AILEEN REID IS the best female triathlete Ireland has ever produced and as well as being in the small percentages of genetic freaks she has a ferocious appetite for training and competition.
She’s currently at a Triathlon Ireland training camp in Aguilas, south of Alicante, putting in the hard yards ahead of what she hopes will be her second Olympic Games next year.
In London four years ago she finished well below her best in 43rd but after a brilliant year that saw her finish sixth in the inaugural European Games this year, she has reason to believe 2016 can be even better.
And she’s sparing absolutely no effort to ensure she’ll be at her best on the start-line in Rio next August.
35-hour training weeks are not uncommon for the 33 year-old Derry woman and this eight-hour day last week is about as tough as it gets…
Morning
She kicked things off in the morning with a 5km swim in the pool followed by a hard 2-hour spin on the bike.
For the swim, the session was broken into intervals, combining longer intervals with shorter sprints.
Afternoon
In the latter, she incorporated 3 x 20 minute efforts at zone 3.
This is a session she describes as a “Tommy Special” in reference to her coach Tommy Evans’ training drills.
Zone 3 refers to the intensity she’ll work at during the intervals and is measured by how many times her heart beats a minute.
A Zone 3 interval is around 65-70% of one’s maximum heart rate and its function is to improve one’s ‘cruising speed’.
Evening
After refueling, Reid went for a ‘fartlek’ run in a place known in Aguilas as the ‘cabbage field’.
A fartlek session is usually around an hour long – but can be as short as 40 minutes, and involves running on varied terrain and at varying speeds.
The purpose of this is to train the athlete to be able to adapt to the differing speeds of a race.
So, instead of running at a constant pace, Reid broke the session down into hard efforts, followed by a period of cruising, followed by more hard efforts.
For the hard efforts she ran for four minutes, then cruised, then 3 minutes at a harder pace, then cruised, then 2 minutes at the hardest intensity and more cruising.
She did this three times.
After the run, which was completed in near darkness, she did some core exercises and finished her day with some stretching and yoga.
I think we need a lie down after that.
