He won in 8hrs 40. Its impressive just finishing that sort of race!

He’s had a great year this year so far…Keep it up Fraser and recover well bud!

Results here

Frasers website here

1) Don’t go out too hard, and especially don’t finish the first lap ahead of Mo Farah, you should still feel fresh after half way and not like you are about to collapse!

2) Don’t do any sessions that are going to deplete you in the week before…maybe 10 days before!

3) Practice running on hills and mud.

4) Britain has some really good XC guys.

5) Mo Farah is flying…

6) Lose 10kg

7) Stop swimming and cycling if you want top 15’s!!

The race had a 3k /200k/ 20k format and to boot a fantastic prize purse.

Good start to the season Fraser….long may it continue!

1 ) Eneko Llanos 6:34:37

2 ) Dirk Bockel 6:35:30 (+0:53)

3 ) Rasmus Henning 6:36:07 (+1:30)
4 ) Fraser Cartmell 6:36:12 (+1:36)
5 ) Frederik Van Lierde 6:36:31 (+1:55)
6 ) Faris Al-Sultan 6:37:53 (+3:16)
7 ) Jordan Rapp 6:38:02 (+3:25)

It seems Dann Brook and Phil Graves had a very tough day out. They both came in together which makes me think they decided not to fight it out so early in the season! Well done boys, Dann B has had a tough start to the winter so well done him for getting round:)

I rocking in 23rd.  I was pretty happy with this. it’s a pretty solid result for me in the middle of my winter training and I finished with some big names in the sport. It bodes well for my Triathlon season.

It didn’t all go smoothly though, I was a bit ill the day before which didn’t help and I didn’t feel that good while I was racing although that is probably mostly down to the tough course! There was a serious hill in each lap that you couldn’t run properly up.  I kept feeling sick at the top of that!

It was a good fun race, 1400 athletes on the start line and as usual it was really fast at the front. Would recommend anyone to enter through their club.

I only stacked it once this time which was good. In the Southerns I fell twice!

This is Andy Vernon, the eventual winner. He’s a bit of a star and still 24 years old. Doesn’t look like he is really built for XC but he’s bloody quick!

However my TriTeam team mate Fraser Cartmell and good friend Mari Rabie did to a fantastic job in 70.3 South Africa where they both took 1st place.  A big day for both of them, congratulations guys.

I’m off to the pool.

I’m sure Fraser will have a report up soon

French Grand Prix went badly, It was a little bit inexplicable. I wasn’t hurting…just couldn’t get any more out.  I think its a combination of getting towards the end of the year and also tiredness from the block of training that finished 2 days prior.  Oh well. I owe my team a good performance in La Baule.  I finished 18th I think, there is nothing good to report from the race…it was just a crap performance!

It is taking me forever to get photos up:( I don’t have many good ones yet anyway!

One of my competitors and friends Clark Ellice is down from New Zealand, he’s a good athlete and were getting our heads stuck into this last block of training for just one more hard week this year and it’s gone really well so far. I think that my race on the Gold Coast has the potential to be my best race of the year. My sessions are going the best they have ever gone.

Last night I did a really nice controlled set of 12×1k, with 200m jog recovery (very slow jog mind!) in 3:02’s for the first 4, 2:55’s for the 2nd set and then I got Nathaniel to take out the first 300m before I came round him and finished it off with 4 2:46’s which I was really happy with. I felt in very good condition. I just have to see out this next week the way I have been, get on the plane feeling good then the hope that the jet lag doesn’t screw me!

The next day we went out on the bikes for a 2hr ride, including about 30 minutes of hard riding, which was pretty rough after the day before! I felt ok though and afterwards headed down to Nottingham to the National Relays to help my local club score a result to be happy with!

I went first, handing over to Matt Chandler, Tom Vickery 3rd and Mark Matthews 4th. I came out the water right up there and to my suprise the boys did a cracking job of holding our position in 4th! We were 1:45 behind the leaders TFN, and 2nd place was another minute up the road. I felt surprisingly good on my bike and managed to get us up to 2nd + a lead! The boys again built on that and we ended up starting the run 2mins 50 behind the leaders and 2mins 30 infront of 3rd team! I didn’t max out on the run, I have a big week ahead of me, but the boys smashed it and we came in in 2nd with much more professional teams surrounding us! I was stoked with our effort, what a great day out! Getting on for 300 odd teams…Buzz!

Other things on my mind are a huge change around in British Triathlon support up here in Loughborough. I wont go into it, but I may lose my current coach…I’m going to fight this one till one of us goes down!

Peace out

oh yea… My Team mate Gavin Noble, absolutely smashed Yokohama World Championships Series rocking in 11th. Thats a great result, good on ya Gav!

The swim was really fast this week, probably the fastest I have ever seen it.  It split up so quickly at the front I couldn’t believe it! Hence a good group of fast swimmers got away with a 45 second lead.  I actually felt really good in the swim and came out in 20th but unfortunately the standard was higher for this one so it didn’t really show.

I was determined in this race that these guys were not going to stay away on bike so from the very first pedal stroke I really kept the pace high getting help only from the Germans who were all in our pack.  There were about 40 guys just sitting behind getting a free ride…as usual pretty annoying and I wasted HEAPS of energy, a tactical disaster for me.  I think however that once someone initiates the chase…everyone kind of knows that you are going to see it through and hey…they were right! We did see it through, I kept on shouting at everyone, the 6 or so of us kept motivated we bought them back by half way through the bike.

Once it all came together the last few laps were a bit of a cruise, it gave me a chance to try to execute a big goal of mine, to try to get off the bike in first place.  This is something I have never been able to do yet is such an important skill! It’s so congested coming into the 2nd transition it’s actually really difficult to get in first, as everyone wants to be in the same position and everyone is jostling for that place!  I usually come off the bike in 20’s-30’s and the queuing nature of this process means that sometimes I start the run up to 10 seconds behind.  Usually I manage to make it to the front after about a kilometer which means that I am probably running about 2:42 when the other boys are on more like 2:52…If I can get off the bike at the front I would be able to put pressure on them rather then them putting pressure on me!

I really used my head in the last few kilometers of the bike and barged myself out to the outside so I had a clear run to the front so I created my opportunity to come off the bike at the front which was really pleasing.  Less pleasing however I knew instantly that I didn’t have fresh enough legs to finish where I wanted to today.  I gave it a go though, like in London I tried to surge straight away and create gaps to make it hard but my legs just didn’t have the same magic as 2 weeks ago.  It was just a case of trying to keep some momentum into the finish and limit my losses!

I’m not too disappointed with my result, I had a stormer 2 weeks ago in London and I believe that if I had that freshness this weekend I would have been running in around top 5.  3 years till the Olympics lots of practice time and experience to come to make sure this sort of thing doesn’t happen again!

Congrats to Alistair, my friend Steffen Justus and Gemmell for their podiums.

I was speaking to Rick a minute ago…I was saying this has been my biggest ever learning year. I’m really looking forward to the winter, getting it all mapped out with my support staff to come up with a bullet proof plan for 09-10.

Cheers

This is Marco Rivera.  He raced us in the FGP in Dunkerque and a few other races where he was 30 secs off the front of 2nd place.  Guess what, I was watching the 1500m at the World Swimming Champs.  Who’s name did I see in 7th place? Marco Rivera…15:01! How can someone mix it up in Triathlons in May and then be seen mixing it up with the fish in August! Incredible…

Hayley Piersol is the women’s fish…Her Bro, Aaron Piersol is famous and has won numerous Olympic medals.  I wouldn’t know where to start to get some stats but she lead out of the water in Kitzbuhel, in a wetsuit by over a minute! The girls relatively swim fast as well!

I wonder if we will have to watch out for these two!?

London went great at the weekend, I competed at the end of a difficult period for me, motivation wise I felt a bit low, I worked hard in Wales but I didn’t feel like I had much in the way of form…but I guess I needed that at the weekend to give myself a much needed confidence boost.  Great timing!

I love this race, it’s the biggest race in the world, It’s just unfortunate I haven’t been able to compete in the past 4 years due to Olympic Spiel. It’s an incredible vibe out there and with my new sponsor Multipower watching…what a great place to race well and give them an instant reward.

I woke up in the morning feeling pretty good, in my morning run I had a good feeling in my legs and that usually means it’s going to be a good day!

The swim start was clean for once, Stu Hayes didn’t manage to start 5 meters in front of everyone else! I had a comfortable swim, and came out the water about 10 meters behind or something…there or there abouts, as usual;)

I hammered transition, It’s a long one and once out on the bike, Aaron Harris , Stu Hayes , Courtney Atkinson and Harry Wiltshire and I instantly put the Watts time to make it tough for the chasers who were almost certainly going to dilly about behind.  We worked well and came off the bike with 2 Min’s lead.

So we had shaken off some of the guys to watch out for, however the job was not nearly done, I still had Stu Hayes and Courtney Atkinson to beat, and they’re tough opposition!  I set off on the first lap with the aim of giving Courtney a really hard time, I put in 4 really hard efforts, not surges…sprints! On the last one, after a GAP and GO effort I managed to put time into him.  Fortunately, however much it hurt, I built on this gap and took the tape, I think top 3 performances of all time and perfect for my ‘biggest races’ coming up.

I love racing in England, I find it much easier, I don’t know for sure what it is, but I seem to have more beans for the race and energy levels are better.  I had the confidence to go too hard too early and put myself on the line…it worked well, I cant wait to do it again in a few weeks and see if it works in the hardest series in the World!

Tomorrow, I have got something really cool on the blog…Athlete interviews I will aim to do a different one each week please tune in again to read a cool interview by Laurent Vidal, French National Champion.

Other Triathlon Team news, Phil Graves won his first ever Ironman in the UK, while Dejan Patrcivic finished a solid 4th!  Fraser Cartmell did a good job in Antwerp coming in top 10, and one of my best buds rocked in 5th.  Good on you Dann B;)