Zarauz 2011 BH Triathlon is history. Check the video recorded an edited by my friend Txemi Llano, this is a small part of what will come later, a more extended and personal version we are working on.

 

This week numbers are: 0 mile swim, 0 miles of biking and 0 miles of running. Do you know what I've been doing? Enjoying my rest time, good food, time with friends and forgetting about triathlon for a while. My goal is to untrain myself, yes that´s right, loose my fitness to start the second part of the year as if it was a new season, to be mentally and physically fresh and strong to train hard for the big goal that is non other than the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii.

 

I had the opportunity of meeting my friend Iñigo Urrechu in his restaurant in Madrid, beside been an excellent cook he is a passionate triathlete that always finds time to train and prepare for his Ironmans and marathons. Talking to him was really inspirational, to feel and live his passion for triathlon, cooking, friends and family was awesome as it was the experience of having a vegetarian dinner in his restaurant and sharing this experience with very good friends. Thank you very much Urre!! In 2008 I was in his restaurant and that gave me luck as I got second place in Kona, I'm sure this year's visit to Urrechu is gonna give me good luck again and tons of energy and motivation.

 

For all of you that are competing and training at your best, I wish you health and I send you all my positive energy, I'll be cheering from the other side, and for those resting or immersed in their other passions or works give all your best and enjoy it. See you soon!!

Days of rest and relax. First in Texas living the "American Way of Life" and later at home recovering from the trip, the jetlag and the Ironman. I started training again on friday, just an easy swim, on saturday another short easy swim followed by a bike ride and on sunday we climbed to mount Aizkorri to see and cheer for the runners on the Zegama-Aizkorri mountain marathon and at the same time relax in the mountains and enjoy been in nature. Now I feel recovered from the Ironman and with motivation and energy to prepare for my next race wich is Zarautz triathlon next june 11th.

 

Check our video of Texas, I hope you like the music!! ;-) Good training and racing to everybody!!

 

Now in the tranquility of the hotel I'm writing a brief note of what has been the ironman of Texas today for me. From the swim the race went very well, I found the pace high, with no time to relax and I felt the swim terribly long!! We came out of the water in 49', a large group of about ten units. In the transition I overtook a few places, and went out well placed to address the first miles of the bike. The course is very fast, especially the first part, even more today as we had a nice tailwind at the beginning. The pace was not too high so I decided to try to pull away in a couple of times but without success, the group was always catching me. I must say that the race has been a very drafting legal and clean, always respecting the distances, having a marshal for every five professionals makes people take the drafting issue very seriously. A slight rain has accompanied us in much of the bike, so the temperature was not very high and allowed us to ride more confortably. Once we were caught by Chris Lieto he broke away, I have done everything possible to keep his pace but he was flying and I couldn´t keep up and I was again absorbed by the group. From there we started to lost minutes to Lieto, we continued with a not very constant pace and at times rather slow, I've tried to push the pace but I didn´t want push too hard on the bike. In the last 15 miles came the attack of Luke Bell and seeing that I was feeling well I decided to go after him and we managed to open a nice gap before the run.

 

 

Leaving the transition area 6 minutes behind Lieto the win was still possible. Until mile 5 (km 8) of the run I have not had a good feeling running, from there little by little I recovered my runner's legs and found a better feeling. All the while running with Luke Bell, we had a good pace, passing the mile 6 (approximately 10 km) in 37' short and the half marathon in less than 1h20'. My legs were pretty well and Luke faltered a bit so I pushed forward alone. Coming very close behind me was Tim O'Donnell, so I didn´t relax and I kept my rythm to increase the gap to a minute finally. In the last 500 meters I saw that the win was mine and I thoroughly enjoyed the last part of the race, I finished very very happy.

 

 

 

I want to take this opportunity to thank all the people who followed me in this Ironman, either from Facebook and Twitter and live here supporting me with their courage. You can be sure that without your support this would be much more difficult (and boring!!) And I sincerely hope that you feel this win also yours. I want to dedicate this victory to my girlfriend Ruth, to my family for their unconditional love and support always, to my coach Iñigo Mujika and to all my friends.

Thanks to all!! Big hug!!

 

Here we are getting used to the Texas lifestyle an doing some light training in Woodland. Only 48 hour left for the Ironman, I've been doing some easy training to keep my body active and see the race courses wich are mostly flat and fast so it seems that we are gonna have fast races. We have cloudy skies right now but it feels humid, sun is expected for saturday and the conditions can turn very hot and tough.

 

I'm feeling very well, these days rest is making good in my body and there is not much to do now than wait for the race to start. Today is total rest day, I have to pick up my race number, attend the press and take a look to the expo. Easy day in Texas.

 

Last week before leaving to Ironman Texas and it's been a tapering week. Not much training and lots of rest to absorb the work done and recover to be at 100% in Texas. I had great feelings this week, strong and powerful that's how a good tapering is suppose to feel. Both thursday and sunday were days of total rest, and the rest of the days were of low volume and some intensity intervals.

 

On Saturday we met at 3BAT to swim from Getaria to Zarautz, weather and ocean weren´t very nice with us but the motivation of all of us was more than enough to do this beautiful swim. The atmosphere was very nice and we spent a great morning. I leave you with some photos taken by our friends of www.photodeporte.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After the swim we had a nice refuel lunch, not the typical energy bars and energy drinks, more consistent things like "chorizo" that I didn´t touch since I'm vegetarian ;-)

 

Next update will be from The Woodlands in Texas, we are looking forward to get there and race in the Ironman Texas. Talk to you from the US!!

 

 

Before Texas Ironman next day 21 I needed an Ironman training week, more miles forgetting a little about intensity. I've many miles in the legs, probably enough for Texas, but psychologically I needed to have that feeling of putting hours and hours that I was missing. This week numbers are: 20.500m. swimming, 600Kms. bike, 100 kms. run and two gym sessions. The hard day was Wednesday with 6 hours on my bike doing one of my preIronman classic loops, Trespaderne, with many miles to ride in the aero position, followed by a transition of 45' run, I completed the day with 5000 meters of swimming in the afternoon, which amounted to a total of 8 hours of training that day. The other days were similar with bike rides around 4-5 hours and a long session of run of 2h10' on thursday with some 500 in the middle to keep the spark. After this week I remain calm, on Sunday I had my rest day and a bit tired but I feel I have absorbed all the good job. The next two weeks are easier, time to taper, with less work to get in the best shape to Texas.

 

Good training to everybody!!

 

Photo: Manu Basaran

 

I arrived home yesterday from "El Anillo" (The Ring) with a sixth final place at the first Cross Triathlon World Championships and with mud everywhere. I had no problems at the beginning of the race, I had a good swim start and I swam comfortably in the leading pack. I cannot say the same about the bike, the rush and nerves in the first meters of the ride made me want to overtake another triathlete where there was no room to do it and I crashed and flew over the handlebar, fortunately I didn´t hurt myself and except for a twisted handlebar I could keep on the race. I felt strong on the bike and with good feelings, toward the middle of the race the rain began, I lost confidence in the mud and lots of time over the guys that were in front of me battling for the podium positions.

 

Photo: Manu Basaran

 

I finished the bike in one piece, which is important, and started the run strong. I managed to overtake one athlete and finished the race in 6th place. Not totally satisfied with the result, I'm ambitious and I always want more but I think I need more miles and more experience on the mountain bike in order to be competitive in this kind of short and technical races where a little mistake makes you lose a lot of time. But I think I can´t complain, having in mind that the workouts I'm doing for Ironman Texas are not the ideal taper for a 1-20-6 CrossTri race, I still felt strong and with good spark during the race.

 

 

Photo: Manu Basaran

 

Congratulations to Conrad Stoltz for been the first Cross Triathlon World Champion and "Lord of the Ring" and my most sincere congratulations to the organizers of the event, specially to Jose Tovar for the work he did during the week on race course, it ended up been a great course for a Championship of this category.

 

 

 

I am on my way to "El Anillo" ("The Ring") in Cáceres, on Saturday I compite there in the Cross Triathlon World Championships. It will be the first championship of this kind to be disputed ever. Previously I've raced Spanish and Europeans Cross Triathlon championships achieving victory in both, but will be the first worlds for all participants and for all is a new championship and we are looking forward to see who will be "The Lord of the Ring". At the starting line the level will be very high, US and France are coming with strongs team and Conrad Stoltz 4 times Xterra World Champion is also on the entry list. I have raced them all at Xterras, the real mountain triathlons, but never in a Triathlon Cross. And the differences between the two tests are significant, starting with the distances 1,5-30-10 in Xterra against 1-20-6 in Triathlon Cross, but mostly the biggest difference is in the kind of circuits, they tend to be tough and technical circuits in Xterra and Triathlon Cross circuits are usually faster and easier. As far as I'm concerned there are things that cross triathlon can benefit me, since I do not put many hours of training on the mountain bike a less technical circuit could play in my favor, but the short distances are against me especially considering that I am immersed in the preparation for the Ironman Texas that I'm racing on the 21st of May. No doubt on Saturday at 18:30 when we get started this will not matter, the race will be the same for everyone and I will have to focus on giving everything without forgetting to enjoy the race. I'll kep you informed this days about my time in Caceres through my Facebook and Twitter (@enekollanos) and for those racing I'm looking forward to see you all in Cáceres.

 

Good luck to everybody!!

 

Less than two weeks for the ITU Cross Triathlon Wolrd Championships and I've been doing a little bit of this:

 

It's been only one session of mountain biking trying to recover the off road feeling, but the next big goal is Ironman Texas on may 21st so most of my rides have been on the BH GC Aero.

 

20.000 meters of swim, 380 km. of bike and 70 km. of run plus two gym sessions, it's been a nice week not too long but with some intensity training and a great overall feeling. Sunday has been rest day, recharging my batteries for what comes ahead.

 

Good training to everybody!!

 

First thing is the video from I Can Marbella:

 

On Tuesday we came back from Marbella, we had a fantastic week in the coast of Malaga. At home we have enjoyed a mini summer, I would say more than that because in Vitoria-Gasteiz few days of summer are so good and warm as we have had these past days. Perfect conditions for training but I felt a bit lazy, I have read it is called spring asthenia, rather I believe that the mind asked me for a break and while the body was ready to start my mind kept looking to bed and the couch and it took me a bit to start the days. Once on the road the feelings were very good and I definitely overcame laziness and I completed all the work my coach had planned for me. Not much work because this has been a transition week recovering from I Can Marbella and starting to put the spotlight on the next challenges.

And what are those next challenges? First will be the ITU Cross Triathlon World Championships in "El Anillo" (Cáceres) the 30th of this month, but the highlight will come three weeks after that because on May 21 I will be in the starting line of Ironman Texas. It took me some time to decide where to catch my Ironman points for Kona but in the end Texas is chosen, mainly because with IM Frankfurt is the race where most points are given for the Kona ranking, so even having a bad day (which I'm not going to have!!) I can get the few points I need to get the slot for Kona. On the other hand is a good date, because then I can have an easy summer, taking a good break and then dedicate my body and soul to get ready for Hawaii. And it's always interesting to compete in the U.S., where triathlon and Ironman are lived in a special way.

 

"El Anillo" in 20 days, IM Texas in 41, here I come!!