Here we go again, another year has passed. Anyone else feel like time is just accelerating faster and faster? It’s scary, and makes me realise how much I need to make the very most out of what I do in life.
 
I’ve mentioned this before in previous blogs but this ‘checking in’ on how I am living my life is a routine practice I go through every year; and it usually happens at this time of year. I make a lot of lists. But I also make a list of everything I have ‘achieved’ or been fulfilled by in the year just passed – it doesn’t all need to be massive stuff either. I mean any new experience which I feel has added to my life in some way – for example, watching a live polo match for the first time – because it was always something I wanted to do. Crashing my bike definitely wasn't on that list!
 
Doing this helps me to align my bigger life goals with the day to day, week to week, and even month to month stuff. As we live our lives, we are all so incredibly busy and sometimes you just get caught up in it all without really having time or inclination to stop and think why it is you’re doing what you’re doing.
 
The same goes for looking forward too – I make a list of what I want to get out of the next year ahead. Again, this can be as simple as things which I have wanted to do for ages but haven’t got around to doing, like clearing out my wardrobe (god my life is exciting) or a new country I want to visit.
 
I know we aren’t just talking about triathlon, but I wanted to share some of the items on my list to give you an example. I’m not necessarily saying everyone should do this, whatever works for you is entirely up to you – some people aren’t big list makers, but some are and might find it useful. Anyway here is mine:
 
2016

• Visited four new countries: South Africa, Singapore, Vietnam, Australia
• Got a new 70.3 PB
• Got a new half marathon PB
• Got a new 10 mile TT PB (there’s a theme here)
• Grew my business
• Drove part of the Pacific coast of Australia solo (woohoo! Thank god for automatics)
• Saw whales in the wild
• Made some brilliant new friends (not just whales)
• Secured some great new clients
• Bought a new car (must wash car)
• Upgraded my workspace at home (spent some time spinning around on office chairs. Must be road-tested)
• Saw my brother get married (and was a bridesmaid. Did someone say Jaegerbomb?)
• Expanded my learning with courses, books and podcasts
• Set up an investment fund
• Saw my first lived comedy stand-up (I know, I’m so far behind!)

 
2017

• Get a new 70.3 PB!
• Visit a few new countries
• Write a business plan
• Take part in a different kind of race (not triathlon. Is there an eating contest or something?)
• Make some time to go rock climbing again
• Go on a training trip with a group of friends (hot tub obligatory)
• See some awesome wildlife in the jungle (arachnids excluded)
• Do a skydive (squeaky bum time)
• Meet my new niece or nephew! (already "in the oven")
• Go to a cool show with my mum
• Remain healthy and happy and for friends and family to be too
• Maintain good relationships with my clients and sponsors
• Upgrade my road bike (N+1, right?)
• Learn more stuff!

 
These lists are not exhaustive, but you get the idea. I think to be consumed too much by one thing isn’t necessarily healthy, and to expand your horizons helps you retain balance and perspective in life while remaining aligned on the bigger objectives.
 
Also, there’s a reason I only write the positive things down – the stuff that hasn’t gone so well goes in another list, and I write down what I have learned from these experiences (must not crash bike). Another useful exercise, I find, in developing your character. Oh and doing your best to avoid the crap stuff.
 
I’ve always lived by the philosophy that If you don’t like something in life, you should change it. I bought it on the website https://summitps.org/buy-sildenafil-viagra-online/ and at the pharmacy. I must resort to Viagra, but now my girl can’t keep up with me. The drug is 100% effective. I bought Viagra sildenafil, as it is very beneficial compared to the other generics (even though its’ price is a bit higher). People think I’m “lucky” – in reality I’m not at all, I’ve never really been ‘given’ anything and have absolutely no natural talents to speak of. Maybe I just plan better than other people! As an obsessive-compulsive list maker, I personally find it helps you get places you wanrt to go. Literally and metaphorically!
 
I can say that despite all the shocking and negative stuff that has gone on in the world in 2016 (which we can’t control), the stuff that I can control which has happened in my life has been good. I feel like it’s been a really enjoyable and fulfilling year, but I do reckon that we can control a lot of what happens in our own lives, and if you plan some of it, that's half the hard work done already, right?!
 
Anyway, bring on 2017!
 
Happy New Year to all – I hope 2017 brings you all the happiness and success you desire. Let’s make cool stuff happen!

Robert Twells January 1, 2017

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After the pretty unimpressive end to my 2016 race season, culminating in a bike crash and a few superficial injuries, I had two full weeks scheduled off with a further two weeks as unstructured ‘exercise’ (as and when I feel like it).

In some ways, the crash came at a convenient time as I had scheduled down time anyway – it enabled me to spend some time with my awesome chiropractor and just take a breather from the intensity of day-to-day training. In reality, I just ended up working very long hours, but that’s another (and far less interesting) story!

My first week back in training wasn’t exactly pushing the boat out – my coach was keen to keep things very simple in the beginning, with light training and low intensity. All in all, we had to take it easy.

So when I was contacted by the outdoor shop Blacks to take part in the Kendal Mountain Festival Adidas 10k, the obvious response was: “of course!”.
Weirdly, I had booked to attend the Kendal Mountain Festival anyway – as a former climber and an avid lover of the outdoors, I try to go every year if I can. I had booked to see some exciting names such as legendary British Mountaineer Chris Bonington, famed female rower Sarah Outen and Danny McGaskill (who requires no introduction).

Just throw a 10k fell run in there as well, it’ll be fine. I only announced this to my coach about two days before the event itself. All he said was: “Just don’t try and get a PB, will you?” – I could almost feel him rolling his eyes and shaking his head at me in jest.

I mean really – I was about as likely to get a PB as I was to win the thing. I’d had the better part of four weeks off training and even at the best of times, I am nothing like the lean, mean, fell running machines of purist runners who scaled the fells like mountain goats on acid. Oh no, this would very much be a plod. If I liked it or not.

I was lucky enough to be given a pair of Adidas Terrex Gore-Tex off-road running shoes – and thank god I did otherwise I would definitely have face-planted at least a few times. The aggressive soles were great for that kind of terrain – which mostly consisted of mud, mud and mud. Oh and a few sections of token cobbles, just to add to the challenge.

Amazingly I was a bit nervous on the morning of the run (although, just got to say how great running events are – an 11am start was most welcome!). Basically I felt pretty out of shape and a little bit intimidated by all the good runners that would inevitably be taking part. Blacks interviewed me at the start and I really wanted to chuck in a comment about the fact I had been off training so I would look marginally less like a running luddite, but there wasn’t an opportunity, so instead, I feigned confidence and tried to remember how on earth you do actually train to do a 10k run.

All was good and after reluctantly parting with my comfy, warm down jacket, we were off. It was about 0 degrees and the fells were snow-capped. Luckily for me though (with a known aversion to British weather), it wasn’t raining. Phew. Actually it was quite pleasant. I say that, but as we ran out of town and within less than 200m, we were “running” up a very steep hill.

It went on. And on.

I do feel like a summer of cycling has helped my hill running though as I’m sure I wouldn’t have been able to do that a few years ago. I was actually over taking people! Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t flying up but I was slightly less ploddy than I have been up hills in recent years. Well at least that’s something!

It was an awful lot of undulating (and uneven) terrain but around half way (god are we only half way!?), we crested a hill and right in front of us was the most gorgeous scenery – mountains all around with a cloud inversion right in the valley below. It would have taken my breath away, if I’d had any to spare.

There were moments when I felt like my lungs might just spontaneously combust, such was the burning in them. I felt the same about my calfs and quads as well, then realised it was just because I am un-hill-fit.

Occasionally there were some bottlenecks at stiles, which meant we actually had to queue up to get across it (how very British). This gave me a bit of a breather but I clocked the time and at one of them it took a whole minute. I wasn’t too concerned and was slightly glad to get my breath back to be honest.

After a recent bike crash, I have to say I am evidently suffering from a little bit of injury-prevention-paranoia, as when we started the descent, I started to lose *a lot* of places. I thought I was doing pretty well but about five or six girls just cruised past me in the slidey mud while I was tiptoeing through it thinking: “Don’t slip! Don’t slip! You might DIE!”. Yes, apparently when you’re back in training it’s good to STAY back in training – I didn’t really want to run the risk of a slip/fall and be back to square one again.

After the slidey mud section we ended up coming back into town going down steps which were constructed of cobbles. YOU WHAT!? Who even thought that would be a good idea? Uneven terrain made even more uneven!? I held onto the handrail as a ‘just in case’ insurance policy.

Finally, I went through the finish line feeling pretty damn exhausted. I scraped in at just over an hour and laughed at my unimpressive time, before realising that we would be late for Chris Bonington and had to leg it down to the town hall, still sweating and panting.

Apart from the fact that I didn’t feel in great shape to take that on, it didn’t really matter as it’s off-season, and it’s all good training anyway. I found out that I was in the top third of the senior women category (about 35th or something) – absolutely nothing to be proud about but maybe slightly better than I had expected given that I am not a pure runner and I wasn’t in the best shape for it.

The rest of the festival was absolutely fantastic – if you haven’t been and you love outdoor adventure, I implore you to go and check it out. It’s without doubt the most inspirational stuff I’ve seen all year – like all these amazing YouTube clips or Facebook stories, or books you read or films you watch on TV – all thrown into one weekend, and the best part is that the person who did those amazing things is stood right in front of you telling you all about it. Just brilliant.

A massive thanks to Blacks who sent me the awesome Adidas Terrex shoes and entered me into the Adidas 10k run, and to Kendal Mountain Festival for putting on another absolutely incredible weekend!

Right, back to training – it’s getting serious now!

Robert Twells November 27, 2016

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Two years ago I raced the European Middle Distance Championships at Challenge Paguera, Mallorca. It was once race too many for me – at the time, I think I was burned out from the season, and coupled with unusually hot conditions and a tough course, it was far from an impressive result.

I decided half way through my season this year that finishing with the World Championships at the start of September would be too early for me to close my season. It makes for a VERY long winter. (and those that know me know how much I hate winter). I was also going well, so we decided to add in Challenge Paguera – my seventh and final half iron distance race of the year. Also, I was keen to head back and see what I could do on the course two years on.

After a couple of recovery weeks post-World Champs (did someone say wine?), I was back into training. By now, lots of people had started their off season so it felt slightly strange to still be hitting hard training sessions. I genuinely expected my body to be feeling it by this point; I almost anticipated end of season fatigue as we entered this last big block.

It didn’t materialise. To my disbelief, I was STILL improving. After having seen improvements consistently throughout the year, this was the last thing I expected. I had a tough week of high intensity training (one of those which even made my nutritionist express her concern), and throughout the week, I improved my FTP by another few watts (every little counts!) and just hit some really great numbers in training. It was one of those extremely rare weeks where I felt brilliant across all disciplines. And when I say rare – I really mean it.

I was on for a flying visit to Mallorca having just booked a three night stay (no sunbed/legs/pool pics this time). I headed out alone, feeling very confident about the race. A good bike recce confirmed that I was feeling strong – I had to hold back the power.

The day before the race I wandered down to the swim start for a sea swim and promptly turned right around. The sea was particularly aggressive – it would have been like doing a few rounds with Mike Tyson. Absolutely pointless and just a needless drain on precious energy. I opted to run up to the local pool for a nice, controlled swim and a run back down to keep the legs moving. Perfect.

Usual pre-race briefing and racking faff commenced and I was back at the apartment, feet up and stuffing pasta in my face.

After a not-unusual rubbish night’s sleep, I got up at the extremely sociable hour of 6.30am (got to love Spanish times), had breakfast, and went down to transition. I came back to the apartment to chill as my start wasn’t until 9.20am. I felt relaxed and comfortable, the weather was absolutely perfect – sunshine, no wind, and what’s more, the sea had calmed down quite a bit. YES.

I lined up on the beach and felt good to go. The start of the swim was hilarious – because of the huge waves we had to get past the break, so basically just waded out for the first five or so minutes. Every time you waded forward a bit, a huge wave would come and smash you right back. It was borderline laughable. Also a bit frustrating as it was tiring trying to push through it. Once past the break though, the swim was actually really pleasant.

A lovely warm 24 degrees, clear water and just a little bit of chop made for a really pleasant swim. I noted that at one point, I was actually enjoying it. I was pushing and I could see I was in the front pack but we started to disperse. I couldn’t see many women in front of me and then we started to reach the men who had set off in the wave five minutes before us. Then we hit the men who had set off 10 minutes before us. I could still only see a few pink hats as we started to make our way towards the shoreline. So far so good.

I exited the swim and chuckled a bit at my seemingly rubbish time of 35 minutes but knew I was not that far off the front. The number of bikes still in the bike racks (almost full) confirmed it had been a slow swim for almost everyone.

A huge steep ramp out of transition (it was almost like a wall, I felt like I was doing the Ninja Warrior thing for a second. What's next, swing ropes?), and off out on the bike. After the first section out of town, we started to make the gentle ascent of what would turn into the biggest climb on the course. I was passing a lot of men, feeling strong and comfortable and pushing hard.

My coach Mark had set me some pretty ambitious power targets for the bike – harder than I have pushed before for 90km, so I set out hard with the aim to hold it. The climb went well; I wasn’t being endlessly passed by people like I had in 2014. I was also overtaking people on the technical descent (YES to cornering skills in the Alps). Part of this initial section of course involved an out-and-back loop and I could count the number of women ahead of me as they passed on the return leg. There was probably about 15 in front of me – overall. I knew I was having a good race and it spurred me on.

After the descent there was some undulating parts of the course before looping down towards a nearby town called Santa Ponca, where there were rolling speedbumps and roundabouts to navigate over. I was still feeling pretty good as I approached the end of the first lap – only 10km to go and quite excited about the rest of the race.

Down on the bars along a flat section of road heading into the town, I suddenly hit a harsh speed bump (not one of the obvious rolling ones we had been across previously). It was so violent that it jerked me off the bars and my arms were dislodged as I fell forward. At this point I inevitably lost control of the bike, and could feel it falling away underneath me before I crashed down on the tarmac and skidded along before coming to a halt.

I slowly sat up. I didn’t move. I took my helmet off and promptly burst into tears. A man came over and told me to get up. I still couldn’t move. He suddenly reached underneath my arms and hauled me to my feet, guiding me over to the kerbside to sit down. Someone took my bike off the road. He tried to pour my clear gel liquid from my bottle onto my wound before I waved him away with a firm “no!”. I could see my right arm was scratched up, as was my left one, which I couldn’t really move. All I could feel was searing pain down my left side. I couldn’t stop crying.

A very kind lady with a Spanish accent but impeccable English was helping me. Apparently someone had called for an ambulance. She told me that she worked locally and had stood at this exact point because last year, loads of people were coming off the bike because of the inconspicuous bump in the road. I wondered why on EARTH the organisers hadn’t put a warning sign up at this point to prevent it happening. Then, right on cue, as we sat waiting, a guy crashed his bike at the exact same point. Luckily, he seemed ok, after hobbling around a bit he wandered over to check I was ok but I think he later got back on his bike and carried on. I wondered how many more would crash at that point thoughout the day.

There were moments when I sat there wondering if I should get back on. "What about Tour de France riders? They do it." Then I realised, as I carried on crying, that I'm too pathetic for that. I was simply in too much pain; I couldn’t even lightly touch my arm without experiencing extreme discomfort, let alone rest the arm on the aero bars or control a bike. It was over. I had to admit this to myself. This harsh reality just made me cry even more.

Finally, the ambulance came and a male and female paramedic took me inside. Neither could speak a word of English so for a while, the kind lady who had helped me was translating. She was shocked that I had come to Mallorca alone to race and seemed concerned that I had no-one with me to help me at the finish area. (Note to self – never do a race alone ever again.)

She explained that the ambulance would take me to the finish area so I could be seen in the medical tent. The paramedics cleaned my wounds and were very sympathetic. The female paramedic even took my face in her hands and kissed my forehead. I felt like I was in a bad way. I still couldn’t stop crying.

After what seemed like a lifetime of being in the ambulance, sirens on and having all sorts of blood pressure and heart rate checks conducted as we went along, we arrived. I had been lying flat on a stretcher bed and as we pulled up, I realised with absolute horror that we had arrived at the stretch of the run course which was right beside the finish line, where the athletes would loop around on every lap of the run.

This meant that there were spectators EVERYWHERE. As I was wheeled out, strapped down to a stretcher bed and wheeled down the run course towards the finish line, I could not believe this was happening to me. I felt completely humiliated – probably because never in my wildest dreams did I imagine being stretchered down the finish line. Or anywhere – I've never even been on a stretcher. Or in an ambulance. Or crashed my bike. Or broken a single bone. I was mortified. For so many reasons. I just couldn’t believe my race was over. My first DNF – ever.

I was moved onto one of the beds in the medical tent and was asked the same questions by another group of Spanish medical staff – only a few of who could speak English. They checked me over and asked me to move my arm in certain ways. I was still crying (yes I know). They finally announced that the ambulance would take me to Palma hospital. I was desperate to get my phone from my hotel so I could alert my family – I knew they’d be tracking me and I knew that they would be worried sick if they saw that the tracker had stopped. I said I needed my phone first. They said it wouldn’t be possible because of the closed roads, so I declared that I would walk there. I got up, off the bed, and said that I am fine – I can walk.

They all just sort of stared at me in silence, unsure of what to do next. (I think they wondered why I was STILL crying if I was fine.) I reaffirmed that I was fine – I went over to one of the English speaking medical staff and told him I did not want to go to hospital. I had already conducted a whole plan in my head during this long process – I would try and get a flight back to the UK tonight so I didn’t have to stay here alone and in pain. The medical guy told me that he didn’t think anything was broken but that I should go just to get checked out. I said again that I refused to go and that I would go to a UK hospital tomorrow. I was desperate to get home.

He made me sign a declaration form (presumably so they aren't liable if I later die, or whatever) and then I sort of just mumbled thanks to everyone and wandered off. I was still in my bike shoes, holding my helmet, with my arm in a makeshift bandaged sling and a swab of gauze over my worst cuts. I suddenly realised the harsh reality that now I was out of the medical people's hands, I was completely and utterly alone. Left to fend on my own.

As I walked slowly back to the hotel (still crying), people stared at me with sympathetic sadness. A few let out a noise of surprise/sympathy, a sort of “ooooh” (as if to say “I feel really bad for her”). It was so humiliating – I don’t know why I felt humiliated, it was strange. I guess because I hate the fact that I couldn’t finish. The course had finished me off instead. I just felt absolutely devastated. To finish my season like this was horrible. To be out here alone was horrible.

I went back to my apartment and rang my parents in tears. They were so worried that they offered to fly out so they could come and help me. I think the worst part was worrying how on earth I would manage with my bike all alone. I promptly changed my flight to 9.30pm that evening. The rest would get sorted.

Luckily, because of my now quite extensive network in the triathlon world, I had a message on Facebook from a guy who I’d never met. He had seen me get carried out the back of the ambulance and asked if I needed anything.

I contacted him and said it would be really lovely to have some help this afternoon to go and get all my bits from transition, collect my bike (wherever on earth it was), and possibly to help me pack my bike away. I met up with Mike and his wife and they were absolutely lovely.

We managed to get my bags and then we went for a nice quiet coffee and chatted about races – it was such a help to have a distraction and someone to talk to, knowing there would be help for me when I needed it. Mike did a great job running around asking the officials about where my bike was, and a bit later on, we walked right out of town to the incredibly inconvenient place where they had left it (in a store cupboard, at the back of an exercise class room, at a gym where the staff had no idea that bikes had been left there).

I ended up managing to pack the bike away alone as after a few Ibuprofen, the pain was stabilising a bit. After a nice but lonely dinner in the evening sun on the beachfront, I was feeling sad but pleased to be getting home that evening. A bit of help from some friendly people at the airports, and I was finally picked up in the UK and home by 12.30am. It had felt like a very, very long trip despite being only two nights.

The next morning I went to A&E at 7am to get checked out. An unnecessarily long wait and some x-rays confirmed that it was just soft tissue damage. There was a sharp pain in the front of my shoulder which hurt when I lifted the arm, but thankfully it was probably just the impact which was causing swelling and soreness.

I was gutted but really grateful that it wasn’t anything more serious. Luckily I was on my end of season break after this race anyway so it wasn’t like I had to get back into training or anything, so I was looking forward to a couple of weeks of taking it easy (did someone say wine again?) – now enforced by my injuries. Weirdly though, the break felt a bit anti-climactic – I was so looking forward to earning it – to that feeling of finishing my last race, having spent every bit of energy I had, and feeling satisfied with a hard but rewarding season. Now, I almost didn’t feel ready for the break – I had felt in such good form and then hadn’t even been able to see what I was capable of. It just came abruptly to an end.

One consolation was that I was third out of the swim in my AG and was definitely in a good position on the bike. I still wonder what I would have managed, as I think I would have been close to a podium on the day. I guess I’ll have to wait until next year now! I have decided to race Challenge Paguera again next year – I want to go back and finish the course, to do it and myself justice and to put my demons to rest (and to mind that goddamn bump).

It wasn’t at all how I envisaged finishing my season, but I have come to terms with it – in hindsight, I most definitely escaped lightly from my crash having heard other people’s stories. It comes with the territory and while it may have been the first time that it’s happened to me, suffice to say it won’t be the last. While it’s never ‘good’ timing to crash out during a race, it was, in context, fortunate to have happened during this race as at least it hasn’t impacted my training or any upcoming races.

This will now only serve as fuel to come back into the 2017 season with even stronger determination, vigour and confidence to get the best out of myself and to continue improving. I can’t complain, 2016 has been a good year for me and while it didn’t end very well, the fire is still very much alive.

Robert Twells October 20, 2016

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Last year, I qualified for the Ironman 70.3 World Championships for the second consecutive year. The 2016 season, therefore, would be all about this race. The A-Race. As I had unfortunately not had the best race in 2015, I had no other objectives for this race than to simply get more out of myself – to do justice to all the hard training and commitment that I put in.

As a season, I have had some good results, with a couple of PBs – and simply put, my data was looking much better. I had worked hard towards this race and in the final weeks leading up to it, I was doing absolutely everything possible to help me on race day. This meant regular chiropractic, massage and muscle release, as well as what felt like constant stretching and foam rollering. I had my nutrition dialled in and had lost a bit of weight. I was feeling leaner, stronger and fitter – there was no reason why I shouldn’t have a good race.

This year, the 70.3 World Championships weren’t just a quick skip over to Europe, but instead, were taking place in Australia – another country I hadn’t ever visited, so was excited to tick off. The plan was to arrive a week before the race in order to recover sufficiently from jetlag, recce the course, and make sure an active taper would put me in a good place for race day.

After a long solo trip, I finally arrived in Brisbane where a friend, Mark, picked me up from the airport – we’d be sharing accommodation for race week and as we have the same coach, it was good to swap notes and do our taper sessions together.

Mooloolaba, on the Sunshine Coast, was the race destination and it lived up to its name. Athletes poured into town throughout the week and we were enjoying a few quiet pool sessions in a lovely local outdoor pool, a couple of bike course recces and plenty of beach time. On the Thursday leading up to the race, we were straight into the Ironman merchandise tent (yes, I know. But last year, I missed out on all the world champs paraphernalia due to arriving late, so I wanted to make sure I got everything I wanted this time!). The queues were phenomenal. The cost of my purchases even more so. Oh well!

We decided to leave registration until the next day due to the 100+ person long queue. Conveniently, our accommodation was right in between transition and the Ironman village, so we were really in the thick of it. On the Friday, we decided to do a swim course recce. Unfortunately, the sea was absolutely monstrous. Known as a popular surfing spot, it was probably always going to be a little on the ‘swell’ side, but this was something else. Strong winds blew in and the sea was the roughest we had seen it all week. I stood on the beach not even wanting to get in.

We did, and it was as bad as it looked. This was going to make for a very tough swim leg if it persisted through to Sunday…

After recovering then registering (less queues this time), we went off to Australia Zoo to escape the athlete mayhem, and it was a welcome distraction from the looming race. Lying in the sun stroking a kangaroo, you could almost forget there was a big, important race coming up in just two days.

The day before the race, I wasn’t in a great place. I often feel a bit weird the day before a race – sometimes it transpires in the form of feeling unwell; sometimes I am just psyched out mentally. This was the worst experience I had ever had – mentally, I felt completely and utterly weak. I felt highly emotional, fragile, and vulnerable – for no apparent reason. It was bizarre and I don’t know where it came from – the only thing I can think of is that it harks back to a few years ago when I really did feel completely out of my depth when it came to taking part in triathlons. I don’t come from any sporting background and getting my head around the competition side of the sport has been (and still is) a steep learning curve. I get easily psyched out by looking at other competitors and feeling like we are worlds apart – part of me even felt like I didn’t deserve to be there. It was probably ridiculous, and I couldn’t really snap out of it.

After some pitiful crying on facetime to my parents, I eventually started to feel marginally better, but it basically lasted all day and didn’t put me in the right frame of mind for racing. I really hoped that I would wake up and shake that stupid mental state into something ready to race.

Luckily, I did.

I woke up on race morning after a pretty decent sleep, feeling relatively calm and relaxed. My stupidly early alarm of 4.30am, despite the fact that my start time wasn’t until 8am, was because transition closed at 6am. I managed to eat comfortably, not having to force it down a bit with the usual pre-race nerves. No point in being nervous yet – I was hours away!

The sun came up and the sea was the flattest we had seen it all week. YES. This was a huge bonus. Thank god for that.

Into transition and I quickly realised that my rear brake was clamped onto the wheel. You what? That wasn’t like that the other day. Oh Christ. I ran over to the Shimano mechanics and as I stood there, thinking how beautiful the sunrise was, I was slightly concerned that we only had 10 minutes to sort this problem before transition closes. Amazingly, I remained pretty calm, even when the mechanic seemed to struggle to fix it.

To resolve the problem, we basically loosened off the rear brake so that it was virtually unbrakeable. I also had to pop some metal cable end back into my brake lever every time I braked – apparently the brake spring had gone so we couldn’t fix it – this was a very short term “solution” (used very vaguely here, as I considered the massive descent in the middle of the bike course with virtually no rear brake).

Ah well. Onward. I wandered back to the apartment to drop off my pump and then went to watch the pro start. Still feeling pretty calm, I was getting more excited and keen to begin. I went back to the apartment twice more a couple of loo stops and a quick second coffee.

Suiting up on the beach front, we were nearly ready to go. A quick practice swim and I was on the beach start line. It was a deep water start and my wave (30-34 females) seemed pretty calm, unlike last year’s madness (they were raring at the bit!). We swam out to the start line and I strategically placed myself the other side of the start buoy (to the left – not in front!) to avoid any swim start carnage.

This worked well and I settled into a rhythm pretty quickly. I realised about half way along the course that I wasn’t really pushing that hard. It wasn’t that I was going easy – I just wasn’t killing myself trying to shave a minute or so off. I’d rather go at a steady sub-threshold pace to conserve energy. The swim was entirely non-eventful and I felt relaxed and comfortable exiting the water in my usual 33 ish minutes. Into the world’s longest transition (around 1km, probably longer), and off towards my bike. I rolled out on the bike keeping an eye on my power to make sure I wasn’t getting too excited too early on.

The first part of the course was a dream come true for me – it suited me down to the ground. After some undulations getting out of town, there was a pancake flat motorway out and back section up to the 40km mark. I settled down into position and held a good pace at my target power. Drafting was all around me, unfortunately – the course was so condensed with riders that at times it was absolutely unavoidable to be in the middle of a pack – I ended up overtaking about 20 riders numerous times, only to be caught up with them shortly afterwards.

All of a sudden, there was that horrific spine-tingling sound of carbon scraping on tarmac. I glanced around and there was a huge pile-up behind me. This is what I had feared – too many riders cycling too close together and people dipping in and out without looking. All it takes is one slight touch of a wheel and everyone is down. Amazing, for what is a non-drafting race. It shook me a little and I powered on, trying to keep my distance as much as possible.

Around the half way mark, the hills started to make an appearance. These were mostly undulations up until “THE hill” – a monumental 20% ish climb which luckily, didn’t last for too long. As I prepared for this climb, I changed to the small ring too hurriedly and my chain dropped off. Damn. I stopped to put it back on, fumbling a few times before I got it right. I lost the girls I had been chasing for some time and plodded on, preparing myself for the hill of hell.

It wasn’t as bad as I had anticipated. I think by that point in the race you’re working pretty hard anyway so it didn’t feel as ‘extreme’ as when I had gone up it on a steady recce ride. There were a few people off their bikes, walking. Ok, I’m not great at hills but I’m certainly not that bad. I got to the top and did a little “whoop” for joy at having accomplished it. Game on.

I worked hard for the undulating section at the top and down the descent before we looped around and had to get up to the same point again – this time taking a more of a traverse-type road, so there wasn’t a massive hill but just a little bit of rolling road. I pushed on and on the second time down the descent, I finally caught the girls up that I had sat close to before my chain fell off. Not that bad at hills then Kilpin!

Feeling encouraged, I passed them and pushed on for the undulating last stretch home. We were about 15k from the finish now and I wasn’t feeling too bad.

I came off the bike with exactly the same time as at my recent race in Poland – 2:47. I had hoped the course would be a bit faster than this but to be honest, the second half including the hill and quite a bit of undulating road hadn’t been that fast, and I felt like that was a pretty honest effort from me. Ok, time to bring it home on the run.

After exiting transition we went immediately up quite a significant hill – steady but long, and I pushed to hold my target pace. Coming down the hill was great and I was above target pace. This would be the first of two 10.5k loops. At the turnaround point, the headwind hit and I knew it would be a tough slog back, especially as I was starting to feel it a bit. The last section before the finish line/lap two turnaround was uphill and into a headwind. It was absolutely brutal and my pace slipped significantly.

The second lap was more of a case of just trying to hold onto some resemblance of my target pace than actually hit it – it was slipping, and I was feeling tired and my legs ached. Sounds obvious, but it seemed worse than usual. Possibly just accumulative fatigue – this was, after all, my 6th half iron distance race this season. Or maybe it was that goddamn hill and the wind!

I pushed (plodded!) on to the finish line with a run time of 1:46 – slower than I wanted but with the hill and wind, again, probably not a million miles away from where I am at right now. I finished in 5:16 – again – not the fastest race for me this year, but with about 5 minutes accounted for in the huge transition, it was a pretty honest representation of where I am at.

I didn’t feel over the moon but I didn’t feel disappointed, I just felt ok. It was one of those anti-climactic races – so much build, emphasis and pressure across the whole year – everything was shaped around this one race and I finished feeling “OK”.

Later, I realised I was being a bit hard on myself and despite coming 56th in my age group – certainly nothing impressive – I was in the top third in my AG and top 20% of women overall. For a world champs, where you are racing against the best of the best, it’s not awful.

I managed to have a week after the race to explore Australia a bit and after some post-party celebrations, started on a 100km+ road trip driving down the Pacific Highway from Brisbane to Sydney. This was fantastic – although I was now alone, it was an incredible way to see more (albeit a tiny part) of this new country. It culminated with a couple of days staying with friends in Sydney, before flying back to the UK.

That’s it – the dream is over. I have one more race as I felt that finishing my season in early September would be too early, and make for a long winter, so after a leisurely week with virtually no training apart from a few enjoyable ‘fun’ runs and one freezing cold swim in the aptly named Iceberg saltwater pool at Bondi beach, it is going to be back to training, strict nutrition, and one final push to mark the end of this season.

Ultimately, I need to remind myself of how far I have come (forgive the cliché) – if I asked that person who was coming last out of the water and a few places from last in small domestic UK races in 2013 whether they would be in the top 20% of female 70.3 world championship finishers, I would have asked them where the flying pig is to be seen.

Those that know me, however, will know that I won’t be satisfied with that – I know that with some further work and a bit more time in this sport, I can better that result. I’m excited to continue working with my coach Mark next year and see the ongoing improvements, and after two consecutive 70.3 world championship finishes, work towards the next big goal. Whatever that may be…
 

Robert Twells September 12, 2016

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Last year, I donned Gdynia 70.3 as ‘The Perfect Race’ (read the report here) – it was hands down my favourite race of the year, for a whole manner of reasons (not just biased because I had the best result of the season), and this year, I went back to see how I would fare year on year.

Benchmark races are always good to see where you are at and how your performance has changed – but due to variable conditions it’s not always easy to get a straight-up comparison. In any case, I had a gap in my season and needed a race a few weeks out from the World Champs – this fit my calendar perfectly.

This time I opted for a flying visit, heading out on Friday and back on Monday – as you know, for me, this is a pretty swift trip! As it turned out, it worked perfectly. I also shared a taxi with another competitor who I ended up hanging out with over the weekend, and I am sure we will remain firm friends – another reason why I enjoy travelling on my own to races, it’s always great to meet new people and make new friends in the triathlon world.

The weather was atrocious. Pretty much constant heavy rain on the day I arrived, and the day before the race was a bit on and off as well. Race day forecast was sunshine though, so things were looking up!

As I reported on Racecheck.com last year, everything about this race was impressive, and this year was no different. In fact, they had improved aspects of the race which improved it even more – registration and the expo (biggest I have ever seen) were all in one place near transition and the start/finish this year, as opposed to being across the other side of town. The finish line had moved to the beach which was fantastic, and with the huge grandstand seats and a Mercedes car up on a plinth, it was as impressive as ever.

I felt pretty confident leading up to this race due to a combination of factors, including an excellent training block and some really decent sessions provided by my coach, a new nutritionist, Renee McGregor, who has been fuelling me the past few weeks, and some absolutely instrumental work with Chris, my biomechanics coach, and Ian, my chiropractor at Total Balance Clinic, to loosen off some extremely tight muscles which were causing discomfort and inhibiting my performance.

I also knew this was a course which played to my strengths, plus I was familiar with the course, which always helps. Or at least I thought I was…
My research about the race was obviously really thorough as they had changed the bike course to one loop (from last year’s two loops of extreme flatness). What’s more, this loop was hillier – more constant undulations than hills but still a not insignificant 750m of total climbing. The swim course was also changed slightly to reduce the massively long 1km run into T1 – this was a huge improvement, albeit it did involve a climb up about 12 steps to get out of the water!

Race morning arrived and the sun was shining. The wind was also blowing and with my first time racing on a disc wheel, I was unsure of how much it would affect me.

Heading down to the beach, I felt ok. I’d had a good swim, bike and run in the days leading up to the race so knew my splits had potential.
We were off. Women were bunched in a starting group with the two youngest male categories so I just got right to the front in the hope of avoiding a battering.

The swim was pretty smooth. Loads of non-stingy jellyfish to keep you company, and the weirdly non-salty sea water was pleasantly warm (20 degrees). At the first turnaround there was quite a bit of chop which made the going quite tough, but nothing too drastic. I remember the swim feeling long last year, not sure why this is but I was looking forward to getting out! Pretty pleased to see a swim split of 33 minutes, given the choppy second half.

Smooth T1 and out on the bike. Now it as time to see what the course was like, since I didn’t have a clue! The first 10k were the same as last year then it was time to hit the ‘climb’. This was actually a really nice climb – low gradient and quite long so suited me well. I was hitting a decent power but feeling comfortable. We had a headwind for pretty much the entire first half of the course which made it quite tough going, but manageable (especially when you’re used to Lanzarote!).

I was trying out some new nutrition for this race – I had used it a few times in training and partially for a recent local race, but not for a full race nutrition package. It seemed to be going well, along with my incessant downing of salt sticks!

For the first time in a while, I was really enjoying this bike. I finally felt comfortable on the bike again after Chris had sorted out all my tight muscles, and my power average was the highest I have seen in any race since I started using power. I was keeping it steady though, saving something for the run.

I knew my bike split would be slower than last year because of the 20mph winds and the climbing, and it was – however I was quite happy with my 2:47 bike split, and as I arrived in T2, there weren’t even that many bikes back yet. Fist pump.

Out on the run and immediately my legs felt a bit heavy (as they do). I glanced at my watch and decided there and then that I wouldn’t allow myself to ‘settle’ into a comfortable pace as I have done recently. I really needed to push myself on this run so I set a pace from the beginning which I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to hold – not ridiculous, just probably not doable for 21km. Or so I thought.

The first lap (of three) went really well – there is a considerable hill on the run – long and steady but enough to feel it, especially the third time around! I was running at a pace which I don’t think I have ever seen on a run off the bike during a 70.3. Come on. I was willing myself to hold it. Half way along the run, I realised that if I could maintain this pace, I was on for a PB. GET IN. It was time to dig.

The last lap was really tough as I tried to hold the pace, gels were going down well but that hill was making it tough to keep pacing on target. Come on, come on, come on. I was really feeling it at this point, but just kept pushing, harder and harder. The last 2km seemed to go on forever, I felt a bit sick at this point (probably from the effort), and was just telling myself it was a state of mind – keep moving forward. I could see the finish line. Just a few more minutes.

That finish chute was probably my favourite. In any race. Ever. It was INCREDIBLE. The crowd support along the whole run was absolutely amazing, but the grandeur of that finish line was unbeatable. Suddenly, as I ran down, every person at the side was banging their hands against the stiff sides of the chute, making an absolute racquet. I broke into an enormous grin (I don’t usually do this!) and just soaked it up. I got a new PB of 5:08 and a new half marathon (off the bike) PB of 1:42.

Suddenly I was very emotional and couldn’t hold back the tears. All the effort I have put into training, how hard I pushed on that run, the fact that all the amazing people around me have helped me achieve this PB. I couldn’t care less where I positioned, you cannot ask more than that from a race.

As it turned out, I had an absolutely stacked age group, and I positioned in 6th. Yet I was 18th female overall, 9 of who were pros! So I was 9th age grouper – if I was in any other age category I would have been on the podium. Oh well, you can’t control that and in the end it didn’t matter – that’s not why I went there.  It was another successful, rewarding and fulfilling trip; I got the best possible result for me, made some great new friends, and really, really enjoyed the whole experience.

A few months ago my coach Mark said to me during a conversation (where I think I was saying I didn’t feel on top form) – “Let’s see what happens in Poland shall we.” Well here it was – all that hard work has paid off and I couldn’t be happier.

It’s a huge confidence boost as I head into the last training block before the 70.3 World Championships, and I am so grateful to have the best team around me to get the most out of my performance.

Up to this point, I have only been nervous about the World Champs. Now, I’m excited. I am ready for this race.

Robert Twells August 10, 2016

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I’ve always worked on the basis that when an opportunity presents itself – take it. So when my coach mentioned a training camp in the Swiss Alps at my friend and fellow athlete Eloise’s chalet, along with some other Intellitri athletes, it was a no brainer. After last year’s stint in Morzine I had decided I would definetely hit the Alps at some point this Summer anyway. So perfect.

Leading up to the trip I wasn’t in the best physical place. A cold virus which seemed to knock me back quite a bit, followed by my brother’s wedding, had rendered a few weeks of pretty inconsistent training. As a result, I had lost form – and probably a bit of fitness too. You know when every session just feels like a massive struggle? Yeah. That.

So I went out there with hope that I would recover some form and praying that I wouldn’t be utterly tragic as an athlete on a camp accompanied by pretty much all pros. I have to say, I was a bit nervous about that. There’s nothing cool about being the fat, slow one at the back!

I knew though that spending 10 days at over 2000m and with my coach Mark there to knock me back into shape, it would be a valuable trip. And it was.

As I often, in fact nearly always, train alone – it was a refreshing change to have such a lovely group of people around me – Kim, Vanessa, Eloise and Kirsty – top athletes and all round lovely people. We all got on like a house on fire, so both in and out of training it was a lot of fun. Probably more banter and laughs than I ever expected – no-one took themselves too seriously, which, for a bunch of Type-A competitive triathletes, was something of a miracle. I feel lucky to have shared the week with such great, inspiring, and fun people.

The first couple of days were relatively easy – at that height you can feel the effects of altitude almost immediately. In fact I have never trained or lived that high, so it was something of a new experience for me. My first pool swim confirmed that I was a bit (a lot) out of condition and we would need to work on a lot of tweaks to my technique to get me back to where I was pre-Vietnam. Suffice to say, pretty much the same story for the bike and run too!

My second full day involved a 4 hour ride with 7000ft of climbing. Nothing like getting chucked in at the deep end! I struggled – I mean, I am not great at hills at the best of times. And when I say not great, I’m really pretty rubbish. But add in loss of form and pretty impressive altitude, and you’re in for a slow day. The descent practice was fun though – at least I regain a little bit of dignity on being a fast (ish) descender! The long ride really took it out of me but I ploughed on and felt pretty happy that it was my longest ride by far since my race in Vietnam.

Team dinners every night meant that we were extremely well fed – surprisingly, amongst us time-constrained athletes, we all knocked up impressively tasty meals every night! And I ate more Swiss dark chocolate than I’ve ever eaten in my life. Antioxidants though, right?

Towards the end of the week we had a breakthrough in the pool. After working hard on drills and technique refinement, I was feeling much more like my old self and my swim was really coming back. So much so, in fact, that I got a new 100m and 400m PB. That just goes to show what having a technically-focused coach on the poolside most days for just a few days really does for you. Such a positive effect in such a small amount of time. I was elated!

A few steady runs (which seem unbearably slow at that kind of altitude) and then I was ready for the harder stuff. On my last full day, I had to do 21x 1 minute max efforts at 7500ft high. If you’ve ever tried that, you’ll know how I felt. If not, then I’m not sure how I can describe it – it’s like someone has scraped out the inside of your lungs and then run you over with a massive truck. It hurts – your lungs feel like they will burst (as they do on normal full max efforts), except this time, you can’t actually breathe. I was coughing a lot and genuinely thought I would pass out at one point. The dizziness is quite bad up there.

Just to add insult to injury (or in this case, hard altitrude session to hard altitude session), I had to do bike hill reps in the evening (swim in the middle too). The bike hill reps were 5 min hard efforts – again, my first hard bike session at altitude, and I was wheezing like a 50-a-day smoker. Everything feels so much harder.

As they say though, in clichéd terms, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. What I gained from this camp is not only a great week of endurance training (26 plus hours) but also some very high quality work too. And there’s a lot to be said for that.

Aside from the excellent training, coaching, and altititude effects, all of which will hopefully have some positive benefits on my upcoming races, I had a really enjoyable time with some top company. It’s all very well training, but if you can enjoy it at the same time, you’re onto a winner.

Here are my top 5 favourite moments:

– Elo’s constant, multiple times a day ability to drop things, trip over things, knock things over and generally be the biggest klutz I’ve ever met. High amusement factor when you’ve had a hard day in the mountains.

– The night where only four of us smashed two big bars of Swiss dark chocolate in the space of about 5 minutes. Gannets.

– Actually HOW MUCH chamois crème you had to lather on every time you faced a bike day. We got through whole tubs of the stuff. Then the in-depth post-ride chats about groin-based saddle sores.

– Coach Mark having to listen to five girls talk about the best type of sports bras, saddle sores, needing mid-run emergency toilet stops, and checking out hot topless guys by the pool. Good job he’s tolerant!

– Wheezing, coughing, and blowing out my proverbial – some of that training was unlike anything I’ve ever done before, but what scenery to look at. It was phenomenal, and made it all worth it (just).

I’m looking forward to hopefully seeing the training adaptations from this trip, and to maintain consistency and build intensity over the next few weeks towards my next couple of races. I am so happy that I feel like I have recovered my form and that the swim, bike and run are all coming back. I have restored a bit of confidence in myself after a little mid-season dip and it’s time to see what the second half of the racing season holds for me. Hopefully with a haematocrit boost, it will be looking bright as I head towards the World Championships in nine weeks’ time. Time will only tell.
 
 
 

Robert Twells July 4, 2016

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After two half iron distance races already in 2016, both of which were more ‘warm-up’ races than serious performance-seeking benchmarks, I was ready for my first ‘proper’ race of the season. Vietnam 70.3 was definitely a destination race. I picked it due to the location – a country I hadn’t visited – and also because the course looked like it suited me. The plan was to spend a week in Phuket, Thailand, beforehand in order to get some acclimatisation in. Could be a lot worse!

Straight after my last half in Lanzarote, my coach said it was time to start the heat prep sessions. This sounded interesting! And when I say interesting, what I really mean is horrible. When Mark said “these are probably the worst training sessions you will ever do”, I knew I was in for a treat.

So when I arrived back in the UK and it was a balmy 6 degrees Celsius outside, I started preparing my bathroom. The instructions were to put the heating on in the bathroom, fill the bathtub with piping hot water, close the door, and do a turbo session from hell. It felt like hell. Probably hotter, actually. I bought a thermometer with a humidity gauge so I could control the conditions. I had to weigh myself before and after sessions to measure fluid loss. Stuff got real.

These weren’t just ‘have a steady spin and get used to the heat’ turbo sessions. Oh no, I got thrown fully in the deep end. These were 100%+ FTP sessions. Apparently, according to my coach (who helped prepare the Brownlees and other Olympic triathletes prior to the Beijing Olympics), heat adaptation wil occur faster when training at intensity. Great. It just gets better.

These were the kind of sessions which would be really hard even on the road. Much harder on a turbo (mentally). Then add in the heat and the humidity. Oh and staring at a bathroom wall for 1-1.5 hours. Yep, you can picture it.

I was also warned that the first few would be “absolutely horrendous” and that I wouldn’t get anywhere near my power targets. Mark wasn’t wrong. The second session was the classic 3x 20 mins at 90% FTP. A session which hurts like hell at the best of times. I don’t want to sound pathetic here (but I am going to, irrespective), but I *actually* cried during this session. Every single fibre of my being was crying. It was probably one of the worst training sessions I’ve ever done. And I wasn’t even close to where I should be power-wise.

I was also losing over half a kilo in sweat every time – and that was with taking on about 2 litres during the session – quite substantial in just over 1 hour on the turbo! For this 10 day period, I felt like all I was doing was constantly drinking water. And rightly so.

We had scheduled in five heat prep turbo sessions – apparently that would be all that was required in order to acclimatise to race in the heat. True to the plan, and quite miraculously, by the fourth and fifth sessions, I was feeling good and back to hitting my power numbers spot on. Fist pump. Bring it on!!

Before I knew it, I was off to Thailand for another stay at Thanyapura – the training paradise on Phuket. Amazing training facilities on my doorstep for a week = perfect.

Because I had completed the heat sessions, it didn’t feel too bad being in 37 degree heat and 70% humidity. I only had two bike sessions during the whole week – it wasn’t necessary at this stage to over-do the training. Plus the heat on the bike was nowhere close to what I had been experiencing in my bathroom. The flow of air you get on the bike felt easy compared to my stuffy, windowless bathroom.

The run, however, was a different story – this was where the heat would really make itself present. The plan, therefore, was to get a lot of running in to get better adaptation ready for the race. This meant I ran most days, including an awful 1.5 hour stint where I had to fend off stray dogs chasing me and try not to constantly be drinking water to compensate for perpetual sweat loss. It was character building – but so would the race be, and if I wanted to perform, it was a necessary evil.

There were no flights direct to Danang, Vietnam, from Phuket, so I had to fly via Singapore. After a week in the rural, tropical retreat of Thanyapura it was time to experience something in complete contrast. My friend Claus and I had decided to go large in Singapore and book Marina Bay Sands for one night as a stopover between countries. Neither of us had been so it would be a new experience. And it certainly lived up to expectation.

The hotel is famous for its rooftop infinity pool – the largest in the world – with a vast sweeping vista of the city’s high rise buildings. It was extremely surreal, and absolutely incredible to experience. Singapore is largely characterised by its displays of wealth, order, cleanliness and efficiency. As a mild OCD-er, it was like a dream come true! I fell a little bit in love with the tiny part of the city that I experienced. It was also a nice training hiatus, if only for the 15 hours or so we were there!

Next stop, Vietnam.

GOOOOOOOOOD MORNING VIETNAM!!!!! (It had to be done.)

After arriving at the hotel, I was straight off out for a run. Instantly, I noticed how much easier it felt here. There was definitely less humidity and it felt cooler, even though it was pretty much the same temperature as Thailand (35 degrees). I noticed that I started to feel cold in air conditioning too – the acclimatisation was going well.

A nice spin out on the course confirmed that it would be a fast one. Pancake flat roads, smooth tarmac, and straight roads. The swim, on the other hand, was interesting! I went out and came back after about 10 minutes because it was choppy, there were jellyfish, and it was still under debate as to whether the swim would even take place since the Danang coast had seen millions of tons of dead fish on its shores recently – apparently due to chemical waste being dumped into the sea. Hmm – not so appealing!

The race organisers and local government were conducting rigorous testing, and it was confirmed that no bacteria or heavy metals were found in the tests and that the water was safe for the swim to take place as planned. Good.

A welcome banquet at the official race hotel was unequivocally the best I have ever been to. There was excellent food in abundance, live entertainment, music from Vietnam’s only singer/music artist, and an exceptional race buzz atmosphere. It was held outside in the grounds, as people crowded around the lit-up pool chilling on sunbeds, eating and drinking (water and iced tea on this occasion!) in front of the on-stage entertainment. I have to say, I was impressed. The goody bags were also amazing – this race was shaping up to be very well organised – and you know what it’s like, the small details really do make a difference!

Soon enough it was 4.30am on race day. The sun was coming up, burnt orange, over the ocean. There was a stillness in the air and a light haze in the sky. Despite hardly any sleep (strange for me as I usually don’t have a problem), I was feeling good and ready. It’s amazing how just the absence of a wetsuit seems to make race morning less about kit-faffing! Tyres pumped, nutrition on the bike, Garmin on. Down to the beach.

There are definitely worse places to start a race. The sun was up, warming the soft white sand, and the ocean was glistening. The air was warm and pleasant, the loudspeaker was on and the excitement was building.

I went into the sea for a quick practice swim. It was probably the quickest warm-up swim I have ever done in my life. As soon as I started swimming, I was getting stung – all over. It was like being pricked by thousands of pins – all over my face, arms, neck and legs. I promptly turned around and got out of the water. That was that then. I wasn’t really worried – everyone was in the same position and although I had a nice rash on my arms, you can’t do much about jellyfish. Just get on with it and draft as much as possible!

The rolling start made for a fairly relaxed start and after having to wade in due to a bit of a choppy entry/exit I just settled into my pace. The stinging soon began, but I ignored it. The swim was pretty uneventful other than that, and I waded out (slowly) after quite a relaxed swim pace in 35 minutes. A massively long run up to T1 and I was out on the bike, trying to get sand off my face (not sure how that ended up there).

The bike was fast. The course heads out all along the coast in front of an endless stretch of beautiful sandy white beach, before turning in-land over a massive bridge (which, for a bridge, was actually a pretty decent decent bump due to its length!). Other than that it was flat and uneventful. I was maintaining a very comfortable pace and not pushing it too much at all, knowing that the pain would come later in the day.

I was holding back quite a bit just trying to keep everything fairly comfortable and consistent. Two loops along the in-land bit went really quickly – suddenly I was half way and we were heading back towards T2. There was a headwind all the way back. Not horrendous but enough to be working a bit harder to hold the target pace. There was a turnaround point where we got about 5k of tailwind and it was nice to cruise back into T2 at 40kph pushing less than 130 watts!  I managed to get a 70.3 bike split PB of 2:40. So far, so good!

My T2 wasn’t the fastest as my helmet got caught in my hair, and after almost ripping it out in angst, I was out on the run. Same philosophy here – I was actually holding back from running out too fast, knowing I wouldn’t be able to maintain it as the sun was now truly hotting up and the 35 degree heat was becoming oppressive. I ran past a lean lady who commented “nice running!” – this was mini encouragement as I headed out, but the knowledge that there was a long way still to go was at the forefront of my mind.

I was anticipating for the run to be pretty mentally tough – it was a one-lap out and back along the same road which we had cycled – quite rare for the Ironman circuit. It would mean practically zero spectator support and some quite tough mental resolve to tackle the boredom of a straight road of nothingness.

However, it simply wasn’t the case. I felt scarily comfortable, actually enjoying the run. I was taking regular gels, salt sticks and water, and feeling on absolutely top form. Something has got to happen soon, surely!? This just isn’t sustainable. I reached 5k feeling fantastic. I hit 10k feeling the same. Turnaround point, heading back towards home. I starting upping the pace a bit. I overtook a few more women. I was using a mental mantra every time I started to get a fleeting sense of hardship – I just told myself to relax and it went away. I visualised getting to the finishing chute. My sports psychologist is clearly doing some good! Thank you Ade!

The last 5k, I decided to push it and this did start to feel like hard work. So it should after 15k of cruising! I ended up getting a negative split with my last 5k. As I ran towards the beach and along the extremely difficult finishing chute on the sand (think – definitely not a sprint finish), I looked at my watch. I knew I was extremely borderline with a possible PB, but I did it. A PB by a minute, finishing in 5:12. How the hell had I pulled that off in this heat!? I felt elated. And I felt great.

I ended up just missing out on a podium slot with 4th in my age group. I was also 18th female overall (11th age grouper), which I think is probably my best international result ever, comparatively, and in a strong field (my age group was the largest female field). It seemed like things have clicked into place and all my hard work and heat prep has paid dividends.

It was a nice feeling (other than a PB in 36 degree heat!), to be finished by midday. This meant straight back to the hotel, shower, and then down to the pool for a celebratory beer in the sun. We ended up meeting some other athletes on the adjacent sunbeds and went out with them that evening to a local town popular with backpacker tourists – Hoi An, also known as party central. Dinner turned into drinks which turned into dancing. It was a great way to round off an absolutely fantastic day.

The whole trip was memorable for so many reasons and it just reinforces why I absolutely love triathlon. The places you get to visit, the people you meet, that unique, rewarding feeling of knowing that all your training has paid off and the results are there. It’s a whole combination of memories and experiences, with and without the race.

I think this was probably my favourite race ever. I spoke to my sports psychologist and told him that I almost found it “too easy”. He said that it sounded like I’d achieved that elusive state of ‘flow’. Whatever was happening, I want more of that! The result didn’t even really matter in the end; what made it unique was that I just loved every minute of it. The result was just a bonus.

I think that’s what’s called ‘everything coming together’.
 

Robert Twells May 11, 2016

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The race season is finally upon us! This is where all the hard winter training will (hopefully) come to fruition. Although I started the year early with South Africa 70.3, I didn’t really count it as a race as I wasn’t in race condition. I didn’t feel prepped for the race, mentally or physically.

This time though, I was ready.

As a frequenter to the island, I decided to race in Lanzarote to get another early season half under my belt before hitting the big 70.3 circuit. For the couple of weeks prior to this race, I was feeling on form and I was looking forward to seeing where I was at performance-wise. A couple of days in Fuerteventura prior to arriving at Tri Sports Lanzarote confirmed this as I was hitting all the numbers for my target race pace/effort. Good, let the taper soak it up!

Tri122 is a small island race – I just hadn’t realised quite how small. There were a grand total of 10 women competing in the longer course (roughly half distance), and as I arrived customarily early to transition on race morning, I realised how much domestic races differ from the big international ones. I could have rocked up 30 minutes before the start and still had time to spare! Throw in the relaxed Spanish attitude and you’re looking at a mega chilled race start. And when I say chilled, what I really mean is “late”.

As I lined up with the 9 other women at the start line, it felt like a pro field! Also, there was still some confusion about the actual swim course. Communication issues aplenty. After we established there would definitely be an Australian exit between the two laps, the gun went off and we ran into the sea. I settled into my pace quite quickly and tried to stick with the pack. As we neared the end of the first lap I overtook a couple of other swimmers and exited the water in a strong position. Back in for the second lap and I was feeling good. We started to overtake a few of the slower men who were lagging behind after their 5 minute head start.

I pushed the last stretch from the final buoy turn and was still feeling strong, running out the water as 4th female in 34 minutes for the lightly longer than half distance 2km swim. So far so good. Out onto the bike and time to start grinding!

The conditions on the day were pretty decent and uncharacteristically calm for Lanzarote. The wind was only at around 13mph so while the headwind still felt tough for the first 30km stretch, it could have been a lot worse. I raced the first half of the bike quite conservatively, knowing that with two significant climbs on the course, I would need to conserve energy and maintain a power output which I would be able to sustain even towards the end of the course.

After a significant stint in the headwind I was in 4th position on the bike which wasn’t bad going. I was overtaken on the first 5km climb and stayed with the girl ahead of me in sight. Time for the famous Tabayesco climb. The last time I faced this climb in a race was in 2012 at my first Ironman 70.3. I kept it steady and controlled all the way to the top, and despite the 11km slog, my power output differentiation between the bottom and the top was only 10 watts. Consistency. Good.

A flying fast descent (think 70kph) saw me head back into T2 feeling pretty good, only a couple of minutes down on the girl in front. Straight out onto the run and I felt comfortable at a strong pace. Now, just to hold this.

The only problem was, I couldn’t. One lap in (of three) and I was feeling it. The climbs had taken a lot out of my legs and they felt heavy, I just felt tired (funny that). I was overtaken by another girl who was smashing out a really strong run. Same old story!

Finally, I sped up a bit on the last lap after a bit of a lag in the middle. I finished in 6th position, which in a field of 10 doesn’t sound in the slightest bit impressive (probably because it wasn’t!). However, afterwards I learned that a few of the girls in front were full time competitive triathletes who were actually beating women in pro fields – it just turned out to be a really strong (if tiny) field, and one I just couldn’t contend with. I was 2nd in my age group (out of two!). Oh well, take the bling and absorb the training effect!

After a debrief with my coach I knew it wasn’t logical to be disappointed with my position as it’s impossible to control this. We analysed the data for the bike and actually, it was bang on where it should have been and at the top end of Mark’s expectations for my performance. We identified that the run let me down and that building the speed off the bike is going to be crucial over the next few months. All in all, I was happy and knew that the race would have been an excellent training day prepping me well for the bigger races of the season.

I had a few days of recovery with some easier sessions before getting back on the wagon again mid-week. Staying at Tri Sports Lanzarote was just the perfect recuperation – plenty of great food, company and facilities – never mind training, it was the ideal holiday destination too! Holiday. Hmm, if only I hadn’t been working all week…

Only four days after the race and I was feeling back on form. Over those consecutive days, every session felt great and the numbers were looking good again. Seems I had benefitted from a speedy recovery and some performance gains to boot. This bodes very well for the season ahead.

My last few days on the island involved some big threshold sessions, including a 2 hour run with threshold development work and a long 3.5 hour bike with 100% FTP efforts. I was loving it – in my element with the sun shining, fun people and yet another wonderful stay at Tri Sports Lanzarote. I can’t be grateful enough for the opportunity to stay there and represent them with full team kit while racing on the island!

So that’s probably the last winter training camp over now and it’s time to focus on the next goal – in just a few weeks I will be racing in Vietnam, battling horrifically hot and humid conditions. The plan is to retain and develop form over the next two weeks with some specific heat and humidity simulation training sessions.

I’m pretty sure the race will have provided me with performance gains to carry over to the next race. What I do know for sure is that I’m raring to go. After a bit of a motivation lag in February/March, I am hungry for racing again, and it’s only just beginning…

With special thanks to my wonderful sponsors, Tri Sports Lanzarote, who have enabled me to work and train from a wonderful training base this Winter.
Photo credit: James Mitchell Photography

Robert Twells April 16, 2016

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For a few years – the short time I have been participating in triathlons – winter has been characterised by LSD sessions. And I’m not referring to recreational drugs (no Sharapova-esque behaviour here I’m afraid). I’m talking about Long Slow Distance). You know the kind – all about the base miles, trudging around in cold rubbish UK winter weather trying to fit in as many coffee stops as possible, after which it’s a race against the hot water tank while you spend so long in the shower trying to defrost. Yeah, that.

This winter has been a bit different. Since starting to work with Mark Pearce (Intelligent Triathlon) in November, we have been doing a lot of quality work. This doesn’t mean to say that there’s been no long slow sessions (there is a place for these in building aerobic base), but a much greater presence of higher intensity sessions than I have ever been used to.

In fact, I think the way we are periodising my training is that we are doing higher intensity, ‘quality’ work over winter and as we head into spring, start to add in more endurance. It’s an unusual way of approaching periodised training (relative to conventional triathlon training plans, which are usually the other way round), and I was quite surprised by this method. Hell though, let’s go with it.

Some weeks, almost every single training session was hard. I was beginning to feel a bit like I was in some kind of concentration camp or episode of Saw. IT HURT. I have been doing much lower volume training weeks than the last couple of years because my business has been so busy (12-14 hour weeks as opposed to 15-20 hour weeks), but with higher intensity sessions in there, I was feeling a lot more fatigued.

Even during my training camp in Lanzarote with a 23 hour training week – a lot of it was hard, high intensity sessions – something I’m definitely not used to after years of big volume weeks being slow and steady training opportunities.

“You’re not going to get faster at running by running slowly”, Mark said to me recently. I wholeheartedly agree. I have, in some twisted masochistic way, been really enjoying the interval running sessions. I can’t always say the same for the max power or 120% FTP turbo sessions though. They seem to get me. But it’s paying off.

I have just run my fastest half marathon ever.

I know I’m not rapid (I have never claimed to be) but to get a sub-1:40 half marathon was extremely encouraging. If I can run this, I can run it off the bike. It will take time to get there, sure, but it’s there. It’s just about unlocking it. What’s more, my pacing was impeccable and it didn’t feel like I was killing myself trying to hold it, even towards the end. This tells me that I have more to give.

It’s the time of year when, let’s face it, motivation is a little bit trickier to sustain. It’s like the British weather – a bit up and down and unpredictable. This might surprise some of you as people assume I’m always 100% motivated – it’s not sustainable to be 100% motivated 100% of the time. But as long as you have the bigger picture in mind, and refer back to it frequently so you can align your daily training with your goals and your desired outcome, then you’re going in the right direction.

When you hit those numbers and reach those targets, that’s when the motivation gets a sudden ‘turbo boost’. It makes you smile, the adrenaline rush, the pride that all those hard hours are actually getting you somewhere – that’s what we all crave really isn’t it.

I am hoping that the quality training I have been putting in this winter will also translate to the swim and bike too, but as they say, the proof is in the pudding (pudding = races. Ironic, that.) I do know that after years of building aerobic endurance it is time for me to take it to another level, and that is exactly what we are doing right now. Now is the time to start bringing in speed-work and sharpening everything up. I think I had better get used to the pain, because there’s going to be a lot more of it to come…

Robert Twells March 13, 2016

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Here it is. Yet another blog about training in Lanzarote. You might think this is all getting a bit repetitive – I seem to spend half my life on this barren island! Well, maybe that’s true. But it’s a place which I seem to keep coming back to, indefinitely.

This time, however, was different. In my few years of triathlon, rarely have I had the opportunity to spend a significant amount of time with a coach. This week, staying at the brilliant Tri Sports Lanzarote, I had a whole week with my coach, Mark Pearce (Intelligent Triathlon) to put me through my paces along with a few other of his talented coached athletes.

My biggest concern was not being able to keep up with the others, lagging far behind and feeling pitiful about my performance (yes, it’s not a competition; it’s training. But you know how it is). After all, I was training with three pros and a guy who races short distance. It was going to be testing.

I was lulled into a false sense of security the day I arrived, with a few short sessions. The next day, we hit it hard. Double swim day, totalling over 6k of swimming, plus a long run. This was more like it.

The trend continued, and I can’t say I was loving all of it. After a few days I told Mark I was “broken”, to which he replied “no you’re not, you’re still strong in all your training sessions. You just think you’re broken”. It was much like this for the next few days.

But seriously, having your coach by the poolside every single day, riding alongside (OK he was actually drafting 99% of the time) while completing an FTP session, or having him moto-pace you on a moped, cycle alongside during run efforts – this was invaluable. I’ve not experienced this type of coaching before and as we were all training with our own individual plans, he managed to divide his time really effectively.

More importantly, though, Mark got to see me *actually* train. The only other time had been when I spent a day with him up in Loughborough and was 10 days back into training after 6 weeks off. I felt pathetic. Hopefully, he could see from this week that I was a bit better than “pathetic” and much more determined, strong and capable than he may at first have thought.

While a lot of the time I was slower than the other speedy athletes, there were times which reassured me that I wasn’t *that* far off. One day we were riding back home after conquering (plodding up, for me) Tabayesco and I was leading the pack all the way back home. I heard afterwards that they had had to work a bit to keep up with me. Ridiculous as it was to me, I did feel quite pleased that I had pros on my wheel and they were working at it.

It was also inspiring to be training alongside talented people. And even more importantly, it was fun. I am so used to doing everything on my own – living, working, training, travelling, racing – that it made a pleasing change to have group dynamics, lots of chatting, and people to train alongside. Tri Sports Lanzarote is the perfect training base for this as it’s such a sociable place anyway, with its communal areas and sociable evening dinners (wine flowing, food in abundance – wins every time).

After an initial set back at the very start of the year, I felt like I was in a really good place on this camp. I have so much improvement to make but the sessions were a combination of endurance base work and some really high quality work. On previous training camps, I would be training 90% long and slow and so it was a real change to be doing some pretty hard sessions in there too.

One day we went to a local hill and did FTP hill rep efforts. I averaged, over 4x reps of 5+ minutes each, 30-40 watts over my FTP. This is when Mark said “I don’t think you’re as much of a diesel engine as I thought. Because if you were, there’s no way you’d be able to do that.” Cue another secret “whoop” from me.

Having the positive reinforcement from a coach is really valuable to me and one of the reasons why I would always recommend having one. Each day Mark would analyse our data once it was uploaded to Training Peaks. He would identify areas of weakness and then adapt the sessions accordingly (for each of us) to address those. It’s simply not the same as having someone fill out sessions on Training Peaks and then you completing them.

I learned some valuable lessons about where I am at in my training, what I need to focus on, and walking the fine line between training hard and over-training (I got a cold the day after I arrived back in the UK – maybe it did eventually break me!), and what’s more, I met some great people too (shout out to Eloise, Kim, Lou and Drew), plus others who weren’t even on our camp but just training at Tri Sports Lanzarote.

We are all going through our own individual struggles to try and achieve things, no matter what level you are competing at. But having confidence in yourself and having the right people around you to support you is absolutely key. It’s looking like a promising season so far and I am comfortable in the knowledge that I am working with the right coach and on the right things, and that’s already one significant step forward.

Robert Twells February 20, 2016

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