For someone who doesn’t like change this was a big decision. I am certainly a girl of habit and stick to what I know, staying within my comfort zone. This includes such things as technology – I like my pen and paper and calculator, choosing dinner from the menu I’ll pick something simple that I’ve had before, and always running and cycling the same routes not even going the other way around. What can I say?! I like routine!
After my well earned rest and holiday in Canada I landed at Heathrow and looked up directions to my new home. This felt weird! My contract as a researcher at Bristol Uni was due to end in October so I decided to move up to the Midlands to train full time with the Paratriathlon squad at Loughborough Uni after the World Champs in September. Many of the other para-athletes have also relocated to the Loughborough Hub, including one vital athlete who was going to influence my training – Alison. She is now spending 2 weeks in Loughborough and 2 weeks back home near Edinburgh each month, so I’m able to guide her when required. This is great as I get to spend more time on the tandem with her and better understand her visibility in various lights.
After one more week of bumming around (or off season) when I got back to the UK, I was back to training for a solid block of winter training. First I was asked to guide a male visually impaired athlete at a Talent ID day, and having not run for over 3 weeks I had to run 5 Km on the track. My legs were SO sore the next day, mainly from the impact but also track running hurts your calves. The first day started with a 6 o’clock swim session – time to get used to this, and a steady bike session where the tiny inclines felt like mountains. Day 2 was a swim ‘speed’ session (or lack of) and strength and conditioning in the gym. Just as my legs started to feel less sore I’d have another gym session. I had DOMS (delayed onset of muscle soreness – although I’m sceptical of the delayed part on this occasion) for 9 days. 9 days!!! My body hurt so much as I eased back into training but now we’re well into the winter training block and I’ve already made so many gains. Training is very social and I love spending time with the squad.
Training in Loughborough with so many other elite athletes is quite different from my previous lifestyle to say the least. This is Loughborough uni; where I turn up to swimming training at 6 in the morning and the swimmers are already well into their main set; where everyone in the gym is already in shape and they’re lifting weights to get stronger, and where it’s normal for men to wear lycra leggings. Welcome to Loughborough....’where history begins.’ This is not the beginning for me but hopefully this is where my long path continues.
After my well earned rest and holiday in Canada I landed at Heathrow and looked up directions to my new home. This felt weird! My contract as a researcher at Bristol Uni was due to end in October so I decided to move up to the Midlands to train full time with the Paratriathlon squad at Loughborough Uni after the World Champs in September. Many of the other para-athletes have also relocated to the Loughborough Hub, including one vital athlete who was going to influence my training – Alison. She is now spending 2 weeks in Loughborough and 2 weeks back home near Edinburgh each month, so I’m able to guide her when required. This is great as I get to spend more time on the tandem with her and better understand her visibility in various lights.
After one more week of bumming around (or off season) when I got back to the UK, I was back to training for a solid block of winter training. First I was asked to guide a male visually impaired athlete at a Talent ID day, and having not run for over 3 weeks I had to run 5 Km on the track. My legs were SO sore the next day, mainly from the impact but also track running hurts your calves. The first day started with a 6 o’clock swim session – time to get used to this, and a steady bike session where the tiny inclines felt like mountains. Day 2 was a swim ‘speed’ session (or lack of) and strength and conditioning in the gym. Just as my legs started to feel less sore I’d have another gym session. I had DOMS (delayed onset of muscle soreness – although I’m sceptical of the delayed part on this occasion) for 9 days. 9 days!!! My body hurt so much as I eased back into training but now we’re well into the winter training block and I’ve already made so many gains. Training is very social and I love spending time with the squad.
Training in Loughborough with so many other elite athletes is quite different from my previous lifestyle to say the least. This is Loughborough uni; where I turn up to swimming training at 6 in the morning and the swimmers are already well into their main set; where everyone in the gym is already in shape and they’re lifting weights to get stronger, and where it’s normal for men to wear lycra leggings. Welcome to Loughborough....’where history begins.’ This is not the beginning for me but hopefully this is where my long path continues.
The gym (Powerbase as it’s known) is immense. Dozens of lifting platforms, and plenty of girls lifting some serious weights. Perhaps my opinion is slightly tainted by the British Weightlifting team, but there are plenty of other athletes across all sports lifting in there. Even I’m staring at the size of some of the girls’ buttocks, so I wouldn’t judge the men for doing it! I wasn’t joking about the men in lycra either. Having previously spent a lot of time around the athletics track I have never found men in lycra leggings unusual, but I did see a guy in the gym the other day in 3/4 lengths?! Hmm, this was questionable!
Relocating from Bristol to train in Loughborough meant leaving a lot of my close friends behind and probably most importantly as an athlete, my coach. I was changing everything; from my training environment to my programme, so why not change it all?! I’ve worked with Andy for the last 2 years and I owe him a lot for getting me to where I am today. 2 years ago I had barely ridden a road bike and I’m sure he was laughing at me as I could only grab my drink with my left hand and I’d still wobble. Signalling right didn’t happen much. And don’t even get me started on trying to ride on a set of rollers. I remember sweating perfusely from the anxiety and my eyes stinging as the sweat had dripped into them, but I daren’t take my hands of the handle bars to wipe my face. Now I can almost take both hands of the handle bars on the tandem (no-one tell Alison I’m trying!). It wouldn’t have worked well being coached long distance, given I’m rubbish at communicating anyway. Thanks to Andy for all his help and tolerating my moaning, my numerous questions and my naivety with regard to triathlon. My new coach has been in my exact position, competing in the super series races whilst acting as a guide, ideal really. I’m sure Luke will learn a lot about me very quickly and it seems to be working well over this first block of winter training.
So the first thing that comes with winter training is lab testing. We all love obtaining and using numbers for training, and now I have a new Garmin watch I can actually use the data to train. Since I’ve moved over to a new coach, Luke wanted aaallll the data and so I was one of the very few athletes to do every single test. This included swim test, sub max bike, max bike, sub max run, max run, 20 Km bike time trial and strength and conditioning. If this wasn’t enough, I have to do the max run test again using a different protocol! From these we can find my aerobic and anaerobic thresholds and hence work out the zones I need to work in for different sessions. My VO2 max is certainly nothing to rave about but apparently my running economy is good. So if I want to change sports AGAIN, I can always consider marathon running. Ha, that’s a looonnng way to run and a long way off!
Relocating from Bristol to train in Loughborough meant leaving a lot of my close friends behind and probably most importantly as an athlete, my coach. I was changing everything; from my training environment to my programme, so why not change it all?! I’ve worked with Andy for the last 2 years and I owe him a lot for getting me to where I am today. 2 years ago I had barely ridden a road bike and I’m sure he was laughing at me as I could only grab my drink with my left hand and I’d still wobble. Signalling right didn’t happen much. And don’t even get me started on trying to ride on a set of rollers. I remember sweating perfusely from the anxiety and my eyes stinging as the sweat had dripped into them, but I daren’t take my hands of the handle bars to wipe my face. Now I can almost take both hands of the handle bars on the tandem (no-one tell Alison I’m trying!). It wouldn’t have worked well being coached long distance, given I’m rubbish at communicating anyway. Thanks to Andy for all his help and tolerating my moaning, my numerous questions and my naivety with regard to triathlon. My new coach has been in my exact position, competing in the super series races whilst acting as a guide, ideal really. I’m sure Luke will learn a lot about me very quickly and it seems to be working well over this first block of winter training.
So the first thing that comes with winter training is lab testing. We all love obtaining and using numbers for training, and now I have a new Garmin watch I can actually use the data to train. Since I’ve moved over to a new coach, Luke wanted aaallll the data and so I was one of the very few athletes to do every single test. This included swim test, sub max bike, max bike, sub max run, max run, 20 Km bike time trial and strength and conditioning. If this wasn’t enough, I have to do the max run test again using a different protocol! From these we can find my aerobic and anaerobic thresholds and hence work out the zones I need to work in for different sessions. My VO2 max is certainly nothing to rave about but apparently my running economy is good. So if I want to change sports AGAIN, I can always consider marathon running. Ha, that’s a looonnng way to run and a long way off!
The second thing that comes with winter training.......CROSS COUNTRY!! I am yet to join an athletics club in the area so I’m still running for Bristol and West. Well I couldn’t completely detach myself from Bristol could I?! I never used to do much training with the club anyway and would just race in the vest, so this is no different. However, my relocation means I’m slighted limited to regional and national races as I don’t want to travel all the way down to the South west for a 5Km race. An opportunity arose fairly quickly with the National Cross country relays being held in Mansfield. Only a 40 min drive away, I couldn’t say no. I quite like living in the Midlands – it’s easy to get everywhere! With it being so early in the season I certainly wasn’t at my fittest so I opted to run in the B team. Both my teammates didn’t turn up so it was just me running the first leg, but I just wanted to run. I felt slightly out of place with my old, plain coloured shoes with blunt spikes in the bottom, but I still love cross country and this race was no exception. We had glorious sunshine and a lovely undulating course with perfect ground. A very deceptive view of cross country racing. Likewise I’m enjoying the running training in Loughborough, with so many woods and off road locations nearby. Soon I’ll be getting myself some new trail shoes, and I’ll make sure they’re bright! I’m not sure I’ll have choice actually!
A new addition to the winter training programme this year is a few sessions at the Derby Velodrome. How lucky are we?! Not even the Olympic programme guys get to do this!! Once I got over the initial anxiety of riding a fixie on a ridiculously steep bank, this was so much fun. The speed you can reach coming off the high bank on the tandem is awesome. Both Alison and I were feeling very nauseous at one point when sprinting as hard as we could round the bottom of the track. Now we’ve got some target times set, we’ll undoubtedly be trying to beat them (as well as the boys) on the next sessions. My legs hurt A LOT the next day. It requires a surprising amount of force to brake against the forward movement, especially on the tandem. Since the track bikes don’t have any brakes and all the movement comes from your pedalling action, you’re almost back pedalling to slow down. Don’t stop pedalling though or you’ll get a hit up the backside from your saddle. I highly recommend any cyclist have a go on their local velodrome!!
So far so good for the first block of training. Despite the increase in training hours I am still alive. Naturally I picked up a nasty cold after about 2 weeks of training but since then things have been going smoothly (touch wood!). I obtained 6 new records on my Garmin in 2 and a half weeks and a new PB on my 20 Km bike time trial in the lab. I totally wish this progression was linear!! I’m challenging myself to make it linear. After a recovery week we’re now entering the next block of foundation training. Bring.....it....on!