Alistair is back!

Any fears that Alistair Brownlee might not be fully fit for London 2012 can be well and truly laid to rest as he won the latest round of the ITU WCS in Kitzbuhel Austria. Jonny Brownlee was second with Javier Gomez taking third. The Browlees made a break on the bike along with Denis Vasiliev (RUS) but they were chased down by the pack. Stuart Hayes (GB) came to the front, performing his role as domestique and drove the pace on the bike. Did the team tactics make a difference? Who knows, the Brownlees certainly had a comfortable gap on the rest of the field.

Nicola Spirig (Sui) sprinted away from Lisa Norden (SWE) in the final 400m of the the women's elite race. Andrea Hewitt (NZ) was third. If the women's triathlon comes down to sprint finish, at this point if Nicola Spirig is one of those athletes going for gold, she might just be the favourite. No team tactics in the women's race. Just good hard racing. Unfortunately we didn't get to see Emma Snowsill race in the end and we will have to wait to see what kind of form Paula Findlay (Can) will bring to London 2012.

This weekend, on Saturday,  is the Zone3 demo session. We would like everyone to either bring their own wetsuit to the session or use one provided by Zone3. The focus of the session will be on open water skills as well as putting on your wetsuit properly to ensure comfort and efficiency and getting it off quickly to minimise time in transition.


It's not just the LFTC club members racing well this year. Proof that great athletes can make great coaches, coach Mick Cairns won his age group at the Forestman Triathlon on June 24th. This is a tough ironman distance event in the New Forest. Nice work Mick! Why weren't you running Tuesday night though?


If you are keen to watch some fast and furious live triathlon check out the GE Canary Wharf Triathlon Thursday night. Races will run from 6.15pm until 9.30pm and will feature Tim Don and Liz Blatchford as well as other international elite athletes.

Have a good week and see you in the weekend sometime. Tim(LFTC Coach)

LFTC raising the bar!

Another huge weekend for LFTC athletes last weekend. The results below show place in category. Pretty impressive reading huh?


UK 70.3 Wimbleball
5:21:59 17th Gabriel Sayer
5:35:04 24th Nathan Dytor
5:47:01 7th Gail Wilkinson
6:33:23 10th Shiz Gerami


Lakeside Triathlon
1:09:04 2nd Felipe Almeida
1:28:51 1st Hannah Moora


Dambuster Triathlon
There were some impressive results in very testing conditions. This was a world championship qualifier and if you have not raced in a race like this it is a whole new ball game. You can check out the results here.


Fritton Lake Triathlon
Stuart Hitchcock and Ellen Greaves both won their categories at the Fritton Lake Triathlon. Stuart set a new PB and Ellen came within seconds of running a sub 40min 10km!


This weekend is the WCS race from Kitzbuhel. It's a beautiful race in the Tirol region of Austria with a tough bike leg. Both the Brownlee bros will be back in action along with Stuart Hayes. It will be interesting to see if GBs 'domestique' tactics may be tested here. It will be intriguing to watch just the same as the field is stacked with talent.


Last time I checked there was no Helen Jenkins on the start list. However, Olympic champion Emma Snowsill (Aus) has a chance to show the Aussie selectors they were wrong to leave her off the team. She may find herself having to chase down the likes of Nicola Spirig (Sui) and Andrea Hewitt (NZ) among others who might be able to breakaway on the bike. Both races are live on the BBC red button on Saturday and Sunday at 2pm.


If you don't already know your CSS pace, at some stage during the week it would be good for you to establish it. Have a look at an earlier post to see how. We will be using CSS to pace our swim sets in upcoming weeks. There are alternative ways of pace setting such as using a 'rating of perceived exertion' (RPE) but CSS is more accurate and I know how much you all love checking your watches at the Lido!


On June 30th Zone3 are paying us a visit for a wetsuit demo session. We would like to see everyone in wetsuits. You can bring your own or use a demo suit from Zone3. We will go through getting a wetsuit on and off properly, discuss modifying your stroke when swimming in a wetsuit and hopefully we'll get a chance to test how much faster you are (if you are indeed faster) when swimming in a wetsuit. So remember June 30th for the Zone3 wetsuit demo.


Have a good one! See you in the weekend I hope. Tim (LFTC Coach)

London Fields Triathlon Club are delighted to be a part of Hackney 1000, raising money for Hackney Quest, an amazing local charity offering opportunities to young people in our area.

On August 18th 2012, we'll mark out a 1km route around Well Street Common. We will be asking people to travel that route in any way they can - from a jog through to a hop to whatever method you feel you can use!

More info to follow over coming weeks and months but you can follow on Facebook and Twitter.

A controversial week in triathlon

Triathlon has seen it's fair share of controversy this week. Liz Blatchford is appealing against not being selected for the GB Olympic team. Lucy Hall, ranked over 100 places further down the world rankings, was chosen over Blatchford. Lucy Hall may have been selected to perform the role of 'domestique'. She will sacrifice her own race, I presume, to assist Helen Jenkins. In my opinion Helen Jenkins doesn't need the help. She is one of the fastest women in triathlon in the swim, the bike and the run. I can see why Liz Blatchford is appealing the decision.

Will Clarke was also overlooked for the GB Olympic team in favour of Stuart Hayes. Last time I checked the men's Olympic rankings Will Clarke was ranked 12th and Stuart Hayes 46th. Was Stuart Hayes selected as a 'domestique' for the Brownlee brothers? Stuart Hayes is a strong cyclist. He may be asked to sacrifice himself on the bike for the Brownlees, chasing down breakaways should they happen. In my opinion the Brownlees don't need help. Just like Helen Jenkins they have the strength needed in all three disciplines to take gold and silver. Speaking of the Brownlee brothers, both were in action at Blenheim last weekend, they finished 1st and 2nd in the same time and two minutes ahead of the field.

It seems Lance Armstrong can't get away from the doping allegations that have plagued his career as a cyclist and threaten to ruin his career as a triathlete. He has unfortunately been banned from triathlon until the resolution of an investigation brought against him by USADA. I am a big LA fan. I think it is a great tragedy that he will no longer be competing in triathlon at least for the duration of the investigation. I don't know if there were any transgressions in his career prior to being diagnosed with and over coming cancer. I very much doubt anyone who has survived cancer would jeopardise their health in order to succeed in sport by doping of any kind.

On a much more happy note, LFTC has it's first male age group representative! Andrew Finn, last year's LFTC triathlete of the year, qualified for the GB team to compete at the Long Distance Triathlon World Championships in Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain at the end of July. Nice work Andrew! Best of luck to all those competing over the weekend. Especially those of you up against Macca in Wimbleball. Go get him, Nathan!

Our newly qualified triathlon coaches will be putting you through your paces on Saturday. We will be using fins and pull buoys so please bring your kit to training. Saturday is now our 'long swim' day. But don't be afraid. This just means it's geared towards aerobic endurance development with longer intervals but with just the right mix of technique and triathlon specific skills too.

See you in the weekend. Tim (LFTC Coach).

Jonny runs away from the field in Madrid!

Just in case you missed the latest race from the ITU WCS in Madrid, Jonny Brownlee was again in formidable form. He ran away from the rest of the men's field after a fascinating race not without a little drama. A small group broke away on the bike, working together they got a sizable break on the rest of the field and with Olympic Games qualification up for grabs they stayed away all the way to T2. The little Colombian, Carlos Javier Quinchara Forero, ran himself into tenth making him the first Colombian to ever qualify for the Olympic Games triathlon. Go Colombia!

It seems I jinxed Andrea Hewitt by calling her the favourite in the elite women's race in Madrid. She had a terrible start but cycled and ran her way up to ninth in the end. There was no Helen Jenkins in the field but Vicky Holland and Liz Blatchford both finished in the top ten which was great for GB. It was a totally different race compared to the elite men's race with almost the entire field entering T2 together. With 400m to go Nicola Spirig had the best sprint and she pulled away to take the win.

Lance Armstrong is really looking like becoming a formidable force in triathlon. Over the weekend he won the Hawaii 70.3 beating Chris 'Macca' McCormack's course record in the process. It was in the tough and windy bike that Lance did the damage clocking 2:01:46. He is no slouch in the water either exiting in third place in 23:22 and had the fourth fastest run split of the day finishing the 21km in 1:22:30. You can read a post-race interview and check out some pics here and race highlights here. Anyone up for Hawaii 70.3 next year? With Macca blowing his own trumpet before this race and saying he is going to 'smash' Lance Armstrong in the Hawaii Ironman later this year I get the feeling LA will be very motivated come 13 October. Will get to see how LA goes over the Ironman distance as he tries to qualify for Kona at IM France - Nice on 24 June.

The next London League event, Hillingdon Sprint Triathlon on 22 July, is now full. The good news is we have a full team! The next event after that, Clash of the Tritons Aquathlon on 19 August, is a great race, very well organised, very friendly and with a fast flat off road run. I don't think entries are open yet but you can keep checking here and I will keep you posted too. I have also mentioned to Jodie McCallum, organiser of the North Norfolk Triathlon, that we will be bringing our biggest and best team yet. There are 55 entries already so don't miss out and get signed up here!

We have some exciting new training sessions in the pipeline with our new coaches getting the chance to plan and deliver their own sessions over the next few weeks. More details to come about bike specific training sessions. We have had a lot of interest in the club with new members signing up each week. If you are new and attending your first swim session you will need fins and a pull buoy for most sessions so please bring them. You can bring hand paddles too and we may use those or at least show you how you might incorporate them into your own training.

Enough from me. I hope you have had a fabulous long weekend celebrating the Queen's Jubilee!

See ya, Tim (LFTC Coach).