ASICS FrontRunner, Amber Schlebusch, who won gold in the women’s triathlon at the 2018 Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires, is in the United States training for the 2019 World Champs.
The 17-year-old, is juggling her final year at school with the demands of top level racing in the multi-discipline event. “Back home with school I have never been able to do three sessions a day – swim, bike and run – and here, being on holiday and having the whole day to rest and train, I have gotten a taste of what it is like to be a professional athlete,” she says.
The Durbanite is currently in San Diego on a training camp under the guidance of triathlon coach extraordinaire, Jim Vance. “Training with Jim – who is a Ben Kanute’s coach – has been really cool,” she says. “My coach, Justin Hand is working with Jim, and they organised that I can train with a bunch of Jim’s juniors, basically to prep me for World Champs in early September.”
According to Amber it has been a rough first half of the year for her, and the idea behind this intensive US training block was to get her back on track. “With school and all that I haven’t been able to get consistent training going, so part of the goal of this camp was to do that,” she says.
“I’m a week-and-a-half in and I’m more consistent than I have been all year and that I am really pleased with.”
The crew trains three times a day and the sessions are focussed and hard. “But, you get to go home and rest in between and fuel up and I think the training load and the experience with the other athletes has been very beneficial - something I would not have gotten back in SA.”
Among other things, Amber has learned why the US athletes are so well known for their swim leg. “We swim a lot more here than I would on my programme back home,” she says. “It has also been really cool to run trails – I like exploring new areas on foot and running is my favourite discipline – but we don’t have many safe trails near Durban,” she says. The cycling has also been different in structure to the training that she is used to. “We have been doing a lot of long rides, so more time in the saddle, but it is paying off and the fact that you can rest during the day (between sessions) helps.”
Part of Amber’s US programme is some high level races, the first being in Seattle this weekend. Follow her journey, here.
