On May 10, Anthony, Luke and I headed across the channel to Vierzon to compete in our 2nd European Cup race of the season. This was the European qualifier for Great Britain and had a very high quality field so it was a great opportunity to test ourselves.

The swim was down a fast flowing river, which meant the top guys were exiting in just over 8 minutes for 750m. Luke was the fastest out of the 3 of us but narrowly missed the front bike pack. After an intense effort Anthony and I caught the second group. The two of us worked well together on the last lap and made our way to the front of the pack for the dismount. Disaster for Luke however, who’s saddle had fallen off which meant game over.

We both had solid runs and I actually enjoyed the 10% hill, showing all those weighted vests reps in training paid off! Coming onto the second lap James informed I’d picked up a time penalty, which set me back about 15 seconds (which felt like 5 minutes) and pushed me outside the top 20. Note to self: put your helmet in the box!

I finished 26th and Anthony 36th out of 69 competitors… now bring on Blenheim!

By Rory Atkins.

Last year’s announcement of a new Ironman in Los Cabos (Baja California, Mexico) grabbed my attention immediately.   A brief visit to Baja in 2005 stands out as one of Lindsay’s and my favourite trips – great food, beautiful desert scenery, diving with hammerhead sharks, white sandy beaches and sparkling blue seas .. you get the picture.  The mid-March race date also fell right in the middle of the whale-watching season and the more I looked into that the more compelling it became.  Baja California in March is a veritable whale Mecca.

So, soon after returning from Hawaii last October (and despite all thoughts of “retirement”) my entry was in and it was time to start a gentle PR campaign on the home front (not hard in terms of a trip to an exotic location, but slightly trickier to convince Lindsay that throwing an Ironman into the mix wouldn’t be detrimental to its enjoyment).

The venue and timing might have been perfect for a holiday, but the race itself could not have been less suited to my plans for 2013 – to have a good long rest after Hawaii, then focus on shorter races to build strength and speed before returning to Ironman racing in 2014. I’m also habitually a bit of a slow starter every year and struggle to be race fit for early races, so a mid-March race would be a challenge.

I therefore decided to take a “racing for fun” approach to this one – I’d do my best on the day, but would try not to get hung up on targets and goals that I might not be in a position to achieve, nor would I allow training to become all-consuming.   Even with this approach a seemingly endless case of man-flu over Christmas/New Year, some persistent knee niggles (picked up in November’s attempt to run the Thames Path) and a particularly long, cold winter had me thinking about pulling the plug throughout January and February (not that I admitted as much to James B, who’d been trying to talk me out of the whole thing since Christmas).   I was doing less than half the training I would normally do in preparation for an Ironman and race day was approaching…

Anyway, with only one outdoor ride under my belt in 2013, we flew in to San Jose Del Cabo a week before the race and, after a quick trip out to see the humpback whales off Cabo San Lucas

we headed up the coast away from the race venue and set about some serious chilling out.    This was like no race week I’ve experienced before – the sea on the Pacific coast was too dangerous for any real swimming and the single paved road wasn’t somewhere for a lone cyclist to venture out.   I was definitely going to reach the start line well rested. The highlight of the week was a trip up to Bahia Magdalena, a natural nursery for thousands of gray whales, some of which are “friendlies” and behave like water-based puppies, wanting to be scratched and petted by people.

The race….

The day kicked off with a one lap wetsuit sea swim (water temp was a pleasant 20 degrees).  The start gun was timed perfectly for those of us in the front few rows to run straight into a breaking wave, but after that the water was relatively smooth.  Apart from a rogue elbow dislodging my goggles at the first turn buoy, the swim was largely uneventful and I exited with 1:04 on my watch; slower than anticipated, but with the Garmin reading 4.2 km either my steering was particularly bad or the course was a little long.

Onto the bike, with a little more sand and grit on my feet than ideal, and after a short steep climb up to the main road it was out onto the two lap course along the coast road between San Jose Del Cabo and Cabo San Lucas and inland towards the airport.   The first 30k to Cabo San Lucas was into a brisk headwind and I found myself working slightly harder than planned to the turnaround and then forgot to back off on the speedy wind-assisted return to San Jose del Cabo (it was fun!).  We then turned inland and uphill towards the airport.  This section of road was entirely closed off, so there was little or no support.  Up to this point I had been making good progress, working my way past quite a few other competitors, but from about 2 hours in it became clear that I had been slightly optimistic about my fitness level and the power started to drop off significantly – I wasn’t being passed, but nor was I making significant gains any more.  The temperature was beginning to rise and felt stifling on the long climb out of town.  Turning for the return leg, it also became clear that the wind had picked up – a lot of recalculations were going on in my head, from initially thinking this would be about a 5 hour 10 ride, I adjusted the estimate first to 5:15, then 5:20 and finally 5:30.  The bike course was hillier (I measured 2400m of climbing), windier and hotter than I had expected – nothing too extreme, but enough to start really grinding you down as the ride progressed and fighting the headwind back down to Cabo San Lucas I found myself struggling mentally and physically.  I pulled myself back together for the final loop out to the airport – the power numbers were unimpressive, but at least I was feeling more positive again – and it was with some relief that I arrived at T2 with 6 hours 40 on the race clock and prepared myself for some Fivefingered fun on the run in my specially adapted new See-ya’s.  I knew that my bike effort had not been the most sensible – 2 hours hard followed by 3.5 hours of steady decline did not bode well for a speedy run – but I felt that I’d kept on top of my nutrition and should still be able to run under 3:20 for a sub-10 hour finish ….  until I started running.

The first few kms were slower than normal, but nothing to worry about – I was sure I’d get into my rhythm soon.   Things only got worse though and it soon became a struggle to hold 5 min/km pace.  The run course consists of three laps around San Jose del Cabo and out to the marina, mostly flat but with a few inclines, including up and over the bridge to the marina.  In theory, the aid stations were about every mile along the course, but in reality most of the course seemed to be one big aid station, which was handy as the heat seemed far more oppressive than in the preceding days (this was confirmed afterwards by spectators) and there was very little shade.   About 3 miles in a nasty cramp stopped me in my tracks as I headed up the short incline onto the bridge and I wondered if this was going to turn in to a very long day.  Fortunately after a bit of stretching I was able to settle back into a steady rhythm and I set about ticking off the miles, getting as much water and ice on board as I could and making sure to go as smoothly as possible at the dead turns and up any inclines to avoid more cramping.

Up to this point I’d had no idea how I was placed, but at around the halfway mark Lindsay told me I was 2^nd in my AG but about 15 minutes behind the leader – this was better than I had been hoping and, having quickly concluded that I was in no state to mount a challenge for the win, the rest of the run became a case of holding my position as best I could.  Despite my slow progress, I only noticed 2 people overtaking me, so I guess I should have realised that I wasn’t the only one finding things tough.  In the heat of battle though I was convinced that I must be on the verge of losing places rapidly.  As I entered the finish chute, I had a good look back to make sure there was no one close behind and then enjoyed the run in, crossing the line in 10:09, for 2^nd in AG and 50^th overall.

Did I enjoy my day?  To be completely honest, not as much as planned – but that was my own fault for making some pretty obvious pacing errors on the bike and of course not allowing myself to back off.  The race itself was a great success for a first time event – barring a couple of small teething problems everything ran smoothly, the sea was calm, road surfaces were good and the volunteers were abundant and enthusiastic.  Some of the scenery on the bike course was also stunning, though I’m not sure about the sight of vultures circling overhead when your head is already full of irrational chatter in the latter stages of a hot and brutal bike ride.  The result also exceeded my pre-race expectations by a fair margin – maybe the relaxed approach to training and racing is something to be explored further – and I’m definitely a lot fitter heading in to April than I would have been.

Would I recommend this race?  Hell, yeah!  It’s a real destination race, with a tough (and therefore fair) course and a decent number of Kona slots, friendly locals, fabulous beaches and of course those amazing whales.   A great way to escape the British winter for a few weeks, see and do some really cool stuff and sneak in an Ironman.

220 Triathlon is the largest UK Triathlon magazine – its twitter readership is in excess of 13,000 followers. 220 hold an annual awards ceremony at the Triathlon Show at Sandown Park. There are various categories of awards and the public are asked each year in late November to cast their votes. 3 coaches in the whole of the UK have been shortlisted for this award and we are extremely excited that James is one of them.

James had an incredible 2012. Amongst his achievements were the following: Having 3 athletes selected onto the Triathlon England Olympic Talent Squad; having 6 athletes selected onto the Triathlon London Academy; being the regional coach for the Triathlon England London Academy; coaching age group athletes to PB’s in Ironman events; coaching leading age group triathlete Tim Bishop to Kona. James also managed to coach his first athlete to the London 2012 Olympic Games. Gillian Sanders finished a credible 19^th place at the Olympic Games after only 18 months as a full time athlete under James.

Being shortlisted is in itself an amazing achievement and we wish James all the very best of luck when the winner is announced at Sandown Park in March.

We were greeted with some rather challenging conditions – lots of snow and even more mud. At times, the course felt more like an assault course than a running race but great fun was had by all.

The team did pretty well too, picking up a 1,2,3 plus another 1! Rory Atkins won the race overall and was the first senior male. Luke Penney picked up 3^rd overall and 3^rd senior male. Gill Sanders and Charlie  Hammon were 2^nd lady and 1^st male veteran respectively.

After a change into some clean clothes, we headed across the road to the café where we enjoyed a well deserved English breakfast and reminisced over the morning’s run. It was then off down the road to Surrey Sports Park where we enjoyed a lovely swim in their snazzy, spanking new 50m pool. A morning well spent!

So off we went, the day after boxing day, for 10 days of training camp fun in the Spanish sun. We had a lovely but very diverse strong bunch of 9 out with us from up and coming 15 yr old juniors, to GB Olympic talent squad athletes, to Olympians, to Age Groupers. We were also happy to welcome our Blackline London guest Paul on camp who will be racing Ironman South Africa in a bid to qualify for Kona. We went to an area in southern Spain known for its gorgeous winter micro climate where the maximum temperature seldom drops below 16 degrees in winter. It did not disappoint – we had gorgeous weather, most often around 20 deg which allowed us to go riding in shortleeves (yes, we managed to get tanlines even in the depths of winter!) and get in some great open water swims in the Mediterranean.

The focus of the camp was to get some winter miles in which was not difficult given our surroundings, I can see why some pro cycling teams also choose this area for their winter training – the riding was simply magnificent. On the first day of the camp we did a 4 hr ride that included a 10km climb. Two of the young junior boys learnt a valuable first lesson about bonking on the bike and I have no doubt will never forget to eat whilst on a long ride ever again – all in the name of experience! We did a heck of a lot of riding throughout the 10 days and as the camp drew closer to its end, so the cake and coffee stops increased as the bodies started to fatigue. There was nothing quite like re-charging in the glorious sun on the patio of a coffee shop, eating cake and listening to the sea!

The running was equally as good – we scaled mountains where we did not see another soul and it felt like you were the only one out there. We ran through orange groves  and lemon groves to the sweet smell of citrus as well as wild lavender and the most stunning scenery and views. Day 2 and the junior boys who had bonked the previous day were sent on a 70min run and strict instructions for ‘No more!’ by James. So we set off with the boys, up the mountain – up and up and up for 45 mins. The boys then took a path that looked like it went directly back to make up their 70mins. We carried on to make up extra for our 2 hour run and thereafter went down the same path ‘back’ to the lodge. Needless to say, we found the boys coming back the same way after finding that the path took them to a dead end at a massive lake and the only option was to either swim across or come back. The poor souls ended up running for over 2 hours (with James frantically sending out the search party in the interim) – clever boys at least packed food with them this time!

We were based at the Kinetic PB lodge and had a lovely Spanish family cooking us traditional dinner most nights which was delicious after a long days training. We also had exclusive use of the Kinetic pool which was great – no more fighting with the ‘sharks’ in the fast lane down at the public pool back home. We popped in a few sea swims too. The junior boys were terrified of there being proper sharks in the water and in my African ways, I told them to stop being silly, there were no sharks in the Med, they were all in Aus andSouth Africaand to get on with it. I made the stupid mistake of googling ‘sharks in the Mediterranean’ that night to prove my point and to my horror yes, there are sharks in the Med, even Great Whites.I freaked out a bit too after that when James told us to swim 12 mins out to sea and back.

On New Years eve a chilli eating contest was held. Spanish New Years is a bit strange – they stay in until 12, eat 12 grapes at 12 o’ clock and then go out at about 1am. These festivities are a bit late for a serious bunch of triathletes so the junior boys improvised with a chilli eating contest which was won by young Marcus Francis with a total of 7, followed by Ollie Wood with a total of 6 – the  New Years Chilli King and Prince were crowned. 00h30 and we were all in bed to wake up for our 6km swim the next morning!

We managed to fit in some beach runs too which was lovely. This is great training as it really tests your technique and whether you are landing nice and lightly on your feet with quick steps. In our concentration, Anna, James and I found ourselves straying onto a nudist beach. You really don’t know where to look in a situation like that – we had a really good giggle about it. James got so excited he told us that he was going to go back to the beach and take a trot in his birthday suit. However, when crunch time came he backed out – maybe next year – so long as we’re not around to see it!

So after 10 days of sun, sand, blue sky, mountains, sea and 1Euro coffees and 45plus hours training later, we sadly said goodbye toSpainand a wonderful New Years camp. We will look to do the same camp next year so if you are a loser and don’t have any New Years party plans, it’s a great way to see in a fresh, new year….keep eyes and ears posted later on this year for more details if you’d like to join in on our fun.

You don’t do an Ironman because you think it’s going to be easy.  But you don’t necessarily do it because you think it’s going to be as hard as Wales.

The first time I saw the bike course for Ironman Wales was back in June when I went down for the Long Course Weekend (a great event which I can highly recommend).  I only did 72 miles of the 112 mile course, and it absolutely tore me apart.  I was terrified.  ‘Heartbreak Hill’, the third and longest 16% climb within the space of 5 miles at about mile 65, was agony.  And as the sign they put up on Ironman day said, for the Ironman, “it’s so good they climb it twice”.  Ouch.  The day I got home, I went to the bike shop and bought myself a bigger cassette, and started to brace myself…

But cometh the hour, cometh the Ironman, and so on September 16^th I lined up with 1600-odd other certifiable folk, pretended I knew at least some of the words to the Welsh national anthem, and threw myself into the really quite cold waters of Tenby’s beautiful North Beach.

55 minutes later (and slightly smug – target was 57), I emerged and started the first comedy feature of Ironman Wales – an 8 minute run up (and I mean UP) and into the town to transition.  Now for the evil that is the Wales bike course.  And it was pretty evil – though much better for me than for hundreds of the other poor b*ggers who clearly didn’t know what was coming.  Come the second ascent of Heartbreak Hill, I’ve rarely seen an image of agony more evocative than that on the face of the poor guy I overtook who was still on his first lap.  I think he was actually crying.

Heartbreak Hill surmounted and survived, I headed down into Tenby to complete a 6 hour bike leg (too slow to be competitive really, and definitely the leg I need to work on, but at least there was still some in the tank) and started to think about the flat-Pepsi-fuelled leap to the next level of insanity that I was about to take.

I’ve long thought that the moment you go into T2 in an Ironman must be a moment you meet a really interesting version of yourself.  Let’s face it, you’re about to do something that 90% of humanity considers utterly ridiculous, and you’ve just spent 6 hours flaying yourself up and down hills.  I wasn’t wrong, but ‘T2 Jon’ was a really angry guy and not someone you particularly want to meet, so let’s move on…

The marathon, bizarrely, was for the most part a total joy.  This was the bit I’d worried most about, and trained hardest for – the 20 x 800m reps in a rapidly darkening Barnes track hours after the Juniors had headed for home directly played through to the race, as I split it down into 20 x 10 mins and just kept coaching myself through on cadence and heart rate.  What with that, and the moments of levity provided by James’ idea of encouragement (I still hear “Come on the Ginger Mole!” in occasional nightmares), I got through pretty well, clocking 3:17, and finishing in a creditable – but slightly further off the Kona pace than I would have liked – 10.27.40

Huge thanks go to parents, coach, Emma B, friends, teammates (particularly the mighty Tommy C) and my far better half Jane for their support on the day and through the training…  an Ironman is very definitely a team effort, and I can’t think of a better team to do it with than the Optima Massive!

I flew out to Japan on a Wednesday afternoon, arriving Thursday, to race Saturday – cutting it a bit fine! When I arrived it was howling a gale and news on the street was that a typhoon would be passing through the next few days. Great for triathlon racing. I felt too much like a zombie to do anything at all on the Thursday I arrived, except of course eat and have a sleep. I then tried riding over to the host hotel for the briefing and nearly got blown off my bike so had to stop. I lifted my bike up to walk on the pavement and my bike went horizontal! It was a bit scary! After race briefing we enjoyed a lovely welcome dinner put on by the Japanese Triathlon Union and dignatories. On Friday I managed to wake up after 11 hours sleep. I felt totally destroyed but knew I had one day to race so better do something. So off I went for my usual pre race day run and drills. I felt awful – what was I thinking arriving in Japan so late! The swim recce was cancelled as the harbour was still enjoying typhoon waves so I cycled part of the course and then cycled to the little school pool for my swim and then back again. I felt awful and heavy once again, oh dear. How to cheer oneself up – eat the local cuisine! I love racing in Japan and I love the food. The people are the warmest, friendliest people you will find anywhere and it is such a pleasure visiting this country. So I treated myself so some pork katsu curry. If you haven’t eaten katsu curry, you are missing out, it is delicious.

I had a little snooze in the afternoon and then all that remained was to get my race stuff ready, eat some more and get to bed. I managed to rip the valve off my one wheel whilst pumping it up which was a great thing to do the night before the race. Luckily it stayed up – sealant to the rescue once again! I then realised the fatal error of the afternoon snooze. I could not sleep. I lay there and lay there. I tried counting sheep, then I tried counting Japanese people, then I tried counting Japanese sheep – none of it worked. I think I had about 2 hours sleep and woke up feeling totally shattered again. Race day! All I could think was man, let this damn race be over so that I can sleep.Luckily I woke up a bit and my body felt remarkably better than the preceding 2 days. I was relieved to hear that I was not the only one who hadn’t slept very much either, there were some very rough looking faces in the athletes lounge!

I had a shocker of a swim. I think I was last off the pontoon. I honestly just felt a bit sleepy really. The swim felt slow and I felt that I got stuck behind some slower swimmers. Luckily we had some strong cyclists in our group and were able to catch the front pack on the 3rd lap. It was then a matter of sitting in and conserving energy. I felt a bit sleepy on the bike too and had to concentrate quite hard as I kept thinking, ‘it’s 2am in the uk right now.’ I had a bit of a slow t2, coming in towards the back but then things started to look up. I had my run legs, yes! The run legs that had deprived me at the Olympics were back, yay! I moved my way through the field nicely on the 1st lap and then held on to take 10th spot. It hurt a lot and was my first top 10 result finish in a quality field, only really void of Olympic champion Nicola Spirig and injured Helen Jenkins. All the other big players were all there and I can be very proud to finally have achieved a top 10. My prep was far from ideal. I had felt awful in the lead up and was suffering a bit from a cold from a suppressed immune system after my hard training block. It just goes to show that you should never give up, no matter how you feel as things often turn around for the better. At least I also now know that I can operate on little sleep if this ever happens again.

I spent the rest of the day enjoying the now beautiful, calm, sunny weather, watching the men race and then taking a walk around the city in the sun. I again treated myself to a massive lunch of katsu curry. The Japanese triathlon union then put on a wonderful dinner for us post race with awesome, yummy Japanese food. A great end to a great day! It was then pack bike time and sleep time as I had to be up early Sunday morning for my flight back to London. I managed to squeeze in a beautiful morning run while the sun was rising, enjoying my last bit of warm weather before it was back to chilly, rainy London.

With victory in the London League already secured, the season-ending Jekyll & Hyde Duathlon in Hyde Park was a chance for the team to have a bit of fun and work up an appetite for a long pub lunch. Though, having been side-lined by injury for the Summer, this was to be Charlie’s only hit out for 2012 and Rory also had his eye on the individual win.

There was some super-quick racing at the pointy end of things (with the winner, Danny Russell, averaging 3 mins/km on both runs), but unfortunately Rory punctured early in the bike leg and was forced to pull out (though he still insisted on pacing Tim round the second run – something Tim wasn’t altogether happy about, with his skeleton “onesie” proving not to have the best cooling properties). Charlie had a very solid return to racing with 13th overall– not back to full speed yet, but impressive on such a low training base.

As for the rest of the team… let’s just say it was a good thing we didn’t need to win this one. The nine hour lunch that followed closed out the 2012 season in style.