Jan van Berkel gets ready for his next races (12.07.2011)

The upcoming weeks are going to be important for the young Olympic distance athlete in the team. He wants to reach the necessary results at the ITU World Championship Series races in Hamburg and London to come closer to his Olympic dream. At the moment he trains in the Swiss mountains on high altitude which is in the meantime a common way to train - also in triathlon. Here is Jan’s report.

I already wrote a few times about my high altitude training camps. This time I want to do that more detailed. The theoretical background of a camp like this is simple: the air in the height is thinner so the body does not get enough oxygen. As a reaction the organism adapts. The blood volume increases, the lung and muscle work gets more and more economic and the blood circulation improves. These adaptations need energy so the training has to be reduced compared to low altitude.

I trained already at many different high altitude places but St. Moritz in Switzerland is my favourite location. It is not surprising that I am here for my important training camp before the World Champ Series races in Hamburg and in London which will take place in the next weeks. My coach John and the entire Dutch Olympic team is here too. We train at 1800m and we sleep on the Muottas Muragl which is 700m higher. The training here does not forgive any mistakes. John tells me every day to listen to my body. Beside my own feeling daily measurements of the blood oxygen saturation, the heart rate variability and the resting heart rate help me to do the right workouts. On the bike my SRM powermeter gives me signs not to push too hard especially if bike pros ride in front of me. Nutrition is also an important issue. I try to give my body everything it needs especially liquids. At high altitude the organism looses more fluid by breathing than usually.    

This season I spend already 12 weeks under these conditions. That is the reason why my body adapts fast. So John kept my acclimatisation time pretty short. Already on the second day of this camp I got a tough swim workout. That did not work as I would have expected it. But patience seems to belong also to high altitude training – another challenge to get over. Beside training it is the wonderful surrounding which is a source of energy. So I hope that it will help me to fly through downtown Hamburg and through the Hyde Park in London. For another kind of energy we have the chef of the hotel here in the mountains. He offers his famous Mousse au Chocolat. It already brought Viktor Röthlin the gold medal at the European Championships and Sabine Spitz, who is also here at the moment, the same at Olympic games. Lets see how it works!