Introducing Triathlon Team Rhein-Main

Here I am back in Northern Europe. On my way to Mainz (Near Frankfurt) in Germany, where I'll be training, racing and having good times with Triathlon Team Rhein-Main:

http://www.triathlonteamrheinmain.de/TRiathlonTeamRM_athleten.htm

AS you can see Celia Koochy Kuch is on the team too. It's going to be cool. I'll chat more about it when I'm there. Suffice to say that Kat thinks I'm going to be one of Das Mainzelmaennchen who ever they are??? Can't Wait???

Apparently this is my new Triathlon Team... nice couch... I like couches :-)

On my way to Germany I thought I'd pop to Denmark to stay with Helle and Susanna and train with the Danish National Squad... Sweeeeet! The squad has a weekly training programme, access to excellent training facilites, and I can take a look at The Challenge Copenhagen Course... possibly some cafe action too!

Swim squad is every morning and it's lucky most of these guys are full time athletes... I have 3 showers before 10:00??? Get to the pool... shower (a proper Euro 'clean yourself shower'... not a Kiwi 'sprinkle some cold water over your shoulders' shower!), swim, shower again... sauna (of course!) shower again.

Very clean people The Danes, I think I've stripped every last bit of sun tan from my skin :-(.

Open Water swim start practice.


We get to use the whole pool with buoys in it and everything... no weed, jelly fish or shopping trollies though... which is nice.

And swim / bike brick sessions... very hard but very useful!

'Coach'... The Uber Coach... Not one, not two, but three stopwatches. Take note Rachey??

It's been very interesting seeing how a Tri Squad works on a daily / weekly / monthly basis... All the training is planned and supervised under the watchful eye of Coach (Mich)... who even told me in swimming today that I had a 'Good kick'... !??! Me??? An ex Thai Boxer with a good kick? Yes when kicking someone's rib cage... but not that good in the pool... he then added 'for someone of my LEVEL'... Hmmm not sure which level he meant?? It is difficult when you are swimming with ITU Olympic LEVEL swimmers not to feel inadequate in the old swimming department... but sometimes although hard you've just got to bite the bullet and be the worst... F*@!?! the Ego :-)

Which leads me on to another training paradox...

People like to think they get better by training with people who are better than themselves as they 'push' themselves more... this is a fallacy. I can push myself as hard as I want to try and swim with Rasmus, Helle, Jens etc... but it's never going to happen and I'd just end up blowing myself to smithereens and well... get even worse. I need to train within my own physical limits and I'll gradually improve. However by hanging out with the fast guys (I think it's called 'surrounding yourself with excellence') subconciously my brain will reset the goal posts of what 'it thinks' is possible... or what 'it thinks' is my physical limit and hopefully one will improve.

Helle... doing her 'Core'. I prefer to 'Recover' on the couch drinking coffee and eating... 'Sleep' is the 4th discipline I keep telling her. Nice work though Helle: 16th in the ITU World Champs Series in Seoul, nicely out sprinting Kiwi Chick Kate McIlroy... sorry NZ? Watch out Madrid :-)

Right...

See you in Germany

Bis Dann

Vesty xxx