Triathalon training in the UK. Training Bible.

Sunday 15 November 2009

The Times they are a changing!

Just enjoying the sunshine of Clearwater Beach and taking some time to reflect on yesterdays 70.3 World Championships. It seems to me that the 70.3 distance has really come of age and has established itself in its own right, maybe it was just my perception that it seemed a bit of a poor relation to its bigger IM brother.

Watching the race yesterday it struck me how many athletes were specialising in that distance and how the overall performance of athletes at the distance has improved so markedly in the past 3 years. The results bear this out, in 2006 Craig Alexander saw off Simon Lessing finishing with almost 2 minutes gap in 3:45: 47. The following year 2007 Andy Potts put in 3:42:33 effort to take the glory. 2008 saw Terenzo Bozzone lower the mark again to 3:40:10 and yesterday Michael Ralaert reset the best performance category again with stunning performance of 3:34:04. Just to underline how much improvement has been made since Craig Alexander won in 2006, yesterday had he gone the same speed he would have come in 28th! By the way last years winner Bozzone didn't have the best of days but still knocked out a very respectable 3:46:21 that put him back in 31st place!

By way of comparisions take Fraser Cartmell a good British pro athlete who has been competing in the race since 2007. Then he came 7th clocking splits of 23:09, 2:04:28, 1:17:15, for an overall time of 3:49:03. In 2008 he improved by 3 minutes to 3:46:34 but slipped 3 places to 10th and yesterday he improved again by over 2 mins to 3:44:21 and this time slipped another 10 places to 20th!

What does all this go to prove? Well clearly what we did last year is not nessacarily going to get us to the same place this year. Significant improvement is required just to stay with the pace of the 70.3, this means a lot more application and renewed effort to eradicte limiting factors and gaining benefits from your strengths.

Julie Dibbens performance yesterday is a great example of continued improvement, both improving strengths and neutralising limiters. In 2007 Julie clocked 4:12:58 to come 4th just a few seconds short of the winning time of the pervious year, in 2008 again she came 4th this time clocking an improved 4:09:10. Yesterday she took it to a new level with a 3:59:33 a World best for the distance. The 10 minute improvement on the year before was due to significant performance improvements to both her bike and run from the year before. The 6 mins on the already strong bike leg and a 4 minute improvement on her run.

Maybe the extra recovery week this year helped a lot in getting over her efforts at winning the Xterra World Champs. Maybe it was the Move to Boulder and training at altitude, what ever the reasons it was a huge gain. Watching her yesterday it was noticable how well she held her form and cadence on the run she looked really strong and confident. So well done Julie on a great performance and on the determination to keep improving.

So if your ambiton is to qualify for a championship slot, hit the age group podium or go top 50% of the race field you are in... remember the sport is moving on fast so you need to too!

Wednesday 4 November 2009

Training Camps and Training weekends for 2010

If you are looking for some great quality coaching and lovely venues both in the UK and in Europe check out our training weekends in the New Forest and camps in Gran Canaria and Mallorca. We will be announcing a further camp at Club Pollentia in April shortly.


Regards
Rob



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