4
Nov
2016
WIS Teachers Train for Phuket Laguna Olympic Triathlon
West Island School will be hosting Pink Week from November 14 – 18 which will look to create awareness for Breast Cancer. The school will host a Pink Day on November 16 which will include a number of activities and stalls with all funds raised going to the Hong Kong Breast Cancer Foundation. Additionally, three WIS teachers will partake in the Tri Phuket Laguna Olympic Triathlon with all funds raised also going to the HKBCF. You can make a donation to this worthy cause here and read more about their vigorous training below.
West Island is incredibly proud of Mr Harding, Mr Madden and Mr Clarke and will be supporting them as they take on this fantastic cause.
Swim: Mr Harding’s story so far…
Building up the speed of my distances through interval training at 80-90% of maximum speed over distances of 200-400m with limited rest in between. Most training takes place in our very own WIS pool everyday with an additional lesson (I haven’t had a swim lesson in 15 years!) once a week with a private coach at the HKCC every Tuesday for 1 hour 30 minutes working on fining tuning technique for efficiency.
As the race takes place in the ocean I have been building in 2 x open water training sessions each week down at Deep Water Bay and Repulse Bay on top of Open Water Swimming Hong Kong training on Saturdays. Distances vary from 3k – 4k each swim. Most recent competition experience was finishing the Middle Island Challenge which was a 3.4km route from Repulse Bay podium around the back of Middle Island and back to the start..choppy, mentally tough but a great experience. It’s amazing the progress you can make with consistency in training and that competitive motivation.
Bike: Mr Maddens story so far…
Training for a 50km distance, over a relatively flat stretch with a few humps is pretty simple. I train 4 times a week at the moment and I have spent most of my training midweek in the early hours of the morning, waking at 5am to take advantage of quiet roads before school.
I have split my sessions into a few categories; endurance and tempo rides to build up basic endurance levels. Threshold training out at Sunny Bay (Lantau), training my heart rate at the upper limit, which designed to improve power at lactate threshold and sharpen my sustained power. Finally, I have used Hong Kong Island and it’s many hills to improve my power at VO2 max and increase peak power output for short climbs and my final burst to the finish line! Additionally, I have used body weight exercises to work muscular strength and endurance.
Training has been hard, but enjoyable. Setting challenging and achievable goals has been important to stay motivated in the build up to the event.
Run: Mr Clarke’s story so far…
I have been doing 10+km training sets over varying terrain and gradients to fine tune my body and build up my endurance levels. Heat will be a factor in Thailand over the 10km run so it’s a good way of adapting my body by training in Hong Kong. Many of my big runs take place in the mornings during the weekends due to my PGCE schedule at school and I have two ‘tune up’ races coming up with the first on Saturday 5th November over 10km and then representing the ESF at the Bloomberg Square Mile race on Thursday 10 November.
I am hoping to bring in the big ‘W-I-N’ for the team as the last discipline in the relay format.
Good luck to the team and we will be featuring more of their training updates in time for Pink Week!
