<?xml version="1.0"?><rss version="2.0"><channel><title> - Tri247</title><link>http://www.tri247.com/index.html</link><description>Latest  articles from Tri247</description><item><title><![CDATA[New York Marathon places]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.tri247.com/article_3372.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[Sports Tours have let us know that in the wake of the results of the public international ballot for the 2008 ING New York Marathon being announced there are an awful lot of people chasing the places that are left and their website is taking a hammering as a result. If you are after a place the advice is to move quickly - Sports Tours are one of the few operators with official places. Check out what&#039;s left on their site: www.sportstoursinternational.co.uk]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Whatever happened to: Alan Ingarfield]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.tri247.com/article_3365.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[Last month in our new series, &#039;Whatever happened to...&#039;, Annie Emmerson spoke to her old team mate and good friend, former Olympian and European bronze medallist Sian Brice. This month we go a little further back to an Ironman athlete who started racing in the early 80&#039;s. Now the CEO of Boardman Bikes, Alan Ingarfield, who describes himself as just an ordinary athlete, was the former UK Ironman record holder. But as Annie found out, there&#039;s not a lot ordinary about the triathlete who completed an Ironman in 8:37:19 16 year ago.
 


AE What are your first memories of triathlon all those years ago?
 
AI A friend of mine showed me a newspaper article whilst I was floating around in the middle of the Atlantic on HMS Hermes. The article was about the Hawaii Ironman (in around 1982/83) and he said &quot;that would suit you - you&#039;re a nutter!&quot;
 
AE So when and where did you actually take part in your first triathlon?
 
AI My first triathlon was at the end of 1984 at the Tanners Hatch triathlon, it was an 800m swim, 32 mile bike and 16 mile run. The bike leg finished at a different location to the swim and I got there before my dad, brother and a friend had arrived with my running shoes (long story) so I ran three miles in bare feet until they pulled up in the car and threw them out of the window - they were all too scared to hand them to me.
 
AE Apart from running shoes being thrown out of the window at you mid-race, do you have any other funny stories about yourself whilst racing or training for Ironman?
 
AI My first ironman-distance race was the Silver Spoon in Peterborough in 1985 and whilst on the bike I got really hungry (a bit before Powerbars, etc - Mars bars maybe!) so I called out to my family who drove past and ten minutes later my Mum passed a cheese and pickle crusty roll out of the car window - it took me a good ten miles to digest one mouthful!
 
AE Thankfully you obviously improved on your nutritional plan during your races as you became the UK Ironman record holder?
 
AI Yes, I was the first Brit to break nine hours, with a time of 8:37:19 at Roth in Germany in 1992. Mike Lockwood (the clockwork mouse) chased me hard that day and finished in around 8.40. It was good for both of us to be in that race otherwise I think we would both have gone slower! I did the bike section on a steel 653 Reynolds-tubed road bike, our bike manufacturer tells me I would have gone ten minutes faster on the Boardman AiR TT/1 (I might have to make a comeback!).
 
AE Who broke your record?
 
AI I believe Julian Jenkinson went faster a few years later at another event in Germany. (Ed: with our stat man, John Levison out of the country sunning himself in Lanzarote, we&#039;re not sure exactly of the time or where, but we can confirm it was Julian who broke Alan&#039;s record). 
 
AE Tell us a little bit about your triathlon career.
 
AI I raced from 1984-1995 and competed in around ten+ Ironman events, I also raced  Nice triathlon (4k, 120k and 32k old course) six times and did have the second fastest UK time on that course behind Simon Lessing (6 hours 15 minutes). I ran 1:48 for the 30k in the 1995 World Championships, Mark Rowland (Olympic Bronze Steeplechase in Seoul Olympics) and a friend of mine, kept popping up on the run route and all he kept shouting was &quot;come on you donkey!&quot; (referring to what he considered was very slow running - he was a 3:51 miler, so fair enough!) I also did the Ironbridge half many times and got eighth in the World Pro Tour there. I got the second fastest run that day and outran Greg Welch  - he won the Hawaii Ironman that year - although he did stop at a pub on route for a sandwich (he bonked on the bike after having his legs ridden off by Mathew Belfield). I also did lots of short course races over the years.
 
AE Do you think Ironman  has changed since you were racing?
 
AI I think the whole sport has changed a lot. When I started racing it was all about the ironman-distance and most of the top guys and top women competed at all the distances. If you look back to what Dave Scott and Mark Allen were doing all those years ago their times were incredible! I don&#039;t think Ironman has moved on that much, I guess there is so much focus now on the standard distance that a lot of very talented athletes may never dip their toe in an Ironman race. I was a very ordinary athlete (Ed: not sure about ordinary) in fact I didn&#039;t learn how to swim front crawl until I was 21 (Ed: neither did I...) . I didn&#039;t even own a bike until I was 21, we lived on a busy road in London as kids and mum and dad thought we&#039;d get run over; my dad&#039;s brother had been killed as a child when an army lorry ran him over so my Dad was very nervous about us riding on the road. In a few years I would like to train a group for the ironman-distance, when I buy my place in the French Alps (watch this space!), as I think I have a few tricks up my sleeve on how to prepare for those events, after all if I could do 8:37 many others could go much faster!
 
AE What were your strengths as an Ironman?
 
AI I was always quite physically strong and could handle high mileage, I also had an ability to put up with discomfort (everyone needs that who does long distance events) I was also pretty balanced across all three disciplines.
 
AE Which current Ironman athlete to you most admire, male or female?
 
AI Obviously Chrissy Wellington; what a brilliant performance that was last year and I&#039;m sure she has plenty more to come. I also like Steve Bayliss and think he&#039;s really starting to move up now.
 
AE What are your fondest memories from your time spent as a triathlete?
 
AI I really enjoyed doing the big events like the Almere Ironman, Nice, Roth, etc. I should have probably raced more on a local level to rack up a lot more wins, however the sport to me was such a buzz when competing against the best athletes as I always saw myself as an average bloke and often felt quite surprised at some of my performances. One thing I&#039;ll never forget is something a family did for me in Holland at the Almere Ironman - it used to be a very big event, with, I believe, 100,000+ spectators coming to watch. While I was asleep the night before the race, the family that I was staying with went out on their bikes and painted my name every 1km on the marathon route! I had a dodgy bike ride that year and was well down the field in something like 37th place and I was seriously thinking about not doing the run, in fact my Dad (who was my biggest supporter!) had to talk me around in transition. Anyway I decided I would run a couple of kilometres and then call it a day. After 1km I saw my name in the road and again at 2km and at 3km the family where standing at the point where my name was, again! I thought sod it, I can&#039;t pack it in now after what they&#039;ve done for me, I got goose pimples all over and it brought tears to my eyes. I ended up coming in ninth place that day and learnt a lot about myself.
 
AE You spent some time working with the famous &#039;pose method&#039; coach Dr Romanov (who has also worked with the likes of Leanda Cave, Tim Don and AJ, to name but a few). How beneficial was this to you as a coach?
 
AI Nick is probably the most knowledgeable coach that I have come across. It was long after I had retired and I was doing some work with UK Athletics and Steve Freestone, then a local triathlon coach, and I got to meet Nick. I ended up going over to Florida and spending some very valuable time with him. Obviously Nick is known mostly for his &#039;pose method&#039; of running, however he has an incredible knowledge of conditioning training and special methods of recovery training. I have used Nick&#039;s methods when working with athletes from other sports and I personally use Nick&#039;s conditioning methods in my own fitness programmer. Apart from the above, Nick is a really nice guy and incredibly giving of himself.
 
AE You shared a house with Sarah Springman, what was it like, to live with such a formidable athlete and person?
 
AI I spent the winter of 1988 with Sarah in a house in Perth, Australia. Sarah is not actually as scary as people may think, in fact she&#039;s a lovely person and was great to train with as she was extremely dedicated. I think we only ever had one row in all the time in Australia and that was when Sarah tried to get me to stick to the cleaning rota she had put up! I was really chuffed when I got a card from Sarah after her first race of that season in Lanzarote as she had won the event by a good margin - I think I helped as I had certainly pushed Sarah on the bike that winter!
 
AE You&#039;re now CEO of Boardman Bikes, how did you get involved in the first place?
 
AI I had the idea to create a bike brand and thought who better than Chris Boardman to do this with. I guess the timing was good as Chris was thinking on similar lines and many people over the years had approached him with similar ideas. I think the big difference with my approach to Chris was that he would be 100% involved in every detail of everything! You don&#039;t need to spend much time with Chris to realise the guy is a real perfectionist. It&#039;s easy to see with Chris why he was so successful on the bike and now in his role as Head of R&amp;amp;D and coaching for British Cycling.
 
AE It&#039;s a competitive market out there so how&#039;s Boardman Bikes doing?
 
AI Incredibly well! The tie-in we have with Halfords/Bikehut has enabled us to create the best value for money bikes in the UK market (the reviews we have had speak for themselves) simply because the buying power of Halfords has enabled us to leverage the best prices from the manufacturers and suppliers and these savings have been passed on to the customer. The bikes are not only incredible value, they are also fantastic performing bikes. We have also invested heavily in R&amp;amp;D on an Elite element of the brand, Dimitris Katsanis (the GB Cycling team&#039;s designer of all the track bikes) is our designer and he and Chris have ideas in the pipe line for some very sexy equipment. The Elite range will also be available through a number of specialist bike shops as well as the new standalone Bikehut stores.
 
We are also studying other markets to see which fit with the brand and the USA is a good fit for us - we have plans to launch the brand there in the near future.
 

AE You&#039;re in a great position now being able to give something back to the sport by sponsoring some of the young and up-and-coming triathletes, that must be a good feeling?
 
AI Yes, this is a real buzz for me, I get told off by other members of our team as I would like to sponsor every athlete that writes to us! I can remember being on the dole and super-gluing holes in my tubs before races as I was so skint, so I do understand what it&#039;s like to try to be an athlete without sponsorship. I should probably hand this part of the business over to someone else in the future that&#039;s a bit more hard-nosed (I&#039;ve completely blown the budget this year by miles!).
 
AE Which athletes are you currently sponsoring and do you think there&#039;s a chance that someone will bring a medal back from Beijing.
 
AI On the triathlon side we are currently sponsoring Alistair Brownlee and Will Clarke, in addition Jonny Brownlee is currently riding a prototype frame for us (well done to Jonny at the Europeans last week, by the way!). We also sponsor Josh Lawless who I have been coaching since he was ten, I think he will be a great Ironman athlete one day.
 
Obviously Alistair and Will are going to Madrid in a couple of weeks and I hope they both do well, they are both superb athletes and I think over the next few years Mr Gomez better watch his back because these guys are coming up fast!
 
AE Is it true that you come from a boxing background and have trained a female boxer who won a European Championship medal?
 
AI Yes, I did some boxing as a youngster, I also did judo and played table tennis with a vengeance! In the past few years I have been doing Brazilian Jujitsu (got too many broken ribs though!) and have dabbled with a Russian martial art called Systema which I plan to study to a greater degree.
 
I did all the conditioning work for Shanee Martin over the last few years - I did have a part share in a boxing gym for a while. Shanee fought for two world titles last year, in the first in Hungary she was completely ripped off, so much so that the woman who got the decision was supposed to fight her again in a re-match (she&#039;s not fought since). The other, Shanee lost fair and square in Germany. I attend all her fights and it&#039;s heartbreaking when you get a bad decision from the judges. I also trained Julius Francis when he fought Audley Harrison and I have trained a couple of World Class MMA (mixed martial arts) guys.
 
AE Many athletes stay in the sport for years and years, some retire and come back, but you seem to have made a pretty clean break, any thoughts to ever return to the sport?
 
AI I think triathlon is the best sport in the world and I really loved every minute of training and racing (well, nearly every minute!). I have had thoughts of making a return, however I have also bulked up a lot (that means got fatter!). Unfortunately I do know what it takes to perform well and I wouldn&#039;t want to come back and not do myself justice. I would certainly like to get involved in coaching again in the future. However, at the moment the Boardman Bike brand is my main focus. One thing that does tempt me back is seeing all the kit that we are producing as I would love to ride our current Elite bike in anger, I&#039;ll have to give up those cakes though!
 
AE What next for Alan Ingarfield, former UK Ironman record holder?
 
AI I want to see the Boardman Bike brand grow into an international brand; I would love to see the bikes in the Tour de France and I want to support the athletes we are sponsoring the best I can. I still have some fire in my belly for training and competition and I look forward to testing myself in the future. My main goal in life though is to put something back in to sport and to help others achieve their goals - when I have the time I&#039;ll hopefully make a good coach.]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Race London for Epilepsy Action]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.tri247.com/article_3370.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[We often get information through about charity slots in races but every once in a while there&#039;s a personal story attached which involves someone in the sport. News came thrugh from Ali Boon at Tri-UK about one of their team members, Robbie Philips, who has been struck down with an illness that causes seizures and, while unable to race himself as a result, is supporting the charity Epilepsy Action who are looking to fill their last few remaining slots at the London Triathlon (www.epilepsy.org.uk/involved/londontriathlon.html).

From everything that Ali has told us this looks like a classic case of &#039;but for the grace of...&#039; in that Robbie, a self-employed painter and decorator, took to triathlon as part of a lifestyle change to get away from being a bit overweight and spending too much time in the pub. Once hooked on the sport he then took time to coach and encourage other novices, helping them get started and passing on what he had learned. Somewhere along the way he became part of the Tri-UK team and obviously made enough of an impression that Ali has made the decision that he will remain an honorary member despite not being able to compete any more.

Obviously Robbie&#039;s life has been changed by the disease; he can&#039;t go up ladders, he can&#039;t drive, he can&#039;t ride a bike... The fact that he is still prepared to put in the effort for the sport and his chosen charity speaks volumes for his character. So, if you are still hunting for an elusive London slot this is one that you should definitely consider as an option.]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Triathlete research study]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.tri247.com/article_3369.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[The University of Kent&rsquo;s Psychology Department are running a study to investigate links between attitudes, goal setting and competitive performance in triathletes and whether this varies over a season. They need people to take part in the research by filling in three questionnaires throughout the season; one in May, July and September. The questionnaires ask about your past performances, your attitude towards triathlon and the goals you set yourself and take approximately 10 minutes to complete each time.

Any active triathlete over the age of 16 can take part. It doesn&#039;t matter what level you are at as long as you take part in two or more triathlons during this year.

As well as contributing to the enhancement of sport science (tt is hoped that in time the results will contribute towards training programmes that develop athletes and produce winners) by way of an incentive each club will receive &pound;10 per member who completes a set of questionnaires. Each individual athlete taking part can opt to enter a raffle with three &pound;100 prizes up for grabs!

If you would like to take part in the study you can go to their website (www.kent.ac.uk/psychology) or email them for a form (r.crombie@kent.ac.uk) or write in to Rosanna Crombie, MSc. Research Associate, Department of Psychology, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NP]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[TeamDillon launches coaching site]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.tri247.com/article_3368.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[Michelle Dillon, two time Olympian and European and world championship medallist, is launching a new an exciting website called Team Dillon Coaching: www.teamdilloncoaching.com. Team Dillon is offering Triathlon coaching on a monthly basis or one off training programs for races fast approaching on the race calender.

As a winner of last year&#039;s London Triathlon event, Michelle is offering her knowledge to help all those participants looking to gain the edge on their competition. Team Dillon is offering a 10-week, 8-week, or 6-week training program for first timers or the more experienced triathlete for as little as &pound;15 per week. Michelle has created this website to give back to others what she has learnt through her amazing experiences as an elite level athlete for the last 20 years. You will find training tips, nutritional information, and have the opportunity to buy quality second hand triathlon kit.]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Congratulations to...]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.tri247.com/article_3367.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[We have recently been running a number of competitions and the winners for these are:

Orca S2 wetsuits
Mandy Deex and Alan Ward were the lucky two who spotted that two athletes are both Tri247 columnists and Wiggle bloggers; Michelle Dillon and Craig Doyle.

30 Years of the Ironman
The three winners here were Roland Brown, Daniel Green and Euan Lees who all knew that the year there were two Hawaii Ironman races was 1982. The first one was in February (Scott Tinley and Kathleen McCartney), the second was in October, now the traditional date, (Dave Scott and Julie Leach).

Congratulations to all, we hope you enjoy your prizes.]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Weekend preview]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.tri247.com/article_3366.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[Not such a busy weekend this time, which is something of a blessing as most of the Tri247 team is either already in Lanzarote or getting ready to go there for the Ironman next weekend. Still, there&#039;s plenty to tempt almost every sort of multi-sport athlete with events all over the country at pretty much every distance other than full ironman.

Saturday sees three races; the first of a two-day weekend at Dorney Lake with Human Race&#039;s Eton Super Sprints (nearly 2,400 people over the two days) as the headliner and support from the Keswick Mountain Festival Triathlon in Cumbria and the PACTRAC Peterborough Junior Triathlon. 

While the second day of racing at Eton may well be the biggest event on the calendar the prestige moves a few miles west for the first of the Corus Elite Series in the brand new venue of Reading&#039;s GreenPark. Here you&#039;ll get to watch the likes of Tim Don and Kris Gemmell (NZL) in the men&#039;s race and Flora Duffy (BER) and Rosie Clarke going over the sprint distance. Tri247&#039;s Annie Emerson will be there to capture the atmosphere so we should have a report up for you on Sunday afternoon. If you were wondering where the rest of the UK &#039;big names&#039; were racing you&#039;ll have to look across the Channel to France where the French Grand Prix series is in Dunkirk. Here you&#039;ll find Stuart Hayes, Will Clarke and Al Brownlee in action for thier French clubs.

The rest of the domestic calendar offers a wide choice; there&#039;s the first of Big Cow&#039;s Milton Keynes Sprint Series at Emberton Country Park, the East Grinstead Sprint together with its associated Ladies Try a Tri event. The Merchant Taylors&#039; Triathlon goes over both the standard and sprint distance at Northwood in Middlesex, and there are sprint distance races at Peel on the Isle of Man, Burntwood and at the Midlothian Sprint in Scotland. If you fancy something longer there&#039;s the Marazion Middle Distance down in Cornwall or if you like it short and sweet there are super sprint races at Tewkesbury and Pacesetter&#039;s Mansfield Triathlon which is the first race in their Timex Series.

Junior athletes have races at St Annes on Sea in Lancashire, Bicester, Holmwood House near Colchester, the Leeds &amp;amp; Bradford Junior Aquathlon, and the Wirral Tristars Triathlon.

Those of a hydrophobic nature have the one duathlon, the Tweedbank Duathlon in the Scottish Borders.

We also have one major overseas race, the Ironman 70.3 Florida in Orlando where a stellar cast (of triathletes, not theme park characters) includes Craig Alexander, Viktor Zyemtsev, TJ Tollakson and Chris Lieto who will be fighting for the men&#039;s trophy and Katja Schumacher, Nina Kraft, Leanda Cave, Joanna Zeiger and Dede Griesbauer will be contesting the women&#039;s. Follow this one on IronmanLive: www.ironmanlive.com]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Sports Tours move in on triathlon]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.tri247.com/article_3363.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[The UK&#039;s largest multi-sports tour operator, Sports Tours International, has added another specialist department to their expanding business.  The new addition is triathlons and is set to take triathletes around the world to major events.
 
Sports Tours identified triathlons as a growth area and that international travel was important to many competitors and enthusiasts.  With a 25-year track record of assisting their customers to travel to events across the globe, it was a natural add-on to the already successful product offered from the Manchester based tour operator.
 
Commenting on the move into triathlons, Sports Tours Chief Executive Chris Bird said: &quot;Having been in the business for almost 18 months, I felt that the experience of our team and the skills they have, could provide a fantastic service to triathletes.  This is very much a natural progression for us.  We are the market leader in running tours from the UK to iconic races such as the New York Marathon, as well as being Europe&rsquo;s number one cycling tour operator and the only official UK partner of the Tour de France.&quot;
 
Sports Tours are also the official travel partner to one of the world&rsquo;s largest sporting events companies IMG, and will specialise in travel to triathlons in London, Stockholm and Barcelona.  Closer to home, Sports Tours have teamed up with Tatton Park in Cheshire, as the official Sports travel partner for the inaugural Tatton Park Triathlon on June 8th. 
 
Bird adds: &quot;Since our online triathlon announcement we have been inundated with enquiries from event organisers in the UK and around the world, looking to partner with us to offer our travel services to their competitors.  It has not taken long for the word to get around regarding our move into triathlons.  It has also been very helpful to have a successful 25-year track record in delivering a quality service to our customers too.&quot;  
 
Additional to the triathlon race activity, Sports Tours will be offering specialist training camps in Lanzarote at Club La Santa, where they are the exclusive sales agents for the UK and Ireland. For further event and travel information please visit www.sportstoursinternational.co.uk/triathlon&quot;]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Bike of the Race: Sky Draper]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.tri247.com/article_3307.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[It&amp;rsquo;s a fact, triathletes love kit! And nothing gets more discussed, considered, argued about and drooled over than bikes. We love bikes too, and so we bring you another in our 2008 series of &amp;lsquo;Bike of the Race&amp;rsquo;. There are no rules involved &amp;ndash; you may be the fastest or the slowest in your age group. You may even be an elite athlete. You could be riding the most &amp;lsquo;bling&amp;rsquo; bike available, a rare Italian thoroughbred or an old shopper (with basket attached&amp;hellip;). Or, we might just like you! As always, our Tri247 staff will be out and about all over the country (well, the world actually), so if you get a tap on the shoulder and asked for a photo &amp;ndash; be nice to us, and smile!

Sky Draper 
Focus Cayo Expert Road Bike  


Our latest bike of the race for 2008 belongs to 12-year old Sky Draper. Yes, it is a rather nice bike for 12! Never happened when I was a lad...
Sky races for Jetstream Tri Club (www.jetstreamtri.com), a junior club based in the London Borough of Harrow. Now, in case you are thinking &amp;quot;why give a youngster a bike like that&amp;quot;, it&#039;s fair to say that Sky isn&#039;t your average tristar athlete. The word talent could well have been invented for this young lady. In modern World Cup racing, everyone knows that you really need to be a pretty special swimmer and runner to succeed. Boxes ticked on the potential front there we reckon... 

  1500m Swimming Personal Best: 19 minutes 46 seconds 
  1500m Running Personal Best: 4 minutes 54.46 seconds (currently heading the UK U13 rankings) 
  London Mini-Marathon winner 2007 and 2008 

Oh, and she&#039;s no slouch on two wheels either. We caught up with Sky at the Hillingdon Bank Holiday Duathlon, which was round one of the 2008 London Tristar Series. Not surprisingly, she had just won! The following day she also beat all-comers in the Under-15 3km event held alongside the Watford 10km, making it a very successfull bank holiday weekend. 
The bike, which is new for this season (and a few more seasons, her father&#039;s wallet will be hoping) will ensure that there really will be nothing holding her back, which might be even more worrying for her opposition. The details: 

Focus Cayo Expert, full-carbon frame &amp;amp; forks. 
Planet-X Pro Carbon 50 wheels (clinchers) 
Michelin ProRace2 tyres 
Full Shimano Ultegra Groupset 
Profile clip-on aerobars
Look pedals 


Sky isn&#039;t new to triathlon, in fact she&#039;s been racing the duathlon events at Hillingdon for four seasons now. For the rest of the year she plans to race in the London Series, which will hopefully qualify her for the Inter Regional Championships in Crawley, plus some of the South East Series too. In addition, running races, swimming and even some cycle time trials, which will really put the Focus to good use as well as embarrassing a few &#039;oldies&#039; with her speed.
Racing aside, there is also the possibility of another challenge ahead, which the Focus will be ready for - last year, her mother, Ana, visited an Aids orphans project in Malawi and Sky is keen to raise money for that by completing a century (100-mile) bike ride. 
Just in case you are thinking &amp;quot;pushy parents&amp;quot;, no, her father Kevin ensures us that their biggest challenge is trying to hold her back. You can see in her racing, she clearly loves competing. 
Looking into  the future, full-time professional athlete is definitely her goal, though whether that&#039;s in swimming, cycling, running, triathlon or even something else we&#039;ll have to wait and see. Either way, I&#039;m certain you&#039;ll be hearing about Sky Draper for years to come. ]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Herbalife training weekend]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.tri247.com/article_3356.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[Guy Bellamy reports from his weekend in Eastbourne, courtesy of IMG and Team Herbalife.



To be honest, I couldn&#039;t actually remember entering the Herbalife competition! You see, I have never won anything before in my life. Imagine my suprise when I received a phone call on Thursday from Dan telling me that I would be training under Bill Black with the Herbalife Academy in Eastbourne that weekend.

Now, as an iron-distance athlete, I was coming to the end of 15 hours of swimming, biking and running when I got this call and was looking forward to a glorious rest day.  However, not having won anything before, it was straight home to pack my bags and say sorry to wifey for not being able to garden with her.

Upon arrival at our base for the weekend (the very homely Running Inn) I met the academy athletes and Bill Black (BB) and what a jolly nice bunch they all were too.  A mixture of all abilities and agaes held together by a passion for triathlon and the quest for improvement. BB was keen to stress that although our race distances were poles apart, the concept of training and control and the basics across all three disciplines were the same, just that I would be slow.

Our first session was a run up on the Downs comprising three 2km descending intervals over undulating terrain.  BB was keen to impress upon everyone that they should be in CONTROL, a word we would hear a lot over the weekend.  Get the pace of rep 1 wrong and rep 3 would be a messy affair.  A hot and sweaty hour later we returned for lunch.

Session two was a pool swim, first in wetsuits, practicing everything that we may be faced with on race day.  An hour later we had covered dry land warm-ups, water warm-ups, drafting on the feet, on the hip, as a foursome, lost goggles, turns, fending off other swimmers, how to get clear water, sighting and finally wetsuit removal. Back in the water for a more traditional swimming set of 50s, 100s and 200s - always under CONTROL however.  Anyone can blast out a great rep of a set distance; ask them to do it again and again and again and they would be in trouble.

Back to base, where we slipped into compression gear and filled up on Herbalife protein bars and recovery drinks before an early night - yeah right.

Sunday looked like being another great day, and it started with a great breakfast at the Running Inn.  It was then out on the bikes for a two hour hilly ride.  Upon our return it was into the sea to practice eveything from our pool session yesterday.

Time for lunch and then a talk from one of Herbalife&#039;s sports medicine doctors about footcare.

Finally, it was time for transition practice, all under the watchful eye of BB and the Herbalife filmcrew. It was during this session of &#039;helmet on, bike pick up, scoot, mount, leg over, step inside Aussie stylee, rack, helmet off, shoes on&#039; that you saw the passion and commitment of BB and how he has eyes everywhere and a stopwatch that never leaves his hand.  He promised that we would all learn from the weekend, and I certainly did.  No matter what our race distances, the basics do remain the same, we should still try to be the first person out of our wetsuit, overtake people in T1 and T2 because you can put your helmet on quicker or you can step off your bike seamlessly into a run.

A very tired Guy drove away from Eastbourne that evening having felt the full benefit of the excellent training and superb company from the Herbalife Academy.]]></description></item></channel></rss>