Going to camp...Tri-Camp that is!!

This weekend I had the most awesome opportunity to join some great coaches and athletes for a 4 day EPIC triathlon camp. The camp was held in Wilkesboro, NC on Kerr Scott reservoir. This was a great venue for a camp of this type. We occupied a lodge that was right up hill from the dock we would open water swim from. After the 2nd day this hill would become an ass-kicker. Talk of how we could slide down in the row boat...but getting back up was problematic. Or maybe driving down the hill...but that would not be EPIC!! By next year maybe they might have a ski lift installed....uhm..NO!

So day one was mostly orientation although there were a few of us crazies who went for swim just to loosen up from the long drive. The water was perfect temp for a wetsuit. (since I pride myself on being a mediocre swimmer I love the wetsuit)

Day two was an early morning open water swim of about 3 miles. This was followed by consuming mass quantities of food in preparation for the next training session. We packed up the bikes and running gear and headed down the road to the start of the Bandits Challenge race. We went out on the 28 mile bike course which is a pretty tough route. There were some who opted to go out for a 2nd loop but I hit the trail for a run instead. (I was saving my legs a little for the next day's ride. This would turn out to be the right choice for me!!)

After the jam packed day of training we headed back to the lodge for some more consumption of mass calories. We really needed to pack them in to recover from the workouts and be ready to hit it again in the morning!

Day three we had another open water swim of 1.5 or 3 miles...athletes choice on this one! (I opted out of the swim since my shoulder was a little sore and I didn't want to piss it off any more than I had to.) After the swim we packed up the bike gear and headed over to Boone for some riding on the Blood Sweat and Gears bike course. We would be doing an out and back on this one so whatever we road out we knew we had to ride back. (Sometimes that sucks...I mean ignorance is bliss when it comes to mountain climbing right?) We split into "A" and "B" groups to start but that naturally splintered off into "C", "D", "E" and so on. I hung onto the "A" group until I had a flat. Some of the group stopped and waited for me to re-tube and hit it again. so we were now the "A2" group. (no one likes to fall back to the "B" group so "A2" was the new name!!) We ended up doing 92 miles and 8,000 ft of climbing. By my watch I had 4:45 of ride time..(and that included the time to change the flat...NOT BAD...)

After the ride we headed back to the lodge for yet another calorie consumptionfest. We packed back some food man. I loaded a plate with a steak, (that was awesome), salad, corn, bread & butter...and whoofed it down. 30 min later I was hungry again and packing back some of the homemade cookies. (they didn't last long)

Day four we headed out for a long run. My legs were feeling pretty tired after the ride the day before so I figured I would take it easy. This plan worked well until I turned around and was feeling pretty good so just started to hammer back. I payed for this afterwards but doing 11 miles in 1:20 was a great feeling and worth the two days of leg aches I had after. We headed back to the water for a little cool down swim. A nice easy 2K was all I needed and wanted after the amount of training that was packed into these four days.

I split by noon to head back to life but sure wish I could just eat sleep and train like the pros. Can't wait until next year to do it all again!