If you're racing the Michelob Ultra London Triathlon on August 5 or 6, we hope you'll enjoy this thread.
Tri coach Ralph Hydes will be steering two newcomers through their final five weeks' training right here, and a national-level triathlete will be sharing his countdown.
Please join in - feel free to ask questions or add comments, especially if you're training for the London Triathlon, too. (If it gets busy, Ralph may not be always be able to reply, as he's doing this out of goodwill.)
Here's a summary of our three hopefuls - you can find out more about them and Ralph
in this article.
Barry Arnold, 31, is racing the Olympic distance at the London Triathlon, and only decided to get fit in the New Year. He started swimming in April and bought a bike at the same time. He's raced one supersprint triathon in practice (56:35) and tackles his first 10K on July 14. He'd like to race sub-2:30 at the London Tri and carry on for an Ironman in 2007. One of Barry's main questions for Ralph is how to stop training flat-out all the time; he hasn't really got the hang of structured training.
Natalie Creswick, 25, will tackle the sprint distance at the London Triathlon: her first tri. She used to row for her university, but has trained little since 2004. He current training includes a weekly running time trial with a local triathlon club, but she'd very much like Ralph to help to improve her swimming. She's also never followed a structured schedule before.
Dave Aitchison has an Olympic-distance PB of 1:59:10, and only took up triathlon in 2005. He was selected last year for the London Triathlon Academy - a grass-roots programme to encourage UK triathletes to international level - and is now coached by ex-GB Olympic triathlon team coach Bill Black. He won his age-group at the GB team qualifying race in mid-June and has just come 10th overall at the national championships. "It's all going way better than I ever dreamed this year," he says.
Welcome, all three of you - and good luck!
Sean, RW
