Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
As the global sporting spotlight will fall on Bahrain again later this year, GulfWeekly has teamed up with one of the world’s top trainers to coach the island’s sports-lovers to prepare to take part. If you have ever fancied trying a triathlon there will never be a better opportunity. Your community newspaper hopes to inspire you to put your best foot forward and have a go.
Don’t be scared … Andy Price will help you every step of the way!
Here’s your WEEK 8 – 99 Days until Bahrain Challenge.
* Training programme for the week starting Sunday to September 5
So we have completed block one and had a recovery week. This is now the most important block of training as you run up to Bahrain Challenge and Ironman Bahrain.
This week will be a mixture of testing, to see if you have made any improvements, and quality speed endurance sessions. It will be hard but will pay off as competitions approach.
It’s also the last week of training as the Bahrain Road Runners competitions start to kick in. The temptation is to rest before each race but if your aim is the two Half Ironman races in November and December then train through the local events (don’t rest up) and use them as hard, race pace training sessions.
Nothing can compare to competing hard in training. Where possible you should try and attend as many local events as possible.
To enter go to the Bahrain Road Runners website.
For ease I will include a key to explain abbreviations each week:
* GENERAL – You only have a few days to sign up for the Bahrain Triathlon Club (applications close on September 10).
Think about race nutrition as part of your training programme. There’s not much you can do in the swim but the bike is the ideal time to start feeding. Remember it’s not because you are hungry it’s all about putting fuel into the machine (your body) and you need to remember it takes anything up to 30 minutes to have an effect so plan and start early.
So feed early, little and often on the bike. For rides over 60 minutes think about starting at about the 30-minute mark and don’t expect a benefit for a few miles. By the time you are hungry or flagging it’s too late.
What to eat is more a personal choice as each body will react and process differently so use training rides to work out what is best for you. Gels and sports bars are useful sources but some might prefer fruit and cereal bars, which take longer to process. Try and avoid chocolate. While it can give you an immediate sugar rush it is shortlived.
During the run it is difficult to eat but a lot of athletes use things like flat Coke to replenish sugars and minerals. There is no generic answer and this column is too short to go into details so experiment over the next few weeks to find out what works for you.
This week start off with the same test as in Week 3 to establish your racing pace. Hopefully, you will have improved over the last few weeks and can reset you racing pace to a slightly faster time. Use this new race pace over the next five weeks.
* SESSION 1 – Time trial
• Warm up
* Session 2 - Pool
• Warm up
* Session 3 – Open water
• 4 x 500m race pace R90 after each but make sure you don’t drop your pace over the last few reps.
* SESSION 1 - Indoors / Turbo trainer
• Warm up – 10 minutes steady. Slowly build through the gears until you have a relatively hard gear.* SESSION 2 – Outdoors (remember this is a Bike to Run)
• 90-minute ride followed by a 3-5km run. Both should be as close to race pace as you can manage.
* Session 1 – Endurance Run.
• Warm up before you start the run. Try to avoid going straight off. (Always do some form of warm up)
Mobility stretches
* Session 2 – Intervals on a track if possible
• Warm up (get into a routine of doing the same warm up before each training session or race)
Mobility stretches
* Session 3 - Bike to Run
• Following your bike give yourself 3-5 minutes rest as you stow away the bike then go for a 3-5km run at race pace.
