News and Recent Results
What a month we have had this July!
With so much going on, I don't often get to update the news section on the site (I will often post brief updates and links on Facebook). But this month the performances have been immense, so I thought I would shout about them....
Ian Leitch has been crowned BTU National Cross Triathlon National Champion, beating Sam Gardner into second place. Ian has also placed 14th at the X-Terra world cup race in France amoungst a high class international field. (See XC Racer for a review of the X-Terra event).
Barbara Hutton finished 4th in her age group at IronMan Switzerland. Hugely dissapointed to miss a Kona qualification slot by 28 seconds as she had stopped and queued for the loo on 4 occasions! Despite this Barbara improved her IM best time by over 1 hour and 40 mins!!!
Paul Robertson, despite having a season with minimal racing (due to the arrival of baby Isla in January) placed 10th at National Mountain Bike Champsionships. Paul now has sufficient points to race some more UCI World Cup races!
Nick Dodds, Tim Skinner, Bryan Carrick, Christoph Pleitgen, Thane Gilmour, Tony Garside, Jon Smart, and Aled Morris (to name but a few) ALL SUCCESSFULLY completed the Etape this year. Photos again of the riders in action on the Facebook pages. Hopefully we will add some more rider feedback shortly.
All successful in completing their first IronMan events, were Bill James, Mark Bales, Ed Bales (also placing age group 8th!) and Kev Willers. Also taking over 30 minutes off IronMan bests were Jo Perry and Garry Palmer.
At the end of June, Heather Rees had a storming race at UK 70.3 to qualify for 70.3 World Championships in Florida.
Add to all of this the numerous athletes improving time trial times, successfully completing targetted sportives in both the UK and overseas, and several Olympic distance triathlon performance improvements it has been an incredibly busy month for Sportstest clients.
We would love to hear how your Sportstest has helped you perform.
Sportstest has confirmed the details of training camps for 2011...
After holding 2 very successful training camps this year with Train in Spain, and Les Stables, we are heading back to Denia and Valeuil again next year. For more information about the 2011 camps, please check out the training section of the web site. The cycling camps in Spain will be in March, and cycling/triathlon camp in France in May.
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Have you noticed?
Elite Performance: Running - From Middle Distance to Marathon, is now available.
With a publication date of September 1st, we are pleased to say, that we
have copies before any of the bookshops, or even Amazon!
So if you are looking to improve your running, this book is a must (even
if we say so ourselves)!
For more information, or to order your copy, please see the training books
section on our website.
We are even including the cost of post and packaging!
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Sportstest™ sponsors the fastest hairy-legged mountain-biker
in the world!
See the British
Cycling website to read more about Paul Robertsons exploits at the recent
World Cup event in Canada. Needless to say we are really proud to have a
rider wearing Sportstest™ kit and performing so well at such a major
international event!
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Whilst not everyone visiting Sportstest™ is aiming to perform at the
same level as Paul, we are still really interested to hear your
experiences. It was great to hear the experiences of Shirish Kulkarni,
one of the Sky employees who rode this years Etape. He writes:
Hi Garry,
Just a quick note to say thanks for your advice and help with my preparations for this year's Etape. I managed to complete it safely, although it was very much a ride of two 'halves'. The first 94 miles went really well, taking me 6 hours, which put me well ahead of the broom wagon despite my low start number. Amazingly, the last 14 miles then took me more than 3 hours!
As it turns out, I think this was fairly typical - it apparently got up to 42 degrees on Ventoux, so was pretty tough. Luckily, I never got into any serious distress, unlike the hundreds of people I saw by the side of the road - collapsed/throwing up/crying (!).
I really couldn't have done it without the help of your training programme and the advice in the book, and I've recommended both to anyone that's asked me about doing the Etape next year.
Thanks again,
Shirish
Great work Shirish, especially as you only took up riding
this year! And the rest of you, keep the feedback coming!
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We just can't help ourselves - to help you!
Yes, we are doing it again! Sportstest™ will help you achieve your objectives, by starting your autumn traininig in the right way, by offering another massive:
20% off testing at our Midlands testing centre for this September!
Your competitive season may be drawing to a close, but end of season testing can boost your performance by giving you an invaluable measure of where you currently are, identify what you need to do to improve next season, and giving you focus for Autumn and Winter training.
So get the most from your year and email
us or call us on 0333 900 3330 to book your Midlands test with 20% off
this September*
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And finally, dates for your diary...
Hot off the press, we have just confirmed a pre-season cycling training
week at "Train in Spain" for March 13th to 20th 2010. Full details will
be available shortly, please watch this space, or contact
us to provisionally secure your place.
Also, having enjoyed a very successful period training at Les
Stables this summer, we will also be hosting a triathlon/cycling training
week from 12th to 19th May 2010. Priority has already been given to Sportstest™
coaching clients, but there are a very limited number of places still available.
To find out more about the Les Stable camp download the information
file
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