Fraser Cartmell Ironman triathlete » Clearwater World 70.3

Eric Wynn Photography

Fraser — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 18:19:27 +0000

Thanks go out to Eric Wynn for these cracking shots taken at Clearwater. Having long admired his snaps of top athletes from many a major race around the US, it is nice for me to be caught by his lens also.

Somewhere around about the half way point – one of the few sections not amongst the suburban sprawl …….

2 gels in hand = early doors in the run

T minus 3 days

Fraser — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 02:19:45 +0000

Clearwater is fast approaching – its Tuesday night here in Florida as I write, and yet it seems much closer to kick off. I’m starting to get that simultaneously ‘excited and nervous’ feeling, which is good and bad. – Good that i’m feeling it, but bad that there are 3 more days for it to manifest into full-blown nervousness! The training is all done; today was the last day including all 3 with some intensity thrown in …. now it’s time to become (and I quote Julie Dibens herself here) ‘fresh like lettuce’.

A cloudy day in Florida means an empty pool for myself, Julie and Dann Brook to swim in …

Clearwater is essentailly the flattest bike course I have ever ridden (Antwerp gives it a good run for its money!). It is also the fastest, without any hint of a thought – but that is almost certainly due to the fact that it is World Champs. Being such a flat and fast course, drafting will always be an issue, as unfortunate as this may be. The rule is 10m, and yet at every race people are willing to push the boundaries. Or plain old simply cheat! (see below!) I am confident in my ability to ride as fast as is needed come Saturday. I’ve done plenty of biking over the last 6 weeks, and over the past 3 weeks the faster riding has been added in.

However, despite this video being of the Age Group race in the recent IM Florida - it still blow my mind that there are people doing our sport who clearly haven’t done the work, and feel happy to race a NON DRAFTING (hello folks!) race in this way. Lets hope it is monitored fairly and appropriately on Saturday morning for the A/G (and our own Pro) wave(s). A blanket DQ is what I say on the matter ….

V.I.P Future Champion!

Fraser — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 02:04:03 +0000

I can get 70 miles to the gallon on this hog! - I couldn’t resist a link to some memerable ‘Dumb and Dumber’ quotes …. its’ potentially my most favourite film (i know, but it is) and therefore I can’t help but laugh (generally out loud) to myself each time I head off down the driveway on Ritchie’s moped/scooter that he has let me borrow this past week.

Its’ got some punch to it you know ….. (especially at the lights!)

Tomorrow is my last day in Austin before flying to Tampa. I’ve said it already, but I really have thoroughly enjoyed the last 2 weeks here. It’s always telling when a fair amount of time flies by so quickly, and it certainly has whilst I have been here. I’m starting to feel ready to race and thats exciting. It feels almost like every race since June has been arriving too soon, so fingers crossed I have figured it out a little bit better for the one that matters most in the year!

Today was an easier day – just an hour run and an hour swim in the afternoon sunshine. I’ll get through a swim, bike and run day tomorrow before packing away the DA in the evening. – It’s getting a clean today.

I’ll be staying in St Petersburg for the last few days before heading on to Clearwater next Thursday, but i’ll keep you posted before then I am sure.

Turning the corner….

Fraser — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 16:00:09 +0000

I haven’t been too chirpy of late on the old blogging. Not with any ‘Fraser news’ at least. The simple reason is that there hasn’t really been any news of note to report. I’ve been in Stirling, and I have been training day in day out. The news if any, has been the lack of rain. And that IS news here in The Shire, I can assure you.

No rain = smiles all round

The summer seemed to fly by, and here we are heading out of Autumn with Winter rapidly approaching….. shudder the thought. Brrr. The students are back and the University campus is bustling once again. Bustling so much that ….. it’s been playing havoc with my mile reps sessions, but thats a story for another day.

So with the heat in the sun diminishing even quicker than the hours of daylight available, it is that time of year again when I fire up my old pal Expedia.com and book myself the hell outta here. It’s been as productive a month as I could possibly have hoped for whilst being at home. – The consistency has been there, the training has been improving by the day and week, and in turn the confidence has been building. It’s been a groundhog type of existence; much of the time enjoying the company of me, myself and I.

There is still a ways to go, but thats ok, since Clearwater is still nearly 7 weeks over the horizon…. but not one to be fooled, as those weeks will fly by, I have a plan of attack and it looks a little like this:

- Finish up this week here in Stirling, which will wrap up 650ks of running over the past 6 weeks. I will race on Sunday morning at the Scottish Aquathlon Champs in Edinburgh (THAT will be cold!!) before flying to the South of Spain later that afternoon for a little training camp. It’s been 2 full years since I last spent time in our old haunt of Aguilas, and I am looking forward to heading back to start ramping up the bike milage. Fellow Clearwater competitor Dann Brook is also going to hang out for a week or so down there.

- Arrive back in Stirling on the 9th Oct (I have to see Hawaii on the live stream!!) and race the Scottish Duathlon Champs here in Stirling on the Sunday morning or the 11th. Bright and early the following morning I will step aboard for a flight to Los Angeles. Back to the land of jet lag!

- Spend 8 days in the San Diego area, where I have trained so much over the past 18 months, before moving on once more to Austin, Texas for the Longhorn 70.3 on the 25th Oct. Given I haven’t raced properly over the distance since the Antwerp 70.3 in August, we figured it would be more than sensible to see where I am at competively. Good I hope, since with only 3 weeks remaining till Clearwater at that stage, there won’t be much else to do!

- From there I will finally settle in St Petersburg for the last 2 weeks leading into the World Championships on Clearwater Beach on the 14th November.

Stay tuned, as I think I am turning that corner.

catching up on triathlonteam.org

Fraser — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 14:31:34 +0000

We’re spread far and wide at the moment - triathlonteam.org – but I thought I would do a little resume. It’s good content!

Gav has been hanging out in his native Norn’ Ireland for a bit of unstructured training combined with some regular doses of good food. Hoever he has also sourced some legend archive footage of Lance back in the day when bikes were bikes, and not rocket ships. See above at around the 4 minute mark for his pumped interview.

Will is enduring the harshness of the Australian winter on the Goldy. My heart bleeds. – He and the rest of Team GB are on their final taper into the ITU World Championship Series Final this coming w/e where it’s going to be on like Donkey Cong. G’luck champ. Run fast!

Dan is recovering from Swine flu in Stellenbosch; getting ready for the pointy end of his season over in the States, what with the Xterra US Nationals and World Champs looming ever closer.

Conrad has been celebrating the success of fellow South African, Burry Stander in winning the World U23 mtb title yesterday. Further to that his “10 Questions with …. ” series of Q&A’s has been entirely entertaining so far. – He suggests that kids should stick in at their swim and run sessions if they want to grow up to be like Dan, and experience the highs of being a Pro triathlete …. on the evidence of the photo below, I, like Conrad, agree wholeheartedly!

Dejan has been racing at home in Croatia and is building towards Kona and hopefully improving on his 24th place last year; Nikola and Igor have been training together and generally having a nice time at Igors’ place in the Swiss/Italian hills. Aleksander is the the US of A getting ready to tackle Ironman Wisconsin next weekend.

And me? I’m still in the Shire, putting one day of training together after another day, and enjoying the process. – I should be in Gerardmer this w/e to race the half ironman …. I pulled out though, what with my compete lack of racing shape at present. - It is a shame, as I love it there and have many a fond memory of training in the hills around the town. Paul puts on a fantastic event and I aim to be back racing there next year for sure.

For now it’s back to basics. Swim. Bike. Run. Clearwater.