Day 1 - arrival
We arrived Sunday afternoon – my flight got into Tuscon around 1:30 and Camp Director, Justin Daerr picked me and one other camper up at the airport and drove us to the hotel. It was a pretty easy-going start to camp while everyone arrived; I just watched a hoops game on TV while I built up my bike for the upcoming festivities. That night at 6 PM, we had the evening session with dinner and debriefing on logistics for the week. The camp was based at Hotel Tuscon and all meals (while not training) were served there, making for a convenient setup. I met a few of the other campers, had dinner, and then Justin introduced the Endurance Corner staff. He also had us give a brief introduction, which was nice – there are only about 18-20 campers so you do get to know people. Then it was off to my room to get organized for the next days’ training.
Day 2 – AM Swim / Run; PM Bike
The next morning we had breakfast around 6:30 and headed off to the pool for a benchmark set at the Oro Valley pool. Unfortunately because of my shoulder injury I am sitting out the swim sessions. I took my exercise band and did my shoulder exercises instead. Also, the set for the AM was a benchmark 1000 yd TT so I could help record times for that. Coaches Justin and Marilyn McDonald were on deck to guide the campers. The workout went something like this:
Easy 500-ish warmup;
Some fast 25s
1000 yd TT
8x75 paddles and buoy – easy
I didn’t get the details quite right because I wasn’t swimming, but that was the gist of it. I’m guessing the group swam about 2500 or so in about an hour – it was a pretty relaxed session to get the week started. Here’s a shot of the pool where the camp swims take place.
Not too shabby. And I didn’t really get the good view in the background because of the sun light. There were all different levels of swimmers – the guys in the fast lane did the 1000 in 12-something; those in the slower lanes were in the 16-17+ range. After the swim, we all get ready and went for an easy out and back ~10K run. People ran at their own pace and I settled into an easy 7:30 ish pace to get my week started as I didn’t want to get too crazy in my first workout – plenty of time for that later in the week. It was a touch windy, but a pretty easy effort to start off the day.
After the run, we went back to the hotel for lunch, a break, and then our afternoon bike session. The bike session was an easy ride for about 45 minutes and then an all-out TT for 5.9 miles and an easy return back to the hotel. Sound simple. But the wind was right in our faces and it was no joke. I brought my road bike to camp, so doing a TT on that felt a little strange to me, but with the way the wind was, 317 watts for 24+ minutes resulted in 14.5 miles per hour average. The return trip home in the opposite direction was fun, though!
That night, we had a talk by Alan Couzens on using benchmarks to enhance performance. Being the data junkie and analytical type that I am, it was right up my alley. He has a good way to approximate fitness using a “VO2 score” and correlating that to training load so you can start to understand how to infer performance from training. Typically, with VDOT, etc. from Daniels Running Formula, usually it’s inferring training paces from race performances, but this allows you to do the opposite, which is quite useful.
Day 3 – AM Run; PM Long Bike
Tuesday brought our first long ride of the week – Madera Canyon. But before that, we did an easy 6-mile run to a small mountain just on the outskirts of town with a big A on the side in the U of A colors. It was called Sentinel mountain and made for a great AM run.
It was flat for the first couple miles, then we did the loop up and back down the mountain for a good 400+ foot climb with a beautiful view from the top. After the run, we had breakfast, a short break (with some more shoulder rehab for me) and we headed out for our long ride.
The long ride was to Madera Canyon – a park south of Tucson with a steady, long, gradual climb and then a short steeper grade to the top. The group ride was fun, it has been a while since I’ve ridden in a bigger group and it definitely teaches you some good riding and bike handling skills. About 5 minutes after we rolled out, I realized my powertap computer wasn’t reading anything, which really bummed me out because this was a big ride, but I figured, I’d just go by HR and RPE and see what happened. Turns out that power meter is quite useful in preventing yourself from digging too deep too early! The pace seemed pretty moderate for the first hour or so, but then we picked it up and my HR was already up over 150 and pushing 160, which isn’t quite threshold for me, but I knew if I kept that up, my legs would pay for it later. Here we are regrouping at an aid station on the way out to the canyon.
Once we made it into the park, it was a gradual climb – the grade wasn’t much compared to what I’m used to in Northern California, but there were 2 pro triathletes and some other-worldly age-groupers pushing the pace at the front and I decided I’d best drop back some. My legs were already tired and I knew I still had more work to do up the steep part. I just kept rolling at my own pace and kept the work rate at a reasonable level – didn’t have power, so I just watched my HR. The climb was nice; I probably really would have enjoyed it had I not ridden at such a hard effort (am guessing close to HIM-effort for me) for an extended period leading up to it. My legs were really tired and I just grinded the best I could up the top. It was nice and cool at the top and the descent down was a bit chilly, but fun. We regrouped at the bottom for a nice rest stop and refuel and then headed home. It ended up being a 5:50 ride on the clock and we covered about 100 miles (my 310XT always measures distance a little short). Garmin data is here: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/153546458.
That night after dinner, a local athlete named Paul Thomas gave a talk on his recent experience in the Leadville 100 mile mountain bike race. If you haven’t heard of it, check it out on Google. It’s all above 10,000 feet and it’s 100 miles on a mountain bike. He is a crazy fast athlete in his early forties that still beats pro cyclists in races. He was 23rd in Leadville and had never really raced mountain bikes much before.
Day 4 – AM Swim / Run; PM Ride
Wednesday brought another “easy” day. Although after the previous day, I’m not sure anything would have felt easy. We went to the pool in the AM and while I was relegated to my shoulder exercises, the group did a solid 90 minute swim with an emphasis on strength. The main set was something like 500, 400, 300 with paddles, buoy and band and then 5x100 hard. I think the fast group did 3x500 and the slower group did 400, 300, 200. Either way, it was a solid main set. Then they did some head-up swimming to work on keeping the front end of the stroke flowing and not over-gliding. Although I haven’t been able to swim with the group, I am still learning bits at the sessions.
After the swim we regrouped and got ready for a great run session led by Justin Daerr. He walked us through his dynamic warmup, an easy jog, and exercises he uses to get ready for key runs. Some are things I am quite familiar with, but he showed us some other good stuff I had not seen before. He also has a great perspective on running in general and running in triathlon. After the warmup, jog, and strides, we did a short 30 minute run with some pickups. It was easy, but my legs were definitely tired from the previous days’ effort.
After the run, we had lunch and a nice break prior to riding at 3 PM. On the docket for day number 4 was going up and over Gates pass and then returning back the same way. Here’s the group getting ready for the ride…
The back side was actually steeper than the front which made for a nice climb. Justin Daerr and Chris McDonald were leading the ride and although my legs were fatigued, after I warmed into it, I felt pretty decent. I didn’t think to get a good picture from the top, but here’s a shot looking back at the mountain.
One of the excellent camp staff, Gail (a.k.a. Justin’s mother-in-law), managed to find me some batteries so I had my powertap again. Avg for this ride was 169, but norm was 221 for a solid effort.
We rolled back to the hotel and regrouped for dinner and another evening presentation, this time by Dr. Jeff Shilt, an orthopedic surgeon and also very good athlete. He gave us a talk on his thoughts on minimalist running. The talk was most excellent -- I’m somewhat interested in this topic and have read up on it, but he had a great perspective and I did learn a thing or two.
Day 5 – AM Ride / PM Run
Thursday at Camp was Mt. Lemmon day! It is a well-known ride and provides a great opportunity for some solid work on the bike with a ~21 mile consistent climb up to ~9000 feet. The plan for our group was to commute across town over to the park at which we would regroup with the other folks and ride over to the base of Lemmon. Here’s the group round-up at the park before we headed over to the mountain.
Once we got to the “mile 0” marker on the climb, we gathered again and Endurance Corner coach Chris McDonald gave some pointers on descending.
Once we got rolling I dialed in my target effort and just tried to stay there; I was thinking a 2-hour climb should be in the 80-85% FTP range for me – I could probably do it harder than that, but had never done it before and wanted to be conservative. I followed this group up the hill for awhile.
We had picked up a random cyclist heading up to marker 14 so we rode behind him for a while, too. I just stayed as comfortable as possible and watched my target HR and power for the whole ride. It’s a long, steady grind so every few minutes I would stretch just a bit, but kept on rolling. Here’s a shot from about half-way up at a point where it levels off for about a quarter of a mile or so. As you can tell, it was a great day to be riding a bike up a mountain.
As we rolled on, the group got a little smaller and eventually there were 2 of us sharing the load heading to the top. We were pretty evenly matched so it worked out pretty well. Only a short stop at the van for a quick gel and then back to work. I kept a steady tempo and Randy eventually fell off my wheel a bit around mile 18 or 19. I made it to the peak in about 1:54 and rolled up to our turnaround point in 1:57. I had an avg power of 247 and norm 251 – a little conservative, but solid effort for 2 hours. As an aside, Chris, Justin, and one of the stronger AG athletes here did the climb in 1:35 working together.
I refueled at the turnaround and got my warmer clothes back on for the long descent. 21 miles on the way up took about 2 hours, but on the way down it was 40-45 minutes. I did stop at one point to get a shot of some of the rocks.
After getting back down, we regrouped into a team of 4 and made our way back over to the park for a quick lunch prior to commuting by bike back across town, through the University of Arizona, and to the hotel. Once back at the hotel, I changed into some run clothes and went for an easy 30 minute jog through town. Then it was a quick shower and a 1-hour massage, which was quite awesome after a few days’ of hard efforts.
That evening after dinner, Alan Couzens presented again, this time focusing more on how to use TSS and CTL as a target for Ironman training. I really enjoyed the discussion and have some new ideas how to use these tools for myself and those that I work with.
Day 6 - AM swim / longer run
Friday had us up at the usual time and headed to the pool at 7:30. The group did a long-ish aerobic set, but I decided to do an easy jog and some shoulder exercises. I’m hoping to be swimming again soon, but am not quite ready yet. I went for an easy 40 minute run and then we regrouped and headed over to the “river” trail for our longer run. The river is dried up, but there is still a nice path to run on. Justin took us through his dynamic warmup and strides prior to the run and then the main set was a 3x12 minute effort at 10-20 sec faster than target IM pace followed by 3x4 minutes at a “hard” pace. I decided to ease into it and did the first one at around 7:30, but then wanted to explore my pace/HR relationship a bit so I pushed it to 6:45 on the next one and 6:40-ish on the last one. My HR was relatively low for these paces, so I know I’m fit, but my legs are also pretty tired so I don’t think I can get my HR up there quite as easily. All-in-all, between the two runs, I ended up with about 15 miles total with some good quality mixed in. Friday afternoon was off and a much needed break to get us primed for the Kitt Peak ride on Saturday.
Day 7 – AM bike
Saturday brought the epic ride to Kitt Peak, which is an observatory at the top of a mountain (http://www.noao.edu/kpno/). The ride consisted of a ~41 mile trek to the base of the mountain and then a 12 mile climb at an average of about 8%. The 41 miles was pretty flat and on the way over there, we had a group of 8 working together in a rotating pace line pretty well. It wasn’t a huge effort, but I could still tell my legs were really fatigued already from the long week. Once to the base of the climb, you could see the white observatory up above; we regrouped and then got rolling.
The first bit wasn’t that steep, but it didn’t take long before it turned upward. Here’s a shot of what the road looked like as the the first two guys up rode away from me.
My climb didn’t go as well as Lemmon in that I couldn’t really hang with the group I rode most of Lemmon with, but I still did fairly well, making it up the 12 miles in 1:10 and an average power of 268 for the effort. The descent was cold and windy and gave new meaning to the idea of an “ice cream headache.” Once back down, we regrouped at the van and refueled – I grabbed just about anything I could find. A bagel with Nutella, a cookie, a baby snickers, a coke, etc. I was pretty low on calories and knew I needed them. We rolled back across the desert towards Tucson and not long into the ride, the paceline got really aggressive. Next thing I know I’m surging to 400+ watts just to try to hang on. After the long weeks’ effort, it just wasn’t happening (in spite of Justin literally giving me a boost a few times). In any case, we dropped back and let the group go. After a few more miles 2 more guys came back and then we had a nice group of 4 to make our way through the tough headwind. On top of that the road was gnarly and more than once I almost ate my handlebars. Even though the ride was more tame, we still were rolling around 200-220 watts for the most part. It was a long hard ride and I ended with 106 miles in 6:30 overall time (about 5:45 ride time). Avg power was 195 and norm was 224, a legitimate effort for me over 6.5 hours. I topped out over 4000 kJ for the whole ride – substantially more than I would produce for an Ironman bike ride.
Once back to the hotel, we ate “lunch,” and then I packed up my bike. We had a brief gathering at the hotel and then headed to Chile’s for dinner (turns out one of the campers is actually the President of Chili’s). It was an excellent cap to a great week.
Overall, I had a most excellent time at camp – I met some great, like-minded people, and was pushed outside of my comfort zone several times. Totals for the week were:
Bike – 350 miles in 22.5 hours
Run – 35 miles in 4.5 hours
My TSS for the week was 1419 and my average TSS for the 3-week mini-build I did to lead into camp was 828. On the bike alone, I did almost 10,000 kJ (a “normal” Ironman ride for me is ~3300-3700 kJ)
I also spent a fair amount of time rehabbing my shoulder, so I put in 29+ hours of “training.” It is the most I’ve ever done in a week and I wasn’t sure how things would go for me with that much time on the bike. I did really well overall, but the ride home from Kitt Peak on Saturday really was a mental test. I was fatigued and it was a long flat grind back to town on roads that were not in good condition. But I made it with some help from the group and was satisfied with the weeks’ effort.
After the experience, here are some observations about the people and life at camp:
- Sleep – This is always important in triathlon, but when you are pushing yourself for days in a row, it is critical that you try to get good sleep. I did not sleep well all week and not surprisingly I ended up with a small cold at the end of the week.
- Nutrition – With the amount of calories we were burning, we definitely had to fuel, not only during workouts, but immediately after.
- Group Training – Triathlon is mostly an individual sport, but training in a group can help stretch us in new ways. After the hard, hard ride on Tuesday, I was pretty shelled, but by Thursday, even though I was tired, I could still muster some amount of energy for the climb up Mt. Lemmon and I think a large part of this is due to the “group” effect.
- This is a Hard Sport – The stronger athletes at camp have lives conducive to training. They either have some amount of flexibility in their lives or are younger and have fewer life commitments.
- Hard Work Pays Off – Having said that, some of the people are evidence that hard work pays off. It is a sport that requires some talent, but persistence, dedication, and commitment can take you a long way, it just takes consistent work over time.
- This is a Fun Sport – It is GREAT to be out in nature riding your bike up a mountain. There is nothing like the smell, the hard breathing, just you on your machine riding in a steady rhythm to the top of a mountain. The endorphin high is well worth it.
If you ever are interested in a training camp, I highly recommend it. Spending a week with like-minded people, doing a sport you love, with no other commitments is hard to beat.
