Training in Sin City

After having left London early in the morning, we had travelled for 20 hours and arrived in the bright lights at 7pm with the whole evening ahead of us. The birthday boy met us at reception with a 'fat Tuesday'; the modern version of a fishbowl - a 3 litre mix of slushy spirits in an oversized test tube, setting the tone for the next 5 days. Now obviously my body is a temple (!) but with buffets which could frankly feed a small country and cocktail menus longer than the Amazon, this was not going to be easy and our first evening was predictably filled with oversized, overpriced fun.

After my first Vegas lie in (until the sun was pretty high in the sky) and while my mates were sleeping off their jet lag, I headed outside to the scorching heat, 37 degrees and hoards of tourists. I ran straight back in, and concluded it was just too hot to run outside. Despite some of the Vegas streets being air-conditioned (yes, thats right), the only appropriate time would be 3am when I would most certainly be still enjoying the evening, so I hit the gym.

A short run before running back in

The following night was a heady mix of overpriced beef, rooftop bars and suspender clad dancing ladies lining the walls of a club; standard. We hit the casino at 4am, spending all but our taxi home money, and were eating a stack of pancakes and bacon by 6am before hitting the sack at 7am. I had a sudden realisation that I had completely reversed my body clock. I am used to eating breakfast at 6am and going training at 7am. Needless to say, my (virtual) 45 min hilly cycle the next day was hard going.

Full Cyclefit kit essential in the gym

The next few days passed in a blur of buffets, beer, boobs and boogying, whilst coming to terms with an upturned sleep pattern. I managed to get to the gym everyday, much to my friends' shock. Walking through the casino in gym kit, I got some pretty strange looks. I bumped into someone I knew from back home, and he was more shocked to see me looking sporty in Vegas than 3000 miles from home. The air-conditioned gym was full of overweight American businessmen, body builders pumping iron, and middle-aged glamorous women. The workouts were made slightly more bearable by the chirpy gym assistant who handed me chilled flannels (That's right, they take them out of the fridge) every 15 minutes. 'You look pretty hot ma'am', I don't think it was a compliment.

On our last day I was feeling remarkably refreshed after a full 7 hours sleep and a lighter head, so committed to a double session. My friends had booked a luxury cabana beside the pool while I trundled off for a quick brick session; 45 min cycle followed by a hard 20 min run. In the afternoon as the pool started to empty, I decided it would be a genius idea to do a 1.5k TT. My friends looked on, beers in hand as I stormed up and down the pool on a mission. Plenty of sighting practise to avoid big bellied holidaymakers drinking cocktails, kids jumping onto lilos and snogging couples. I was greeted with a rum and coke 'recovery drink' and well dones from my chums.

Possibly the first TT the Bellagio has seen 

The last day arrived and I managed a quick run session before packing, gorging on another massive breakfast and rushing to the airport. Got an extra session in when our flight was late and we had to run through 3 terminals (in heels no less) to make our UK flight. Holiday over, I was feeling rather pleased with myself that I had got through the weekend of debauchery and managed to train despite a very confused body clock, severe lack of sleep and weird meal times. It will be refreshing to eat, sleep and drink normally, though I quite enjoyed the challenge, bring on Ibiza holiday and training for my 30th next year!

Flying away for the weekend... in Vegas

Since we were teenagers, my school friend John has been dreaming of spending his 30th in the most debauched and alcohol-fuelled holiday destination, so this weekend a large group of us are indulgently flying to Las Vegas to fulfill his wish. But with only 5 weeks before the triathlon age-group World Champs, I somehow need to fit in some training into this debauched weekend. Unfortunately the birthday boy in question isn't the most sporty and was not overly enthused that I would be attempting to continue my twice daily sessions, so I will be launching the 'secret sin city training club'.

Its unlikely there will be many open water swimming lakes in the Nevada desert, but how about some lengths of a heart or dollar-shaped pool? I doubt there is much room for bikes amongst the pink stretch limos on the strip and how the hell can an English girl run in 39 degree heat? The fact that everyone is there to soak their livers and party hard and are not particularly condusive to a triathlete in training, but I am determined to have a go.

After a long flight via St. Paul, Minnesota (home of Park Tool for any bike geeks out there), we arrived in overwhelming heat, picked up by a dusty local taxi we headed off down the bright lights of the strip to The Bellagio - home of the biggest water fountain display to overly dramatic music. A quick recce of the hotel facilities: a casino bigger than Westfield, restaurants and of course several wedding chapels but what about sport? An amazing 6 pools in an array of different shapes but with definitely no 'fast lane' and a gym full of body builders and overweight business men, this should be interesting...

Cyclefit and sponsorship!

For a while, I have been worried about whether my bike positioning on both my road and TT bike was right for comfort, injury prevention but most importantly speed!

I met the lovely Morgan and Robyn from Cyclefit through my cycling club - Addiscombe - and went along to see what it was all about. After a detailed chat and some observations of my posture, feet etc , I mounted the 'Sizecycle' to get on with the nitty gritty. Morgan was incredibly thorough and all of the adjustments were focused on both comfort and power. I came away with a load of facts and figures I didn't completely understand (!) and 2 great fittings for my road and TT positioning.

After the fitting, Morgan kindly offered to lend me a demo bike for one of my upcoming races, which luckily fitted me perfectly. I trialled the lovely Guru 301 bike at a race in Guernsey last month, and achieved a brilliant PB for my 40k time of 1hr 09.

After further discussions with Morgan and the boss Phil, I am very proud to be working with Cyclefit who will be kindly supporting me in the lead up to the Worlds, which I am really excited about. The Guru has been named 'Georgina' and I have been fully kitted out in their lovely spotty black/ orange kit which I have been proudly wearing  whilst training in Richmond Park for the last week. Apparently I look like I've been tangoed/ a berocca/ from the Netherlands...

How I contracted the triathlon bug

My day job as a freelance TV producer is often described as being 'a master of everything and nothing' and similarly at school I did averagely well at everything, but never excelled. It was only when I discovered triathlons that I realised being good in various areas can really pay off. Coming from a very sporty and competitive family, our holidays were spent water-skiing, sailing, enduring 5hr walks and skiing, and being the youngest of 3, I always felt like I had to work harder to keep up with my big brother and sister. Sport fell by the wayside in college and university, favouring boys and beer instead. Even my ‘sporty’ seasons of skiing and diving after University did nothing but improve my alcohol tolerance.

My TV career had kicked off to a great start in London and I was soon working on prime-time programmes and travelling the world, but it was all-consuming and I wanted to find something else to get my teeth into. A good friend of mine – Supermum Andrea – had decided to do a sprint triathlon to raise money for a charity, and soon after I had signed up to my first sprint triathlon at London in August 2010. Training got underway and I joined a local tri-club with my work friend Colin. At first it was incredibly intimidating, the sessions, the gear, not to mention the speed of everyone across each discipline. Colin and I suffered at the back of the weekend runs, enjoying the views but wondering if we would ever get up with the fast boys at the front. There was a huge amount to get used to; clip in pedals, unflattering trisuits, not to mention that 5.30am alarm I was quickly becoming used to.

My first sprint at London was a big success, coming 6th in my age group and 24th overall, finishing in 1hr 27mins. I loved every minute of it, and felt hungry for more. In the autumn the party season kicked off and then a fall down the stairs at work resulted in some torn ligaments which stopped training until Spring the following year. Once recovered, 2011 was my first Olympic distance year and I took training a lot more seriously, doing a number of training races: sprints, 3/4 distance, aquathons and 10k's, taking every race seriously and learning from mistakes. My confidence grew tremendously, coming first in my age group at the 3/4 Bananaman triathlon, 2nd at Windsor and 3rd at Eton, as I got closer to the big race. My first Olympic distance was daunting and painful, but I crossed the line in 2hr 31, 11th in my age group. I was hungry for more.

This year, I decided to see how far I could push myself in the world of amateur triathlon competition. My triathlon club, (Clapham Chasers), had several success stories of age-groupers who raced at the Europeans and Worlds. Inspired, and confident that I was committed to train hard and be even faster, I boldly registered with the BTF to qualify for the age-group world championships this year. I threw everything into it. I got a triathlon coach, Dawn Hunter, a swimming coach, Ray Gibbs, and I stole my boyfriend's TT bike. My 15 hour a week training schedule began in March. Like a lot of athletes, I have had a few hiccups with an ongoing hamstring injury, which has meant my running training has been limited to aqua jogging like an old lady, as well as some unfortunate DNFs at training races due to bike mechanicals. Despite this, I had a brilliant race at one of the qualifiers- Dambuster - in June and soon after saw the letter 'Q' appear next to my name on the BTF website - I was going to the World championships in New Zealand this October.

I could not have achieved what I have so far without the support of my tri buddies -Patrick, Raj, Colin, Andy, Rhi, Amy and Rich, my parents for always cheering me on and my brother (my arch rival who has now also taken up triathlons, as has my sister), and finally my very patient and supportive boyfriend Nico who keeps me going and joins me at 6am in the pool and park, what a star. Triathlons have really changed my life, giving me focus, challenging goals and another way to push myself outside my often all-consuming work. Oh, and I have thighs of steel and more manly shoulders as well!