Category: Gavin Noble
Champions’ training. Different strokes for different folks…
In search for the holy grail of sports performance, Irish National Team ITU member, Gavin Noble (Dublin Triathlon Champion this past weekend) cranks out the Watts in the lab. This kind of lab testing will give Gav and his coach all kinds of numbers they can play with in training. Tests will be repeated often, charts plotted and if all goes well, high fives given.
These delicious little numbers makes the guy in the sweater with the clip board’s toes curl. Race times can be projected, tactics formulated and athletes can be compared to each other even before the starters’ gun bangs.
Read more about Gavin and Aleksandar and my swim sets on Igor’s blog.
Our other TriathlonTeam.org team mate, Will Clarke (British ITU Triathlon member and National Champion) really winds it up on the track. Looks like fellow GB Team mate and Chicago Tri winner, Stuart Hayes hanging on for dear life.
Bigger than you can imagine group track sessions typically forms the mainstay of their training. (they train up to 40hrs a week) These are blood and guts sessions. Coaches needs to be impressed, fellow athletes intimidated, but most of all, the times they do around the carefully measured 400m serves as building blocks of confidence and self belief to be drawn upon at the next race.
Enter The Caveman.
10 Questions with Irish Triathlete, Gavin Noble
Gav is the one on the left.
Over the next 2 weeks or so I will post a series of interviews with my TriathlonTeam.org teammates.: “10 Questions with ….”
Gavin replied 1st, so I’ll post them in the order received.
For starters, and the reader’s benefit, write a short paragraph about yourself:
I love drafting. I’m just going to put that out there. I know it’s not to everyone’s taste, especially in the land of hope and glory. but I have been brought up on ITU Elite Drafting Races and currently I am professional on the ITU scene.
Some people call me ‘Mr pink’ (I rode a pink bike for 2 seasons), some people called me a space cowboy, some people call me Maurice. My mum calls me often.
I like to do things in threes – Sports, running sessions, eating cake, waiting in the rain for the right bus to arrive.
Judging by the mountain bike and the Halloween outfit, Gav could grace us at XTERRA Worlds in Maui some day… (Conrad)
Gavin Noble. Irish triathlete. Joker. Poet.
pic design by Nikola
I met Gavin Noble early this year in Stellenbosch, South Africa. We were both on training camps. I just started training and Gavin – one of Ireland’s Olympic triathlon hopefuls – was already lean and mean.
It is comical how wildly our training styles varied:
Gav swam 6km group swims at 5.15 am. I floated 30-40 mins on my own when the sun sat high.
Gavin sometimes ran 3 times a day, I sometimes ran 3 days in a row.
Gav wears pink tights in public, (in summer) I wore pink speedos in the 80s.
But despite our wildly different training approaches, we got on like a house on fire. Seems like a special South African / Irish thing. I have grown to love the Irish through our mutual friend Bobby Behan from whom I learnt a vast array of Irish sayings in a more or less Irish accent. “Fierce nice guy like you know.”
Well, Gav is quite a character too. He is also a team mate. Not in the usual sense. Blogging team mates. Check it out here: TriathlonTeam.org
Gavin’s blogging is quite something. He is also really passionate about suffering and quotes. Which he manages to blend together nicely. Here are a few from his site: GavinNoble.com
“When I’m training, I need four things, a room, a bed, and maybe two blankets, for when it gets cold”
I always loved to watch distance running. I am one of those people who think the sight of an athlete in full flow is a beautiful thing. I love ‘the chat’ about the old days – when 5 of your neighbours could run sub 30minutes for a 10k – back when ‘men were made of iron and ships were made of wood !’
This is my favourite Gavin blog:
Motivation for the Week: Chase the Mammoth
If you run without sacrifice, congratulations you just jogged.
Running hurts. It always has. Wolley Mammoths didnt just roll over on a plate and serve themselves up to Prehistoric Man with a portion of gravy chips (loveabitofgravychipsme) and a cola. They had to be caught – and supposidly catching a Wolley Mammoth was a bitch !
Guess what ?
