I haven’t blogged for quite a while unfortunately mainly because it’s been quite a hectic period for me and I’ve been blogging a lot for Realbuzz which takes up a fair bit of my blog concentration!  So please check out the archives on that if you are interested.  My blogs can be read here.

So, what have I been so busy doing.

Well, obviously my training comes first, and it’s been going pretty well.  I’ve been hitting out some solid sessions in all 3 sports. Doing a fair bit of running with an amazing group we have down the track with Ryan Mcleod, John Beattie and James Wilkinson among the other lads.  We must have about 10 Sub 30min guys there right now! Swimming is going quite well swimming on my own as well as 3 times a week with the squad in the morning for the big swims and cycling is ticking along with various different groups.  It’s all been a bit too inconsistent for my liking though and consistency is the name of the game so. With all the media commitments, sponsor days and Christmas festivities, I decided by the start of the year i wanted to be out in Aus so I booked my flight to Australia and here I am…pumping the miles on the Gold Coast, getting in a consistently hard rhythm that’s going to set me up nicely for the season. gone! So far i’m not hurting too bad from the Jet Lag and it’s been awesome. Amazing weather and fantastic group to mix it up with.  I just came back from a criterium bike race with Courtney Atkinson and Stuey and some other Gold Coast roadies.

In other news Clare and I just moved house into Barrow Upon Soar which is 3 miles out of Loughborough.  It’s a nice village, with great community feel and the running is awesome straight from my door so we’re really happy with it!  This year we hosted Christmas and New Year for our families in our new home.

I’m really excited for 2012, it’s probably going to be the biggest year of my career in terms of ‘this is our chance to shine’ and ‘making it happen’. I along with everyone else is desperate to make the British Team in the 3rd spot so it’s going to be a scrap for it.  I feel like I’m in a great position after last year and I believe in myself to do it with a podium finish from 2011.  So I know when I am fit I can be racing at the very front but I’m going to need to prove it again in 2012 .  Come the first few races of the season I’ve got to be close to my best ever shape to give myself the chance.  British Triathlon wont take an also ran to London, they want a genuine medal contender, and we need to prove we can do this in the first 3 races of the year in Sydney, San Diego and Madrid.  If no one is capable of this then they’ll take a Domestique to pull together all the energy into the Brownlees chance.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Year!

Will

I’ve been swimming for 19 years but I’ve never been very good…

I work very hard in the pool but it’s still always been a struggle for me.

If all the ITU guys in the world did a test set in the pool I’d probably in the bottom 20% in ITU racing.

Sometimes I beat guys out the water who are 3mins faster then me over 1500m.

At the weekend though I got out of the water in 3rd spot. People don’t know how I do it!

Here’s a few tips from me.

1. GET SOME STRENGTH…

Especially for Triathletes, sometimes it seems like a never ending battle to get a strong arm pull in the water. I think it’s mostly because cycling and especially running makes our pull weak.  So do something about it.

You can do more swimming….but this is very time consuming!

My tip is to get good at CHIN UPS. The likelihood is you’ll be rubbish at them if you are a weak swimmer but slowly build up and progress.  I do 4 sets of 8 pulls every week alternating grip.  Make sure you take as much rest as you need.

Compliment it with other strength work in the gym like Latt pullovers and push ups.

2. DRILLS

In my opinion it’s pointless banging out big swim sets and struggling through unless you are swimming with good technique.  So my advice is get in the pool and just work solidly on your technique.  If you have an easy swim planned then warm up with some easy swimming and then do as many drills as you can cram into 2k.

I do (50 drill, 50m swim) x 20.

Mix it up with catchup, single arm (by the side), single arm with paddles, doggy paddle, polo, sculling, double arm underwater pull, shark fin drill, leg kicking rotation drills. Get someone to watch you…

3. DO THE BEST SET IN THE WORLD

Long warm up.

5 x 100m with around 6mins rest. (from a dive, going as fast as humanly possible)

Long warm down.

When Rick set me this set my performance in races jumped up massively. As long as you give it your absolute all it really develops you swim speed and power in the water.  I always raced well after doing this set!

4. DO A MORNING SWIM BEFORE THE RACE

Before you have your breakfast before the big race.  Try to get in the water and do up to 800m of very easy swimming and drills.  This will activate a good technique and you’ll feel much better when you dive in for the race for real!

One thing I do if I am staying in a hotel which has a small pool is tie one end of an inner tube around my legs and the other end around the steps and thrash out some strokes!

5. BE CONSISTENT

Swimming needs your constant attention, so get in the water as frequently as you can. Even if its just 1000m’s in you lunch hour it’s still worth it.  Olympic level athletes are doing at least  5 swims a week of 5000m +

Think yourself lucky that you’re not an Olympic level swimmer, some have to do 80k + weeks!

I’ve been here for 9 weeks now and still loving Australia.  We’ve had an awesome month of weather, just a few overcast rainy days and other than that…too hot if anything! My tank top collection has grown to 6 since my 26th birthday! You won’t catch me wearing anything else now!

The squad is battling through the training.  Apparently we’re mid way through the hardest block that we’ll do this year so that’s refreshing to hear!  The winter continues to be a success for us though and we’re all slowly starting to look forward to the first hit outs in Mooloolaba and Sydney and we should be in pretty awesome form if we can keep up the momentum!

This week I’ve been trying to juggle all the different races I’ve got available to me.  It’s good to have options but as far as I’m concerned there are only a few series available to me if I want to get the best out of myself.  The World Champs Series, the fastest guys in the planet going head to head, The German/French league and local domestic races to fill in.  There are heaps of races I’d love to compete in such as the 5150 series, Toyota Cup and races such as Alcatraz and Laguna Phuket but this is something I’ll pursue later in my career! You have to be so disciplined in planning your season, there are still so many great races I’d love to do that don’t fit in but  Olympic Qualification is the goal so everything is geared about that.  Shame… but one year I’ll just travel the world, racing fun races willy nilly!

My season for 2011 will look much the same as usual apart from an early start in Australia and also the fact that I will be racing in the Bundersliga with EJOT Buschhuetten.  I am really excited to be racing with the new team.  It’ll be a great new experience racing in new towns with a fresh new team. I love racing in new towns.

This is my rough plan for 2011… Main problem is that there are too many races in between Dunkerque and Kitzbuhel!

March 27th – Mooloolaba World Cup

April 10th – Sydney World Champs Series

April 17th – Ishigaki World Cup

May 22nd – Dunkerque French Grand Prix

May 28th – Paderborn Bundersliga

June 5th – Madrid World Champs Series

June 12th – Bundersliga

June 18th – Kitzbuhel World Champs Series

July 3rd – Schliersee Bundersliga

August 7th – London World Champs Series (Olympic Qualification)

August 28th – Grimma Bundersliga

Sept 10th – Beijing World Champs Final (Olympic Qualification)

Sept 17th – La Baule French Grand Prix

Fun time… Races in USA/National Champs/Bundersliga.

]]> http://will-clarke.com/no-news-just-pictures/feed/ 0 http://will-clarke.com/preparing-for-battle/ http://will-clarke.com/preparing-for-battle/#comments Fri, 07 Jan 2011 09:08:31 +0000 Will http://will-clarke.com/?p=811

Now the Xmas ‘break’ is out the way, training has well and truly resumed and we are settled into the rhythm here in Australia pumping out huge weeks…living and breathing triathlon. I must be training hard because I’m forced to take extra sleep during the day just to get through the week + I am totally hanging for each Friday rest day!

Training with Team Dillon is different to what I’ve done before.  It’s certainly more how I used to train, clean hard work!  It’s tough just getting through the weeks but thats the nature of the sport!

Training with someone like Stu Hayes is awesome.  Every day we’re smashing each other on the track, in the pool and on the bike and it’s great to have people as experienced as himself and Michelle around.  You can’t beat a coach that’s been there and done it already.

It’s nice to feel fit again though after the past 4 months of lay off!  I tell you what though it’s so easy to get fit out here!  If you want to lean up…get out to Australia and do 31hrs a week training…pfff!  You sweat so much each session that you can’t keep the weight on!

It’s a great set up on the Gold Coast, better then I expected.  We’re members of the Sports Super Centre which is a complex with a 50m pool, athletics track, criterium bike race circuit and a decent gym complete with a gymnastics diving pit which is nice to fall in and relax after a hard day!

There are some great lakelands around where we live where your more likely to see a kangaroo or a snake (eek!) then a person which makes running in there pretty special.

The riding is also surprisingly good, especially the rides over 3hrs, lots of hard climbing!  So good in fact I had to take a rest when I first got out here on one of the climbs! It was never ending 17%!

It’s been a decent week…I’ve actually turned the DVD played off finally and I’ve been getting the blood flowing with some yogging…or it might be Jogging?!  It feels so nice to be out there amongst the clouds and mud.  I’m not feeling too bad so far which is crazy!  I’m even envisaging winning again and I’m finding myself high-fiving the trees and occasionally a cow/sheep on my training runs!  So far I’ve been mixing it up with max 1hr rides, 30-50min runs and gym work.  I cant do too much though because that makes my healing process go backwards  It’s almost there, I just want to ease the transfer back into professional triathlon training!

I have to say…I really started to crave training again and now I’m re-focused and know what I want again in life!  Going from doing basically nothing to a good 1-2hrs a day feels so good.  It’s not the usual 30hrs a week (which by the way does start to do your head in after a while!) It’s just comfortable and obviously manageable as its my usual volume minus 70%!  The endorphines released make me feel much happier and positive…it does make you want to preach about exercise to people who don’t do it! Honestly what is a 30 minute run out of your day and how much better does it make you feel!?

I don’t want to shout from the rooftop as I’ve already mentioned it but it has become official the other day that I’ll be coached by Capt. Michelle Dillon and Stu Hayes (tendons) and Jodie Stimpson as well as other good friends will be my main training partners!

I’m really looking forward to it but it’s a new experience…it’s not going to be handed to me on a plate like it is in the dream world Loughborough.  Now I’m a lone ranger I have to fend for Clare and myself and it’s taking a lot of organisation truth be told! We have to scrape together enough cash to rent an apartment, buy a car, take flights here there and everywhere + any training camps we may do within the training camp! It’ll be interesting and I want to thank my faithful sponsors who allow me to do this…the rest of my living is raceforprizemoney.com!

2011 aims are solely to qualify for the Olympics…I had a meeting with Heather our performance director the other day and I tell you now.  It’s bloody hard to make our Olympic Team!  Were talking top 3 in the World just to make the team! If you make the team you are basically a freak!  We do have a lot of freaks at the moment running about in the GB team though so I’m sure the spots will get filled up.  I’ll have this firmly on my mind all winter and will be doing everything I can to qualify!

I have also signed up for a German League Team as well as Lagardere Paris Racing again.  To give myself the best chance of qualification I won’t be racing too much but also hope to stick in a few domestic race in there as well.  My fun racing will come after Olympics Qualification races where I hope to race abroad in USA and the last World Cups but to be honest I’ve never made it past September and not been in dire need of a holiday.

I hope your all back into your training and enjoying the last bits warmth and sunshine you’ll see for a while!

Love WiLl

p.s. Have you seen Lance is getting his miles in in the pool!?

I’m currently on day no.4 of probably the hardest block I have done this year.  I guess, it’s a “s%$t lets keep this season moving after a bit of a howler at the Europeans.  I spoke to Ben and Joel after the last race and we decided to really press on for 10 days leading into the next race, FULL POWER AHEAD!  We are literally going straight through the Paris French Grand Prix, Saturday will still be a normal day training…Sunday race!

It’s one of those weeks where you, really live and breath it.  I’m waking up smashing myself all day and going to bed in a box, wake up not knowing where you are but keep pushing! One of those weeks where Clare doesn’t get much action at all on the 1st floor!

I like this time of year because I’m clear that before I know it there is another race and another opportunity to enjoy this awesome sport.

Have a great weekend…

Ich is feeling pretty average so far but hoping to come good in the next few days after this work out today which certainly wasn’t as comfortable as I wanted it to be.  Mark Pearce, performance manager took the shots…he’s much better with the camera then me but sometimes he teaches me some tricks and I hope to take mine up to his level at some point.  REALLY good pics though.

Not lots of banter just yet…Adidas man came over the other day to take measurements. Adam Bowden has arms 7cm shorter then the next man. We call him T-Rex.  My quads are the biggest by 7cm:) However now Phil Graves has arrived from UK 70.3 so…

Olly Freeman, Adam Bowden, me and Johnny Brownlee

Check out his quads!

I return trip from Korea went pretty smoothly and the most difficult trip of the year is forgotten! Don’t get me wrong I felt like crap when I arrived back from Asia hTe jet lag can be really tough, I’m not sure my body really knew where it was when I arrived back. I have been eating heaps as well! I think because the food was so rubbish in Korea I thought I was eating enough but maybe I wasn’t!

It’s been a combination of decent adaption from Seoul World Champs Series and a decent 1.5 weeks of training which is cool because it sets me up nicely for my next race in Dunkerque.  The first French Grand Prix.  Again, I love racing these races.  It’s great meeting up with the team, getting in some good quality french cuisine and doing a slightly less pressure race.  Not to mention the kit that we get when we arrive!

I’m literally training directly through this one though. It’s been a really tough week so far.  Not to mention a mental track session last night that put me in an absolute box this morning!  It’s funny, I really hit the swim session yesterday but I woke up this morning and I was pretty much swimming as bad as I ever have! Totally dead!  It was laughable.  Anyway, I’m just doing a normal hard week and then taking Saturday as just race preparation so I have some gas for Dunkerque.  Sometimes my best races happen like this.  You have really good rhythm from the past few weeks but and had a little time to freshen up.  When you are training like this sometimes 1 day is all you need to get out a really good performance.

I have Madrid 2 weeks after Dunkerque and Des Moines a week after that (big money race, $1,000,000 split in between chicks and guys) so unfortunately there is no missed training or tapering for me going into this one!

This week Bryan Keane has been staying with us.  He is an irish Triathlete, relatively new to the sport I guess, but used to race cycling professionally.  I love his style of racing, all last year he didn’t have the swim leg and was getting out up to 2 mins behind and tanking it to the front on the bike! Admirable! He’s swimming well this year though so watch this space! It’s been fun having him around!  He certainly showed me photography…with these snaps that I put up.  Hopefully I can learn a few things.