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Round 6 of the ELT Grand Prix saw 7 athletes descend upon the very picturesque town of Arundel. With the race starting at 6.40am and Arundel being a few hours drive away most decided to stay locally avoiding waking up at stupid o’clock. Several of the ELT bunch decided to meet up the night before to register and go for a cheeky pre-triathlon pizza (new club tradition??).

It was a cold early start on Sunday morning with an early race brief before the long walk up to the swim start. The swim course was a 200m upstream swim followed by a 1300m downstream swim. As always Liam O’Mahoney made a last minute dash to get to the swim start just before the gun went off. Liam, Chris Tait and Dan Fish were the first to go off in the Under 30 waves with George Tidmarsh, James Swift, Patrick Farrenn and Lawrence Shafier going off in subsequent waves.

It was a fast start start and Chris Tait pulled away in the front pack. Unfortunately for him the race organisers made a massive error and hadn’t put out the buoy which we were meant to swim around before heading back in the opposite direction. As Chris made his way up the river he was met with a loud ‘you’ve gone to far!’ from the safety boats before all the other athletes caught up with him with a look of puzzlement and confusion. We believe the total swim distance for the first waves was about 1900m, a tad extra for an Olympic Distance.

The bike course was a rolling 40km one lap course through the countryside surrounding arundel. However, to get there you had to cycle along a dual carriageway with cars going past at least 70 miles per hour. With it being an early start it should have been fairly easy for traffic to negotiate cyclists however some still chose to pass by with very little space, not a great start to the bike leg. With several long ‘climbs’ it made for a difficult course and having to adapt the typical pacing strategy so as not to blow up on the first hill. Unfortunately for Dan he had a mechanical about 25km into the bike where the derailleur decided it didn’t want to live anymore and completely fell apart bringing about Dan’s first DNF and a long wait for a van to pick him up. Liam put the strongest effort into the bike finishing the bike leg in 64 minutes with Chris Tait just 9 seconds behind.

The run was a two lap affair with a climb going out of transition and a steep downhill section that tested your nerves and your jelly legs. It was here that a lot of ground could be made up. The course looped around the castle and was across concrete, grass and trails. Once again, Liam came away with the quickest run leg of the day finishing the 10k run in 37 minutes exactly with George Tidmarsh finishing strong in 37:35.

As this was a qualifier for the European Championships in 2019 most ELT’ers put their hat in the ring to earn a coveted spot and I’m pleased to say that already Chris Tait and Lawrence Shafier have already qualified and will be representing team GB in Weert 2019! Good racing ELT!

If you haven’t read Norma’s previous blog, find it here.

After the Edinburgh marathon at the end of May, I needed to start training for triathlons again with the Vitruvian half iron man coming up on 8 September.

I had a week or so off after the marathon just to let my body recover and then I started back with the ELT weekly training – but with a special emphasis on swimming and cycling as I had been ignoring these a bit in the lead up to the marathon.

Unfortunately, I needed to have an operation on my nose which meant I could not swim for a couple of weeks so that set my training back a bit. However, I was able to cycle and so it gave me a chance to start doing a couple of long cycle rides a week. Having fully recovered from the operation, I got back into the swimming in the pool during the week and at Stubbers at the weekend.

My only triathlon race this summer was the London Triathlon on 5 August where I did the “Olympic Plus” event which is basically an Olympic distance but with an extra long bike ride (1500m swim; 80km bike; 12km run). It was a good event but a very hot day so I struggled a bit on the run. I finished in 4 hr 39 mins (3rd in my age group) but it made me realize that I needed to up my training for Vitruvian.

I now have a 4 week training plan in place in the lead up to Vitruvian so hopefully if I manage to get through that training over the next few weeks I will be well prepared for trying to complete Vitruvian on 8 September (without being the last to finish!)

If you haven’t read part 1 of Norma’s journey, read it here.

My training this year has been interrupted quite a few times with injury and illness. In particular, I have had a problem with my Achilles tendon that has meant I have been prevented from running for a few weeks and have only recently got back to running longer distances with my ankle strapped.

I had been planning on keeping up the training for both the marathon and the half Ironman in parallel but the reality of daily life, especially with training interrupted by injury and moving house has meant I have only really had enough time to focus on the running in preparation for the marathon. I will have to take one event at a time!

My typical training schedule from around February – March was:

• Try and go swimming once or twice a week
• Go to the gym once or twice a week
• Go running 2-3 times a week with one of those being a longer run (15km plus). Sometimes also doing the ELT track session (once every other week)

I have only managed to do one bike ride this year (Easter weekend) and may not get back into that until after the marathon at the end of May as it is quite difficult to fit in a long run for the marathon training and then do a long bike ride the next day! So far my longest run has been 26km. The longer the run the more challenging it is to decide where to go. So for this run I got the tube to Westminster, started at the Houses of Parliament and ran home to Buckhurst Hill. The long run distances step up from here over the next few weeks. The London marathon is provided a bit of inspiration although I hope it is not as hot in Edinburgh. 2 weeks to go until the marathon and I will have to worry about the half ironman training after that!

Swimming on the 31st March 2018 is cancelled due to the pool being closed.

Swimming will resume as normal on the 3rd April.

Are you training for a triathlon this summer? Are you a novice swimmer and need to work on your swimming technique thereby improving your confidence in the water?

Every Thursday ELT will be running a novice swim session at 8pm at the College Pool in Walthamstow.

The session will be led by a British Triathlon Level 3 coach in which you will do a range of drills and a little bit of swimming with no planned target speed or distance.

You can relax in the knowledge that you can go at your own pace as you build confidence and ability.

Daniel
ELT Chairman