Category: triathlon team
10 Questions with British ITU athlete, Will Clarke
My name is Will Clarke, I am 24 years old and a professional athlete racing on the ITU circuit. I live in Loughborough in England, and raised in Cambridge but not posh!
My season so far has been very consistent and pretty strong! Slowly getting better with every result. The World Championships Series this year has taken a massive step up and its extremely hard to get cheeky podiums these days due to the depth in talent! Last month I won my biggest ever race at The London Triathlon which was awesome but as I say though, my biggest race of the year is coming up in a few weeks time on the Gold Coast for the World Championships Finale and I have never felt fitter!
1 ) My favourite sporting memory so far has to be lining up at the Olympics, although my result was disappointing I was proud to be there and it was a great buzz racing in such a big event!
2 ) Tell us about a big training day that stands out.
For me, no one day sticks out as being amazing…I prefer to look at the bigger picture as I know one day means nothing but if you can back up 10 days…now we are talking! I have had many training blocks where I can smash out 1 or 2 really tough sessions per day for 10 days making me super fit but my most memorable ones are the BIG volume training weeks like December last year where I did 40hrs in 7 days plus a night out at the end which had at least 4 hrs of dancing! Thats 44 hours!
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 ?
