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Lizzy Brama

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There’s barely an athlete out there who has never had injury worries. Some more, some less. And while I used to look down on athletes who are ‘always injured’, I have changed my view over the years, mainly for my own benefit. I still think that injury should not be accepted as unavoidable. However, unless you are injured because you are making a crucial mistake in your training, like ramping up volume or intensity so your body reaches breaking point, thinking less of yourself because you have an injury is not going to help the situation.

While I love being a triathlete I’m also very fond of time trialling. There are several reasons for this.

Cycling is my strength, so in the more local events I often stand a chance of winning. I know we always say it’s the taking part that counts, but winning is lots of fun, too.

Time trials are cheap. Open events are normally about £8, evening club events £2.50, and usually there’s tea and cake for a few pence donations afterwards.

They are good training. Try as you might, race intensity is always higher than training. Plus I love to race my bike and share my sport with others.

On the 31st of March myself and two friends flew to Mallorca for a 10 days of cycling, cycling, cycling, a little running, and even some swimming. We also did this 2 years ago, only I was significantly less fit then.

Mallorca is Spain’s largest island and is located in the Mediterranean Sea. It’s very popular with tourists, and especially Germans. In Germany people often refer to it as Germany’s 17th state. In spring however, it’s not quite warm enough for a beach holiday and the island is taken over by cyclists and triathletes. With countless miles of quiet country roads, long but commonly not too steep climbs with breathtaking views in the mounaineous North, it really lends itself to getting the bike miles in. One is however served well, especially in March and early April, to pack arm and leg warmers.

I’m a 26-year-old triathlete, and I live and train in sunny Brighton. I was born and bred in Kiel, in Northern Germany. As a child I spent many hours counting the tiles on the bottom of the pool, and whizzing around town on my bike just as a means to get to places. Only running and Lizzy were never friends. In fact I remember many many excuses to get out of P.E./Games just because I disliked running so much.

You may wonder how I ended up in the UK. There is no other reason than that I found myself at boarding school in Devon when I was 16 for a year abroad rather accidentally. I say accidentally because I didn’t really want to go away. But as many of the other kids at my school were going away for a year, I thought I was missing out… However, when I left Kelly College a year later I felt like I had unfinished business in this country resulting in my return to attend university in Brighton. And I’m still there 6 ½ years later!