Monkey Business
I blame the crew at Base2Race. Now, there aren’t many better ways to spend a Saturday morning than drinking coffee with a Doctor of Physics who is happy to shoot the breeze about Mirinda Carfrae’s aero position at Kona while assessing your triathlon bike setup. I was already a little in love with the chilled out Dominic by the time I handed over my bike for some modifications while I switched to the more unhappy endless pool swim analysis situation.
While I was struggling with my swim assessment (I believe the word ‘terrible’ was used without irony at some point), somebody popped their head around the door and told me I needed a new cassette and chain as the other one was worn. At this point the plastic on my credit card was already soft (as was my brain from the endless pool), so I told them to jam on a new one (along with my new revolutionary but vaguely gynaecological saddle). As they handed me back my bike, they added brightly: “And we put on a compact so you can take your TT bike to Lanzarote!”
Er, jeez, thanks, guys. I am still mildly traumatised from grinding up the 10% grade hill repeats on Ramsey on my tri bike during last summer’s epic Wednesday hill workouts in St. Paul. I am easily persuaded though, and after a few different people made encouraging noises about the great training I would get on my tri bike in Lanzarote (not to mention the newly acquired compact), I pulled my bike rental plan and booked the Quintana Roo a spot on Aer Lingus.
It’s become an annual event, the ‘celebrate Harry’s birthday in a warm climate’ training trip with Miriam. Her third born has not yet shown signs of trauma at his mother’s consistent forging of his actual birthday in the first week of March in order to escape with her bicycle to sunnier climes. I put my foot down this year at returning to Club La Santa in Lanzarote – while the facilities are great there, it’s quite isolated and I couldn’t face another year of watching tumbleweed blow through the bar at 7pm while the stringy underweight, over tanned would-be-Ironmen* residents sloped off to bed. This year after much debate (there was even an Excel spreadsheet) we elected to join the first Triathlon Ireland camp, also in Lanzarote, but in the more social climes of Puerto del Carmen.
Four of us from Galway Triathlon Club made the trip – Aidan Hanley, Miriam, Owen Higgins and I. I mildly disgraced the group by rocking up to the airport with the QR packed into a cardboard bike carton**. Totally non-U in triathlon circles but it’s cheap and low hassle. I could see some of my new triathlon friends eyeing my bike carton scornfully.
The pool area of our hotel looked a bit like this…
Day 1 at Hotel San Antonio, and I was already a little shocked at the exchange of tenants (Club La Santa: Nordic, middle aged, mahogany-tanned, muscle ripped, boasting constantly about their chances of a Kona qualification. Hotel SA: Irish or English, pensioners, veering between milk bottle and mahogany tanned, acres of wobbly flesh spilling out of ill-advised swimwear choices, squabbling constantly about the dearth of Irish Independents or Daily Mails in the hotel shop). We had everything on our doorstep though, including access to the old town and an all-the-ice cream-you-can-eat half board package.
We weren’t really sure what to expect from the TI training camp but it turned out to be a nice social group and a good mix of levels from almost total beginners to speedy age-group wannabes. I self-selected into the middle group of cyclists on the first morning. In the past, I have struggled with confidence on the bike, but I have got plenty of cycling miles under the belt in the last year or two and there is some quad power kicking in so I was at least confident of staying up with Group 2.
There was a recent post on the TI website called ‘Caging the Chimp’ (see link below), about quieting that voice in your head when training or racing. Sometimes I feel I need a little of the opposite – I tend to be very analytical and cautious when I train, especially on the bike.
So this time I thought I would relax, ignore the heart rate monitor, let out the chimp and have some fun on the group rides. I knew that if there was any risk of letting out the chimp in Group 2, there would be all-out gorilla (sic) warfare and banana fights going on in Group 1, so there was no way I was contemplating joining them***
Triathlon training camps are mostly about the bike and we spent most of the training time cycling or (it seems) running off the bike. Focus on swimming was low, due to the lack of a convenient pool in Puerto del Carmen, so most of the sessions were open water swim technique or recovery, which suited me just fine. I have mixed feelings about Lanzarote as a holiday destination – going somewhere that has RTE and the Irish Independent on tap is not high on my adventure list, and I would probably choose Spain or Italy for the cultural immersion on a training trip – but the weather lottery means that it’s the only real choice for a cycling holiday in March, and once out of town, the scenery and wildness are great. There’s a whole separate piece to be written on the psychology of taking a training week as holidays but I love it – heading out to play, and cycling or running to the point of exhaustion (or at least satisfied tiredness), until your mind is entirely clear of worries.
Our bike chaperone in Group 2 for the week was Triathlon Ireland coach Elena Maslova. I knew Elena a little before this trip from racing in her age group and meeting her at races, and already admired her. She is a super athlete and turned out to be a great coach, funny and tough but fair in her handling of the bike group, taking no nonsense. She also is an ex-military sniper (as Owen related in slightly star-struck fashion after an accidental getting-drunk-with-coach session at the Ireland-France rugby game). Frankly, I think it’s a useful skill for a woman left in charge of a group of middle aged triathletes for a week to have. Her map reading skills leave something to be desired though and I did shed a tear or two when we arrived under the ‘Bienvenidos – Aeropuerto Lanzarote Canarias’ sign at the end of a very long ride on Tuesday. Needless to say, Lanzarote airport was Not Our Hotel.
Coach Elena with Miriam and Dee after hill repeats up Femes…
My mental snap shots of the week seem to be freeze framed around the first half hour of each ride, which was escaping Puerto del Carmen – a 2km wobble through the tourists down the promenade, followed by a 30 minute climb, which sorted out the sheep from the lambs, the drinkers from teetotallers and the climbers from the people who wished the week was mostly about swimming. Lanzarote is basically a big volcanic rock so to get off the edge (from either La Santa or P del C), you have to climb a hill. The looks of terror on the first day were unmistakeable as the overambitious were quickly shot out of the back of their groups. The compact and the new bike setup worked a treat for me, and I found myself climbing with comparative ease.
I had great fun cycling in the group, which turned out to be a nicely matched crew who worked well together, leaving no man behind. I burned up the hills, rolled back down, sang up the hills (which is possibly immensely annoying but also a good psyche out tool). With immense tact, at the start of the bigger climbs, Elena would say ‘Boys, you can climb up hard and roll back down’ (turn back down the hill from the top to pick up the last climber and ride up again). Aoife and I would wait politely and then she would say ‘And you girls too, if you want’, before we tore up after the guys who now already had a head start.
Group 2 at Timfayana National Park – Lava ahoy!
While I seem to be a climber, unfortunately I descend like a little old lady, grinding the brakes for dear life as I wobble and scrape through every corner. Hence: first up, last down firstuplastdownfirstuplastdown. A pattern I followed pretty much the whole week (well, not first up but working hard). 50kph seems to be my limit, and I was nervy with the strong sideways gusts in the most exposed areas so I didn’t ride a lot in the TT position, but mostly clung terrified to the hoods on the descents, getting clean dropped by the group and working hard to pick up the back of the group again. It was well worth it, even the hair raising switchback descent to Haria.
My pile of books (and music and other worthy projects) were barely dented; as with all good holidays, the art of snoozing and chatting and hanging out poolside and drinking the odd (okay, several) glass(es) of good red wine took over my intentions of excessive self improvement. The last night we danced to Rory Gallagher (of ‘Jimmy’s Winning Matches’ fame) in his tiny but packed bar in the old town. I escaped the perils of the 2am toffee vodka shots, which felled a few brave men; not that I’d, like, tell anyone about someone that might have hurled their good buffet dinner over the balcony of the Matchmaker. No, what goes on tour stays on tour.
In the airport on the way back home, as I shuffled my now increasingly battered bike carton up the queue, one of the Cork guys eyed it with respect and said ‘You’d never think that someone with that kind of kit would be able to ride a bike.’ It’s not about the bike box, folks.
*Present company clearly being excluded from either underweight or over tanning. You’ve seen the pictures.
**Last time, folks! With summer plans shifting a-plenty, I just invested this week in a new EVOL bike bag (as sported and tested by fellow GTC members Aidan and Mir).
***Interestingly, Group 1 had seven or eight separate mechanical breakdowns (punctures, blowouts, chain issues, God knows what else) over the week. I had a theory that they were all carrying knitting needles to blow out their back tubes in case things hotted up too much and they needed a rest.
A Quick Ten Miles 