Summer loving, had me a blast

Summer seems to be creeping up on us, and I'm loving it. Long nights, plenty of racing, great days out.

This weekend just gone I raced in perfect conditions at the MK sprint, a B race which acted as a dress rehearsal for my second A race of the year over the same course in 2 weeks time (it being the second of my Worlds qualifying races).

Coming back from a 30+ hours training week in Italy, my legs did feel fatigued at certain sections of the bike, but despite this I was very happy with my performance, coming in 49th overall against a strong field, many of whom were familiar names who I think were also treating the race as a warm up to the big one in a couple of weeks.

A race known throughout the Ironman circuit as one of the toughest, IM Lanzarote, was held this weekend too. Tough, not only because of its hills, but also because of the scorching heat which is rarely shielded undercover of trees and other shaded areas.

One competitor who I heard was making a comeback to triathlon, and who was using IM Lanzarote as his comeback race (not, as far as I am aware, having raced Ironman before) was Robin Brew. Robin is a one-time elite triathlete, having represented Great Britain at his chosen sport, swimming, in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics where he came a very, very close fourth in the 200 metres Individual Medley, losing out on Bronze against fellow Brit Neil Cochran.

As I have mentioned in previous blogs, I attended a Robin Brew Warm Weather training camp in, yes you've guessed it, Lanzarote a couple of years ago. I was, therefore, very interested in tracking Robin's progress throughout the race. Sure enough, his swim was strong - coming out in 7th position overall in 50 or so minutes. He continued this great return to racing with a 5:43 bike - 60th overall - but the results board finishes there. I can only assume that Robin didn't complete the run, so I hope he's Ok.

My new friends from the Steve Trew Warm Weather training camp, from which I returned last weekend, completed their second week there this week in scorchio heat, culminating in racing (or rather, getting round) the Nova Colli - a cycle race of 205 km's taking in 9 famous Italian hills, some of which I cycled the week I was there and can testify to how tough they were. The Lanzarote bike course has nothing on it, that's for sure!

The next couple of weeks see many of them racing at Blenheim and London and, for one (Martin), the Austria 70.3 this weekend where he was trying to qualify, for the second year running, for the 70.3 World Championships in the Sunshine State later in the year. I haven't seen his results yet, but fingers crossed he achieved his aims.

All this sunshine saw me and A-M having a picnic at Hampstead Heath this Sunday afternoon. And what a lovely afternoon it was. We were treated to some live Jazz music which was apparently being broadcast live on BBC radio which rounded off a great bank holiday weekend.

As far as training was concerned, I was using this week as a recovery week following the tough week in Italy and in preparation for a couple of week's build phase. I don't have access to my training diary at the moment, but will post details later.

Next week will be back to some concentrated swim sessions and also some hill, interval and brick bike and run sessions.

Congratulations to Jev for coming in off the bike in first place in his Age Group at the Beaver Middle distance on Sunday, a warm up race for IM Germany in 6 weeks time. Suffering from a bad back, Jev had decided before the race that he would only run 15 minutes of the run, and he stuck to the plan and felt fresh afterwards with no ill-effect from the bike, so it all went according to plan.

Well done also to my tri club colleagues on their great performances at MK, namely A-M, Dan, Stuart, Beth, Gemma, Rats and Jo. Amazingly, my and Dan's bike times were just 1 second apart, but as usual he caned me on the swim! Here's a picture of me, taken by Shires' supporter of the year, Mitten. God knows what I was doing!



Until next week, keep away from those ice-cream tubs and train hard. Alternatively, get the garden furniture out and take in some of those sun-rays and chill, chill, chill, man. You never know how long it's going to last.

Cheers.

C