A tale of 10 Championships

National Triathlon Championships - Malta 2/10/2011

It took me an eternity to get this blog update together. It has been quite a busy time in the last month and I had never had time to sit down and think through what to write in this blog and right now am not too sure but will have a go and try and explain what goes through my mind when I am preparing and achieving a championship.

The triathlon championship is a race I love, a race which brings out the best of me. I sometimes wish I was the same in other important races, where I always wanted to achieve more then I actually got. Somehow in October I always feel ready, even when on paper I'm not. This October turned out to be no different.

My approach to this race was one of the best I ever had in the last 6 years. Thanks to the help of Bill and Pam I had a really good September in the UK after I have been very 'politely' told to get my ass out of my room by my landlord. All year I had been dreaming of this race, and how it would feel going back after my absence in 2010. I managed to put together a good block of training, and although I did have some issues with my knee which didnt let me do the running sessions I wished to, I was feeling confident.

Race day arrived and the transition area was packed. Yes packed with 100 triathletes, Maltese, British, French and Japanese. The most exciting thing was that there were around 70 Maltese triathletes - a big record. By then I wasn't just confident, I was happy to be part of such a big event and probably a milestone for triathlon in Malta. How exciting would that be winning this event, today, with all these people? - I thought.

Swim started with a beach start. I had my best ever start, so good I thought I went the wrong way as I had opened a gap of 6m by the first 50m. I think I was really desperate to win!! :) Mark over took me after 300m into the swim, and so I was leading a pack of around 5 more swimmers with Keith, Carl, Mark Sykes and Michelle Scott on my feet. I was feeling strong, and everything was going accord to plan. I was out of the water in around 23.30 with Keith and Carl just behind1, and after a quick transition I was straight on the bike in a few seconds.

Looking at the boys results in the BSJ Sprint Triathlons I felt that this was going to be a bike race, and me playing catch up. I worked a lot on my cycling during the summer months as the times they were doing on the bike were just phenomenal. To my surprice and now I can clearly say it, from the first second on the bike I was feeling S@$t! I had not pace, no strength and it all felt a struggle. Looking back I think that changing my cycling shoe the last 2 weeks was not such a smart idea. Although I trained quite a bit with it, I didn't race so I could not realise that my saddle was 5mm lower than it should have been (the new cycling shoe is much higher then my older one). Keith, Carl and Mark Sykes were cycling really well so I had to try and hang in there and avoid getting dropped off the pace. I only kind of figured it out in the last 2 laps but by then there was not point in attacking, or doing any silly moves. I decided that it had to be a running race.

Straight into T2 and I do a beginners mistake, go past my rack position and losing important seconds. First out of transition was Carl, followed by Mark Sykes and then it was me and Keith. Keith pushed the pace and caught up with Carl in about 400m, and both were running like mad. I caught up with Mark Sykes and after a quick word I tried to push the pace hoping not to lose much to my younger competition.

Although both Keith and Carl were really running well I wasn't losing so much time, and as we were approaching the end of the first lap I was closing down. Once I closed the gap the race was once again open to any of us three. Lets face it now, many before that moment thought, 'Dermot is done!' he can't win this one! Surprise, I thought the same thing! :) The only difference to any other race in the same situation was that this was October and this was the National Championship, and dont ask me why and how but I just have that extra gear on the day. So after the turn around point I started pushing the pace and once I was in the last 3k I thought that now it was time to go for it. That was the winning move.

I must say though that it was a very hard championship race. Both Carl and Keith gave me a hell of a race, and they have both improved a lot, but maybe on the day experience was on my side and keeping cool when possibly others would have paniced made the difference. Probably after 15 years in the sport I tend to enjoy these moments rather then dreading them so it helps to keep me focused and determined.

Winning is such a great feeling, but winning a national championship is something beyond happiness. My 10th championship was such a great experience and running the last kilometer in front was emotional. Carl and Keith made it unique.

A big thank-you goes to the people who supported me, my parents, Johanna (who did a great race coming in second overall with a stress fructure in her foot), Bill & Pam for their support, and my club, Birkirkara St. Joseph. Also I would like to thank LINEBREAK for their sponsorship help during this season! Thanks Mark.

Last but not least I would like to dedicate my 10th Championship to a person who in the last 12 years worked like mad for Triathlon in Malta - Manuel, our MTA president! He's the person who introduced me to the sport, and gave me this opportunity.

Yours in Triathlon,

Dermot

DGTri Athlete Report - Bill Livingstone

Malta National Championships : Blog Report

You could feel the nervous tension in the transition area, athletes going through their OCD rituals of continually checking their kit and layout, and checking again, then re-checking again!
Plenty of room to lay all the bikes and kit out for the biggest field Malta has seen for a Triathlon

Maltese, British, French and Japanese athletes were in transition and the noise of the different languages chatting away was good (?)

Stomach rumbling and a quick exit to portaloo 1!
I could hear the race brief taking place, but having raced on the course for the last 3 seasons, was not too worried about the briefing.

Exit portaloo 1 and make a hurried stride down to the swim start. Athletes had already lined up and some were finishing their warm ups.
Goggles on and my line of attack fixed.

Countdown started, and one cheeky swimmer headed out before the start gun trying to gain an extra 2 seconds start.

Round the first buoy, then trying to sight the next buoy in direct bright sunlight proved a challenge. Eventually the buoy was sighted, then back to the start buoy for the second lap. Lap 2 proved a bit of a challenge as there were some jellyfish floating about and several athletes got stung including myself. Heading towards the swim exit, I followed the safety canoe and exited the water in 26 minutes dead, which was an excellent swim for me.

Then it all went wrong. I was told I had missed the last buoy and needed to go back and swim round the buoy. Did I take a 2 minute penalty or swim back to the buoy? Back to the buoy it was and by the time I had exited the water for a second time, my race head had gone.

I ambled up the exit ramp into transition fighting the demons who wanted me to stop. My realistic chances of beating last years time had gone.
Out on the bike, the laps ticked off and the pace just would not kick in. Today the legs were dead.

6 laps later and off the bike slower than the previous year by 2 minutes and through transition.

Out on the run, it soon became very apparent that it was HOT!

At the run turnaround, the expected drink station was missing, so the only fluid to drink was out of the sponges being given out (several athletes doing the same) before the turnaround.

Trying to pick up the run pace and again the legs were dead.
Finally the finish line came into view and across the line in my slowest time yet.
A quick exit from the finish area and into the sea to cool down and analyse what went wrong.

It seemed a combination of factors were set against me, the unfortunate exit to portaloo 1 and missing the race briefing, including the part about NOT following the safety canoe to the exit!

However, you are not an athlete until you have had a shocker of a race and learn from it.

Malta 2012 is already booked in!

Bill

DGTri Athlete Report - Johanna Calleja

National Triathlon Championships

“Will I be in too much pain to finish the 10 km run?” Not quite the worry I thought I’d have the night before the National Championships.

About ten months before we had finally figured out how to completely eliminate the problem of chronic fatigue caused by artificial sweeteners. I had been training consistently in Chester, still under Dermot’s guidance, but also swimming with Chester Academy, doing some sessions with Chester Tri Club and going out cycling with friends from the club. I had some good results in triathlons and also across all three disciplines, so I started to become confident that on a good day, I could be one of the challengers for the championship title.

So I thought that the night before I would worry about whether or not I could perform well enough to be a serious contender for the title, rather than whether or not it would be possible for me to finish the 10 km run, usually my favourite part of a triathlon and where I often make up time over other competitors.

But an injury which developed around my ankle meant that I could only run twice in the three weeks leading up to the big day, and both times in significant pain both during and after the run. I supplemented the missed running sessions with aqua-jogging sessions in the pool or sea. Although I had believed in the effectiveness of aqua-jogging for some time, I was convinced that I would lose quite a lot of my running fitness, and slowly doubts started creeping in and I began to think there was no chance I could be one of the contenders, but consoled myself in the fact that at least if I was second Maltese female, I would qualify for the National Team.

But Dermot was having none of that! He has believed in me since before I even started doing triathlon and kept telling me that I shouldn’t give up when I had come so far and that I could still do it. A few days later I did my last hard brick session before the race (usually cycling followed by running – but in my case cycling followed by aqua-jogging!) and during this session, Dermot’s words of encouragement kept popping into my head and I thought “No, I won’t give up when I’ve come so far and trained so hard!!” I remembered the words of professional triathlete Mac Brown, who wrote in a blog that the finish line does not care about injuries and excuses and that as soon as you start making excuses with yourself for your performance, that is when you are defeated.
So a week later, after words of encouragements from my parents and sister, Dermot and other fellow athletes, I was on the swim start line and trying to remain as positive as I had felt in that last hard session. Off we went and after all the hits, kicks and being swum over at the start, I managed to get into a reasonable rhythm. A good swim for me, but not good enough to be close to the three leading girls!

Onto my bike amidst very welcome cheers from family and friends and I kept trying to work hard and convince myself that although I used to be quite a weak cyclist, I could now make up for lost time on the bike. Sure enough, towards the end of the cycle segment, I could clearly see that the gap between me and the girl in front of me was decreasing.
As I exited transition, I could see her running ahead of me and held on to the hope that I could move up into third place if my ankle did not play up too much. The first few kilometres were relatively pain-free, apart from a background pain which I could ignore enough to run at a reasonable pace, so I started feeling optimistic: “Maybe my ankle will be ok after all. Maybe I haven’t lost my running fitness. Maybe it’s true that the race isn’t over until the finish line.”

But after about 3 or 4 km, this all changed. Suddenly, every step I took became painful and I had to slow down just to be able to keep running. The gap between me and the girls in front was growing and the only thing I could think about now was to trying to get to the finish line and wondering whether I could make it. William ran past me and shouted encouragement and also told me that the gap between me and the girl behind me was quite big. Good reason to try to keep running – finish the race second Maltese and qualify for the national team!

The next big motivator came when Barry told me that Dermot had won his tenth title! We had spoken about this so many times and if he had fought to win so hard and succeeded, I could fight to finish the race!!
So as I ran slowly, feeling pain with each step I took, I thought about being on the national team, I thought about my swimming coach in Chester, Barry, telling me and Ide to be tough, I thought about Ide telling me all about her first Ironman and breaking through the pain barrier to get to the finish, I thought about Maria and Marica reminding me that pain is only temporary, and of course I looked forward to celebrating Dermot’s tenth win!!
I focused on getting to the finish line and just hoped no one would overtake me because no matter how badly I wanted to finish second, I just knew that the pain wouldn’t allow me to run any faster than I was running. And finally I could hear Dermot’s mother cheering me on and knew I was approaching the finish line. Then she was running next to me, forgetting her own tiredness and just supporting me. By this point, I knew I could make it. My parents and sister were cheering me on by the finish line, and I approached it smiling and laughing.
Crossing the finish line felt amazing, even more so when I realised that notwithstanding the fact that my run was about seven minutes slower than I would have expected on a good injury-free day, my time was still a pb by about three minutes! And it was amazing to run into Dermot’s arms to congratulate him on such a great win and to thank him for always supporting me and believing in me, even when I had stopped believing myself.
I would like to thank Dermot once again for being such a great coach and boyfriend. I would not have achieved so much without his support – I probably wouldn’t even have discovered triathlon without him – and even if sometimes the simplicity of running is appealing, the beauty of triathlon is now unbeatable in my books! I’d also like to thank my family for all their support, Barry and all at Chester Academy, my friends in the Chester Tri Club, Bill and Pam for their constant support, Giuseppe at Starbene shop, Joseph St. John and everyone who believed in me and supported me before and during the race. And thank you to all involved in organising such an enjoyable race!

October man - 9th National Title

It has been a while now since my last update on my blog. I have been training very hard this year for Ironman Austria in July but I never seemed to find the time to write my race reports due to the heavy work commitments I have with my new job at the MFA Swimming Pool. Its amazing how much work there is to take care of a whole in the group of 12m x 25m!!

Today's report is more about the National Championships which were held a couple of weeks ago. This was my 12th participation at these championships with 8 wins, 2 4th places and a DNF. Certainly I was looking forward to a 9th title but things were not as easy as they might have seemed. Coming up from 2 wins at the B'kara St. Joseph Triathlon Series I was looking set to challenge for this title. My post Ironman recovery was not brillaint and this time it too me much longer to get back to my usual training routine. It was a mixture of things I think, work, the hard effort on the marathon to get a PB (by only 5sec) and also the emotional feeling of anti-climax after such an important target which result was not as I had hoped for.

Yet I managed to get things back together in the last 4 - 6 weeks. My running legs started feeling much better and my cycling was reasonably strong. Swimming seemed to be my achilles this year, with my brother training cosistently all year with the Sliema Swimming Club in the morning and producing very fast times in the UK I wasn't so confident in my abilities, but the championship is the championship and things can go either way on the day.

The day started with a fast start from Mark Zammit whose swimming abilities are far better then mine. I kept pushing the pace to limit the loss with Keith (my brother) on my legs. I came out of the water with a 2mins disadvantage on Mark so I had a long gap to close on the bike section. With a somewhat slow transition I was out just behind Keith. I immediately over took him and started working on keeping a good tempo. The gap was closing and by lap 3 we were head to head with Mark. The race had started!

Mark keep with us for the next two laps. I really pushed myself to open a gap but there was no way I could gain those seconds on Keith. On the last lap I surrendered to the fact that it was going to be a running race. My second transition was much better, I felt very in control and felt that I could do a good run. I tried to test Keith a couple of times but he still held on until 5km into the run when he just left me and opened a gap. At that particular moment I thought that the race was over and I had to settle for 2nd but after the pen-ultimate turn around I felt a second wind. I caught up with Keith and pushed the pace, and I opened a gap. I knew that this was the moment to put my head down and go for it. The rest is history........

I would like to show my gratitude to the people who support me all year round, my parents, my girlfriend Johanna, and my club B'kara St. Joseph. A special big thank-you goes to Bill and Pam for their constant support and help when we race in the UK and much more they have done for me and my brother. It's very hard to find such friends, you have to be lucky!! A big thank-you goes to Venom Tri Club for their participation together with other UK triathletes at the National Triathlon Championships!!

Sponsors: Diadora, Gensan, Starbene, Ergomo, Powercranks, Profile-Design and the MFA Swimming Pool.