Katie Ingram at Training Camp

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The British Triathlon World Class Performance Programme has recently returned from their winter training camp at Antequerra in Spain. The camp provided the first opportunity for the athletes to spend time together, train together and share their knowledge and experiences, supported by World Class coaches, scientists and medical staff.

Katie Ingram, part of the trigold programme privately funded by Barrie Wells attended camp and has given us an insight into everyday life in Spain. Over to Katie...
 
When asked to write a blog for the British Triathlon website, I thought I would keep a daily diary of my training week but soon realised that this would become very repetitive of swim-bike-run with eating and sleeping mixed in! Therefore, I thought it would be best to summarise a few highlights of my first British Triathlon training camp in Antequerra 2009!

So here goes, having been on the trigold programme for ten weeks in Loughborough I was really looking forward to the camp; change of location, meeting other athletes and some good training in warm weather. All lived up to expectations except the weather part which by the end of the week started to feel like I had not left home!

The hotel was fabulous; pool, gym, running tracks, restaurant all within 30 seconds walk from my room. I t was great being able to just literally roll out of bed and focus on training with no other distractions.

Training out here has been challenging but also really enjoyable; clocking up a total of 20km in the pool, 365km on the bike and 65 miles running in 8 days.


We had some quality sessions including my first team time trial which admittedly didn’t start too smooth, but once we got the hang of it we worked well as a team, and I really got into it with a definite improvement the second time around. 

One of the toughest sessions I have ever done in my life involved cycling up a mountain, not once, but twice in the same session. I think we rode about 70km in 3 hours in hellish conditions of wind and rain, not to mention experiencing my first crash as I skidded round a corner! Definitely won’t be forgetting this ride in a hurry! Negatives aside, I took a great deal of confidence from this, think my mountain running had prepared me well (except the crash part!).

We also had some good run sessions up in the hills, which made me feel a little bit more in my comfort zone!

The swims were tough, added by the extreme heat of the pool, nevertheless the work got done and it was awesome being able to swim with the full squad; just trying to hang onto their feet for as long as I could most of the time!

The week ended with some fun and games of relays in the pool, my team consisted of Alistair Brownlee and Adam Bowden. We finished third overall but it’s a good job Alistair can navigate in open water as he ended up in the wrong lane on one of the relays! On the last night we had some awards and a brilliant video that Will Clarke had made of the week.

On the last morning, myself and Hollie Avil decided to get up for an early run – needless to say we will either be taking a phone, map or someone else with us next time as we ended up totally lost at the opposite side of Anteguerra. With only 40 minutes before we needed to leave for the airport, we called a taxi to take us back to the hotel.

The end to a great week though and overall I have learnt so much from simple things like being able to pack a bike in a bag, to enduring torturous bike rides in the mountains. I have met some new friends and training partners and feel my confidence is growing in this new sport- a sport that I’m really enjoying. Thanks to all the British Triathlon coaches and staff involved on the camp and of course Barrie Wells, whom without trigold would not be possible. I will leave you with a quote that stuck with me at the start of this camp: “Making every day count, not counting the days”, and that’s what I intend to keep on doing.

So until next time,

Adios,

Katie.