Training and not Straining in Luxembourg.

Well here I am in Luxembourg... straight of the plane and off to watch the opening prologue of the Tour of Luxembourg: A 2.5K TT up a very steep cobbled road through the historic town centre... how good is that?? Then of course it was bar and beer time and a chance to catch up with Dirk and Alicia who I'm staying with in Lux... good times!

Luxembourg is an awesome place... beautiful old buildings sit alongside Uber modern houses, everything seems well thought out, well looked after and I haven't seen one broken bottle or any litter for that matter. Oh and by the way per capita it's the wealthiest country in the World... plenty of money to spend... The sports complex we go to has two 50m indoor pools and I've only ever seen a few people there at any one time??

My home for the next few weeks is the Luxembourg Institute of sport. Dirk has based himself here to train and do a few races around Germany so what a perfect chance to buddy up and train together as it makes it so much more enjoyable, fun and there's always someone to answer too.

Apart from a few easy days to try and get over the jet lag it's basically been swim, bike, run most days. Now you may think as a pro athlete you have plenty of time to do this, but here's an average day...

• 08:00 Brekky
• 09:00 Swim 3-5K
• 11:30 Run 45 minutes
• 12:30 Lunch
• 02:30 Bike 3 hrs
• 06:30 Tea
• Watch German MTV... Ich liebe es!

The 'in between time' is spent on the computer, napping, meetings, massage / physio (Dirk spends a lot of time here), cafe / bar time (I would like to spend more time here??). Luckily we have meals cooked and rooms cleaned for us at the Institute... but we still have find time to do our own washing (err well actually Alicia does... Thanks! Alicia!) AND shave our legs...!

"Train Not Strain"
Apart from doing the obligatory training and eating it's been a very sociable time catching up with friends and making new ones... awesome... and also a great way to increase my knowledge in the sport...

We went over to Belgium to visit our friends John and Maureen for some more eating and cycling through the Belgium countryside... very nice, despite the rain. Here we had the fortune to meet and go for a run with one of Belgiums top running coaches, Adrian Yemeret, a wealth of knowledge he has such passion for the sport and he was very pleased being able to go for a run with us TOP triathletes Ha??

What stood out the most was his belief that you should never push yourself too much whether by doing hard /anaerobic training or lots of mileage. Again he advised steady aerobic training as the key to long term success in endurance sport, every session should be 'quality' so you should always train well with good technique... and without pain or "Strain"... he actually told me to slow down, me who runs slower than many agegroupers out there??

It's good to meet someone with such experience that shares your same philosophies on what works... "Wax-on... Wax-off". Of course most people will follow the 'No pain no gain' approach as this is what looks / sounds impressive and sells magazines. These are the guy's who are always injured or just never reach their full potential. When running with Dirk the other day, he mentioned that Rasmus Henning (one of the fastest runners on the ITU) never runs as fast as he can in training... because it's only training eh??

Stay Cool (or warm) where ever you are.

Westy...

(Dirk & Alicia and the Lux / Belge Crew!)

Big shout going out to Scotty Thorne... 2nd in Xterra Malaysia! Good on ya Bro!