Luke Elliott

Well my time in Palma for the 2015 season has come to an end but not without some great memories and improvements. I got to spent three awesome days in the mountains of Mallorca training with an ever dwindling group of friends before capping off the week with two days on the water. Some how I squeezed two windsurfing sessions and a gym session in there as well.

The cycling was amazing this year and I got to see more of the island than I ever have. The first day was brutal with two major climbs with some smaller ones added in for fun. The famous St Calobra climb is always mentally and physically demanding and I learnt my limit this time, completely blowing up on the climb going too hard and barely making it home. However Ash was worse off than me, taking a dive on the technical descent and completely ruining his bike and his face.

The next ride was spent on the north of the island for a change with a undulating 80 km ride around the coast. Our last day was spent on the prettiest part of the island doing a 50 km loop through Deia and Valldemossa. It was awesome and although I’m sore now I know come Hyeres I’ll be happy for the hard work.

Cheers,

/Swifto

 

So finally after months of training and preparation the thing I had been working towards had begun. The first of five major European events, the Princess Sofia regatta is the largest Laser regatta I have ever entered with 178 athletes racing in the standard rig. Rather than drag you through the entire regatta blow by blow I’ll just give you a quick re-cap on each day 🙂

Day 1: The wind gods weren’t kind to us on the first day of racing here in Palma. We launched at 10 am and I didn’t get back onto dry land until 6.30 pm that night. It was officially the longest day I have ever spent o the water. We only managed 1 race in the gusty and shifty land breeze that we had and it was a stressful one. With two minutes to go my vang pulley broke in half and I had to make do by tying the vang together with rope and pray it wouldn’t break. Luckily it didn’t and I managed to sail a very safe race to place 11th. Not the best start but it could have been a lot worse.

Day 2: With only 4 races making up the qualifying series and three of them scheduled today it was pressure on. With 178 sailors competing only the top 60 make the gold fleet cut off and no one wants to be the guy in 61st. I had a shaky start in the first race that put me behind but I had some great speed to come back through the fleet to finish 22nd. Our next two races were sailed in a nice 10-12 knots compared to the glass out of the first race. My speed made my day giving me two top tens and saw me sitting in 18th after the qualifying series. The day took its toll though as we didn’t return to shore until 7.30 pm at night. Another long day had the fleet exhausted.

Day 3: The first day of gold fleet always sorts the men from the boys and today was no different. It was freezing cold and grey with a completely different offshore breeze meeting us. I struggled with my starts and first beats so I was always playing catchup but luckily I didn’t have any major disasters either to give myself a 30th and a 24th. Many lessons were gained from the day and I promised to do better tomorrow.

Day 4: The wind was back to the normal direction blowing a steady 10 knots which made the sailing carnage. Everyone can sail well in medium winds so the fleet was nose to tail the whole race. I finally had a good start but wasted it sailing up the middle of the course and eventually got swallowed up by the sides. My worse race yet a 56th 🙁

Things wern’t looking much better for the second race with a terrible start but somehow I managed to pop through and find a lane. I had good speed and made some good decisions and placed 8th in the race. A good bounce back from the poor race before.

Day 5: The final day of a regatta is always stressful. Some people want to move up, others are trying to protect themselves but one thing is certain. Unless you are in the top ten the the results you get today will determine the place you finish this regatta in and no one wants to choke on the last day of a major regatta.

The wind was light and steady but I kept a cool head and had some very good starts to place safely over the line in the last two races. A 23rd and a 19th kept me in good stead and saw me finish the regatta 17th overall and 3rd Australian. I finished 28 places better than last year so a marked improvement and I’m pretty satisfied to have such a good start to the season. However, I made way too many mistakes this week and I know I didn’t sail anywhere near my potential so I’m excited to get to Hyeres and really see what I’m made of when I come up against the best 40 sailors in the world.

Now I turm my attention back to training and getting even better as always. Next week is Cycle camp where we ride through the famous mountains of Mallorca racing each other all the way. Hopefully my hard work on the bike pays of this year 😉

Talk soon

/Swifto

There’s two days until the first event of the season kicks of and I’m having my first rest day today. The last week has been really solid, sailing nearly everyday, cycling nearly every day and even getting a gym session in. The food has been great with Cuban restaurant quickly becoming our regular again.  My boat feels great and I’ve got some really good speed which for me is the most important thing. It really is all in the details, a finely tuned boat, a finely tuned body and a clear head. We have over 170 athletes competing in the Laser class this year which makes it the biggest Laser regatta I’ve ever been in. We had over 100 Laser training with us yesterday which was a bit of a change from the five of us in Sydney. I’ll keep you posted once racing kicks off. So far the forecast looks mixed :/

/Swifto

Where should I begin. The last 14 days have been so insane I’ve barely had time to stop and tell you about it. So I’ll take you back to the beginning.

Firstly we had a living legend come training with us last week. It was the teams final week of training before we all left for Europe so we wanted to make the most of it when out of nowhere Tom Slingsby decides to join us on the water. For those that don’t know Tom is the current Olympic gold medalist and 5 time Laser World Champion. Is was great to have him join us and share his insights into Laser sailing.

Once the final week of training was over I spent the day packing and sorting out my massive amount of equipment that I was to have to haul all the way to Europe. I knew what was coming but I didn’t make it any more fun. When I got to the airport on Sunday I had 55 kg of luggage and I knew I was in for a rough time. The lady at the desk was nice though and did her best to help me out but $750 dollars was a lot of money to part with 🙁

The flights were mostly uneventful thankfully and the train ride to Hanover was easy compared to years past. It was just as tiring though and I was barley able to stay awake when I arrived in Springe,  a small town south of Hanover,  to meet with Karl, my German contact/friend/van caretaker. The next day was spent organizing my van and packing one of my boats and luggage. By Wednesday I was on the road and smashed out nearly 1000 kms to put myself well into France. This then gave me the opportunity to do something I have wanted to do for a very long time.

When I woke up on Thursday morning I was only 3 hours drive away from one of cyclings most famous climbs, L’Alpe D’Huze. 1100m of elevation with 21 hairpins, it’s considered one of the toughest mountains in the world and is always plays a major roll when it’s in Le Tour De France. I’ll admit it was harder than I expected. I was on my bottom gear with my heart rate maxing nearly the whole way. The air was so dry and thin my throat was raw by halfway up. It took me 75 minutes to complete, not a record by any means but I had a big grin on my face when I reached the top. Luckily for me I was blessed with blue skies and warm sun because I the cold would have been unbearable otherwise.

Friday was my final day of driving. I did the last 400 km quite easily and made it to the storage warehouse to collect my Australian boat. Almost the entire NZL team was there with me so I got to catch up with a lot of friend I hadn’t seen in many months. After the pack up I drove to the ferry terminal and checked in my Van. It was supposedly a bumpy  ride across but I slept the entire way, waking up at my destination after 5 days of travel. Palma De Mallorca is one of the most popular stops on the sailing tour and for good reason. Cheap food and accommodation, great cycling, great gyms and great sailing. I’m super stoked to be back into tour life and I;m meeting up with old friends everyday. After checking into my sweet ocean viewed apartment I set up my boat and went for a fun, late afternoon cycle with Tom, Ash, Wannes, Rui and Jez before we all went out to dinner.

Plenty of action to come now as the funnest, hardest, toughest part of the season begins. Stay tuned 😛

/Swifto

What a productive week that was! Not only did I get five solid sailing sessions in, two gym sessions and two cycles but I also managed to collect all my ropes and sailing clothes for the European season. I also managed to upgrade a few features on my bike including my saddle and pedals before I get back into the massive mountains of Spain. I should say a huge than you to the guys at Zhik for looking after the team and myself so well. No one makes sailing equipment as functional and stylish as these guys and if you don’t already own some of their stuff I would highly recommend you check it out.

I can’t wait for next week now. This will be my last one in Sydney for a while as I fly out to Europe next Sunday so stay tuned as the important part of the year starts to take shape.

/Swifto

Sorry it’s been so long since my last post. The week has been pretty crazy. I’ll go back to the beginning for you. Monday and Tuesday saw the first team camp for the year. Basically the whole Australian Team across all classes gets together and discusses the plans for the season and what we need to achieve. This camp was shorter than normal which was great because everyone is really under the pump now finalizing their training for Europe. It was really cool to get to hang out with some people I hadn’t seen since the Worlds. On top of all this we got our new team clothing for the season from our sponsor Nautica who were more than generous with what they gave to everyone.

After the camp it was back to work on Wednesday with some offshore training in some big wind and waves. It was great to get back out on the water in some good wind and even better to be out there feeling great 😀

Thursday was a bit of a different day to the normal routine. I woke up early and drove 2 hours up to PSA in Gosford to organize some equipment. Basically I spent the day putting numbers on 7 new sails that I bought for the European season. It was a bit of a pain but I know that it will save me so much hassle later on down the road and now I have all the sails I need ready to go. Big thanks to everyone at PSA for helping me out and giving me a great deal. The sails will be air freighted out to Germany so hopefully they’ll be waiting for me when I get there.

And now we get to Friday which was the best day yet! After a great 3 hour session on the water in sunny conditions Ash, Palky and I went and spent the afternoon fishing on Ash’s boat. We didn’t get a lot but we had heaps of fun. We than grabbed Wearny and drove over to Manly and pulled up the boat on the sand because it was Ben-Bry Friday. We all enjoyed some good burgers while watching the sunset after a productive week.

Europe is only two weeks away now so all pistons are firing doing my final prep before the first event in Spain begins. I’ll keep you posted.

/Swifto

So the last few days have just been about resting and relaxing. I really wasn’t myself last week and had slipped into a very over trained state. I haven’t been in a head space like that since the European Championships in June last year so in some ways it was a nice reminder. Old habits die hard and it showed me I have to be careful of my old ways of training coming back to haunt me. I never put enough emphasis on recovery and I struggle to switch off and this last week brought this to my attention. I averaged 3 hours of training a day, everyday this month and without proper rest and time out this has a damaging effect on the body and the mind. Still, the positives from this week far out weigh the negatives and I would much rather this happen now than the day before an event in Europe.

Meditation is the cure to compulsive thinking and it is something I have practiced on and off since 2013 but with the advice of one of my mentors I have made the resolution to practice everyday. Hopefully this can prevent such situations happening again in the future.

On a lighter note, we had Ben-Bry burgers on Friday night as always do and I made myself a vegan pizza last night. Getting better with my cooking skills 😉

 

 

/Swifto

The last few days have been pretty tough. The day after the big shed clean out I felt terrible. I was so tired and over trained, I really didn’t want to do anything which is frustrating for me because I always want to train. It didn’t matter in the end anyway as I had to stay on land and spend 3 hours doing some testing. I am a part of  a PhD study which has been going on for over a year now and we are reaching the final, very time consuming, parts of the study. Hopefully by the end of the week everything will be done and I can get back to routine.

I also had to make the tough decision to pull out of Sail Auckland yesterday. I have been planning for months to try and go to this event but yesterday I had to face the reality that it wasn’t going to happen. Trying to afford this sport is a tough one and probably one of the biggest hindrances to participation in the sport at the elite level. Making the call did re-leave a lot of stress though and now I can move forward. I have three weeks left training here in Sydney improving my skills and getting stronger before I fly out to Europe on the 15th March. Things can only get better from here in .

/Swifto

So after today I’m ready for bed and it’s only 7.30 pm. Today we were allowed access to the club after the fire and we were told that everything in the Australian Team shed had to be moved today unless we didn’t want it for the next three months. The whole area will be blocked off to us so in the hot 30 degree weather some of the team got together and we emptied the entire content of the team shed. Literally years of random junk was pulled out along with a Laser, two 49ers, heaps of masts and a mountain of sails. Five hours in the heat took its toll and to cap it off the hard days of cycling and rock climbing from the last few days had caught up with me. My hands and forearms were so sore I could barely lift the cover off my boat as I got ready to go training this afternoon. Rock climbing 1 / Luke 0

Safe to say as I hit the water I really wasn’t with it. I was surprised I did as well as I did considering how my body felt and how unfocused I was. I think the hardest part of being a full time athlete is getting the rest-to-work ratio correct. I always want to push the limit and get the most out of every day but by doing so I’m always running the risk of being over trained and today was a clear example of that. Hopefully I can get myself recovered for tomorrow.

 

Saturday was a great rest day. The sun was out and the town was buzzing so we decided to make the most of the great weather. We all went into Manly and checked out the Hurley Australian Open of Surfing which had everything from a fitness competition to a massive skate bowl and a whole bunch of shops. We went for a swim and got so into the spirit that we hired some bodyboards and a surfboard for Mitch and got into it. I capped off the session with some great Japanese food to round out a great day.

Sunday morning I spent in the hills of Mosman. 10 x repeats of two different hills had me ruined for most of the day after that. I still had the energy to go for a wander around military road with the fellas at lunch time but I spent most of the afternoon inside firing off some emails. I also cooked up this mean vegan couscous and vegetable roast which was pretty epic!

And finally today is the reason we have had an extra long weekend. After a 6 am bike ride to try and spin out my legs from the day before I got the news. A fire started late last night at Middle Harbor Yacht Club which had the place completely closed off meaning no sailing for us while fire crews and investigators made sure the building was safe. Not to be deterred I made the most of my afternoon and did something I had been meaning to do for a while.

I have been watching videos of climbers for a while now and I always knew climbing gyms existed but I never put the two together. Today I finally did and I rode to a place near by and spent a good two-and-a-half hours Bouldering (as in the picture, climbing on a wall freestyle trying to get to the top). It was really hard but I was stoked to get some good runs and to meet some new people. I’ll definitely be going back. We should finally get some in sailing tomorrow 🙂