Velo Pyrenees

Recently I headed out for my first experience of Europe’s big mountains. I flew in to Toulouse from Heathrow – my bike in a box – and picked up a hire car before driving in the direction of Tarbes. I’d booked 3 nights at Velo Pyrenees (see map), located near Crechets in the foothills of [...]

Training diary: week 6

Good solid week, although Wednesday saw another slight injury arise: a bruise like pain in the metatarsal area of my right foot. Unsure whether this was just a knock, or something more tricky like ligament damage or – worse – a stress fracture. I decided to lay off the running for a few days and [...]

ITU World Champs

In case you didn’t see the latest round of the ITU World Championship series in Hyde Park… it’s on the iPlayer for another few days and longer on the download service. Triathlon has received increased airtime of late, mostly in highlight form. It’s great that the BBC showed live coverage of the Hyde Park ITU event [...]

Astounding

Can’t believe what I’ve just seen. If you didn’t see it, go watch it now.

Training diary: week 5

Strange week. I started the week in Carcassonne recovering from a wedding and doing a little swimming. Once back in London, I went out for a long run, only to feel a knee strain after an hour and struggle through to 1h30. I dropped the run on Weds, but could still feel the achey pain [...]

Will Clarke’s blog

Oddly – when considering I read BBC Sport daily - this is the first I’ve seen of Will Clarke’s blog. Will is the British Champ from 2008 and most recently won the Mazda London Triathlon. I watched him compete on Eurosport recently: leading, his bike broke mid-ride, he hit the deck hard, fixed it, remounted, and still won the [...]

Cycling: winning the fight against drugs?

This is an interesting article by William Fotheringham, Guardian sports writer, cycling specialist and author of the Tom Simpson biog ’Put Me Back on My Bike’, amongst other books. It’s a timely reminder of how far cycling has come in just over a decade; and even in the three short years since the Puerto/Basso/Ulrich/Landis debacle. Okay, so hopes of [...]

Mazda London Triathlon

Sunday 2nd August 2009 It’s 5.15am and I’m driving through the quiet streets of East London; bike, wetsuit and a bag of gear are in the boot. The sight of people standing, laughing, stumbling, and inebriated outside bars and clubs whilst us hardy sports nuts make our way in the breaking daylight to the start of another [...]

Training diary: week 4

A slightly different week of training this week! Sunday was the Mazda London Triathlon (full write up to follow), and then after the event I immediately packed my bike into my DHB Elsted box – a challenge in itself – and headed south for an early Monday flight to Toulouse. 4 days in the Pyrenees followed, [...]