Days three and four

Camp has been really busy and I'm falling behind on blogging. The unshaven look has become a trend at the camp, due to laziness caused by the training and busy schedule. Lot's of laughs are happening though, as these campers have really gelled.

Let me try and recap quickly the past two days:

Tuesday began with a swim session which ended in some relays. Swim Stud Bill Daniels anchored the winning relay, but big Leo gave him a challenge.

Next, we rode out to Colossal Cave. I had told everyone in the morning that since the previous day we rode Lemmon, we were going to go easy, yet I wanted them to push a bit. Not that I'm deceitful, but if I had told them all that they were going to be pacelining and working hard that morning, it would have freaked them out. Needless to say, they all rose to the challenge even though they climbed Lemmon the day before.

We quickly regrouped at the hotel and headed over to Sabino Canyon where we did an easy 30 to 45 minute brick run, then we all soaked our aching legs in the canyon creek, and had a discussion on nutrition. Of course, I always veer off course and went into the mental side of sport.

Today, we began with a run in Sabino Canyon up the Seven Falls trail. I have run this the past two years but we never went nearly as far as this year and man was it worth it! This trail further up even blew away the Telephone Line trail here in terms of beauty, funness, and sheer coolness. Unfortunately for Gus, Frosty, and Carri, they were following me, and I took a bit of a detour on what I thought was a trail. Long story short, we had to do some actual rock climbing to get out of the canyon and back on the trail. They all kept a great attitude about it and seemed to roll with the challenge and the adventure - this I like. Too often, people are freaked by deviations in their training and it throws off their whole attitude. The pictures Frosty took are amazing - I'll try to get some posted. the run turned out to be just over two hours for most.

We then headed over to a beautiful long course pool that had maybe 20 lanes and sat outdoors right below a mountain. I was even tempted to swim! The group did a solid 4000 to 5000 meters and we finished up video work. Afterwards, we grabbed some lunch and then headed over to trisports so the campers could spend some cash. More bike fits, swim video analysis, and some massage, and it was dinner time.

Dinners are a key part of the training camp. This is where you get to relax, learn more about each person, share war stories from the day, and just socialize. This group has really been a lot of fun and a few leave tomorrow - the end of camp is always a bummer.

Most of the campers have been impressive but I have to commend Dan Frost - he has become stronger each day here. His ego was never a factor, and it appears that he took to heart what I mentioned the first day in that you need to drop the thought of success and failure to truly excel. It's funny, there are many camps out there who's purpose seems as though it's too just destroy the attending athletes. Many of these athletes get too broken down, injured, sick, or fried to the point that they need a week off to recover. What good is that? they try to justify this by saying that you break through boundaries. Trust me, the athletes here are working a lot and hard, yet I want them coming away from here stronger, not trashed. I want them to parlay this experience into a bunch of solid, motivated training weeks upon leaving here. That's how you break through boundaries.

Well, as they say down here in El Tucson; Aguave and sodi por favor.

Cheers,

EH