Year: 2012

  • European Tri Champs, coming up

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    Sam
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    It’s Tuesday. We’re all back at work after a nice Easter break. Next Tuesday I’m off to Israel! It’s my first A-race of the year, and a pretty big one at that. The European Triathlon Championships for us age-groupers (i.e. amateurs) is on the Friday and Saturday next week, in the sunny, hot and often…

  • 150-odd days in the life of an age grouper triathlete

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    Sam
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    I’ve been taking a photo a day of something training or racing related for the last 150 odd days and putting them up on Flickr as a bit of a 365 project. I started when I began preparing for the 2012 season, and as I train every day I thought I’d snap something as a…

  • Swim drills & confounding the Garmin 910XT

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    Sam
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    The Garmin 910XT measures your indoor swim training distance by counting the lengths you swim. You tell it how long the pool is and it does the maths. It can get confused if you change stroke mid-length or don’t swim normal strokes. I tried it out with some sculling drills today and it was fine…

  • Mumbles Duathlon 2012

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    Sam
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    Wow, what a morning. What a day. What a weekend! The Mumbles Duathlon is a short, interesting race in a fantastic location, in my back yard and right on my training grounds. The start and finish is at Knab Rock in Mumbles, and the weather (even at 6 in the morning) was fantastic. Blue sky,…

  • Garmin swim data

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    Sam
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    Look at this, the Garmin 910XT works really well for me in the pool: Bang on for number of lengths, distance, and probably strokes per length given the metronomic 23 strokes per length throughout this session. That’s just for one arm though, so you have to double it up for the accepted standard of strokes…

  • A new training partner

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    Sam
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    Check me out, with my state of the art gadge! My longest running sponsors, mum & dad (& my brother & sister), bought me the brand new Garmin 910XT multisport watch for my birthday! Thanks everybody! As I train on my own and often these things are my constant and primary companions. Sometimes you set…

  • Time for a cold bath

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    Sam
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    I’m back from this morning’s race (the Mumbles duathlon – I’ll write up a thing later) and I eventually got myself into a cold bath, and then a hot shower. Ideally it would be an ice bath and a hot bath, but this is the routine that is the best mix of convenience and effective…

  • Early season races

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    Sam
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    The first races of the season can be the most nervy. Right now I’ve got a lot of, erm, anticipation for a fairly minor race in my overall season. It’s a good thing. I love feeling like this. I guess it’s a bit like the first night of a new play that you’ve been working…

  • Pre-Mumbles Duathlon

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    Sam
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    Aha – I just got my entry into the Mumbles Duathlon in time. The latest email says over 200 people will be at Knab Rock for the 7.30am start on Saturday morning. I’m guessing that will spell the end of the good weather… The “long” course is a 5km run with a 32km bike and…

  • Still hungry

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    Sam
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    I’ve almost finished my fifth block of training in preparation for the 2012 triathlon season and I’m still looking forward to getting out on my bike and loving the early morning runs. Not bad, eh? The recent sunny weather and strong fitness probably help, but loving the training is a great sign. Ok, the hill…