World-class triathlon trio get the Garmin advantage
Last month’s Cycle Show saw three of Team Garmin’s top athletes describe how Garmin sports GPS helps them stay at the top of their game. Interviews now on You Tube’s Garmin channel feature Alistair Brownlee, Hollie Avil and Tim Don summing up the season with their Edge bike computers and Forerunner sportswatches.
2009 was a fantastic year for 21-year-old Alistair Brownlee, culminating in him being crowned World Triathlon Champion. Brownlee won five out of eight ITU World Championships Series races and explains how Garmin helps quantify his training sessions while the Edge’s mapping and altitude profile keeps his rides entertaining and informed.
19-year-old Hollie Avil also had a cracking 2009 season which saw her seize the World Under 23 Championship title. She explains how the Forerunner 310XT multi-sportswatch particularly enhances her training: “I do a lot of build runs and I like to build up my speeds so I’m always checking my watch – what time my lap was, current speed. I was aqua jogging in the pool today and it’s great because the Forerunner is waterproof so I can use it just as a stopwatch and again for the open water if I want to measure my distance”
Avil continues: “The multisport function means you can do brick (endurance) sessions and get all the data too. I always upload the data so my coach can look at it. It’s great to have it all stored on the watch.”
1996 World Triathlon Champion Tim Don had more challenging 2009, missing an important block of winter training with a torn calf, but he managed to seize a few key victories. After 13 years as a professional athlete, Garmin has become intrinsic to his training:
“The Edge 705 to ride with is so awesome. You’ve got any sort of power tap, heart-rate monitor, with the wireless communication you can link it up and of course you’ve got the new waterproof (Forerunner 310XT) which is great for us being triathletes so we can swim with it, bike with it and run with it.”
Tim finds Garmin vital for transferring his training patterns around the world: “I often used to do two-hour runs and I’d go out thinking I feel pretty good and every so often I’d look down and I go “hold on, I know I can’t run this fast for two hours”, so it was helping me back off.”
He continues: “We race all over the world and sometimes you want to do a half-hour training run and it can turn into 45/50 minutes. Two days before a race that could really mess it up. Having the map interface on the Edge so I know where I’m going and with the Forerunner I know exactly how far I’ve run so I can do a U-turn, it really is a pretty smart piece of kit.”
