Sporting background
It has been a long term aim to qualify for Ironman World Championships which I consider to be the ultimate single day endurance race. I remember visiting a family friend in the US, aged around 15, a long distance triathlete who lived a great active lifestyle, up early for runs and swims and long bike rides during the day who spoke mythically about the “Ironman” event, at the time thinking what an amazing and tough sport (he’d just taken me on my first 50 mile bike ride and trying to keep up with some “Ironmen” on their local athletics track). Moving on 15 years with my rowing “career” over I have now started to live that lifestyle!
The move from rowing to triathlon started with cycling to keep fit and finding that the longer endurance type races really suited me and the variety of adding swimming and running much more interesting, especially with the great runs around Henley. With various successes on the bike and the running and swimming steadily improving my aim for 2009 was to complete a second Ironman in Switzerland with the possibility if all goes well of qualifying for the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii in October (thinking enough time from July to October to recover and move on the training and fitness levels).
Having my own website design business (www.internet-consult.com) which I set up in 2002 in order to fit in decent training at Leander Club, fortunately that now means I am able to juggle my days to fit in training sessions without interrupting my life too much. My clients are generally very supportive (the great thing about being Henley based is that most of them have been involved in sports to some degree so understand the dedication needed, and especially the odd working hours!).
To help support my athletic activities during the last year I have set up a company, Athlete Service, with Filipe Salbany who has been a fantastic coach and mentor the last couple of years. An ex world class cyclist, swimmer and triathlete with an amazing eye for detail in seemingly any sport (including coaching rowing at world level) but most importantly a passion for getting the most out of athletes and their equipment. I have had the pleasure of working with Filipe building high end road and triathlon bikes as a hobby, giving advice to some top athletes his advice and training programmes have been invaluable and owe a lot of my success to him. With the availability of physiological testing at Oxford Brookes High Performance Lab with Filipe interpreting the results and tailoring a suitable programme to fit in with work and life has meant I have been able to really develop as an athlete. Together with my rowing experience competing at a good level and understanding of what works for me, when to push training and when to ease off, along with knowledgeable guidance I have been able to develop and compete at a high level on a (relatively) small weekly number of hours training together with targeted weeks abroad to develop fitness on long bike sessions.
2009
This year’s training has been based around numerous trips abroad (as everyone likes to remind me!) with heavy mileage weeks on the bike while working on the running fitness base when in Henley and trying to improve (my previously pretty hopeless swimming!). The year has been focussed around Ironman Switzerland which was on 12th July with various smaller events in the lead up.
With a lot of steady base mileage in Spain and Lanzarote and braving the weather in the UK (as little as possible) up to April the first race of the year was the “Volcano Triathlon” in Lanzarote in May (http://www.clublasanta.com/Volcano_Triathlon-7788.aspx). Not expecting a great result after a hard 30 hour training week and using my training bike this was a real eye opener with a 13th overall position overall beating numerous “pro” triathletes (the top 10 having been previous Ironman winners!) so knew the training was on track!
A few days after returning from Lanzarote was a 50 mile time trial near Farnham and a third position overall (1 hr 50) confirmed some decent speed in the legs on the bike. Next on the calendar (around a month before Ironman Switzerland) was a hard training week on the bike in the French Alps including the Challenge du Dauphine cycling race, a high profile “sportive” cycling race in the Alps with 7th position overall confirming the cycling was going well.
Following this was the final few weeks before Ironman Switzerland, a chance to do a bit less cycling but more running and swimming back in Henley. Unfortunately two weeks before the event and final long run (40km towpath run from Marlow to Reading and back to Henley) injured my Achilles which didn’t fully recover for the event. All other preparation was good however no running until the event was not ideal.
The Ironman Switzerland event itself was fantastic; great support the whole day and an amazing atmosphere. The swim went according to plan, 62 minutes taking it steady and trying to avoid all the flailing arms and legs of over 2000 competitors wanting to be in the same patch of water! Confident with my speed on the bike the plan was to “twiddle” round and save as much as possible for the run while still being in the top times. The two laps of the fairly hilly cycle route around Lake Zurich seemed to go quickly averaging around 38kph passing a continuous stream of athletes, the 12th quickest bike ride of the day brought me up from 235th out of the 3.8km swim to 31st overall (around 2100 competitors) after two 90km bike loops.
To start the run after a few stomach issues the first 10km of the run in under 40 minutes was great and holding the speed fairly comfortably but around half way the Achilles niggles flared up so running slightly odd after the first half marathon some cramping was coming on in one hamstring and the feel of a big blister on the foot developing not so pleasant! Afater a 10km lap to regroup and take on some food and water, the slower pace paid off to finish fairly strongly with a 3 hour 14 marathon but 15 minutes slower than planned costing a top 10 place overall. Still the 28th position overall and 6th in age group (30-35) easily qualified me to be eligible to compete in the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii in October, the aim for any budding long distance triathlete.
The aim for 2010 is to qualify again for the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii in October (hopefully from Ironman South Africa in April) and be one of the top “age group” competitors to be among the “pros” in the final results.
Future
Knowing I have a great endurance base and am up with the best in the world on the bike the aim for the next couple of years is to really work on the swimming technique and develop the running endurance where a lot of time can be saved, with the aim to compete seriously with the World’s top triathletes in the world in two years time.
Sponsorship
Personally I am looking in the short term ideally for local sponsors to help with the travelling and accommodation costs to get to the World Championships in Hawaii and in the long term keen to work closely with a local company who can understand my motivation and visions that I may be able to help in return for sponsorship opportunities.
Local community
Under the exciting new Athlete Service setup we are working closely with the local community in numerous activities encouraging all levels of activity in the workplace to developing athletes in a wide variety of sports to achieve their goals from beginner to Olympic champions. Henley has an amazing base of athletes of course including numerous Olympic and world class athletes but also an amazing community of “above averagely fit and competitive individuals”!
Athlete Service is setup to help bridge the gap between Olympic champion and the rest of the population bringing world class advice and support to the general community. Recently a bit part of the setup has been to help organise local cycling groups into a club now named G.S. Henley, a cycling and triathlon club supporting over 50 members.
Thanks if you have read this far!
Rob
