The second day on camp is one of the few days without any racing on the schedule – just a straight forward swim, long ride and run. The swim session had a little coaching structure with the opportunity to practice our beach starts ,sighting, turns and beach exits – with a group of 21 this does provide some valuable race-situation simulation! We followed the initial mass start race (running start from a pen on the beach, out to and around our 5-year old rubber ring ~50m off shore, then exit through the waves and back into the pen to finish) with a relay race, pairing the slower swimmers with the fastest based on finish order in the previous. This 2-lap each race is usually the most intensity that we see during the whole camp, and there’s always guaranteed to be at least one person collapsed on the sand at the finish. Linda and Marc’s pair proved to be the fastest this morning – a feat for which they were each awarded a Powerbar Goodies pack so they can look the part during the rest of the camp in their Powerbar visors and socks.

We rode a lovely route around the hills in the North of the Island – the standard ride was 110km with most people choosing to take the opportunity of a relaxed day with plenty of coffee stops and calm winds to ride a little longer for 136km..or even longer in some cases clocking 172km ride – that was our Double Ironman World Champ Matthew, who also ran 5km and 14km as well as his 1.8km swim…an 8:49 hour training day.

We’re beginning to see a little fatigue already amongst a couple of our first -time campers, and have an unusually high count of people having arrived carrying some form of sickness or other too, so we have constructed the option for a much shorter ride tomorrow. With the day’s minimum’s swim and run training accounted for in our pre-breakfast aquathlon, that will give the opportunity for  those that need it to “regroup” though the afternoon. I can think of one or two who’ll put that spare time to better use….I’m certain that Rob is going after the camp record for bike mileage in his preps for his unsupported Transcontinental bike race this summer, and  there’s currently a bit of a battle to log the most run distance this week between Tony and Matthew – who are currently equal at 40km each. It’s great fun for everyone else when we get this situation – and has already created a lot of banter around at dinner time when both of those guys are missing from the table in pursuit of their missions!