0 Comments
21/05/2016
Started off the weekend at 6am with a car journey to the Brecon Beacons to cycle the organised route of the Titan Half Ironman. Being the first time I have ever cycled further than 80km, I felt the pace was good and I coped fairly well with the hills (1,400m height gain). Surprisingly I didn’t experience much cramp despite the tough climbs and the dull mood due to the constant downpour of ‘Welsh liquid sun’ and the horrible wind. Focusing on the event, I am excited to know how my legs will cope by concluding the race with a 13 mile run. I guess I’m going to have to keep it steady and hope there is enough left in the tank. The day was a great experience and definitely beneficial in terms of training and being prepared for the actual race. http://www.dbmax.co.uk/event-list/triathlon/item/titan-brecon.html 22/05/2016 Slightly later start today, dad and I headed over to the Cotswold Lake to attempt a few laps. However upon arriving we realised there was a 1.9km lake familiarisation swim as part of the 113 events for the 70.2 race in mid June. We both headed off with the pack and completed the full swim distance and then dried ourselves off before running a fairly easy 6.5km to get the legs moving. However mine hadn’t fully recovered from Saturdays cycling meaning they were covered in a burning sensation for the first 2km. For the rest of the week I plan to let my body recover with some low intensity efforts before the all-important Euro qualifier race on Saturday which will start at 8am. This will be my first official high standard triathlon and I hope to take advantage of the apparently very flat and fast Nottingham course. First blog of the new page, quite a lot to talk about from the last week or so. On Saturday 14th May, my family ventured back to Swindon Parkrun which was where I completed my first ever Parkrun in 2011. I achieved a time of 30:16 and can remember feeling as if I was being tortured. Five years on from that and I have improved by almost 13 minutes which just shows that commitment goes a long way. Week on week I became quicker however I always looked at the guys far in front and wondered if I could ever beat them one day. That ‘one day’ came on the 14th of May 2016 and as Cirencester Athletics Club describes it; "Luke Campbell’s brave move to forsake his Chippenham comfort zone and take on a much greater challenge in Swindon paid off with a first place (and inevitably 1st Junior) and a time five seconds faster than his Chippenham PB." I tracked the whole run on my Garmin GPS watch and upon looking at the split times, I found that my last 50 meters were completed at 30 kmph (1:55 minute kilometer). Over the years I have seriously worked on my sprint finish and it has clearly benefited my performance. On Sunday 15th May, I ventured further from my comfort zone and attended the body power expo 2016 at The NEC. For those of you who don’t know what it is, it’s a massive warehouse filled with bodybuilders, weightlifters and bikini models. I met Nikki Blacketter, Steve Cook and Christian Guzman which was an incredibly experience and I shall be looking to go again next year. My next race is the Nottingham Sprint Triathlon on the 27th May, so this is my last week of hard training. This race is my attempt to qualify for the European Sprint Championships in 2017. There is fierce competition, but if things go to plan, I am confident that I have a chance of securing a slot. I’ll try and keep you updated over the next few weeks even though I am busy with training, work and college work. |
Luke CampbellHere will be a monthly review as well as occasional race updates Archives
April 2019
Categories |