53N WAR Powerscourt the Sugar Loaf

On the 24th of September tackle the Sugar Loaf Mountain, kayak on the Vartry Lakes, cycle over the Sally Gap, and run above the Powerscourt Waterfall in the 53N WAR Powerscourt. All you have to do is to click below and like the WAR Facebook page. We will be selecting the lucky winner at the end of next week.

Aileen Morrison gigging deep on the bike.

Post race analysis with Chris Jones

Chris is Aileen’s coach and the Irish team’s high performance director. Video by the Irish Olympic Council.

Video highlights of the Women’s elite triathlon

Helen Jenkins thrills home crowds in London

Great Britain’s Helen Jenkins couldn’t have planned a more perfect place for her first Dextro Energy Triathlon ITU World Championship Series win, running clear of the field to claim gold in the London 2012 Olympic Games preview in Hyde Park.

In a race that threw up a host of surprises, including new first-time medallists Gwen Jorgensen (USA) andAnja Dittmer (GER) making up the rest of the podium, Jenkins gave the home crowd exactly what it hoped for.

Helen Jenkins (GRB) running to victory

This weekend’s Dextro Energy Triathlon Series round is the first and last time that athletes can race the Olympic course before the London 2012 Games and despite having a slight cold, the 2008 World Champion powered away in the run to win by seven seconds. In the process, she booked her place on the GB team for next year’s Games, gained confidence on the course ahead of next year and broke free of her series bridesmaid tag. Before this race Jenkins had a total of six Dextro Energy Triathlon ITU World Championship Series medals, including two silvers in 2011, but not one gold. Until now.

“Oh, it hurt so much, normally when you win you are like ‘oh yeah, its easy’, but that hurt,” Jenkins said. “I didn’t feel great in the swim, and the bike was pretty easy but my legs didn’t feel great.

“I was just trying to follow my teammate Kerry Lang I was just trying to sit with her as she’s riding really well, so I was just like, follow Kerry and I’ll be safe and then I hit the run and I thought, I’ll just see how I can do, I’m not sure how I’ll do, and I was at the front so kept running, kept running and someone said, ‘you’ve got a gap,’ and I thought, I’d better keep pushing on. The last bit, someone said 20 seconds and I thought if I blow up I’m still going to lose, so I had to keep pushing right to the end.”

Jenkins was with the leaders throughout the whole race, as yet another series title this year came down to a all-out showdown in the run. Coming out of the swim a 34 woman lead group that included Jenkins, Australian’s Emma Moffatt and Emma Snowsill, Switzerland’s Nicola Spirig, the USA’s Laura Bennett, Sarah Groff and Sarah Haskins, New Zealand’s Andrea Hewitt and Canadian Paula Findlay established a lead of a minute on a chase pack of similar size in the first lap. But that chase, led by Barbara Riveros Diaz (CHI) andKirsten Sweetland (CAN), cut that back over the seven laps and eventually bridged it, leaving about 50 athletes hit T2 together. From there, Jenkins set the pace and then went it alone for the final two laps as an intruiging battle for points and podium positions unfolded behind her.

In the end it was Jorgensen who pulled out the biggest surprise and the fastest run split of the day – 33minutes 43seconds – to claim silver and her spot on Team USA for 2012. It will be Jorgensen’s first Olympic Games and will complete an amazing transition, after she was plucked from a promising athletics career as part of a USA Triathlon talent identification programme. In London, she also was part of that bike chase pack that bridged the gap, coming from behind to the podium.

“No, I mean it’s just surreal, we have so many great people in the U.S it’s just an honour to be going,” Jorgensen said. “It really is surreal and give credit for USAT for coming to me, I mean I wouldn’t have even known about this without them, so it’s awesome.”

Then in a sprint for third, with Snowsill, Emma Jackson, Hewitt and Groff all in the mix, it was the three time Olympic veteran Dittmer who turned on her trademark dash to secure bronze. In doing so, Dittmer became the first triathlete to qualify for all four Olympics, meeting the German qualifying criteria of a top 12 finish.

“I’m really happy and speechless,” Dittmer said. “I think just with my experience, I just put it all together on the day that it really counted and yeah, I just wanted to go to my fourth Olympics and I pushed really really hard and I just focused on this race, and the last weeks went really really well, so I really believed I could make it and I just did it. It’s another dream come true.”

Jackson finished fourth and Snowsill fifth, continuing on their impressive form in Hamburg when they were two thirds of the all Aussie, all Emma podium. But given the Australian selection criteria for London depended on a win, the Australian team for London didn’t become any clearer. It did for Hewitt and Groff though, both met their national federation qualification criteria and their spots on the start line in London.

In the overall rankings, Barbara Riveros Diaz held onto her lead with her 12th placed finish. Findlay, the defending London champion who had won every other series race she’d competed in this year finished in 29th spot after a hip injury hampered her preparation. Findlay need a top eight finish to secure her spot in London, but will have plenty more chances to secure it before next year. Riveros Diaz has 2498 points, Hewitt moves into second place overall with 2493 points, while Findlay holds onto third with 2490 points. Jenkins is in fourth with 2346 points.

Top 20 ITU London Triathlon results

If you haven’t already, try us on your iphone, android & blackberry. What do you think?

The website just detects that you’re using a mobile (so probably not a fast broadband signal) and gives you a simplified version of the site that will load quickly on a phone and is sized for a phones screen. You can still get the full colour and photo enabled version of IrishTriathlon by clicking at the bottom of the mobile page.

The scoring system was based on the system used by the International Triathlon Union (ITU) for their World Cup Triathlon Series, with 800 points for the winner and your best three results from the seven duathlons will be counted.  Full details of the scoring system are below the league table.

Well Done to all those who took part. The final rankings are here. The men’s table is below the women’s table.

Duathlon league Women’s Rankings

Duathlon league Men’s Rankings

Scoring System

There are 7 events where you can collect points, 3 HellFire Duathlons & 4 Phoenix Park Duathlons)

Your top 3 scores count for you rankings*

All events carry equal rankings in 2011

Men and Women will be ranked separately

*In case of a tiebreak your score in the Formula 1 Duathlon takes preference for your ranking

1) 800    2) 740   3) 685   4) 633   5) 586   6) 542   7) 501   8 ) 464   9) 429   10) 397

11) 367   12) 339   13) 314   14) 290   15) 269   16) 248   17) 230   18) 213   19) 197   20) 182

21) 168   22) 156   23) 144   24) 133   25) 123   26) 114   27) 105   28) 97   29) 90   30) 83

31) 77   32) 71   33) 66   34) 61   35) 56   36) 52   37) 48   38) 44   39) 41   40) 38

Loving the descent!!!

The course is spectacular to say the least. Taking in Shay Elliott and Slieve Mann cycles as well as a river run and obstacle course.

There’s two options, the more beginner focused WAR-Sport (30km) and the full distance WAR (59km).

Winners will be confirmed next Monday.  For any of you who have already entered, you can still enter and get the opportunity to win your entry fee back.

TAKE THE CHALLENGE WITH DUBLIN’S NEWEST MULTISPORT SERIES

WIN ENTRY to the Howth Challenge Series Events – These include the Howth Triathlon (Sunday July 17^th), the Howth Aquathon series (June 27th / Aug 8th) and Escape From Ireland Swim (Sept 4th).

Competition Q: From what Island will the Howth Triathlon Olympic Plus race start? Send all entries to info@healthpro.ie and include your name and phone no with ans.

Subject on email: Competition

Closing Date: 13^th June 2011 at 11pm.

The Howth Challenge Series

Dublin’s newest triathlon and multisport series, the Howth Challenge Series, is ready to fire up summer, with the Aquathon at Howth Harbour on Monday May 23^rd

The Howth Challenge Series is a mass participation multisport series, which involves 6 events over the summer months. Incorporating fun runs, island swims, Aquathons as well as Sprint and Olympic distance triathlons These events are aimed to appeal to everyone’s sporting appetite and are set to attract up to 3,000 people to Howth.

healthpro are hosting the 6 events taking place between May and October.  They are starting things off with the 1^st of 3 Aquathon races beginning on the 23^rd of May at 7.30pm.  This event caters for both experienced and lesser-experienced participants with a sea 500m Swim – 2.8 km Run or more challenging 1000m swim and 5.5km run.  The 2^nd and 3^rd Aquathons in the series will be on 27^th of June and 8^th of August at 7.30pm.

Sunday the 17^th of July will see the first ever Howth Triathlon, taking place at 8.30am. This involves a sea swim, bike ride and run. This event will form two races – The Howth Olympic Plus (1.8 Km starting from Ireland’s Eye, 40 km Bike and 10 Km Run) and the Howth Sprint (750m Swim, 20 Km Bike and 5 Km Run). This will be challenging, exhilarating and fantastic fun and each bike lap includes the summit of Howth Hill.

Finally the summer months will end with The “Escape From Ireland Swim”, which involves a 2 Km Open Water swim from Ireland’s Eye to the Howth shoreline exiting at the Claremont Beach.

Finally, October will see the annual fun walk/run in aid of cancer charities, which is run in association with the Deer Park Hotel in Howth.  So far the event has raised over €10,000 for cancer charities and we hope to well exceed that figure this year.

These events are run not only for the benefit of the sporting community, but also for everyone to get involved in. Organisers are looking for volunteers, marshals and anyone who would like to be involved in this historic event.  Howth boasts a fantastic array of restaurants, bars, shops and fun for the whole family to come along and spectate.

Checkout the event websites or e-mail us at info@howthtriathlon.com for more info.

Signup online

In the online form here, you can choose what event you (or your friend or family member) will get a free entry for.

Choose you’re marshalling location.

You’ve even got the option to choose what location you would like to be stationed at.

Eg. you might want to be based at transtition, so you can encourage your friends who’re racing, or maybe helping out at setup or tidy up, as you want to do the race itself. We’ll do our best to accomodate you.

No limit to how many free entries you can get.

If you marshal at one event you can get a free entry to another of our events. There’s no limit to how many events you can help marshal or get free entries for.

Get a free entry to weekend race for marshaling a short midweek race.

Yes, help out at one of our short mid week races and you’ll get a free entry to the longer and more expensive weekend races.

Tri-Planet 2011, 8 week Spring Triathlon Boot Camp (Dublin City, Dublin South & Limerick) 28th March to 21st May – Now Open for Booking

Our Triathlon Boot Camps include:-

- 8 Week Training Programme

Boot campers ready to race

A complete 8 week Triathlon training prrogramme with group and online club session designed for newbies and imporvers

- 24 Coached Sessions

Qualified Triathlon Coaches will deliver up to 24 organised group training sessions designed to get you fit and ready to race at the end of thw 8 weeks.

- Get to Race -

(Galway Triathlon – Spiddal is the Target Race for the Spring Camps)

We design the 8 week training programme to finish with a Sprint distance Triathlon.

- Race Entry Discount

Save 10% on race Enrty to Galway Triathlon – Spiddal

- Fun & Friends

Enjoy taking part in group training sessions with lke minded people, find training partners of your level and have a rewarding drink with new friends at the post race party.

- Get Fit

You are guaranteed to get fit on this 8 week training programme. You will also learn about nutrion and lose eight along the way.

The Tri-Planet Coaches

Rich Cattle (Tri-Planet)

Richard Cattle (Dublin)

In 2007 Richard was selected to represent Ireland in the World Triathlon Championships Age Group in Hamburg and has also been selected for The European Championships in Athlone and for the World Championships in Budapest 2010. Richard is a BTF level 1 certified Triathlon coach.

Mark Dempsey (Limerick)

Mark Dempsey (Tri-Planet) with two time olympic medailst Simon Whitfield

Mark Dempsey is an ITU comptetitive coach, as well as an IASA swim coach, level 2 athletics coach and British Cycling road racing and time trial Coach.

Mark’s experience in Triathlon goes back 2 decades. Mark started triathlon as a junior and schools triathlete, and he has also raced national. international and elite races.

Cost €249 (for 24 coached sessions – that’s work out at only €10 per session)

SAVE 10% if you register now – Early Bird Discount – €219

Peter Kern in action at the Runways Duathlon

pb3 athletes enjoyed great success in 2010 with three Irish titles and various international age group medals at european and world, showing that the pb3 programme is achieving ever-improving personal bests.  The training camps will further foster growth and improvement among all levels in the sport in Ireland in 2011!

See below for details of these camps and other forthcoming camps in the pipeline ….

Your pb3 and Ireland’s leading triathlon coach,

Peter Kern

is delighted to announce

new Triathlon Training Camps

in March:

Ballyduff I (Waterford) – triathlon camp specialising in swimming

Limerick – duathlon camp in preparation for European Duathlon Championship

and in April:

Sicily – triathlon camp in the footsteps of Mount Etna

Ballyduff II (Waterford) – triathlon camp specialising in swimming

Check out our website for more information on these camps

and on our various coaching options designed to help you achieve your personal best!

www.pb3coaching.com

These camps are only the first of other other training camps to be held in 2011 -
message us to express your interest even if these dates do not suit – info@pb3coaching.com

All athletes are welcome with discount offered to athletes already registered as pb3 clients and we also offer discounts for any triathlon club bookings

NEWS UPDATE – REGRETTABLY DUE TO INSTABILITY IN THE REGION THE MOROCCO CAMP IN MARCH IS BEING POSTPONED TILL NOVEMBER 19TH-26TH

Success and your PB is our mission ….
pb3 coaching has the know how and passion to push your limits …. interested?

Injury

One of the biggest concern’s facing all triathletes is injury.

Are you avoiding knee injury?

This may present in the form of muscle tears, stress fractures or many other injury types, but regardless of the injury type, its bad news. Avoidance is to be priority. Many seasons and careers have been ruined by injury; Grant Hill, one of the best basketball players of this era lost many of his prime years to injury, Brazilian soccer legend Ronaldo perhaps never got the recognition for the great player he was as he couldn stay uninjured, while rugby player Johnny Wilkinson has suffered from constant reoccurring injuries. These athletes have available to them the best of sports medicine and more than enough in the way of finances to solve these injuries, yet still lost large amounts of their career to injury. Triathlon Ireland president Mark Riseley has raced in the Hawaii Ironman, the highest level of triathlon but said things didn’t go as he planned not because he over-trained, but because he under-recovered. Training is telling the body what you want it to do (improve, progress) but it is not until the body is at rest does it carry out these instructions. Being that triathletes are often called A-type personalities, we have a habit of having a poor work to rest ratio. So in short, train hard, rest harder.

Favouritism

Danny on the Bike in the Phoenix Park Duathlon

One of the most common mistakes made by triathletes is favouritism. In the 2010 Hawaii Ironman, mega-swimmer Andy Potts came out of the water with a comfortable lead of 3 minutes over the main players. This lead was gone by mile 15 of the 112 mile bike. Chris Lieto the mega-biker had a lead of 7 minutes over eventual winner Chris McCormack, but didn’t even manage a top 10. Pete Jacobs had the fastest run of the day, but was over 12 minutes behind Macca at the end. Each triathlete, whether at the top of the game in Kona, or racing locally should ask themselves how they can improve their overall performance the most. A swim, bike and run split does not matter, it is the combination of these at the end of the race that matters most. If you can swim 750m in 11 minutes but can’t break 25minutes for a 5k run, the large amount of hours that it takes to become a 10.30 swimmer would be better off spent wearing your runners.

Misinformation

In Brad Kearns book ‘Breakthrough Triathlon Training’ he refers to speed training as having little benefit. This however contradicts the findings of most recent sports science literature. VO2 (aerobic capacity) is one of the 3 major limiters of performance for endurance athletes. Most available research has found that to substantially increase VO2, training between 90-110% of VO2 MAX is necessary. What the hell does that mean? It means hard intervals increase VO2 MAX most substantially. Although Kearn’s book is interesting and worth a read, a lot is based on personal experience and as he was a long distance pro he writing reflects his own experience. However as a much larger amount of people will race shorter races, many of his theories are very flawed. Training programmes and sessions should never be based on opinions of just one person. If you choose to do a programme or sessions that is outside of the norm, make sure you are not being led astray.

Specificity

Playing flute does not make you a great guitarist. This is obvious. Yet in the fight to be great triathlete we swim mostly in a pool? A swimming pool is a fantastic way to swim. It’s the perfect way to tackle technique issues and to measure improvements made. But come June, July and August when you’re swimming 1700m in a 1500m swim, those few seconds per hundred you trained so hard to gain go out the window. I can vouch for this. Getting out into the open water, getting used to being in a pack of swimmers, being offshore, wearing a wetsuit, sighting and drafting are a better time investment then yet another set of 10-20 by 100m in the pool. Preseason training should be done predominantly in the pool, but don’t make the mistakes I did in my first triathlon. At Triathy, I had only been in open water twice. After consuming some of the lovely River Barrow at the start, I swam the rest head out of the water. Thank god it was downstream!

Eh Health!?

High Intensity training increases likelihood of URTI (upper respiratory tract infection). If you feel off and you think your immune system might not be at its best, take time off (or at least keep the training intensity low). This is Ireland, it is very cold for a lot of the year. It is not worth training so hard in January that you don’t get February and March.

Train as you intend to race

There is a principle in sports science that states the body will make Specific Adaption’s To Imposed Demands (the SAID principle). This is part of the reason strongly built muscular triathletes, even those with good technique, can be embarrassed by 12 year old string-armed swimmers. If you want to race competitively as an Olympic distance triathlete in non drafting triathlons, get used to time trialling. Developing general bike fitness should be followed in the preseason with race specific efforts. Don’t expect that easy intensity 80k cycles will be enough to put out a cracking 40k tri-time trial. Fast runners often cannot harness their strength on the run as the bike leg takes too much out of them, so get used to doing bike to run sessions (bricks) to be able to run on tired legs. If you are having multi-session days it is worth putting them in the order they will appear in your next race.

Psychological approach

Psychological approach!!!!

There is no shortage of athletes who have spent time racing competitively only to become burnt out and never return. One of the all-time great swimmers Ian Thorpe, lost motivation and retired at the age of 24. Haile Gebresellassie, one of the greatest runner of all time has a number of times gone into retirement only to quickly reverse the decision. Motivation should always be to better oneself and the love of the sport. Remember each time you train why you are in the sport.

Happy Training.

Danny Roe.

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Responce by Peter Kern (PB-coaching) highlighting how you often race to your strengths, even though you need to train to your weakness.

“Dear Editor,

I just read an interesting  article  posted  on  your website

- Common mistakes made in pre season training-

in this article the author expressed some interesting views.

We all know here is many ways to go to  Rome, but I feel like it might be interesting to give a different point of view, that focuses more on monitoring and analyzing performance rather than coaching doctrines.  Realizing with the limited length o the article the author had to jump to conclusions.

Firstly, the author speaks of favorism. I could not agree more with him that triathlon is about the right balance in all 3 sports . Unfortunately I believe the examples he used do not do justice to the mentioned athletes,at all.

Andy Pots has a huge swimming  background-most likely one of the to 10 fastest swimmer ever to have entered triathlon- for him to swim the times, he swam does, requires very little swim training, and it helps his main sponsor immensely to be in the front out of the water, and he manged to stay out of the rush out of T1 where many contender obtained  blocking or drafting  penalties.

Chris Lieto who has made huge sacrifices to improve his  running after his 2nd place 2009! ( i personally would question that it was a good decision by him to change to forefoot running in 2010 but thats a completely different subject)

Pete Jacobs obtained a blocking penalty at the beginning of the bike and lost contact to the leading group. after a 4 min penalty stop, In normal circumstances it,s fair to assume that he would have done  fine,in the Craig Alexander group. And I think we all  remember his slower run splits not many years ago.

None of those 3 athletes favored one sport and especially, if you look at  Petes jacobs progress one might even go that far to suggest  that Pete  might have neglected his favorite discipline this year and he could have avoided being in the scramble of the first miles on the bike and avoid the blocking penalty had he trained more swimming to stay with andy pots in the swim… pete is naturally strongest at swimming.Besides lets not forget  there was other 20 athletes who did not achieve their goal.

The reason I felt like to elaborate on this point-when it doesn’t make his main argument wrong- is that  many, athletes and coaches, change their training completely based on ONE race performance before proper analyzing, where did I/the go right and where did I/they go wrong, and generally we are always where quick to  say X Y Z did this and thats  why he won at lost , rather than  looking at the bigger  picture.

Triathlon is not rocket science,but at the same time its very important to analyze in depth what causes what and how swim,bike,run performances are related, to talent, training, and race day tactics,and  sometimes even a  bit of luck, before one can make a judgment about an individual athlete.

After all Andy Pots won his first 2 Ironman races, ever, in 2010……….

With his run Pete Jacobs has certainly gained respect amongst his peers,and sponsors…..

Misinformation vs train as you intend to race.

I Believe the author makes valuable points in the train as you intend to race paragraph that also mostly correspond with  the paragraph about health and  injury.

.Personally, I fail to understand in his misinformation paragraph,why he stresses the importance of Vo2 training  and disagrees with the book  author, when most beginner and intermediate Triathletes tend to race an  Olympic distance in a similar intensity than pros race IM(in fact i notice  more chatting in age group Olympic racing than during IM  pro racing ……)

I do not wish to enter and argument weather Vo2 training is in the top 3 most important factors of performance. I prefer to focus on, that this very much depends on the, level, fitness,years in the sport(or sport background), age,physiology and race distance of an triathlete.  Fact is an  elite oly  triathlete will race at much higher intensity than an intermediate oly triathlete, who in a proper paced race dosnt mot enter the red zone and therefore,it would be more important, for esp  beginner and intermediate ADULT athletes to focus, more to push their 2nd deflection point up, or their FTP (ie push the intensity percentage up, before  they enter the red zone) rather than focus on max speed when they are not  fit. Ater all triathlon is an endurance sport and not a5 k run race.

Even in elite Trithlon one could argue that for an athlete like Tim Don, who has one of the fastest 3k race PB,s ever run by a triathlete, but has a bit struggled to  hold the constantly  faster pace over 10k lately, Vo2 sessions would not necessarily  in the top 3 most important aspects of training (i believe he did less intensive interval work, in 2010..and won the race with the highest  price money in  2010). While one could argue that Javier Gomez,who has probably the biggest engine in Tri ,has his vo2 as one of his limiter besides just not having the kick that some Itu athletes have.

What i am trying to point out is, The devil is in the detail and its hard to generalize,.what’s most important for whom, and here we are talking about athletes that train in the whereabouts of 30 hours a week and have an extremely high level of fitness and are amongst the very  best triathletes in the world.

For the more average athlete I think the authors point to, train as you race  would make more sense for the majority of athletes. More focus on tempo sessions tend to give the majority of age group triathletes better value. Note, I do not say that there is no place for Vo2 training but especially for the improving athlete its more the icing on the cake rather than a bread and butter exercise. Certainly , If we talk about the more  traditional periodisation .  and of course thats also depends on the discipline….

Generally, i do observe too much flat out run intervals in Age group triathlon in Ireland.

I have  coached athletes that  respond well to a more high intensity approach and i have coached athletes that respond better to an  more endurance focused approach, and there is  many  factors that depend on what suits whom. However, its  a  quite normal that 8,5-9 out of 10 Ironman I coach, become also faster over the Olympic distance and only the once that have already reached a  pretty high level before they decide to approach an IM tend to slow down a bit.

Overall, one size does not fit all is I guess what I am trying to say. or in other words you can never say what works for one has to work for the other.  Different athletes have different needs,  and often you have to make the best of what you have. Thats why coaching is a  mix of art and science, especially  with athletes  that enter the  sport at  later  stages  of their  life, which is  very  common in triathlon.  At the end of the day, it does not depend that much on trainings doctrines it depends on results, so if it is successful its right, results are the ultimate test what works and what not,but we  can not just judge 1 race or even just 1 season. I think the  only  point science, coaches and athletes  all  agree  on is athletes are not built in one day and it takes many years to reach your peak, and there is  not  shortcuts.

yours  in sport

peter kern”

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Please feel free to add more comments below.