Tag: Team GB

The Long-Distance European Championships: Our Challenging but bronze 3rd place in Madrid

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Team GB ladies on the podium.

When I started out as a triathlete I dreamed of one day racing for my country and going to the World Championships as a Team GB cyclist last year only fueled my desire to do so. I never thought my first appearance as a triathlete would come less than four years into my triathlon career, nor did I think I would come home with a bronze medal on my first start.

Our trip to Madrid was quite simply often full of more emotion than we could handle, but it was the stuff dreams are made of and it will never be forgotten. Most of it couldn’t even be made up. Here are a few of the more unique and ‘special’ moments.

Friday – 21st September 2018

Myself and my mum arrived safely in Madrid having travelled from Malaga. Despite the usual nervous wait for the return of bike box, all was well, until we faced the task of building the bike. We felt like heroes having got the pedals, wheels and headset on. And then we crashed back down to reality. The rest of Friday night did not go without incident. The bike pump broke, tire sealant went everywhere. Google said the nearest bike shop was 20 minutes walk away and would close in one hour’s time. Off we trot, no time to notice our dehydrated and hungry bodies. The hypoglycemic attack would have to wait. We arrive at “Bicycles We Trust” according to Google. Except Google lied and there was no bike shop in sight. Next we head to “Mammoth” bikes. Thank the Lord that the bike shop we found by better luck than judgement answered our prayers and serviced us with a shiny new pump without charging us tourist prices.

We had an equally eventful dinner and then tried to sleep. After four hours of cursing every moving vehicle on the road directly below our second-floor room, at 1am we inform reception of our dismay and are moved to the ‘quieter back of the hotel’. Walking down the corridor in my pyjamas in the middle of the night, blind as a bat, with my bike, wetsuit and every race possession I own is not a moment I shall cherish. True athlete panic had set in and at 3am I am convinced I won’t even get to Sunday’s start line because I don’t think I will be able to keep my contact lenses in my eyes if I don’t sleep enough.

Saturday – 22nd September

Of course, the new room on the same floor does not induce anymore sleep than its counterpart a few doors away. In our sleep deprived state we then spent the entire day either faffing, packing stuff or in a bus traveling between the venues of the three disciplines. By the afternoon I felt like I had moved house 5 times. The longest racking in history, in 30 degrees and burning sun, walking 12,000 steps. We find better spirits though as we hang out with the other 30 or so Team GB athletes and are comforted being in this organized chaos together. By Saturday night, we are in our third(!) room in the same hotel in less than 24 hours. Fast asleep at 11pm in our quiet 7th floor room our peace is disturbed once more. One of the kind hotel staff had come to return our broken pump that I left in the first room in a strop. I never wanted to see that ever again and definitely not when I was getting up in 3 hours to race. The shock of the man waking me up nearly gave me a cardiac arrest.

Sunday – 23rd September

In short, the most beautiful courses of swim, bike and run I have encountered, but equally the most brutal. Around one fifth of the race starters did not finish. I was out of the swim 1st in my AG and managed to avoid a face plant up the steep hill to transition. The bike course had 3 mountains in the first 60 miles which meant I needed to exercise a careful regime of foot pain management and also conserve energy. This seemed to pay off as I felt fresh in the second half of the bike. Until one of the marshalls unnecessarily chased me into transition for nearly an hour as I was close to the bike cut off. I never expected to be on my bike almost 8 hours and I don’t think I was as close to the cut off as he liked to think. Personally I think he wanted to go home and put his feet up. Nevertheless, I deployed beast mode and if he was to end my race then he was going to have to peel me off the floor and probably take me back to transition two via the nearest hospital. Happy days, despite feeling like I had diced with death, and feeling somewhat depleted having rushed the last feed and water station, I made it with 30 minutes to spare ready to start the death march of a marathon in boiling conditions after a traumatizing bike course. I knew my maths wasn’t that bad and I knew I needed 5 miles an hour for 5 hours and I would be home and dry by midnight. This became a challenge to finish rather than a race.

It was really special to see all the ‘Bluey’ GBR athletes out on the run, all of us cheering each other on. I was running really nicely until about 18 miles, I was hydrated and had already drunk around 15 litres throughout the race and my legs were relatively fresh. Feet were hurting but had felt worst. At mile 18 I had to calm it down and walk though as I was feeling very sick. This wasn’t helped by the now lacking water on the feed stations, but eating cold ice gently seemed to help. I walked most of the 3rd lap, I knew I was going to finish and was in a good position. I was quite simply terrified that if I upchucked I would pass out and would end up rotting in the dark in the park and hopefully eventually in a hospital, branded with a DNF and distraught without a medal. By the last lap I was able to run a bit more and crossed the line in 15 hours and 7 minutes with plenty of time to spare. I received my finisher’s medal and immediately I was rushed to the podium to collect my bronze medal! At the European Championships!

All in all the race was brutally epic and I don’t think any of us expected to take that long, but I had a ball. The Spanish and British supporters were simply amazing and words don’t do it justice. I’ll never forget running through Madrid city centre, watching the sunset and with my name being called at virtually every corner. I had broken my race number and so simply became ‘Smit’.

Challenge Madrid was indeed very challenging but I think it’s fair to say we overcame the challenges, learning the Team GB spirit along the way. Something tells me I may have just upped the game.

Building bricks: Being a ‘tri-athlete’ through transitions

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My brick session kit, complete with a drop of sweat

With the growing amount of people involved in the sport, being a triathlete will naturally mean different things for different people, for some it will be a one-off event, they are not even sure of the order they should do things, for others a lifelong pursuit or series of adventures. Yet, when I get asked, mostly in the gym, “What are you training for? What’s your sport?” I often stumble. I presume they ask this by the way because I have usually surpassed the average gym goers level of exertion and will be a conglomeration of sweat, vomit and escalating heavy breathing. It might seem a very obvious answer, a triathlete, someone who swims, cycles and runs in immediate succession over various distances. However, I think I hesitate because I have competed at many sports in my time but also because I almost never do all three sports in one training session, although I do more frequently cover all three sports over a couple of sessions in one day. As I move into race season I have been thinking a bit more about these onlookers’ queries and what being a triathlete means for me.

So, quite an existential question, but what am I? I race triathlons and I can do all three of those aspects pretty well, but does that make me a triathlete on a daily basis when someone asks? After all there is also some degree of normality and Average Joe at play here – doing an Ironman or a half Ironman has become a popular event on the bucket list of the reasonably fit looking to raise money for charity in recent years, dressed in a pink frilly tutu, or not. Thus, most of us can swim, bike and run to some degree if push comes to shove or if we are being chased by a growling dog. There’s also several varieties of physique on display at a triathlon that illustrate that it doesn’t have a standard or ‘ideal body type’ like with some other sports. For example, someone 7 feet tall is a candidate for a basketball player perhaps, oversized and built like a brick, maybe a powerlifter or rugby player, stick thin without an ounce of fat or muscle then they might be an endurance runner. When it comes to triathletes they come in three or more categories. If the athlete is predominantly a runner then they will have skinny calves, shoulders and triceps. If they are mostly a cyclist then their quads will be tree trunks and if a swimmer then broad shoulders, very strong lats and generally big legs will be present, somewhere between that of the skinny runner and powerhouse of a cyclist.

Indeed, some people are a mixture of all of these things and I certainly fit that bill. My game has always been built on power, earlier a cyclist and swimmer and thus I carry a significant amount of muscle on my quads and shoulders, back and arms. I also consider lifting weights my fourth sport which is unusual for a triathlete and therefore have a more muscular build for that reason too.

So, if I am saying a triathlete cannot be defined simply by its label or the apparent physique of the athlete, then what is the alternative? For me it is the general being of an athlete itself. Usually understood as someone who is proficient generally in sports and physical exercise, having physical strength, agility and stamina. It requires having a number of skills, managing three sports, but also the basic requirements of an athlete and the organization of their life that those combined sports bring.

In addition to managing a multitude of sport aspects (training, racing, recovery, physio, food) and a full-time job, physiologically and in a race situation, the notion of a triathlete resides with the transitions and the ability to transit the body and mind from one discipline to the next. This is where the saying that the transitions are the ‘fourth discipline’ comes into play, although most assume it is because this is where they need to be efficient in the process itself and not loose time. They don’t consider the underlying process of what it actually means beyond doing it as fast as possible. For me making the transitions are where many skills combine and are a key part of the general fitness of the triathlete. There’s two timed transitions in a race, T1 (swim to bike) and T2 (bike to run).

T1 goes like this – climb out of lake/sea (with or without the weeds), rip goggles and swimming hat off and simultaneously slide them into sleeve of the wetsuit (always my left), pull zip from back of wetsuit to start undoing it to waist level, then take left arm fully out, then right. By this point I should have run a few hundred feet, stood on several stones and located my bike amongst at least a thousand others. Next is helmet on as it’s a disqualification if I touch my bike without it. Once that furious fiddling is over its dancing to get the rest of the wetsuit off whilst also drying my feet on the towel I have left prearranged (note, not a bright colored towel because that is considered to give me an unfair advantage). Bike shoes and race belt on, gel in back pocket of tri suit. Run in bike shoes to mount line and I’m away cycling.

Despite being soaking wet and freezing cold, T1 is actually far easier on the body than T2. Above anything else, T2 is what makes and defines triathlons. By time exercising alone, it is now getting hard, on a full Iron distance triathlon I will have already swam 2.4 miles, cycled 112 miles and will be several thousand calories and sore muscles down. T2 goes like this: off the bike before the dismount line, run to my ‘station’ where my kit is in transition, rack bike on the rail before taking helmet off, get my bike shoes off if I haven’t already managed that whilst riding, socks on, running shoes on, press start on running watch and go.

During and directly after T2 is physiologically critical, but also dependent on athleticism requiring an efficient heart and lungs and well-trained muscles to make that transition possible immediately. As I run out this is when I have to manage the discomfort from shifting from biking to running before I can then assess how my body is really feeling during the race, as opposed to just dealing with the transition. If anyone wants to do a triathlon, then this is the bit that carries the greatest fear and requires the most work in my opinion. It is very important to begin running at a reasonable pace, at least until the first feed station (circa a mile), however much it hurts. This is also a place in the race that can warrant a strategic advantage, catching up those who haven’t made the transition so well or racing ahead if all is well. The shift itself involves quickly using different muscles and energy stores and feeling the blood in my legs moving to different places, as this happens it’s not uncommon to feel very sick and shaky. It’s getting through this and managing it that is key before I finalise my run plan. Psychologically the thought of running at all, without even sitting down, let alone 26.2 miles requires some resilience, stupidity and a general belief that you have a fit body.

Unsurprisingly then the most important session of my training week is a brick session – 75 minutes on the Wattbike immediately followed by a 20-40 minute run on the treadmill simulating race conditions and pace. Whilst I only run a short distance in these sessions, it’s where I visualize the run for race day. It doesn’t matter that its short, the important point is training to get past those first ten minutes that will happen in any race and once I’ve done that I know I will settle into the zone whether I need to run for 1, 2 or 5 hours. I also like this session because it’s a big training load that requires me to execute a good recovery with correct fuel in the ‘magic hour window’ after it. If I have got that wrong, those are the days I will be seen a little big groggy at work by 11am and looking to eat everything in sight followed by a nap. I like that I have to work extra hard at this to avoid it impeding my academic working day.

So, there you have it, I might be a triathlete, and that’s important, but for me it’s also about generally being a well-trained athlete who takes pride in managing all of the aspects required for success. The transitions are the places that execute and show general athleticism. I enjoy being versatile and physically fit enough to turn my body to most things, including having fitness for reading books and writing. Having several sports to choose from gives me a fair amount of freedom and also means I can fit my training in around work, including when I am away and engaged in different tasks.

Get building those bricks then!

Game face on, 2018 race schedule: “Race the race you have trained for”

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run your own

Wow. We are now just two weeks out from my first race of the season at Marbella 70.3 Ironman on the 29th of April. As I work my way through some race admin I thought I would share a few moments of reflection and my schedule. If you want to support or say hi just drop me a line. I have a lot of other blogs written but I am looking to upgrade the site in a few weeks so will save them for now. The quicker bit:

29th April – Marbella, 70.3

20th May – Outlaw Half, Nottingham, 70.3

3rd June – UCI Gran Fondo, Cambridge, World Championship qualifier

8th– 10th June – Tour of Wales

1st July –  Outlaw Half, Holkham, 70.3

8th July – Castle Hever, 70.3

29th July – Outlaw Full, Nottingham, 140.6

8th September – Vitruvian, Rutland Water, 70.3

23rd September – European Long Distance Championships, 140.6

So that is quite an ambitious race schedule and I always find the first race of the season a somewhat tricky one. On the one hand one is terribly excited to see what results winter has brought and simply to enjoy ‘racing’, it’s what I do after all, but on the other it is important to remember that my ‘A’ races will come later in the year. I can’t afford to totally flaw myself and spend weeks recovering. In short, I am in a hefty few months of full distance Ironman training until late June as the mileage and volume increases week on week. I heard a well-known Ironman commentator say the other day “Race the race you have trained for”. That is sound advice, indeed, do your thing. If you are not quite at your peak fitness make sure you avoid the temptation of chasing a faster athlete if your gut instinct is that you are not quite there. You will blow up and you will ruin your day. Likewise if you have had an injury or illness.

Tapering, when an athlete reduces training volume before a key race is often the cause of much grumpiness. It is unbelievably hard to significantly reduce your training when you are at your fittest. This is also hard for me when training is so closely connected to my writing and academic productivity. That’s going to hit very hard this year. It feels a bit like a self-inflicted injury. The grogginess is vile as is the few pounds gained. Meanwhile your legs start getting very edgy. In athlete’s terms, they feel like they want to “bite”. For bigger races tapering is an absolute must. However, I won’t be tapering much for Marbella because it’s not one of my bigger races and its early. I just want race time in my legs. In fact I will ride 200 miles the weekend before and then have a very short taper, just enough to feel fresh on race day.

I still obviously must “prepare to race” and I find this possibly one of the most pleasurable parts of racing and being a triathlete itself. How each individual approaches their race preparations are very individualised but there’s a few sessions that I do and take as signs to know I. Am. Good. To. Go. These include a sprint set on the Wattbike (20 secs on 40 off, numerous times), riding 30 miles in about 1 hour 20 mins, a fast 1.2 miles in the pool with sprinting every 4th length and the last a 20-30 minute “brick run” at full race pace after 30 miles on the Wattbike. After all those things I can assess just how much my legs are biting.

There’s also a reason it’s called “race week” – even though the race is only one day. That “week” requires lots of arduous and laborious working outside of training. The training is nothing really and just keeps you ticking over. The key is maximising recovery after training which is usually shorter faster efforts, eating at the correct time slots, timing the carb load, sleep, hydration, massaging and getting every bit of kit in the right place so any last-minute panics are avoided. And then, once you have racked your bike the day before the race you get out of the way of everyone as quickly as possible (never ever go to the pre-race pasta party it is a very evil thing) and hide/sleep. Being as precise and perfect as you can during that week inevitably produces results come race day. It is the difference between getting round and high end performances.

A little anecdote. Every year I have one song that I memorise every single word to so that I can rehearse it over and over in my head when I need to pick up the pace and volume during races. Headphones are not usually allowed racing so I have had to improvise. This year it is Ben McKelvey – Stronger.

The signs are that I am training well, although I don’t have as much long distance cycling in me as I would like. I’ve been bit of a lightweight with the British “spring”. However, by far the biggest victory for me this winter has been resolving my foot pain both running and cycling. I have trained more effectively and harder than ever, but, I have spent an awful lot of time with foot mobilisation therapy, getting new running and bike orthotics/shoes custom made, wearing in new orthotics, self-massaging my feet, treating blisters, etc etc. To be able to bike, run and bike and run together without pain is a sweet thing. If I finish Marbella without any repercussions of those pains I will be well happy.

Let’s pick up the pace and volume. I’ll be back soon!

The journey from triathlon to Ironman to Team GB Long-distance Athlete 2018

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IMG_1568IMG_1641Starting and finishing my first Ironman and raising over 3K for charity was a little scary and a big challenge.

Not finishing my second due to a bike mechanical was a hard but lesson well learnt.

Completing my third with a big personal best brought the realization I could race at that distance.

Coming 6th in my fourth after throwing away 3rd place on the run was OK.

Preparing to be on the start line of my 5th in July 2018 is already making me think of last year’s unfinished business.

Starting my 6th in September 2018 in Team GB kit is everything I’ve been waiting for.

My journey as a long distance triathlete began a fair while ago, perhaps when I was a competitive swimmer until I was 16 years old. I don’t remember my route into swimming but I raced the hardest discipline, 200 metres butterfly. I’ve had a lifelong passion for endurance sport. Racing forward a few years and I was brought my first road bike at around 20 years old. Almost immediately I began riding 100 miles for fun. I had always run in various guises (another story for another day) but suffered from biomechanical foot pain which meant anything beyond 5 miles was agony.

I got to work. I knew if I could run a marathon then I would become an Ironman at some stage. It was the last part of the jigsaw. I had a biomechanical assessment and then with orthotics and many blisters did my first marathon at Bungay and happened to run it fast enough to qualify for London the following year. No ballot lottery for me.

Once my running was secure I headed to Bolton for my first Ironman. Training for your first full distance 140.6 miles is no small thing and like every other “virgin” (their words not mine) I was happy to just finish. Well perhaps not “happy” I thought I was about to die. However, I remember to this day standing in the Macron Stadium and looking at the results. I was around the top ten but in reality I wasn’t bothered about that. I had my eyes on qualifying for Kona (Ironman’s branded World Champs), in the days when you could get there by racing lots. But, even more than that I wanted to race for Team GB. From that day on it was my target but I kept it quiet. In the course of those 14 hours I had gone from completing my first Ironman to racing them. Huge difference, completing is dragging self around and having a cheeky rest when you feel you can justify it. Racing one is a significantly bigger more focused effort for 12-14 hours. Every female you chase because you can’t always see their age group on their race belt. Seconds count, places count. Eyes on the prize. So you chase, everyone, no matter how much everything hurts. Find a way, make a way, do whatever.

December 2016 brought some nice news, I had become an All-World-Athlete for Ironman – in the top 10% worldwide. That was nice but you could get that status by racing lots rather than being fast and beating people. That wasn’t necessarily the case for me though, I made my position up with just two races.

Throughout 2017 I raced pretty sound, although as I have already said elsewhere, I literally threw away third place at my only full distance triathlon with foot pain and then the flu. Neither were a fitness issue. That was all forgotten when I qualified for Team GB age-group cycling the very next day. I remember saying to a friend at work that I am not quite ready for Team GB triathlon yet, and so I had a trip to Albi for the World Cycling champs instead. Apart from the foot pain and cost and commercialisation issues I have already written about, I probably said what I did about the triathlon because I wanted that place more than you will ever know and I was beginning to dream. At some point I have also bribed myself with qualifying just for the half Ironman distance and that indeed was my aim for 2018. Little did I know I had qualified last July for the triathlon long distance World and European championships.

Now, I don’t believe in luck, sorry for the cliché but I make my own if I can. I do however have a bit more time for superstition and a few things have fallen into place. Last Autumn I purchased my own bike box with the intention to travel internationally a lot more. I have also spent a lot of time this winter when not training getting my feet fixed, sorting my running orthotics out etc. The off season this year has also been successful from a training point of view and I am lean and fit for the end of February. The latest readings on the bike suggest I am putting out somewhere around an extra 20 percent of power compared to January 2017.

I have had a two week wait for the news after submitting my intention to qualify for Team GB in mid February. To pass that time I have trained like a demon, safe in the knowledge that even if it didn’t work out I would be ready at some stage. Just last week my feet are well enough to run again and today I have managed an hour non-stop up and down a hill. I had also previously arranged my race season so I reach peak fitness again in September. Just so happens the long distance European championships are in Madrid in September. The day before I submitted my intention to qualify and had done the maths I had booked a project meeting for July. I didn’t know it clashed with the triathlon World Championships. I now firmly believe in that start line in Madrid in September for the European Championships. I have no intention of stopping all of this anytime soon but to some extent tonight I feel I have arrived at my destination and “made it”, at least with my own goals.

Right now, though, I have a ‘Q’ next to my name and I think I need a new tri-suit. It’s blue, red and white and has my name on it. I’m dead excited to see what happens next. Let’s goooooo. Pick up the pace and the volume.