Fraser Cartmell Ironman triathlete » Longhorn 70.3

Motivation needed? Not now

Fraser — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 03:32:58 +0000

Last week when I had a wander around Lance’s bike shop here in Austin, Mellow Johnny’s, I took the below picture of this even more famous picture. I have it framed on my wall at home in fact. I see it every morning when I wake up for swimming. – Sometimes it doesn’t work I am afraid!! However …. now it’s less than 10 days till the showdown in Clearwater. The World Champs no less. There is no need for a glance at Lance (see what I did there?!) climbing a French Col to get me out the door I can tell you

Training since the Longhorn 70.3 here in Austin has been bang on. I was due to leave here for St Pete on Friday of last week in fact, but I quickly realised that staying here in Texas was going to be a much better training base for my pre Clearwater needs. The big tick in the box was the chance to train with Ritchie Cunningham and his training buddy Pat Evoe. I knew Ritchie lived here in Austin now, having moved down to the warmer climes from Boston during the summer, but you never know whether folk are keen to welcome a newbie into the fold. Plus I didn’t want to get in the way of what is clearly a good routine (he won in easy-street fashion last w/e) at this late stage before the biggest race on our calendar.

It’s been a blast so far. – Austin is (much like much of urban America i guess) fairly spread out … and this is what I still struggle to get my head around when in the US. Nothing is generally that close and travel time can seem like a drag. But, I know we are just spoilt at home in Stirling, and hey, its not 25C with the clearest blue sky imaginable EVER in November in ‘The Shire’ ! So i’m sucking the travel up. – Especially with the loan of Ritchies’ funy little (but pretty powerful i might add) scooter. – More on that tomorrow I think.

Ritchie is not only preparing for Clearwater, and defending his podium spot from last year, but he has bitten off an even bigger bite in the shape of Ironman Arizona the week later. Or 8 days later as Ritchie keeps reminding me! Rather him than me is all I’ll say. The upshot of that scenario is that he is in wicked shape and totally motivated to get great training sessions in each of these last few crucial days, plus Pat is gearing up for the new Ironman event in Cozumel, Mexico a week later. – Between the two of them it is ON in training! (Especially on the bike … I now realise I don’t ride hard enough when I train!) Many might subscribe to the train of thought that “if it’s not in the bag by now it never will” … but I don’t agree … I am coming good day by day by hanging onto their coat tails and it’s a great feeling to still have next week to freshen up and get over the last bit of travel into Florida.

I’ve learned a lot from being here these past 2 weeks, and I am sure I will come back to train again. The whole place is so friendly and triathlon orientated. I have also been utterly lucky (yet again) in having found such an incredible homestay family to stay with and that has made everything that bit easier to handle in the new environment. – Thanks Terra and Zane. (and the cats. and the dog).

The view at the pool after my swim this avo …. its a 33yd pool – this is a new distance for me!

and a slightly wonky view of ‘downtown’ on my ride home from the pool. (I didn’t take this on the scooter I promise!)

Longhorn snaps

Fraser — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:12:03 +0000

I just got a couple of nice images from the weekend drop into the inbox. – Inside the last 5k of the bike, as I took the race lead. Pity I didn’t hold onto it for a bit longer ….. I’m working on that though. As Toby would say “drop ‘em like they’re hot”.

Photo credit to Lenny Glick. – Thankyou.

L – R: Brian Fleischmann, Luke Bell, Greg Bennet, Ritchie Cunningham and myself.

Pre Longhorn 70.3

Fraser — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 02:58:34 +0000

Just about to hit my bed after a lengthy pre race day … always things to do – a bit of exercise to loosen off, a trip to the race site to familiarise, race briefing plus I was asked to join in on the Pro Q&A Panel which was interesting, not least since Victor Zyemtsev from the Ukraine was also answering questions; “i like bike” , “wetsuit eez gud” , and my personal favourite on being asked about race nutrition, he looked up as if to say are you stupid … “gyyeellls”. As Gavin might say – gottaloveaukranian.

It’s the first race 70.3 I have started since Antwerp back at the beginning of August. It’s a strong field so I’m looking forward to getting out there and seeing how I shape up. Swim hard, bike hard and run hard. See where it gets me.

Supposed to be live feed on www.ironman.com but they say that all the time!! Hopefully this time …. also there will be a live twitter cast at www.twitter.com/athletes4acure which may end up being more reliable.

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.