BPL Staff Targets Events: Ben Hallam

During 2013, each of the BPL team is going to set themselves some target events that will push us outside of their comfort zones. Each of the staff have different levels of fitness and experience and, just like you, they have to work their training around work and family commitments. This blog series will track their progress and demonstrate how the Bespoke Performance Lab can benefit the recreational athlete.

There’s nothing more motivating than putting your goals down in writing and publishing to the world. So I’ll start: My name is Ben Hallam, and in 2013 I will do my first triathlon…… the Mallorca Half Ironman.

When I was racing, 1^st November always signaled the end of my “off season” (which was usually punctuated by copious amounts of pizza and a number of nights out trying to make up for not drinking through the rest of the year). On 1st November, that would all change; preparation for the next season started and any disappointments from the last season were forgotten because “this year is going to be better”.

After 8 years of racing full time, I spent nearly 4 years off the bike while at university. This year, I started to get the itch back again so did the first few rounds of the Rudy Project Time Trial Series as well as a few continental sportives. While I really enjoyed these, I was finding it hard to motivate myself to train hard for them because I know I would never have the time to train enough to get to the same level I was before. I needed something new, something that I couldn’t just jump up and “fake”. A triathlon sounded like the perfect answer as it would also allow me to experience what a number of my client’s experience. So I set my sights on doing an Olympic distance tri…… that was until I started talking to Sean from AudioFuel (http://www.audiofuel.co.uk). He asked me which discipline I was most worried about, my answer was the swim. He pointed out that a half ironman is only 400m longer in the swim but over twice as long on the bike. I my mind that said: “twice as long to catch up”. Sean did the 70.3 in Mallorca last year and raved about it enough that I bit the bullet and entered it.

Now come the difficult parts: A) I haven’t swam more than 50m since I was 14 years old and B) the furthest I have ever run since I was 14 is 100m for the bus!!! I have a lot of work ahead of me but that’s what ‘m looking for. I want the feeling of being scared again, of not knowing if I’ll actually be able to accomplish a challenge. I want to wake up in the morning and feel like I have to go training to accomplish a goal. So, my first port of call was to learn to swim all over again.

Enter Ray at Swim Canary Wharf (www.swimcanarywharf.com). Ray is our go to guy for swimming technique and was second in 220 Triathlon magazines “Triathlon Coach of the Year 2012”. He coaches you swimming technique using an endless pool and then videoing from multiple angles and is really good at explaining the intricacies of different parts of the complex world that is front crawl technique. So this is how I looked at the start of my journey:

This next one is hilarious as I rapidly sink towards the bottom of the pool. 

Take 2 on catch up +1:

Now trying catch-up zero:

Catch-up -1 and I'm dropping back into my old habits:

But reaching for something really helped:

The drills have made a HUGE difference to my swimming; I’m already feeling a lot more efficient and am able to do 900m without feeling completely shattered. I would total recommend seeing Ray no matter what level you are at.  I’ll be going back at the end of November to get a check-up and some more drills and will post up the results. Next up is a session with our running specialist Jarrod to get my running technique checked out.

So that’s target number one. I’ll save the excite news about my second target for the next blog…… but it makes a half ironman look like a walk in the park.