July went by us in a whirr…..with notable racing results from EverydayTraining athletes as follows:
On 17th July Paul Hardcastle completed IM Germany, in 13:42. Like many of us out there, he had a tough day with some cramping on the run. I was there to witness it myself, finishing in 15th place in a time of 9:50.
That same weekend, Rob McRitchie was racing the Outlaw Triathlon in Nottinghamshire, finishing in a time of 10:56 and 3rd in his AG. Matthieu Davy took part in a relay team there with his partner Ellen ( who has subsequently joined EverydayTraining with Steven’s coaching). He ran a 3:17 marathon after Ellen did the bike leg in 7:01.
The 14th July was the weekend of the “other” big LD race in Germany; Challenge Roth. This year we had Paul Jenkinson racing, whose race ended horribly early with severe eye sight issues resulting from a reaction to an anti-fog agent in his goggles. Fortunately Paul is well now and has recovered his sight.
On the 21st July we had David Bowry finishing the Vachery Middle distance in a new PB of 5:01:41, some 35 minutes faster than the previous year.
Andrew Barnes-Webb finished not far behind him in a time of 5:35:02
The 28th July was the London Triathlon, and David Bowry was out again, earning another PB over the Olympic distance in 2:27:32 .
I’m exhausted just typing all that…and we are already we are into the month of August with several feats of triathlon behind us!
The month started with Ironman UK, where we had 4 athletes and one coach racing:
Ed Hawkins finished in 10:10:41, placed 6th in his AG and earned himself a Kona slot!!
Ollie Williams in 10:15:34 was 55 minutes faster than a year earlier, despite a puncture. That puncture unfortunately cost him his Kona slot, as he missed out by just 90 seconds.
Kevin Walsh finished in 11:01:14, with Jake Cussak completing his first Ironman, with a puncture also, in 15hr 22
and myself managing to rank second female in 10:05
Meanwhile, somewhere in Ireland, Mel was pretending to be on holiday and getting pipped into secomnd place at the Shadowman Half in a time of 4:44
Olivia, having apparently gone a whole fortnight without a race, ran the Stur Half Marathon, in a new PB for the distance of 1:46.
London hosted a fantastic 100mile mass cycle event/race, participated in by Roz and Paul J ( with eyesight restored, legs fresh!) in 5:07 and 4:09 respectively.
The latest results news comes from the Cotswolds 113 middle distance, a fast and flat favourite where Roz won her age group in a new PB of 4:56:56, with Olivia close behind in 5:04:40 also winning her age group and posting a PB for the distance.
Mel’s weekend activities included a 14km open water swim in Marlow ,which she completed in 3hour09 swim time ( 3:45 including stops tore-group with her “pod”)
Paul Rodger was running up fells in the Wensleydale Big Cheese – a time of 5:06:27 placed him 5th overall 2nd male vet
In other EverydayTraining news….we are completing arrangements for our late-season training camp in Lanzarote. Compared to our Endurance camps that we hold in March, this will be a more accessible training camp, with a focus on tuning up for late -season races and more hands-on coaching opportunities. We will be based at the lovely bespoke villa TriSports Lanzarote, with sports nutrition provided by Powerbar.
The camp starts on Saturady 21st Sept, and runs for 1 week with departure on 28th. There are still places remaining for athletes at £700 as well as limited places for non -training partners at £550.
Email for details and bookings
Although every race I travel to is a unique experience in terms of the location, degree of access to the courses and other training facilities and nature of my accommodation, there are a few features of my race week preparations that I try to keep consistent. By the time you are on race site there’s very little in the way of training that can improve your fitness for race day, but feeling prepared by following a few key workout outs as “looseners” and to gain some familiarity of the course is essential to get me ready to race. Whist having rigid set of pre-race rituals is not something that I personally believe to be productive – these can verge towards superstition and there is a danger of undermining confidence if it is not possible to observe the “rituals” – know what works for you in the run up to an event makes planning simple and provides a degree of stability in an often unfamiliar and nerve-wracking environment. 
I was recently asked by Camillia from ActiveInstinct (who sponsor The Skecthers-ActiveInstinct Performance Team that I race for) for some advice for her impending first ever triathlon, the Virgin London Triathlon. The race is in two weeks time and so, having been building up her training for it over the last several month, now is the time to switch focus from building up your swim bike and run distances, to reducing the load (AKA tapering) and refining skills and psychology that you need in your race. 
Here’s a look at the designs for the new tri kit that is now in the process of being made for us by our friends at 
Well it’s taken a few days to catch up after this awesome camp. Comparing to our experience of camps in Lanzarote, this camp blew those big weeks out of the water in terms of the hours of training we all did*, and despite having the superb logistical support of Pyrenees Multisport Steven and I put in some very long days last week just to keep everything ticking along throughout the week.
Just a quick post today since, at the end of the camp there’s some celebrating to be done….so just to deliver the final results of the handicapped time trial up the last KOM climb on the camp, and overall competition winner. 
Today was to be a the most iconic day of the camp with a long point-to-point long route from Argeles Gazoste so that we could climb up over the Tourmalet from the far side. This may be the more difficult side to climb from, certainly in terms of logistics -but is by far the most stunning. it also enables us to recreate a large part of one of last year’s tour routes which takes us over two more passes ( including our KOM time trial) to Luchon and then home. Ian and Julie had spoken to the owner of the cafe at the top who assured us it was open as they’re installing the Statue, and cyclists have been up. We knew that the van would not get through, so having dropped us off, Julie would have to drive around the mountain where we would meet her again. 
Then we had the horrible descent in cold torrential rain – we al had great water-proof gear…in the van! But, it was only 40k to go after that, and it was done at pace hard enough for everyone to keep warm, with Mark and Paul aided by pizza boxes fished out of a bin and stuffed down their jerseys! It was fun in a “this will be over soon” sort of a way. Luckily spirits were high and we were able to have a laugh about it as we desperatly pedalled back…joking about “what more could go wrong today?”. With 30k to go we had a puncture – the first on camp. Steven stopped to help Andreas with it, whilst the rest of us carried on. We all came together to finish the ride together, and Andreas made Steven’s day when, having said how much he fancied some chocolate, Andreas pulled out some Ritter Sport for his Bento box. 
In all, it was quite an Epic, for riders and support vehicles alike – but certainly one that we’ll remember. 
It was a weary start to the day as we drove to the lake without much chat, contemplating the relay format aquathlon ahead. Andy decided not to even get out of bed for it :o(. Three teams of two would race a total of 4x 300m swim laps, followed by 4 x 1.5km run laps at the lake. In the early morning sun, this was a much more appealing prospect than it would have been a few days ago, the water looked crystal clear and had warmed up considerably. 
EverydayTraining 