Faux: "It Suits Me Perfectly"

As we mentioned earlier, Catherine Faux, will be heading off to Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain for the 2012 ITU Long Distance World Championships this weekend.

We caught up with her to get her thoughts on the weekend ahead.

"Tonight I’ll be packing for heading to Spain this weekend to race in the ITU Long Distance World Championships on Sunday (via a friend’s wedding, just to complicate things!)," said Catherine.

"Race plan has been written, bike tweaked and checked, the legs are getting that familiar ‘I can’t do it!” ache and my brain has begun to focus on every little niggle. Which probably means it is actually ready to go. I’ll soon be giving it something real to complain about."

Catherine, who has already booked her place in the Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii later this year will take on the O3 distance this weekend for the second time in her career. O3 denotes three times the Olympic distance with a slightly shortened swim. That results in a 4km swim, 120km bike and 30km run to finish.

"I’ve done this distance once before, at the European Championships last year in Finland – which I thoroughly enjoyed and managed to be first amateur across the line," said Faux. "In a much larger, more competitive field in Spain I hope I can combine some of the speed of my last half-Iron distance race and endurance of the Ironman I did in April."

Catherine will be battling against 27 others in her 25-29 age group but with a start time after the pro's and men she feels this will hinder her slightly. 

"I’m expecting a slightly frustrating swim as I pass stragglers in the water, but these ones tend to be the fast bikers so there’ll be plenty of chasing to do on the cycle and hopefully plenty of guys to chick!"

Despite that, Catherine Faux will be going into this weekends race full of confidence and belief after having checked the bike and run route which feels will play into her advantage. 

"The course looks relatively flat, the bike having 1½ laps and the run having 4 – which suits me perfectly. The weather this week in V-G has been in the 30s, though is meant to cool a lot by Sunday. I have a new weapon in my ongoing battle against the sun – a pair of white sleeves that block UV and are supposed to cool your skin, so hopefully I should be less easily mistaken for a lobster the day after (or at least only an anaemic one)."

You can track Catherine's progress on Sunday via the online tracking system by clicking here. 

Good luck Catherine! We'll be cheering for you!