As some of you know, I used to be a horse riding fanatic and
had a horse on loan when I was living in North Wales during my postgrad studies.
Her name was Arrie; well, her stable name was Arrie, her official papers listed her as
‘Moonlight Dancer’, which, given her quite extraordinary ability to break out the disco moves and deposit me on the floor at the most unexpected of moments, was not
a total misnomer. A dislocated shoulder and a crushed hand were just a
couple of the injuries I had the pleasure to experience whilst in her company
(or, rather, whilst parting company from her…). Hence the reason why I don’t
ride at the moment: I am more than capable of injuring myself with overuse
injuries and do not need a horse to add greater variety and severity to the mix! A bad
fall could put me out of competition for the season, maybe even for good, so
for now, horse is off the menu.
Where did horses come into this? Well, mainly because I was
watching the Glasgow Indoor athletics on the BBC last weekend and Denise Lewis
mentioned in commentary that an athlete had ‘wintered well’. To a horsey
person, this sounds odd to hear, as this is what we would say about our steeds as
we put them out to grass for the spring in good condition. So I suppose, for an
athlete, wintering well means coming out of February fit, injury free and with
a few solid months of winter training behind you. For me, it also has another
meaning: wintering well means learning how to avoid the bleaker aspects of our British
winter by escaping to sunnier climbs for a few weeks. Such is what I have just
had the pleasure to do, having returned from an amazing winter break in the Maldives last week.
The Maldives may not seem like the ideal warm weather
training venue for a triathlete: cycling is impossible as the entire island is
composed of think sand and is only half a mile long and 200yds wide. Running is
also problematic for the same reasons. Swimming, well, the swimming couldn’t be
better, but you wouldn’t typically fly all that way just for some swim
training. No, our Maldives trip was not designed around my triathloning. I am
extremely lucky in that I have gone there on holiday since February 1992, when
I was 8 years old. I have now been to this amazing country a total of 18 times
and it has become a sort of home from home. The people there are so lovely and
friendly and the place is just unrivalled in terms of its uniqueness. It is a
bit like a drug: you can only go so long before you need another fix!
This time we stayed on the island of Vilamendoo. I have
stayed here once before in April 2014. It’s perfect. Training wise, there are 2
swimming pools (one exclusively for adults, 20m long), the other 24m long (not
sure of the logic in stopping a meter short of 25, but nevermind). Then there is
the sea: the crystal clear azure waters of the Indian Ocean, right outside
your room. The island has a gym, equipped with brand new kit: 3 treadmills, 3
bikes, squat rack, free weights, gym balls, leg press, shoulder press, hammy
machine. There is also a quarter mile long, poker straight wooden jetty,
jutting out into the lagoon: ideal for doing reps on (you just have to be
careful not to trip as it’s not very wide and has no sides!). All of this, and
only about 100 other people on the island to share it with, most of whom are
there to lie on a sunbed and swill cocktails all day, so I basically had the
gym to myself!
This is our island, Vilamendoo, taken from the sea plane as we circled to land in the lagoon.
I quickly established a daily training / rest-recovery
routine:
6:45am – wake up
7am – 30 minute steady swim in the 24m pool, had it all to
myself every morning as everyone else was still in bed, sleeping off the
excesses of the previous night’s all-inclusive drinking
8am – breakfast (plateful of fresh, tropical fruits,
followed by an egg-white omelette)
9am – walk around the island
10am – chilling on the sunbed with a Barbara Nadel novel
(recovery time!!)
11am – quick 9 holes of golf on the putting green
12pm – a pre-lunch cocktail or G and T
1pm – lunch (lots of fresh fish and salad)
2pm – too hot to be in the sun at this time of day, so used
the post-lunch lull period to go to the gym. I cycled on the static bike for
about 45 mins each day, alternating between a flat steady ride one day and a
hills programme the next. Followed this with 15 mins strength / core work each
day
3pm – sea swim, approx. 20 – 30 mins along the reef
4:30pm – running on the wooden jetty, on alternate days, mostly
between 3 and 4 miles, inc. some intervals
5:30pm – head to the over-water sunset bar for a cocktail
(or 2, if feeling naughty)
6:30pm – 15 mins chilling in the Jacuzzi hot-tub in the
garden of our room (recovery for the legs!)
7pm – pre-dinner drink at the bar
8pm – dinner (different themed cuisine each night; Tex-Mex
night was my favourite!)
9pm – walk off dinner with a stroll on the wooden jetty and
look at the sting rays that come into the lagoon at night
9:30pm – bed, read for 30 mins, then sleep at 10pm (I know,
I’m on holiday, this is pathetic, but I am a girl who needs her sleep, holiday
or not, and I’d rather get up early and have the time in the morning than at
night).
7am pool swim: there are worse pools to swim in!
8am - breakfast of lots of fresh papaya and, occasionally, a cheeky glass of sparkling wine
10am - time to work on the tan with a good book!
11am - just time for a quick 9 holes of golfage before lunch!
12pm - pre-lunch margarita!
2pm - gym time! Usually 45 mins on the bike...
... followed by strength and core work.
3pm sea swim. About 30 mins along the reef, one of the highlights of the day :-)
Impossible to get bored with these views; highlight was seeing a turtle one day - amazing!
4:30pm, run time!
Flat as a pancake, the water bungalows jetty was 1/4 mile long and great for intervals!
Sunset cocktails time! (No, they're not all mine!)
15 mins in the hot tub to massage the legs: medicinal, you see (as is the wine!)
One comment that people often make about a holiday in the
Maldives is that they’d worry that there wouldn’t be enough for them to do and
they would be bored. Ha! Not for me – in fact, I struggled to fit everything in
each day, the time just flew by. I guess if all you do is lounge on the beach
all day long though, then that could get a tad boring.
Anyway, I returned home on 18th Feb. and on the
21st Feb. I had booked in to do the Taunton Deane Long course
aquathlon, in Wellington, Somerset. I opted for the long course (1km / 40 length
pool swim, 10km run) as a stepping stone towards the Olympic distance tris that
I am going to step up to this year. However, I haven’t been running much and
have only ran 10km in training less than a handful of times since October. 10km
on the road was going to be a big ask of my legs. I was, however, confident
that after 2 weeks of swimming twice a day, I would have a good swim. Er…. yeh….
It didn’t quite turn out that way. I had a bloody awful swim. It didn’t help
that I had been put in a lane with 3 other swimmers who were all faster than me, yet they had put me down to go off first with the others each starting at 5 second intervals after me. Basically they were all stacking up behind me almost immediately, making me tense up in an attempt to increase my pace. After just 3 lengths I had to pull over to start letting them through. 3 people, 3 stops; they then caught me again about 20 lengths later, so I had to pull in again. I
estimate I lost about 5 secs each stop, so maybe half a minute lost in total, but it
also served to completely mess up my rhythm, made me tense, my breathing went haywire. Generally I never relaxed into the swim and it felt horrid from start to finish. I was
very glad to see the big orange ‘2 lengths to go’ paddle and to get out! 19:30
on my watch: what a shocker! I’ve swum faster than that in training as part of
a 1500m sustained effort swim.
Off on the run – a chance to redeem myself, got a lot of ground
to make up. I hadn’t run further than 4 ½ miles in one go whilst on holiday
(it was too hot to do any more than that), and that was done at a bimbling
pace with just a few strides thrown in, so a sustained 10k tempo effort was
going to be a big ask. Half a mile in, I started to establish a rhythm and it
all felt good, and then, BANG! We hit the hill. This is not just any hill, this
is the hill from the Wellington 10 course (anyone who has done this race will
know the hill I mean). It’s the hill that just keeps on giving… and giving… and
giving. 3 miles long and pretty much unrelenting in its gradient, it felt hard
after 3 weeks of doing no hills whatsoever. (The highest point in the Maldives
is 2 meters above sea level, so it’s not conducive to hill training!) I’m
usually an uphill fanatic, but this time I was glad to start coming down the
other side!
About 2 miles in, another female competitor came into my
sights, farther up the road. Due to the wave start format going off 30 minutes
apart, I calculated that she must have started in my wave. Another quick
calculation revealed that I would therefore have to catch and overtake this
woman in order to finish further up the female placings. I seemed to make
speedy gains on her up the hills, despite feeling as though I was struggling,
but once the downhills came she was holding the gap. I’d have to force my legs
to turn over much quicker than they naturally wanted to in order to reel her
in. The miles ticked by and I had made only marginal inroads and went from
feeling confident that I would catch her at mile 2, to fearing I was rapidly
running out of road at mile 5. Fortunately, I had rekkied the last half mile of
the run as part of my warm up. It was a rutted, stone track, very muddy and
very pot-holey. Once we got onto that, she seemed to struggle and her pace
slowed and so I seized the opportunity to close the gap. There was about a
quarter of a mile left to go and I thought, now or never, I need to get clear,
so I kicked hard and went past. Head down and fight until the finish. I
finished 8 seconds ahead of her… it turned out that my instincts were right: I
did need to overtake her. Not only was she in my wave but she was occupying the
3rd female overall spot. That 8 second advantage I fought for meant
the difference between me running myself onto a podium finish or finishing fourth,
outside of the medals.
My overall finish time was 1:00:43. I had hoped to dip in
under the hour, and no doubt would have done with a better swim. The 40:38 run
split for a run involving 600ft of height gain was encouraging though, as was
the fact that my calves came off it none the worse for wear: always a victory
in and of itself! There’s still masses of work needed to be done on my swim
though if I am not to lose too much ground in the Olympic distance tris I have
entered this year. Losing 3 – 4 minutes over a 1k swim would translate to 5-6
over a 1500m, and that will be too much to close on the bike and run to get
back in contact with the leading ladies. However, I shouldn’t be too
disheartened as I have to remind myself that this time last year, I had only
just began swimming all front crawl, having previously needed the breaststroke
recovery lengths, so I am progressing… just not as quickly as I might like!
Baby bling, for coming 3rd lady at Taunton Deane long course aquathlon.
I’ve just got back from lovely 30 mile bike ride around the
lanes of East Devon. It’s a glorious, sunny day today and there is almost a
feel of spring in the air. Hopefully that is the worst of winter behind us, but
escaping for 2 ½ weeks and heading to sunnier climbs has definitely helped to
get me through the dark, dismal January days. I think I have definitely mastered
the art of “wintering well”: get out of the UK for as long as possible!
