Well what an exciting race yesterday at the first Bahrain National Triathlon Championships to be held under full ITU rules. A big thank you must go to all the volunteers and organisers who made the event possible.
Forty-five plus men started the first race, the Elite men, which was contested over a 750m open water sea swim, four laps of a 5km cycling course and finally a 5km run.
A tight pack of all the favourites exited the water with Jamie Price (18), representing the Bahrain Triathlon Club, in the lead followed closely by Gaber of Egypt.
The pack closed up for the cycle and it wasn’t until the end of the first cycle lap that the experienced Spanish Ironman professional Mikel Calahorra, just back from competing in the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii, took charge and increased the pace.
Only Jamie Price could stay with him and they entered the final transition side by side. Jamie Price was too strong over the much shorter sprint distance and eventually won by more than 30 seconds. Nawaf Al Dhaen was third and first Bahraini.
Bahrain’s leading female triathlete Sameera Al Bitar won the elite women’s race with Greer Sanson, Australia, second and Bahrain’s Triathlon Clubs Kizzy Price (16) third.
The fun race that followed saw over 150 competitors following a similar course in now very hot conditions.
This week’s training
programme
This week is our second recovery week where once again we reduce the intensity and duration of many of the sessions to allow our bodies to recover in preparation for the next block of hard training.
* Turbo Endurance or road
* Warm Up – 10 Minutes Steady
* Main Set
* 4 x 10 Minutes Steady with five minutes easy in between. Use your gears to change between steady and easy. Don’t push it on these sessions and focus on keeping your RPM even
* Warm Down - 15 minutes steady in easy gear.
Pool
* Warm Up
* 4 x 150M Drills. Swim as 50M F/S / 50M one armed / 50M F/S : 600M
* Main set
* 6 x 200M Steady (Zone 2): 1200M
* Warm Down
* 200M Steady / Long stroke: 200M
Total – 2000M
* Endurance
*Warm up
m Mobility stretches
* 200m Jogs
*Main – 60 minutes at Zone 2 (below race pace). Should be a comfortable, steady run.
*Warm Down
* 4 x 200m Strides (just above race pace)
* Dynamic stretches. Don’t push the stretches just hold for 20 seconds each.
Work from your feet up stretching each major running group muscle.
EVENTS
Friday 28th October – Marathon Relay
Saturday 29th October – Al Areen Aquathon. A 400m swim in the water park followed by a 2.5km run to the Spa and Hotel
The next BRR event, the 3km Costume Run at Hamala Beach resort, takes place on Friday 14th October 2016. Registration closes on Wednesday night.
* The author is a coach at Bahrain Triathlon Club, a
former multi-sport athlete and now a fully qualified Great Britain national swimming and running coach with over 10 years experience in training multi-sport athletes.