Every Day Training Camp - Day 3 - Wind, rain and an early race

Today on EDT camp, it was all about the early morning race: an aquathlon on the sea front of Puerto del Carmen. Then a simple ride just above 100K to make things right!

Aquathlon transition

The aquathlon was held on the seafront of Puerto del Carmen, very close to the ironman finish line. The swim was 2 out-and-back loops from the beach to the line of permanent yellow buoys, and the run was on the undulating seafront. With a “mass” start, it was a great format: whoever is ahead… is ahead! The transition area was up at road level, on a children’s playground.

Unlike yesterday, the mass start wasn’t feisty, mostly because the target for the turnaround wasn’t a single, small buoy, but a line of buoys out at sea. This meant everyone fanned out quickly, with a few working together. I found myself pretty isolated to the right of it all, and got tangled in the ropes of a buoy ¾ of the way to the turnaround. That, and getting it again on the way back, didn’t help, but I had a normal swim, despite really feeling my ribs.

I got caught big time by swimmers who didn’t start too fast and didn’t half blow-up in the middle of their swim, but I managed to exit transition in about 7th or 8th place, being speedy through the zone, even with putting socks on. That’s a welcome change for me!

I also had an interesting target to try and catch in Jo, my coach, who shot out of transition slightly ahead of me. I passed her right at the end of the first lap, but she’s a racer, and I didn’t want her to be able to stick around, so had to dig deeper to not be caught. That worked well since I finished 5th, with the fastest run split of the day. I’m pretty sure Jo’s having fun though. Aren’t you, coach? :-) Gut-busting action for everyone, and well done to Greg for winning it, cracking run there! He managed to catch Mel who was out on the run first, almost 5 minutes ahead of me! I’m definitely not a front-pack swimmer.

Running back to the hotel validated our “wildcard” to not have to do an extra run in the afternoon after the ride, which was welcome since tomorrow, there is another bike TT, uphill this time, on Tabayesco. Discussions have been going on fiercely about me winning it, but I’m yet to be convinced some are going full blast. Tomorrow will be fun regardless.

Today’s ride was a long loop through Playa Blanca, Fire Mountain and Famara, and it was pretty windy. Great test of the legs doing some work at the front (but not all of it, there’s a TT tomorrow after all ;-) ), and of bike handling in cross winds around the island. Wheels are fine, legs seem to work al-right, so all is good on this front. Some of the group on the long ride today decided to ride up to Teguise, and I’m yet to hear the stories, but apparently they’ve got offered a full cake (as in the WHOLE thing!) and, well, gobbled it up. After the few ice creams of those last few days, I’m not sure how this is going to end!!

It also rained today. Clouds come just like this and disappear after 1h after having drenched everything. On the way back with Frankie, we managed to miss them. Lucky this time!

Not many photos today: I didn’t take my camera with me, and the wind was so strong it would have been a bad idea to try and take the phone out of my pocket. I’m sure the official blog will have more later on.

Today's stats for me

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