The latest Athlete of the Month is a former hard-livin’ student who turned himself into a hard training triathlete and hard-core all-round cyclist. With successes in Scottish, British and World Sprint Tri Championships, and a five year plan that Uncle Joe Stalin would be proud of, read on for the tri secrets of the pedal guru that is … Andy Turnbull.
Name: Andrew Turnbull
Age: 35
Years in triathlon: 13
Years in Stirling Tri Club: 12
Geographic location: Stirling
A brief history of your sporting life before triathlon…
None!
As a student I used to ride my bike to save bus fares, but I'd never run the length of myself. At school I was the kid hiding behind the back of the grandstands avoiding the games teacher!
… and how did that lead you into taking up triathlon?
I was trying to finish my master's degree and find a job when I realised that my lifestyle had to change... I lost the earring, cut my hair, cut back on the drinking, smoking etc. I even started studying a bit!
I've always had one of those type-a personalities that need to be addicted to something, then I met a guy called Andrew Johnstone who was married to a friend of Nikki's. He had represented Scotland at the commonwealth games in NZ when triathlon was a demonstration sport, and his enthusiasm was infectious!
It still took a few drinks to convince me, but pretty soon I signed up for a series of novice races. That was up in Stonehaven, summer of 1996.
What would you regard as your greatest triathlon achievement(s) so far?
1st at the Scottish Sprint Championship
1st at the British Age Group Sprint Championships
4th at the World Age Group Sprint Championships
All in 2007 - that was a good year!
You are well known in the club for your cycling prowess – tell what you get up to on the bike outside of pure triathlon stuff
Time trialling, the occasional road race, criterium, Highland Games grass track and cyclocross in the winter. All to varying degrees of success... Time trialling is most closely related to triathlon, but the others can be fun and exciting - and the prize money is good on the Highland Games circuit!
Should triathletes consider doing cyclocross and mountain biking? Why?
A leading question! Triathletes are reknowned for their dodgy bike handling skills. The Falkirk bunch will swear that at the bottom of every pile up is a Tri club guy!
Off road riding will teach you a lot of skills and give you a lot of confidence when handling a bike on the limit. In my case it also taught me how to fall with grace...
What was the best piece of triathlon advice you were given when you started out?
Enjoy what you do, and do what you enjoy doing!
Shimano, Campagnolo or SRAM? SPD or Look (or what?)
Shimano and Look or Time. Campag is for those who rate aesthetics higher than functionality... I've been before there and it was an expensive mistake!
Tell us one secret about yourself!
I get very, very nervous before races. And it's getting worse - the more races I win the more anxious I get before the next one.
If you ever see me smiling and confident before a race - I'm putting on a front. Inside I'm quaking!
What would be the perfect week’s training for you?
It would consist of riding to work via the Tak me Doon or Crow Road. At lunchtime I'd be swimming or running intervals through Kelvingrove park. If I wasn't cycling to work I'd get off the train a stop early and running the last few miles into Glasgow.
In the evenings I would like to be on the turbo or the rollers, hitting the running track with Central Athletics or wheeling about with Falkirk Bike Club.
Saturday morning club swims are a must, then I'd go for my favourite killer session - the brick stack: A 3 mile bike, quick transition, then 1 mile run. All repeated 4 times at race pace - full gas!
Sundays are generally rest days - for doing Dad stuff.
And now what would be a typical training week?
About half of that! In all seriousness I always plan much more than I can actually do, because work or family always gets in the way of something and I have to miss sessions - I usually end up with roughly 10 hours per week.
What I do make sure is that I don't miss certain key sessions in each discipline, which are as follows:
- Swim - any two from: 4 x 400m (at 90% Race Effort), 50 x 50m on 50sec (at Race Pace), Saturday Coached swim.
- Bike - any two from: 6 x 3min (at 110% Race Effort), 2 x 20min (at 90% Race Effort), Thursday Wheelabout (Race Effort), Brick Stack
- Run - Long run plus any two from: 6 x 1/2 Mile (at 110% Race Effort), 10 x 400m (120% Race Effort), Brick Stack
I've done a lot of reading into the training benefits or working at certain levels and your body's adaptations and recovery from stimuli and load. There are physiological explanations involving plasma volume, lactate thresholds, muscle capillarization, VO2 max etc, but what it comes down to is that if you do something often enough your body will become better at doing it. i.e. If you want to race fast you have to put in the training at that level.
This is what I call the Graeme Obree technique. He learnt to ride at 35mph for a hour by riding at 35mph for as long as he could. Recovering, then doing it again, and again. I can't tolerate the pain that he could, but you can get a lot of the physiological benefits and recover faster by working at 90%. Either that or break it down into shorter intervals.
The bottom line is that every session needs to have a purpose: All killer - no filler!
How do you manage to balance the demands of a young family, work and training?
It took me a while to realise that you need to balance triathlon around your life and not the other way around...
I realised that I could fit short training sessions around the family by taking advantage of commuting by bike, lunchtime runs and swims plus turbo training at night while listening to the baby monitor!
That was when I decided to focus on the shorter sprint distance races - it fitted with my lifestyle, and I've not looked back since!
The magic supplement that I can never seem to get enough of is Vitamin Z - sleep!
How do you reward yourself after a big race or training session?
Custard creams.
We understand you also have some helpful advice for us about how to deal with harassment of road cyclists by “white van man” – especially in Glasgow – please tell us about that!
Oh man! I've had a few 'animated discussions'. One of which required police intervention...
My advice now is not to react... What I came to realise was: the type of nutter who is willing to stop their car for a roadside argument is EXACTLY the wrong kind of person you want to get into a roadside argument with.
What three key pieces of advice would you provide to someone just getting into triathlon, especially from a cycling perspective on, say, bike choice, bike setup, and training?
The bike leg in a non-drafting triathlon is all about getting your position right. It doesn't matter how much you spend on your bike if the position is wrong. You need to be low, narrow, powerful and comfortable. A well designed, correctly sized time trial specific bike can help you achieve all those things. Slapping a pair of tri bars on a road bike will not.
Aero wheels and helmets are great, but you need to sort out your body position first as that makes the most difference. Then you need to train in the aero position - I do all my hard intervals on the aero bars.
Specificity is the key to all training. You need to recreate your race pace and conditions so that nothing comes as a shock to your body on race day.
Outside of sport, I like to …
Spend time with my kids. And sleep.
Ultimate piece of triathlon bling/ dream bike?
Your coach. Listen to him/her!
Personal long-term sporting goals?
I've always figured Ironman was an old man's game. I'm 35 now, so I've got a 5 year plan to get there when I'm 40. After specialising in sprint distance racing for the last couple of years I'm moving up to target Standards for the next two years, then I'll do 70.3 for the two years after that. Ironman is on the plan for 2014!
My goal is to pick up medals at the Scottish Championships at all the distances as I go through.
It's more about the journey than the destination!
What’s the best thing about Stirling Triathlon Club for you personally?
The coaches - their knowledge and enthusiasm are what makes us the best club in Scotland.
Thank you Andy T!