EverydayTraining

Gregory, John, Linda, Matthew, Rob, Stephen and Steven all rose early in order to fulfill their daily 30 minute swim before an early breakfast at the beginning of what we knew was to be along hard final day on camp. The fact that so many had chosen to swim despite having a wildcard is a real sign of this group’s attitude-  we’ve never before had more than one or two swim before riding the Ironman route, and that was simply out of necessity for camp completion. We have been so lucky with this group of athletes – they all really seem to be “getting” into the spirit of what EverydayTraining camp is about, and we love them for it!

180km with 2, 600m ascent is a long ride, especially when tired. For the slower riders, we expect a ride of over 8 hours including essential stops. We also had a few takers for Steven’s Ironman++ route, which makes the ride 200km by adding a visit to the two extreme points of the island (Playa Blanca and Orzola ) onto the Ironman loop. To date no one has ever managed this. Both these groups had to be on the road by 8:30am in order to ensure that we returned with a little time to spare for G&Ts before the end of camp BBQ! Jo was to lead a “steady-solid” paced ride (without cake stops- so nearly no one was willing to ride with her!) around the traditional loop, which turned out to be just herself, mel and Frank. and had the luxury of a later start – 9am.  The plan was to try and get the latter two groups to merge and ride a big section of the course together, and we estimated that we’d meet somewhere on the El Golfo loop or the Fire Mountain Climb.

The long route group headed out on the Ironman course before heading up Femes and down the steep side to Playa Blanca. The group got a little split and on arrival in the outskirts of Playa Blanca we realised that Matthew had not come down in the group. With no reply to a text we assumed he’d gone the wrong way down through Las Brenas so the group tried to make short work along the old road to the start of El Golfo. Matthew was not there, but a note from Jo indicated that her group was about 10 minutes ahead. Steven sent the others in to catch up with Jo whilst he skirted back through Las Brenas to search for Matthew.  This final day’s ride is not only essential for completion of the camp, but after a week of riding together, we really do like to try and get around this one through teamwork and see as much of one another along the way as practically possible whilst also accounting for differing pace – not to mention our concern about the disappearance of one of the group’s most competent riders.

Meantime, all the the other groups had managed to converge with another by La Santa village, and we called a stop there which meant that Jo’s group DID get a chance for a coffee after all whist she and Steven exchanged their updates by phone. From there on we continued as two groups, with Emma’s slower pace group picking up Mel and Frank whilst Jo took lead of the Fast and Long boys whilst Steven went back to the hotel to check for Matthew. Fortunately for her there was not so much Fast left in these boys and it was a pleasant ride with Lance, Rob and Gregory through the hilly portion of the ride. It had been a mostly still day, but for a reasonably stiff breeze around the southern end of the Island – easy on the lags but it did make things feel pretty hot. Lance was clearly feeling good, and unable to resist a challenge form another rider on the Mirador de Haria climb, which Greg of course was also unable to resist,  though he complianed about it the whole way up, apparently. Two big guys like that need a lot of watering, so we called an additional stop in the town of Haria, where we once again caught up with ran into Emma’s group. Rob the Pirate was feeling a bit jaded and decided to be a gent and offer his  services to helping Emma’s easier paced group along, rather than add on the Orzola detour.

This is a situation where we realise how lucky we are to have Emma along as a reliable ride leader – since Jo was now accompanying only two riders on a variation of the main ride, and Steven was now riding the route in reverse to meet us and with the  hope of spotting our missing man, Emma kept the majority of the camp moving along without fuss on their challenging day. In fact, two of the campers in her charge were about to “pop their 100mile cherry”……..

Jo, Gregory and Lance met Steven shortly after leaving Orzola, and the four of us worked well as a group along that beautiful coastal road towards Arrieta where all groups met once again for more fluids and a big feed. There was a slight headwind back along the LZ1 making it particularly hard on those tired legs, and especially beneficial to ride compact and allow those with a bit more energy do a greater share of the work. Reports from Emma’s group were that Rob did a splendid job of this, albeit with a little too much cheerful chitchat now that he was riding within his comfort zone!  By this time we had heard news from Jana, the wonderfully helpful and friendly reception manager of our hotel, that she had seem Matt, safe and on his bike, in Mancha Blanca and we were able to relax and enjoy the ride a bit more. It eventually transpired that his rim had failed on the descent from Femes but somehow no one behind him had spotted him. It’s a long story, and coursed us some concern for several hours of the day until we had ascertained Matt’s whereabouts and that he was fine.  We’ve learnt that we will need to put a few extra safeguards in place for future camps or lead rides to try and avoid this situation in future. Matthew managed to get a solid days riding in after buying a new wheel in Playa Blanca.

“Mother hen” Emma could be seen up ahead as we pushed into the wind on the awful pull from LZ1 to Teguise, shepherding her group along.  All groups decided to carry on up to Teguise to avoid the awful Nazaret road – although Linda was wise enough to ride a bit of it in order to see just what all teh fuss was about, in preparation for her ironman race here in May.  Lance and Jo came pretty close to putting the others to the sword as they got in sight of home along the rolling road through La Geria – both feeling relatively good at this point, or maybe just “less worse” than the rest!  Nearing the end of this stretch Steven finally discovered the source of his “squeak”, that had got progressively worse through camp, when during the final surge he head a crack and found the crank spider arms had snapped in three places. Luckily it was downhill to the finish and his three companions were sympathetic ;o)

Jo’s day is captured in this shaky little film ….

The other riders finished soon after with all looking pretty chuffed and tired with nearly 8 hours in the saddle each. Andrew and “Linda The Incredible”  quickly donned running gear and headed off for a 62+ minute run. This together with Rob’s run earlier of 62 minutes were all specifically in order to please Steven, as it bumped the camps Eddington number up to 61. It’s going to be a tough one to move much in coming years. This was a very impressive effort giving them two of the three longest days ever on camp. Linda was the first person ever to swim, bike and run on the final day giving a massive 9h43 of training time. This didn’t stop her dancing with the rest in to the early hours….reportedly getting to bed past 6am!! She didn’t manage to outlast Mel in that regard, though having completed the full Ironman route with Frank in 6hr 43, had probably had a nap before the rest of us were home.

Gregory not only completed the course but together with Lance became the first to finish the Ironman++ route clocking 204km and over 3,000m ascent. This secured Gregory’s win in the camp points competition which wins him a race entry in a My Tri Club race of his choice.

This camp we managed to average 31:24 hours of training each. This includes Rob our TriTouch masseuse and Ali Mills,camp physio who, being “normal people”  both did a lot less). The range for those completing the camp was from 31hr56 to 38hrs08 – easily surpassing our original goal of everyone doing 30 hours in six days. There are a lot more stats and figures where these came from, care of Steven Lord’s obsessive logging – and we will follow with a post detailing this in the next few days.

Right now, having said sad good byes to everyone as we dropped them at the airport through the day – we’re knackered!  It has been a blast, and we feel so lucky to have had such a really great group of athletes come out and experience the unique sort of training environment that we try to create. This bunch, although possibly the widest spread of speed we have had amongst any group to date, have all really got stuck in and risen to the challenges we have set them through the week.

I do hope that they gain confidence, as well as fitness, as a result if having exceeded their expectations of how much they could do.

Finally  – we will be running the Lanzarote Endurance Camp at the same time of year in  2014-  if you’re interested please do drop us a line at coaches@everydaytraining.org.uk.

For details on our other upcoming camps

Today’s schedule is logistically the toughest day on our camp because there are so many races. It is also a pretty tough day for the athletes (as we discovered this year with both Jo and Steven taking part in both races), when we ask them to deep beyond their fatigue, and perform head to head in some intense handicapped racing. The handicapping system ensures that everyone is motivated, not just those who are accustomed to winning, and it is stunning how deep people CAN dig under such circumstances. The schedule is slightly more relaxed for the athletes with only short rides routes allowing a little more time to relax between the main events of the day and some recovery for the saddle contact areas ahead of the Ironman route on Friday and the chance to gain some wild cards to lesson the final day load.

We start with our swim handicap race. As everyone sets off at intervals carefully calculated from their aquathlon swim splits, watching the early starters swim away it’s hard to believe that they could really be caught. All week we’ve had calm weather for all our swims which has meant fewer navigation errors and a more accurate handicap. This resulted in all the athletes finishing in such rapid succession of athletes that it was impossible for Ali to record all the finish times -it was hard enough just spotting the finish order! Steven was last off on handicap, and up until the final 300m leg of the course, was was still in second last place. With a huge effort he managed to pass all but Stephen, who had been the first off, and Mel, who did just enough to stay one place ahead of him the entire race. Jo’s start was very shortly before John and Greg – who were both set off together – they very quickly came past, and she took the opportunity to ride their two sets of feet. Not the most efficient positioning in terms of a draft apparently, but with one swimmer on each side double the chance of retaining contact with the faster-paced duo. This made for one of the hardest, but most fun, swim races that she’s been involved in…and it was only in the shallows that the three of them separated on account of their relative heights and strength to run through the surf. As we all looked around, we could see other swimmers involved in the same head-to-head sprints for the line, then doubled over with the exertions that such close racing provides. Stephen’s great performance as the “bait that got away” won the handicap competition, for which he wins a pair of BlueSeventy swim trunks.

The focus of todays ride was just to get up Femes. We had a few slight variations on the route options, with some just doing the minimum ride (with a wildcard), some doing extra before, some extra after and some extra before and after….but we still managed to coordinate so that all the different groups had merged on the long drag from Playa Blanca. The weather was not kind with a headwind on that long drag, and with many weary legs amongst us the dark clouds were casting a bit of a shadow of doom in some people’s minds! As it was, everyone did make it up the steep Femes climb of course,  though Andrew admitted that he stopped part- way: how he got back on we cannot fathom. Coffees and cake were enjoyed at the top before two groups set off back, Jo and Emma took Lance, Greg and Frank up and over Fire Mountain, whilst Steven returned with the others in order that he could could spend some time with a couple of the guys that Jo filmed swimming yesterday and give them some technique pointers. The Ladies ride seemed to turn into a bit of a “ding-dong” – with each taking turns to push the pace…and then shortly regret it as the hurt quickly accumulated and a counter push was launched. Even Emma was seen to be out of the saddle on a few of the undulations!  The “red zone” had definitely been redefined at a lower intensity as a result of the previous 4 days…..but we took some small solace in the knowledge that everyone else was in the same boat, and also had a 10 k foot race to do in a short few hours!

The final points-scoring race is our 10k handicapped run race along the Avena Las Playas – a route that previous participants of the Ironman here know well! As a little bit of an extra fun, we ask everyone to guess the time they will do and then to remove their watched for the race. Most people under-estimate how quick they will go, and in fact as we jogged there I think many people wondered how they would even manage a 10k run at all. But once the gun goes, and those handicapped earlier starts can be seen as targets to chase down, one by one, everyone finds that extra something from somewhere. Rob was off first doing his run-walk and wearing bright luminous orange top making him an easy target to spot. About 17 minutes later our last runner Matthew was off with all others at intervals in between ( handicaps calculated form the aquathlon run split). There was a tough headwind on the way out, and so it felt like hard work making any progress to close the gaps, but it did all come together towards the end. In these sort of races it’s  helpful to realise that if the handicap was perfect you wouldn’t catch anyone till the final 100m or so as an incentive to keep pushing to the line. With a well calculated handicapping you should expect some sprint finishes, which we did see between Steven (2nd last starter) and Rob ( first off).  Everyone did finish within 10 minutes  – but other than a very tired final finisher, an outlier, everyone finished within 4 minutes of each other. The spread here really illustrates that a good endurance base helps a lot with a week like this, as the handicap is favoured towards those who’s paces drop off the least after 3- 4 solid long days of training. At this early time of year after a harsh winter in the UK, most people have not yet been putting in those long hours required to attain that base level yet. Those who have either raced late in the 2012 season, managed some training through winter in warmer climates or through sheer doggedness, or are more accustomed to the occasional big training weeks are holding up just a bit better……and even getting stronger through the camp in some cases. 

Jo was first across the line catching Gregory within the last 2km leg. He hung in to finish 2nd ( first “camper”) which secured him the prize of a pair of Vibram Fivefingers from Primal Lifestyle. This great result  also cemented his lead in the overall camp competition, requiring him only to complete the Ironman bike route tomorrow to seal the win. Matthew flew round the course in 39 minutes giving him the 2nd fastest time ever, only 8seconds slower than Roger Canham’s record which was set last year in far lighter winds. He also predicted his time to within 30 seconds which though was not actually the closest guess (this was Steven with an estimate only 17seconds off, the closest we’ve had yet on any camp) it won him the prize of a two hour run session with Helen at 10-Point Tri. As usual most under estimated how quick they’d run however John, who came in last, was extremely optimistic with his guess and for this (sadly mis-placed) optimism he’s won a run session with Helen at 10-Point Tri.

Emma, or ride leader from The Morvelo-Kinesis Project, has put together a couple of short films from the day’s swim and run races

So now it’s “only” the Ironman – or the extended Ironman in some cases –  route to go tomorrow.

Yesterday Linda had been persuaded to swim out to collect our buoy after the aquathlon, earning herself a swim wild-card for today. She immediately gave it to Andrew allowing him a sleep in and was up at the crack of dawn for an extended swim, with Stephen and Jo this morning. The rest of the group were swimming at just after 7am and completed a lap of the Ironman course. It seems that she has truly got caught up in the challenge of gaining the most hours of training this camp!

The main even today was the Tabeyesco TT. This was handicapped (off our El Golfo TT on day 1) and would be for points. We all know that “points mean prizes”, and in this case we have a Freespeed bike fit to give away. We took the least pleasant, but most direct route to the start of the climb, riding friendly to preserve our energies, though Steven managed to make a real shambles of getting his group through San Bartelome, adamantly blaming it on the new one way system and thereafter  felt obliged to sit on the front of the group all of the way along the LZ-1 to make up the lost time.

Everyone set off at 1 minute intervals based on their handicap order. Through the camp we draw on this competitive element, which really helps most people to get a surprising amount out of themselves despite being very tired on day four of the camp. Emma kindly agreed to go ahead and record the timings at the top so that for the first time on any of our camps, rather than having to time her own ride 5 minutes ahead of the “real” race, Jo was able to start on in handicap order. This really demonstrated how important this aspect is, since for the first time Emma’s time wasn’t as super -fast as she usually would be, whilst Jo cranked out an awesome 32:15-  ranking as the fifth fastest ascent out of all our camps. To put this in perspective only Steven and Jon Heasman have ever gone faster on the camp. Mel continued to show how strong her cycling is with a 35:25 which is a 3 minute PB. Matthew showed he must be pretty handy with a multitool as his crank fell off just as he turned on to the zig zags, he fixed it and still finished in 39 minutes. Steven managed to post the fastest time of the day in 30:43, which is the fastest ever ridden on one of our camps. Some decent pedalling.

Check out the film on You Tube

Lance’s excellent third fastest 33:35 was enough for him to win on handicap and thus get the Freespeed bike fit. He didn’t compete in the aquathlon which means he won’t complete the camp and as such Gregory is leading the points competition with 9 points.

Everyone enjoyed a coffee and food in the cafe at the top of Haria whilst Jo worked out the provisional results. Then we split pretty much in two with half of us heading straight back to give time for a longer run, or the opportunity for a more relaxed afternoon by playing run wild cards earned yesterday.

Those that chose to ride longer had an interesting afternoon, with a multitude of mechanicals all occurring within a very short time of leaving the cafe. First there were two punctures together with a faulty tube and a broken valve. As it happened, we were already on our way to Pro Bike to fix various bikes including: a new bolt for a set of cranks two inner tubes, a tyre, a new computer battery. Whilst there we discovered the need for new bearings for a front wheel, two other front wheels bearings tightening, and a new headset. We are lucky that it happened today when we had the time, but it did reduce our ride :o(

Already back at the PdC base, Andrew and Linda each went out and ran 12k immediatly after returning from their rides. Andrew appears to be getting stronger through the camp which augers well for Friday. This run kept Linda in the lead for total camp hours. Jo was the only one to take up her offer of a long run with a 20km trail run – one of the longest runs ever done on camp…or so we thought until Matthew returned from his late-afternoon run in the middle of dinner, having run 26.5km in 2hr 19!! This batch of campers are proving to be a seriously hard-core!

Tomorrow is a big day with two final races which will pretty much decide the camp winner, assuming that that person manages to complete the camp by riding the Ironman route on Friday.

You can follow Emma’s updates from camp via her Kinesis-Morvelo Project blog

We began the day with one of the most enjoyable events of the camp: the aquathlon. Designed by Steven with swim-heavy distances (1.3km swim with a 4.6km run – 2 laps in each) and this year he was finally able to take part for himself. The first lap of the swim was uneventful with everyone following a nice straight line to the buoy. It should be noted that although a very bright orange rubber ring, and the largest that we could find in the beach front shops here in PdC, our buoy is not huge, and once swimming it’s difficult to see. Steven, first out of the water at the end of lap one, ran around the land-buoy (Jo) and dove back in for his second lap. His sighting must have been a bit off as we watched him swimming an arrow straight line back out to sea, but about 45 degrees off course to the right. Mel following closely, spotted his mistake but then obviously overcompensated and made an equally poor line to the left. Everyone else,  managed to make a perfectly straight line back out to see, with the race leaders continued to swim in opposite directions parallel to the shore. It was hilarious to watch! The results prove the swim speed of these two though, as Steven was still first out of the water and Mel in second place, not very far behind. Gregory and John finished their swim together in joint 3rd place.

Matthew’s swim time was decent but  tailing the lead by 3 minutes in 6th place, but after a swift transition his blistering run beat Tim’s record time from last year by 57 seconds, and was sufficient to catch all ahead Steven, who had the second fastest run  of the day and posted a new all -time camp aquathlon record. Mel continued her consistent run of top three finishes in all of our camp aquathlon races so far.

It was fun to watch everyone really giving it their all in this early morning blast, which we will use to handicap our swim and run races for points towards the camp competition.

The ride today was the Ocean Lava course. Steven took out the first group and Jo rode with the faster paced the second wave. Steven’s group rode steady and compact and kept a lid on their efforts. Coming along the LZ2 towards El Golfo Jo’s group of 4 came flying by in tight formation. Having established that everyone else was intending to play wild-cards and to ride a shorter version of the route, which excluded Fermes,  Emma, Frank and Lance decided to join them and headed off on the chase to latch on. The rest went round El Golfo and then had a lengthy stop in Yaiza for a leisurely lunch. It took long enough that we all managed to regroup after Jo’s group and been round El Golfo, down to Playa Blanca and up Femes.

Famously not a fan of loitering in cafes, the “fast” group were generously allowed 20 minutes (enough time for Rob to have 2 coffees!) before continuing on the longer rid, which included a bit of an add-on to the Ocean Lava route for 4hrs in total. There had clearly been some damage caused by the combination of the morning’s hard racing and the bitter gradient of Femes, and so we adopted a pretty smooth “through and off” rotation from Tinajo back along through La Geria and home.

Rob, who has had to really dial back his running this year due to a knackered knee was keen for a bit of a longer ride, and Jo and Lance who’d both missed out on the aquathlon racing were keen to join him. Ro

b clearly stated that he’d prefer a route for some “flatter, faster miles” ….. but quickly showed his weakness at the first suggestion of a route that repeated the El Golfo loop before investigating the approach to Femes climb via Las Brenas, as per the actual Ocean Lava course, for comparison against what we had done earlier in the ride. We were all pretty broken by the top …and glad it was just a short ride downhill to get home.

Almost everyone heading out for a second run this afternoon in order to secure a run wild card for tomorrow. Many of those runs were well above the minimum required for the wild card, and over an hour….thus moving our camp daily run duration Eddington Number up to 60minutes

Many of the campers appear to be heading for a really big week and at the mid-way point of the camp it looks like there is a good chance we’ll get best ever bike and run distances from some of them. It’s a good thing that we have some great recovery options here: The Powerbar recovery shakes seem to be going down a treat ( well they sure are in the coaches residence), Rob has been kept busy with post-training massages whilst Ali has been making sure that we DO our stretches each evening.

I’m sure that the Happy Hour beers and Pre -Dinner Gin and Tonic rituals are also helping hugely too. 

Emma, of The Kinesis-Morvelo Project put together today’s video clip. You can follow Emma’s updates from camp via her Kinesis-Morvelo Project blog