On the 15th April my family and I left England and arrived in Lanzarote for a week of training and racing at well-known sports resort Club La Santa located North-West of the island. This was my fifth time visiting the resort (the last time was in September 2016 for the 70.3 race, read about it HERE) and so I knew exactly what I had planned for the week and it was completely non-stop. Day 1: Sunday After less than 6 hours sleep, the week started with an open water swim in the enclosed sea water lagoon, there were roughly 15 participants and although social, there was an element of competition involved. I was one of four swimming in skins (without a wetsuit) as I figured a water temperature of 17 degrees was more than inviting. I swam roughly 1900m in around 35 minutes constantly progressing throughout the group and making the most of the warm water! Later on in the day was a track session open to both children and adults which involved running for a set amount of seconds and then turning around and running for the same duration in the opposite direction with the aim of getting back to the start line. The session was 30”, 60”, 90”, 120”, 90”, 60”, and 30” with half the rest of the effort. This session was tough with the heat and really challenged how well my body could recover between reps. Day 2: Monday Today was both the Duathlon and the Aquathlon races only 6 hours apart from each other meaning I would need to recover quickly, especially if I wanted to win both (which I did). The duathlon was a 2.5km run, 17km cycle and then a 2.5km run. I started off hard on the first run with the aim of discouraging any other competitors from trying to stick with me and taking advantage of the run being my strongest discipline. One man stuck with me for the whole run and really forced me to unnecessarily up the pace in an attempt to drop him. We entered transition together but I was out on the bike before he had even got his helmet on. (Transition is important!!) The cycle was a simple ‘out and back’, the out being constantly uphill and the back being equally downhill. Like most other competitors, I hired a bike for the cycle meaning the seat height was the only thing adjusted to me personally making the cycle harder than it should’ve been. Nonetheless, I didn’t see any other competitors for another 2km after the turn point which gave my confidence a big boost especially as the person in second place wasn’t the original guy who ran with me. Anyway I continued to spin down the hill, flew through transition and then went on to win the race by roughly 90 seconds with a comfortable second run. Although with dad still out on the course and my siblings both completing the easy morning run, the only people to see me finish was my mum and one member of staffL. This was also the first time I spoke to a girl called Elsbeth Grant (remember the name) who finished 2nd overall and I competed against throughout the rest of the week. First run: 8:13 Cycle: 27:42 Second run: 8:55 After making the most of the recovery time, I headed over to the pool for the start of the Aquathlon, a 200m swim followed by a 3km run. Obviously after comfortably winning the duathlon earlier in the day I was confident this race would be similar, I was wrong. It was roughly 30 degrees with no clouds and no drink station throughout the run meaning it could be quite hard. Confident in my swimming I started in the fastest lane, a younger girl turns to me at the start and says “You can head off first and I will follow.” “Thank you.” I replied although I wasn’t planning on giving her much choice in the matter. Turns out she’s a national swimmer and beat me out of the water… however she was part of a team entry and gave the timer chip to her brother who luckily for me wasn’t the equivalent at running. I jumped out the pool, as always flew through transition, and then headed out onto the unforgiving run course in second place. One kilometre passes by quickly, I comfortably overtook first place and held a pace of around 3:40/km. But then I start to hear footsteps behind me and I start to get worried. As part of a psychological tactic I didn’t look behind but I was confident it was Elsbeth, I was also confident I would drop her but every time I pushed away she followed and bounced back with a faster attack. The heat was draining and my legs were knackered, this was going to be a tough little race. With around 1km left she took the lead and attempted to break away, there was no way I would let it happen so I stuck on her heals and deployed my next psychological tactic: the confidence booster. I let her lead for a few hundred meters before reclaiming pole position and leading all the way to the finish before breaking away in the last 200m knowing this was where I could take the victory and crossed the line in first place. I can honestly say that was the hardest I have ever had to work during a race to finish let alone win. She forced me to work very hard and luckily for me I managed to dig deep and finish strong. Of course I have massive respect for her finishing just 3 seconds later after pushing me close to my limit in such tough conditions especially after also completing the duathlon earlier that morning. Swim: 3:07 Run: 11:47 Day 3: Tuesday Supposed rest and recovery day started off with an easy 5km in around 23 minutes followed by a 10km cycle to a local beach and then back. The main event of the day was a half marathon run which was a 3 lap course used at the Ironman 70.3. Personally I didn’t have it in me to run that far especially without being knackered for the rest of the week so instead my 14 year old brother decided to run it and finish in 1:48 which is very impressive, especially as that was his first run of that distance. Day 4: Wednesday My main event of the week, the Sprint triathlon! A 400m swim in the 50m pool followed by a 17km cycle and then a 4.6km run. After what happened at the Aquathlon I was hesitant to predict a finishing position before knowing the competition. My race tactics involved having a strong swim, very hard bike and a (hopefully) comfortable run. For some reason, the German National swimming squad all decided to compete in the triathlon and occupied almost all of lane 1 and 2 and not wanting to embarrass myself on the swim (again) I started in lane 3 and got caught behind other swimmers starting off far too quickly before dropping off. So I drafted another strong swimmer for almost the whole 400m before exiting the pool in something like 10th position. A very strong transition meant I headed onto the bike course in 5th position with some distance to make up, again on a hire bike. Within around 1km I had over taken all but one other competitor who I was slowly hunting down knowing if I could get ahead it would be unlikely he could stick with me in the run. I caught him on the first proper hill and kept progressing from there, after the turning point I didn’t see him for a good minute and figured it was unlikely I would be overtaken before the start of the run. I was wrong…again. He came flying past on the last decent grinding his legs in a huge gear while I was sat on the bike stem trying to be as aero as possible. We worked hard up the final hill before entering transition together where I lead out from the run setting off at around 3:30/km pace knowing there was little chance he would be able to run that after the hard cycle. I continued with this pace until the turn around point where I found myself at least 90 seconds ahead, I now took the opportunity to comfortably run back into the complex to claim my third victory of the week. Swim: 5:46 Bike: 26:09 Run: 16:43 Days 5/6/7: The last few days were spent more as a holiday as I had already completed all of the races planned. The great thing about the whole holiday was that I never felt tired, a lot of the days I was running more than once and my legs were feeling great. I guess this has something to do with the holiday only being a week but I was focused on making the most of it in terms of training as well as a holiday. We arrived home early on Sunday morning so I got a few hours of sleep in and then decided to go for a 10km run (mainly to get a CR on strava) to see how my legs felt and to try to loosen them out because it is now just one week until my first official sprint triathlon of the year, The Oldbury White Horse Triathlon. I’m really looking forward to this race to test how well my winter training has gone and to see how close I can get to the podium. Thank you for reading my blog! If you have any questions or comments please just ask and I will be happy to chat. #bigthingsarecoming *Side note- apologies for not posting a review of March, it simply was not the busiest month with no races and lots of training. I did however see Jason Tait at South West Swim which was brilliant as always and I picked up a bike from Performance Cycles which is even better than I was expecting. I also ran the Bath Half which you can read about in a previous blog HERE. Final words- Please go check out my Facebook page Luke Campbell Triathlon, I would really appreciate it if you could go and give it a like. Also please check out my strava- Luke Campbell Triathlon Twitter- @lukecampbell246 Instagram- @lukecampbell246 Make sure to like, comment and share my posts! As always, big thanks to my sponsors and the people who support me- Pedal Potential South West Swim Performance Cycles
1 Comment
|
Luke CampbellHere will be a monthly review as well as occasional race updates Archives
April 2019
Categories |