i'm clearly the kiss of death

nu-trak or nut-rak?....you decide

i was at work today when i spotted this product on the shelf. now i'm not a marketing expert but surely this brand name is a bit too reliant on the correct pronunciation being used?...or maybe it's just me!

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first hard swim set in 3 weeks today (that means it hurt...ALOT!) just about scrapped through it without having to bail in to my brothers lane (he's 15) although i did have to do a sneaky drag short manouvere before the set started. bitty (James Adams) was lighting it right up a usual...as demonstrated by his stunning lead out at the world junior tri champs a few weeks back. Off to watch the 2nd half of the footie, i think i'm going to adopt russia now after the netherland's exit.

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t

good work if you can get it...

£100k...not bad for under 2hrs of work, I earnt precisely 0.035% of that for my 5 hours of work today...and it went in approximately 35 seconds on petrol...I guess I better learn to run as quick as Mr Henning.

Hopefully going to get back into the training groove tomorrow, it's been a funny 2 weeks since Vancouver (race report WILL follow) with jet lag/university exams/illness/injuries and I fully crashed and burned following the adrenaline dive on Friday after my last exam. I'm really looking forward to pushing my fitness on and hopefully I can have a relaxing few weeks now I don't have to worry about uni...t

hello

i've joined the world of blogging...not that i know anything about the world of blogging. i guess the basic premise of a blog is to write interesting 'stuff' that people want to read about (have a failed already??) i will try my best but suspect that instead of writing insightful, thought provoking ramblings i will instead have to delve into the the infoweb and plagiarise...(clearly i meant to say refer to) genuinely valuable content from people cleverer/funnier/sexier than me.

i'll start today with a bit about myself: i would probably describe myself as a medical student who's also a triathlete...not that i would introduce myself as this to anyone but cyberspace but for ease of convenience it's a description that's accurate. i'm fortunate enough to have had some minor success and i'm lucky enough to have been supported this year by The Tri Store (i also work there so I strongly suspect their threshold for sponsoring me was significantly lowered simply because if i lose/damage any of the equipment they just won't pay me for a few years) hence why i'm writing this blog. i'm supposed to tell you all how amazing the equipment i use is...given that much much much better athletes already choose nike, cervelo et al. i sense my endorsement won't lead to an overnight doubling in sales, however i do tend get quite excited about tri kit (demonstrated by the fact that I was paid in stock for nearly 6 months) so i may occasionally accidentally/on purpose do some product placement...although admittedly I will probably just be subliminally influencing my family given my likely readership.

i will apologise now for bad grammar, spelling, syntax however what i lack in quality i will hopefully make up for with quantitiy. i will endevour to write some 'proper' posts soon (e.g. race reports) but that will have to be ciao for now...t

ps i will never proof read posts and i will use far too many '...' to avoid proper punctuation/allow me thinking time