Hi everyone, I hope this finds you all in good sporting health.
I think the best place for me to start as I haven’t posted for a while is with the HK Standard Chartered Marathon. I competed in the 10km event and came 7th with a time of 33.26 minutes. I was very disappointed with this race as last year I came 2nd. I didn’t have enough fuel in my tank to run a good time and my race preparation did not go well either.
Even though I didn’t have a very good start to my season and was not feeling in the best form, I still felt very positive for what lies ahead of me and I knew with some quality and focused training I would be back in shape and things will start to come together. I believe consistency is the key to winning. I coach long distance runner – Ivan Li who has been very consistent with his training over the last 6 months and has performed some great results over his last few races. He won his Half Marathon Junior category in a time of 1hr 18mins. He has achieved 4 personal bests in the last month in 4 races. So I want to say well done to Ivan.
Hong Kong being such a vibrant city can sometimes not the best place to train in preparation for my season. Patrick Kelly the new triathlon head coach organized a 1 months training camp in Australia -Sunshine Coast. I thoroughly enjoyed the training and was surrounded by great people, including my training partner Gi Ka Man who has helped me a lot not only in the training but mentally outside of training as well. I trained in Australia to the best of my ability and focused on my weaknesses, which I am hoping will turn into strengths throughout the season. We trained for 30 plus hours per week with a half day off every 10 days, It was an intense training camp but definitely what I needed.
I was appointed the head chef on the camp and put whatever energy I had left into cooking – which wasn’t much!!! I must admit I made some peculiar dishes (steak, lamb chop, soup, baked beans…..) but after a long days training any combination tasted good. We also treated ourselves to a regular ice cream and Big Mac 😉
During my time in Australia I competed in 3 races. The first race being a sprint distance event (750m swim, 20km bike, 5km run). I had a bad start in the swim so I needed to make up some ground on the bike, I unfortunately got a 3 minute penalty because I blocked the other competitors during the ride. I therefore had to stop in the transition area for 3 minutes before I started the run- which meant I dropped further behind the other guys.
The second race – The Kings Beach Ocean 2K Swim Event was a more promising race. The week prior I trained for 33 hours so I knew the swim was going to be a tough one, even the day before I had a 5 hour bike ride and run, followed by 90 minutes of threshold work in the swimming pool. I surprised myself by coming 7th in the open age category which I was happy with. This result confirmed to me that my swimming endurance improved along with a better technique gave me a much needed confidence boost.
I loved feeling strong in the swim, as the swim is my weakest event out of the three disciplines.
The third event was the most important one and I knew I had to perform in this race. It was the Mooloolaba ITU Triathlon World Cup. It was a great experience to again race against some of the best triathletes in the world and 2x World Champions and curent Olympic Silver Medalist Javier Gomez. I had a great training block leading up to this race and believed that the good consistent work I had done will bring me a good result. I had a great swim and was in the front pack with all the top guys and was in a good position coming out of the water but this soon changed…… I got dropped by the guys on the hills during the bike stage, I knew the hills were going to be tough as this course is renowned for being one of the hardest courses in the World Cup series. I suffered again coming from the bike to the run and found the 37 degree heat was getting to me. I hanged on until the end but just didn’t have enough power in my legs to catch up with the guys. I found the course the toughest but the hardest ones are the most memorable. I came 23rd overall and was happy that I did it and finished it in one piece.
Being a triathlete and traveling all over the world for the last 10 years, I have made some fantastic friends and after the World Cup I had a great chance to catch up with mates and especially my ex coach Clark Ellice over a beer or two 😉
I would like to say thanks to my coaches Patrick Kelly and Neil Hearvy who I am proud to train with and be apart of the HK team with them. We had the best camp ever in Australia and I am looking forward to more in the future.
All of my training now is focused on leading up to Asian Championships, which will commence at the end of April in the Philipines. I am looking forward to see the results! The team is getting faster and better, especially now we have got some great runners and swim-bikers in the team to train with. We are aiming to survive to keep triathlon as an Elite Sport of HKSI.
GAME ON!
Quote of the day – Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.
Many Thanks for reading it and catch up soon guys!
Ivanov
24 Feb 2013