Africa Mason Blog: More From The European Tour
Well last month was such a hectic month, with my European Tour carrying on I have got a little behind with my Bloggle! After Monaco I barely had time to get my breath before I was whisked off to the ‘Olympic Hopefuls’ competition in Debrecen, Hungary. Debrecen – home of the Hungarian cowboys, was about 2 hours by coach from Budapest. It was a pretty hectic schedule with a large field of Eastern European and Balkan competitors – some of whom were incredibly quick.
All this set against a very different countryside, that I unfortunately didn’t get to see much of! My individual performance was not as good as I had hoped: finishing around the mid-point in the Individual competition. We had started the event at the crack of dawn after arriving at 10 pm the previous evening – Could that have been why ? Never the less I returned with a silver team event medal, (won a few days later after I had had time to settle in) and a whole load of new friends. It was certainly an experience to remember but reminded me that the need for acclimatisation isn’t always so obvious.
Earlier that month, back home I had managed to fit in the Aldershot road relays – at the start of the Cross-country season. Our stirling performance – coming second in this Southern region event had got me and my team mates through to the National event in Sutton Coldfield where we came in 4th just outside the medals, after what was deemed a valiant attempt and some very fast individual laps times. After that it was straight back down to Millfield for the regional modern Triathlon qualifier, where I at last picked up a Gold ! – GOLD there I’ll say it again (OK it was for the South West: but that could be a good omen!)
In the following days I managed to fit in a week of normal intensity training – dragging my CyclOps Fluid 2 trainer back in from the garage and snatching some road-time out in the Purbecks before the winter really sets in.
Over half term I went to Berlin and had a week of intense training for Modern Pentathlon at the Olympic stadium complex there. I was up at 8am most mornings, which makes a change from the early 5am start for swimming. The days training would usually start with a two hour shooting session on their very flashy new range. This was then followed by a two hour swimming session, some of which the German team joined in with. The pool we were using was 25m and in close proximity of the training centre. We then went back to the accommodation for a light lunch.
During my time in Berlin I got to go on some lovely forest runs which passed a beautiful lake, the leaves had all fallen onto the ground and it was very pleasant although very chilly! My Pearl Izumi Aurora thermal hoodie helped keep me warm though.
In the afternoon we would do some very tough fartlek sessions and some longer 5-10k runs. I really benefited from the ‘combined’ training out there: learning how to deal with the pressure of having to shoot well after running 2km flat out is very tough. You have to remain calm and in control of your breathing. We did some of this training throughout the week and then had a competition amongst the GB team at the end. Naturally we were all very competitive. The main focus of the camp was shooting and fencing.
We would all fence in the evening for 2-3hours which included free play with the German team and a private lesson. At the end of each day I felt completely exhausted both physically and mentally, but now I feel in great shape and have learnt a lot from the experience. My next major events are a regional Tetrathlon in Croydon followed by the National (modern) Triathlon up in Wolverhampton where last year I came 16th I am hoping to come in the top 5 this year, who knows I may even medal!