Monday 8 February 2016

Tri Camp in Las Playitas

Usually I’ve been in Portugal on a training camp this time of the year but after all injuries last year I chose a less risky alternative with plenty of cross-training possibilities and went to Las Playitas in Fuerteventura. I knew its popularity among triathletes but I didn’t know it was such a perfect place for an injured orienteer. There was not only a 4km stretch of perfect cycle lane to run but plenty of trails and paths in undulating milieu, lots of hills to climb on, hundreds of kilometres of perfect tarmac for road cycling, fine MTB routes, Olympic swimming pool, fully equipped gym and variety of different group training sessions. All that combined with sunshine and temperature around +20C made it pretty nice for training. The only single disturbing thing was wind, but even that was bearable in otherwise perfect conditions. It certainly added some extra challenge to cycling but didn’t bother much in the swimming pool.

Cycle lane of perfection

I wasn’t sure how much running I could do so it was great to have lots of possibilities for alternative training. Luckily it went better than expected and my body adapted well to 2+1 day rhythm. That meant two days of running, combined with strength training and swimming, and then one day of cycling. Having those run-free days I was able to cover over 20h of training in a week, including over 100km running and about 200km cycling. First evening after arrival I used exploring the hills just next to the resort. There were plenty of nice paths to run up and down and along the hills and the views were great. What else can you wish for?

Hills around the resort
















The following day I used to take a wider look on the surroundings. I ran up to the lighthouse, supposedly a run you have to do when in Playitas. It’s a single road route from the resort up to the top of a mountain queue, with a massive lighthouse at the end of the road. It’s about 13km back and forth with 270m of climbing. The last kilometre up to the lighthouse is brutal with its 100m vertical climb. Otherwise it’s a fairly nice and easy route to run. A bit boring but works fine for a tempo session. And the views up on the top are definitively worth the climb! Rest of my runs I did on trails and paths, except the last day, when I took part to the actual lighthouse run, a weekly race arranged at the resort. To run it after a week of heavy training was tough but I couldn’t miss a chance to try to run a race when feeling absolutely dead and exhausted. It’s seldom you get an opportunity to train your brain to push through that wall. I’m quite happy I did that. Although next time I will most certainly plan my arrival time better…

Faro de la Entallada

I was surprised to find that there were also many nice gravel roads and trails to run. In the sports centre you can get a map with several marked routes of various lengths on it. The map itself was very accurate but, being such a pedantic orienteer, I couldn’t help noticing that some routes weren’t drawn correctly on the map. However, there are painted stones in terrain to follow, so you can go and run without a map. Just knowing which colour to follow will do. The lengths of the routes were approximately right.

Never-ending trails

Cycling in Fuerteventura is great too. Roads are mostly very good and the attitude is friendly. After riding a bike in Sweden it was great to see Spanish drivers being so respectful. I’m sure that road signs advising drivers to give space to cyclists helps too. I joined Sami for a few longer rides in the mountains and it was just terrific! Fuerteventura is perhaps not as mountainous as Gran Canaria or Mallorca but climbs are still long enough to put you through some great suffering. I would say that the headwind we met on our first ride on the way to Tuineje and further to Antigua felt almost worse than the biggest climb of the ride (the mountain top between Antigua and Betancuria). But the great thing with the wind is its payback time. On the way home we got to enjoy tailwind and our 16kph headwind speed turned suddenly to +40kph without an effort.

Roads like velvet

Lovely café worth a stop in Antigua


Beauty that took me around January Gran Fondo


I also enjoyed having a full-length pool just on our doorstep and used swimming to flush my tired legs after long rides and runs. The only downside was that the resort was full of professional swimmers and triathletes, which meant that I got to share a lane with some serious swimmers. I like to use swimming as easy recovery workout but it didn’t really fit in in the picture. Even with my swimming background and decent technique (for a runner) I felt like the slowest swimmer in the pool with my 2min/100m pace. Sure I can swim faster than that but then I’m out of breath quite soon. So I felt a bit pressure sharing the pool with some serious swimmers but maybe it’s only good to get out of your comfort zone once in a while and push a bit harder. I didn’t drown and I felt great afterwards.

All in all what a great week!

Fancy a swim with pros? Absolutely!