EverydayTraining

The sixth running of our camp and as usual, on the flight home we’re already chatting about all the ideas that we’ve had between us for next year’s camp! We feel that it’s a special year as we’re “Everyday” Training and it will be the 7th year of this camp and last week’s camp has really filled us with enthusiasm. Continue reading →

Since everyone had earned a wild card yesterday morning after the swim race, most of the campers appreciated the extra half hour sleep, and by 8am several were queueing outside the dining room to ensure they had enough time to at least partially digest breakfast before the early starts of the day’s ride. 180km for most, and 200km for the fastest group would require 8-9 hours to allow stops,
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The penultimate day on camp is always very full-on and exciting day – despite a clear sense of fatigue now amongst the group – because we have the last two handicapped races which will decide our camp rankings going into the last day’s ride.
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Another 7am start for the chance to swim the Ironman course. We still have campers that are not only training hard but managing to enjoy a little bit of the night life Puerto Del Carmen has to offer. I think the early morning cold water swimming helps recovery from any excess from the night before!
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Well, the tone has been well and truly set by Phil and Robin – “elite” group cyclists by day and party boys by night – and one or two of our regular campers don’t need too much persuasion onto the dance floor it seems! Despite another evening of mild clubbing, everyone was assembled at 0645 for our traditional mid-camp aquathlon race. This pre breakfast swim-run race seems a bit daunting even to those who were not out on the tiles, but Steven and I always enjoy seeing how much the enthusiasm builds during the race;  partly because it’s the first time that the campers, having spent 2 days “competing” on the bikes, have a chance to test one another’s running and partly as a result of the support and encouragement that everyone gives to one another throughout.  Continue reading →

Well, we certainly have one “first” already on this camp – out on the town on day 1!! But despite the alleged disco dancing in Route 66, everyone was up and ready bright eyed and wetsuit clad for a 7am dip in the sea.

The second day of camp is one of only two without a race. However, there is an informal race to practice starts and exits. This morning’s swim was  our starts and turns session – sure to get the adrenaline flowing! 

Jo took the campers out for a warm up lap round the buoys whilst I went and placed our marker buoy (an orange rubber ring we bought during the first camp). I had to take it out a little further than normal otherwise we would have pretty much been able run round it in waste deep water. So, it was placed about 75m out, and many commented about the extra distance. We do an initial race to establish pairs for the main race, and as usual this is probably the roughest swim start I encounter all year with feet pulling (by both John and Phil) and barging into the buoy, which I inflicted on John who at one point appeared to be swimming through the buoy.

Having paired people up (fastest goes with slowest, second fastest with second slowest and so on, in order to create roughly equal teams) we then proceeded with a 4-lap relay, alternating tuns within our pairs. Most people are doubled over and gasping for air after their 150m effort, and i’m sure that everyone works so much harder for their team mate than they would in a solo effort.  It’s great practice for beach race starts, I’ve had a couple of repeat campers comment that this has helped them get over the fear of a swim start. It’s amazing that just having 18 people racing in to the water can raise the adrenaline and can mimic that flat out initial effort in close contact with others.

Jo is perhaps getting tired; Matthew and I both watched as she filled her water bottle and continued to fill for a good 5seconds after it was full. She claimed it was a ‘micro nap’

Today’s ride was, we knew,  going to be one of the toughest of the week, and with the strong winds it was going to be even harder. An initial 55km in to a headwind to Orzola at the North of the Island. Then a 10k 500m climb before coming back down the spine of the Island, in theory with a good  tailwind all the way home. The wildcard option was to drop 300m down from Haria to climb Tabeyesco thus recce’ing the TT that we’ll race on Wednesday. Everyone would ride between 130 and 145km, with at least half of that into the teeth of a pretty heavy wind.

We had three groups today. All reported having  great days ride and it sounded like everyone pulled together in to that headwind. Jo’s “medium” group could lay claim to actually being the fast group with most riding the course quicker that all but a few of the fast group and that’s despite having fewer people to share the load in to the wind. My group had fun chain ganging the majority of the head wind sections. Not only faster but the time really flies by. At Orzolo all 3 of our the groups came together briefly. We always try with our timings to have the groups meet up and this time it worked great. My group and Emma’s group met up again at the Mirador del Rio together, a quick photo stop and somehow we and we also ended up having lunch in the same cafe at Haria with them! Very social, despite different ride routes and riding pace.

The majority  of the campers (all those in Jo’s group and my own group)  chose  to add on the descent down to climb Tabeyesco. The ride down the whole spine of the Island wasn’t as good as I’d hoped for since  the wind was slightly cross rather than a direct tailwind from the typical direction.  It was meant to be an easy addition but the consensus seems to be it was good but also rather cruel to go straight by the turn for our usual route home and instead finish with about 8k in to the headwind.

Everyone stayed on course for camp completion either by using the wild cards earned from running an hour yesterday (or bought off Matthew for a gin and tonic ) or by getting out and running at least 30 minutes. It means everyone had over 6 hours training for the day giving well over 11 hours for the camp so far.

Let’s see how many hit the clubs tonight!!

Our first day on camp began, as usual, in the very dim light that our 7am offered- and 16 slightly apprehensive athletes struggling to see the very distinctive yellow swim buys that Steven and I were pointing out to them. A triangular circuit of approximately 750m marked out by a new set of swim buoys provided by Puerto Del Carmen beach management meant that with 2 laps, we’d fulfilled our daily 30 minute swim. This seems to be one of the most evenly matched group of swimmer we’ve had on a camp so far – to the extent that we experienced quite a realistic bit of “crushing” as we rounded each buoy. One or two of the guys found that their GPS had measured just shy of a “mile”, and wanted to swim a few more hundred “yards” …so we completed their Ye Olde imperial swim target with them for a few extra minutes in the water ( no wild cards for that though!). 

As per tradition on camp, we do the El Golfo Time trial – this is mainly for the purpose of establishing handicap times for the Tabeyasco Hill climb later in the week ( which has camp points attached) but also enables a relatively short ride on the first day, but that is sufficiently intense for all those fresh legs and bundles of testosterone that have just come off the plane! Again, it’s a strong and fairly evenly matched group on the bike this year, and predict that it will take a few days to settle into out three different paced groups –  first impression that everyone could potentially ride together in one large group – albeit somewhat harder for some than others. of course this is not really what we want, and with 3 ride leaders feel it’s better to split into three groups of slightly different pace and a more manageable size.

Today has been a rather overcast, cool and windy day…in fact the winds coming from a slightly odd direction and with some force..making this one of the harder years around that “sporting” 16 km loop that I can remember. Even so, the results which you can see below rank very well – Steven an I rode about 5 minutes slower our best times ( both in 2014 on TT bike and in good conditions) whilst Wayne was only 2 minutes off his previous best time ( from last year).The average times of this group were 30:33, compared to the average across all camps of 30:03 ( i.e given the conditions, not far off standard and similar to the very tough conditions in 2012)   – but with a range (difference between slowest and fastest time) of only 9.5 minutes compared to an typical range of around 15minutes.

Following the “fun” around the race course, we regrouped in the cafe in Yaiza to deliver the provisional results…..and news of a surprise new feature to this year’s camp. Emma and I had been out exploring the south parts of the island a couple of days ago, and discovered a dead -end road from Yaiza to a small settlement in the surrounding hills. Whilst disappointing in it’s lack of a cafe, the top did offer spectacular views over El Golfo, the national park and Fire Mountain – as well as a tasty 3km ascent with a sharp kick in the tail. We were also intrigued to discover that this was a stretch of road seldom ridden by Strava users, and that our very leisurely ride to the top had ranked us 2nd and 3rd on that particular segment …just 4 minutes behind the fastest time, which was actually held by a dutch woman.  We knew that this piece of news would make it rather easy to sell it to our male-dominant camp, and so everyone was game for this “optional” add -on. We used the ranking from El Golfo TT to establish start order, and set the campers off at 30second gaps …..the challenge starts with long roll out very gradual ascent before hitting a “wall” which, if going full bore along this first bit, can only be tackled by standing on the pedals and digging deep for a few more minutes, before the road dips back down to 5 or 6% for the last blast to the line. We ensured that our start and finish points encompassed the segment that had been created on Strava, certain that our best climbers would have eared positions high in the rankings, if not a King/Queen of the Mountain from amongst the group (for a few days at least!). Personally I was pleased to have beaten Aine by a whole second ,and Emma by a little more

…but rather disappointed to find that I was still more than a minute behind the Queen of the official segment…that is until Steven also discovered that he was still a few seconds off her time, and a little investigation via Emma;s contacts at Britsh Cycling revealed that she was indeed 2014 BC national hill climb champion….and probably riding up there for a picnic and an unusual photograph of the island on that occasion. Still, she must have been worried….

The standard planned route after that was the nice descent back to Yaiza and then the most direct route back to the hotel…however ony 4 of us took that option – the remainder rode as two groups over Fire Mountain or a “wild card” …or really just for an extra 20km of riding, into a stiff headwind up the climb for the reward of a very nice “swooshy” ride back across the lava field home.

The day ended with a camp minimum 30 minutes run, and by this time the sun had emerged back in Puerto Del Carmen, and it was very pleasant, relaxed run along the seafront. A few smart and seasoned campers took the opportunity of a relatively early return from the bike to clock up a “double” run of an hour , and earn a wildcard to use after the much longer ride that we have planned for tomorrow. The rest decided that being back for Happy Hour at the hotel’s pool bar, or the chance of a massage, was a preferable alternative to round of an enjoyable first day on camp.

Another successful camp completed, our fifth, and if the post-camp party is anything to go by everyone bonded well and had a fantastic time getting themselves and one-anther through the week.

Over the years we’ve tweaked the camp a little each year but the broad format has remained the same. It works well and gets everyone motivated. The main goal of these camps is to provide the opportunity, environment and support to get a big week’s training done and in the process hopefully redefine what many athletes believe they can do. To complete the camp will typically take a minimum of 30 hours; six days of 30 minutes swim, 4 hour ride and 30 minutes run. This year we’ve had a particularly strong and motivated bunch of athletes here which is reflected in the average hours per camper who managed to log 34:40 each across six days training. This is a full 90 minutes more on average per camper than the best previous camp (2012).

With our two crazy running guys duking it out to take the camp run distance record. It was set last year by Matthew at just over 86km and in a week like ours I felt that was put out of reach for the vast majority – especially as this is a bike focussed camp. However, this year Tony arrived gunning for it and Matthew rose to the bait. By close of play on day 5 Tony was on 103km and had achieved his pre camp goal of 100k and Matthew was on 115k. Quite sensible they called a truce that night. I’ll be truly impressed if any betters either mark whilst still achieving camp completion. Remarkable because whilst Matthew is in training for a Quintruple Ironman this year ( Iron-distance a day for 5 day format) whereas Tony is not training for anything in particular – he just fancied the challenge!  

We’ve never had over 500 miles ridden on camp but this year Rob, returning for the fourth time, is training for the Trans Continental race later in the year. He’s turned up on his bike for that – steel, thick tyres and various bags to try out. He certainly wasn’t making it easy for himself. His goal of 150km a day was achieved on all but day 5 when he took it a little easy and helped out with 10k marshalling. He did however crack the 500 miles getting a total of 892km – another mark which will be very tough to beat whilst also completing the camp.

Matthew took the camp hours up a notch with an impressive 44:12 made up of 10.6k swim, 812k riding (thus breaking the old bike record and the 500 mile mark) and 115k running. Thats one hell of a 6 day training block. Many had a smile when they realised he was human and couldn’t face running on the final day.

Last year on the guess you time, no watch, 10k we had two people 5s off. That was an amazing effort and one I thought would take while to better. Given 20 athletes running you’d always expect one to be close. This year we had half the field within a minute (11th was 1:04 off). I wonder whether finally people are taking note of the fact most completely under estimate how quick they can run. Being 25s off was only good enough for 5th and 9s off gave you joint second. This was because Jo managed to better the record by being only 3s off. How long will it be before we get a guess bang on?

We have some ideas for slight tweaks in routes for next year. The Femes day and Tabeyesco day are such classics we can’t imagine changing them especially as it allows the whole camp to enjoy a mid ride coffee and cake together. We added in the Teguise Castle Sprint this year and it was a huge success. It would be nice to do it again but I wonder if we can do it after Tabeyesco again. This year no one knew till they’d done the main climb. I think if they did they may not give it full beans.

We thoroughly enjoyed the camp again and are already sorting out dates for next year. So please drop us a line if you’re interested in a fantastic weeks full on training with your triathlon peers.