10,000 ‘band only’ metres in the pool, 60km/h winds and eight types of Ritter Sport. Rachel Joyce and Emma-Kate Lidbury conclude their Canary training camp...
"Boo! Hiss! Our stay in Las Playitas is over and by this time this is posted we’ll be back in Blighty re-acquainting ourselves with warm weather training gear and digging out the winter woollies.
Our three-week stay in Las Playitas seemed to fly by and there’s nothing like a four-hour flight home to remind ourselves what we got up. Here’s our wrap up by numbers:
10,000: That’s 10,000 metres we completed in the pool with “band only”. I’m not sure all the side effects of this are desirable... we were told our shoulders had a Sly Stallone look to them! Thanks coach Matt!
2: We were only afforded the luxury of two coffee stop rides on this camp but, don’t worry, we made them count. Thanks to Sebastian Keinle for his recommendation. For anyone travelling to Fuerteventura check out the bakery in Antigua: good coffee, a mean chocolate brownie and 30km from Las Playitas... just far enough to make you feel like you’ve earned the cake!
4: The number of coffee shots we can fit into our special mugs that we habitually took into the breakfast buffet with us (a normal cup just isn’t big enough!). Time to get that caffeine habit under control!
0: Whoop! No punctures for us on this training camp.
8: The number of Ritter Sport types we sampled during our stay. We can recommend the Cornflake flavour for the morning, Espresso for an afternoon pick me up and you can’t beat the 70% Cocoa for a nightcap. Yep, another habit to nip in the bud now we’re home...
9: Nine hours on the bike in a day... that’s the longest ride we heard about during our stay in Las Playitas. Wowzers! That was completed by the eighth place finisher in Hawaii in 2011, Andi Bocherei, and Canadian/German triathlete Luke Dragsta.
20: 20 buffet breakfasts and 20 buffet dinners each. I think it’d be an understatement to say we ate well during our stay.
10: 10 minute/miles... that’s what our run pace was reduced to at the steepest points of the ascent to the lighthouse. Feel the calf burn!
60: 60kmph gusts were the strongest winds we braved out on our bikes. Finishing a ride in that wind and your upper body aches as much as your legs... plus our ears are still ringing!
3: We’re two BIG peanut butter fans, and that’s the number of jars we had delivered to us by our UK visitors.
2: Two happy and tired triathletes leaving Fueteventure this evening. We’re hoping that, despite our buffet antics, Las Playitas will have us back in the future!
Two weeks now till we both toe the line at Abu Dhabi Triathlon. Time to recover, get in some sharpener sessions and get the 2012 season started!"
Learn more about Playitas at www.trips4fitness.com. Visit Emma-Kate and Rachel’s websites, eklidbury.co.uk and racheljoyce.org, and for regular updates, follow them on Twitter: @eklidbury and @RJoyce09
