We’ve held the camp at this location as one of our member’s family runs a beautiful campsite there with a house that can hold around 20 people. Plus, we’ve found that the quiet roads make for some great training.
Once again, I was responsible for the training elements of the weekend; a responsibility I enjoy more and more as my interest, knowledge and education of coaching grows and I find just as much enjoyment in helping others to perform as I do in my own training and racing.
Unfortunately, due to big races, holidays, availability etc, we had to move the weekend forward a little in the calendar this year which meant that the river that runs through the site was just too cold to include swimming as part of the program; therefore, we kept the focus on biking and running.
After everyone arrived and we ate dinner together on Friday night, I ran through the program for the weekend. The goal is always to push hard and get plenty of intense training in, while keeping some time for recovery and not creating a torturous environment.
We kept the pace up throughout, around 33kph cruising pace and taking it in turns to pull at the front – with some faster paced intervals thrown in on longer sections without junctions. Then I stepped it up to 34kph as I led along a canal section. Finally, the 20km home straight was done as a set of harder intervals – each of the 7 of us taking it in turns to do a hard pull at the front before dropping to the back; then, it was just the stronger riders pulling at the front; finally, there were just three of us left hammering it for home, having averaged 40kph+ for the final 20km. Happily, I was in that front group – a solid effort and one I was happy with, especially as I’d ridden the 145km to the camp the evening before.
We all regrouped at the campsite, refilled water and 5 of us headed out for a steady extra 20km spin to add a little volume but also flush the legs a little before lunch.
The first part of that was a 30m easy run at endurance pace. Immediately afterwards, we headed to a trail in the woods where we did 12 x 2 minute repeats at 10k pace (or a touch below) with 1 minute recovery between each rep. By now, the heavens had opened and the rain was pretty torrential, but it showed what a great group we had that nobody complained. There were plenty of jokes about toughening up and feeling like Rocky, but everyone embraced the suck and got the job done. On a personal note, I ran a little faster than I’d have expected and held that pace which was heartening.
The heavy rain meant showers, dinner and beers were preferred to the scheduled strength session – probably a good thing too as legs were starting to get sore. Something that all the stretching and foam rolling attested to!
Sunday started with a 21km easy bike ride as we spun out the legs and got ready for the day’s exertions. The beautiful sunshine belied the icy coldness of the air. Stupid Dutch weather! But it started warming up a little as we all headed into the camp site for transition practice. Although only a small part of the camp – and physically not all that demanding a part – transition practice is really important and something I appreciate. I know that, even after a few years of racing triathlons, I can be very rusty in the first few races of the year and running through T1 and T2 a few times really helps speed that up. For the less experienced athletes, it just shows them what they need to consider and some easy ways to speed up and gain some easy time.
Eventually, it’s time to set up the bikes for real for the First International Bereeze-Ommen Sprint Duathlon (last year was a triathlon thanks to warmer river waters…). Mercifully, the sun is now shining and the air is less cold. As this is a handicap race, we send racers off one by one (the least quick first) with the aim of all finishing at almost the same time. There are 28 minutes between the first person setting off and me, eventually, going off last.
Onto the 21km bike, my legs are screaming and the first section is into some pretty stiff winds. It’s 6km before I feel I settle a bit and start riding decently. I can see a couple of riders about 30 seconds ahead but it’s an age before I catch them (Brian and Tomasso) at around the 14km point. I try to go past at speed so they can’t hitch a ride from me (it’s draft legal racing as, well, who’s going to stop the drafting!?). The last 7km is a lovely path along some woods and beside a train track and, finally, there’s a tailwind, so I try to keep the pressure on the pedals, catching a couple more athletes (like Tamara, Laura and Mario) on the way.
As I head into T2, Luis and Charlie (both very good runners) are already heading out, with a bunch of other athletes (Ashley, Neil, Paola, Luca) also on the 4km run course. Including transitions, I held an average of around 36kph on the bike, which seems pretty decent in those conditions. The start of the run is hellishly painful. “What? Run? Again?”scream my legs, and I really struggle to even tap out a 4:40/km pace. Finally, tho, they do come back to me and as we reach the turnaround point, I see that Luis is too far ahead to even think about catching (he’s also running faster than me) but Charlie might be in my sights. By now, I’m running 4:10/km and hurting but I manage to pass Charlie with 1km to go, then pass Paola with 400m left. Neil (one of the athletes I coach) is just ahead but he speeds up to make sure he gets a podium finish for the day, and I have to be happy with 4th place in the end – with Neil, Ashley and Luis ahead.
Once again, the levels of commitment, camaraderie, support and enthusiasm impress me no end, and remind me of what a great thing it is we do by running ATAC – even if I’m not quite as involved now as I was last year.
At a personal level, I’m really pleased with where my fitness levels are. I’ve been swimming pretty well the past few weeks; my ‘total immersion’ approach to bike riding over the past two weeks has paid off; the run was my worry as that’s a little behind where it was this time last year, but even that seems to be coming good now.
Tri camps (even these mini ones) are there to set you up for the season ahead; this weekend certainly achieved that.
Finally, a big thanks has to go to Luis and Laura for organizing the camp, and Lorna for the excellent mobility workshop. Biggest thanks of all to Neil and Charlie for doing a beer run on Saturday afternoon!