Finally spring has arrived in Ohio. Though it's been really wet and not good training weather, the flowers are sprouting up everywhere and my grass is out of control. I started my spring training just as I have for the last 3-years by heading down to the North Georgia mountain region of Helen, GA for a week of training at what is now become an annual training camp for many of my HFP training buddies.
This camp for me is really about jump starting my training and shocking my system into shape. Going into the camp my longest outdoor bike ride for me was about 1:45 and included very few hills and certainly NO mountain passes. I count on my 20+ years of base training to keep me from struggling too much. However, this year was the added challenge of very warm weather for most of the workouts. When I left Ohio it was 38 degrees and when I saddled up for our first official ride it was 82 degrees with considerably humid. We start the camp off each year with the same workout - a bike ride to the highest point in Georgia, Brasstown Bald.
The ride started off with a pretty pedestrian pace (for about 3 miles), before everyone's fresh legs could no longer be held back and the pace was picked up before the base of the first mountain pace. I was shocked at how I was already at the end of my ribbon before the start of the climb. Not good. As we headed up the 4+ mile mountain pace I immediately unzipped my jersey and was begging for mercy. The temperature change was huge and my body was not liking it. Last year I wussed out and did not do the final climb to Brasstown as I labeled it "optional" in the training schedule so I took the "option" and waited for the hardcore campers to do their thing. This year I was not missing out on this epic climb regardless of how bad I felt. With the weather changing quickly to what looked like a rain storm, we quickly headed up this 3+ mile 8-20% grade climb. Here is a link to a great description of this climb. One of our campers bet me $10.00 bucks I could not sit the entire climb - he lost that bet. There are sections of this climb that even with a 28 rear cog I was forced to ride back in forth in the road just to keep from falling over.
The rest of the training camp featured one epic workout after another. It's amazing how training with a group one can push to another level that just not possible by yourself. One of the highlights for me was a 3+ hour 18 mile trail run with over 5000 feet of climbing. The longest run before that workout for me was about 45 minutes. This is what this training camp is all about - pushing yourself to another limit and as they say "Misery loves company" - thanks to all the campers that made this years camp such a great time.
Upon returning from the camp I was immediately thrown into my full on dress rehearsal that Monday night for my church's Passion Play - Bow the Knee. I have the privilege of being the Crucified Christ during the play and have had the fortunate opportunity to have done so the last 20 years. Dress rehearsal was Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday with the actual play taking place Thursday through Sunday night.
To complicate matters a bit, this coincided with the first HFP race of the season - the sold out Miami University Student Foundation Triathlon. For the first time in the history of the event I would not be there for any of the pre-event setup. This would be handled by my very capable staff. I finished up the Friday night play around 9:00pm and was on the road heading to Oxford by 9:15pm. I arrived a little before midnight to find all of my staff still up and eating a late night snack at Skyline. More power to them - I headed for my hotel room. With just a short nap in before the alarm went off at 3:15am I was certainly not rested. By the time the race was over and we were cleaned up there was not a lot of wiggle room for me getting back to the church for the Saturday night show - I arrived 15 minutes late but still plenty of time to get my 60+ minutes of gruesome makeup on.
After a whirlwind start to my spring I was finally looking forward to having nothing to do on the weekend but get in some training. That Friday night I finished up the chapter of Lance Armstrong's book "It's not about the bike" (I know...I'm the last one to finally read the book) where he describes getting his cycling Mo Jo back with a week of hard training in the mountains of Boone, NC - all in the rain and with temperatures only in the 40's. His description of his final day of training was so epic I was determined the next morning to find my cycling Mo Jo too. I even was looking forward to predicted rainy dreary day. However, the rain held off and my epic 4+ hour ride was pure joy. No particular pace - just enjoying being on the bike and exploring new roads. About two hours into the ride I sent a text to my wife "Feeling really blessed today :)" - her reply made me fell even better - "Awesome - kids are having fun outside and I'm getting a lot done". Perfect - now it was a "guilt free" ride too!
Bring it!
HFP Man
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Saturday, January 1, 2011
New Years Day Epic Run
Happy New Year everyone!
It's always great to bring in a new year with much excitement and hope. For many of us the new year always starts off with a workout and for me that means gathering together with some of my best buddies and getting an EPIC workout in – usually a run.
For 2011 we decided to meet at my house and run the Lobdell Trail loop. This epic loop features more than 6 significant creek crossings and with a sudden warm-up in weather that meant “swollen” creek crossings. Of course that thrilled all of us as we assembled at my house ready for the 90+ minute run. It was already 48 degrees and warm enough for shorts (for some of us) and for my young neighbor Isaac, warm enough for shorts and a sleeveless t-shirt.
It’s a short 2k road run to the park where most of us (except for Isaac) shed some clothes at the park PJ as we were already too warm. This particular park is mostly used by horseman and the trails are very beat up and offer pretty bad footing. Within the first 400 yards we came to our first knee deep creek crossing which was easy enough to cross but provided a serious cold shock to the legs. All of us agreed with little to no feeling in our feet it forced us to move along at a pretty good clip to warm back up. This was the scenario for the entire run – run till you feet warmed up, then another creek crossing to numb them back up.
Sadly no one did a face plant or slipped head over heels into the creek (which makes this blog much less interesting) but we did enjoy old stories and remembered some of our past epic workouts from long ago (when we were all much younger). We concluded our workout standing in my driveway sharing our racing goals for 2011. Mine was to run faster and have another PR at Miami Man, Mark wanted to just keep pace with 2010, Don thinks losing 20 pounds will surely make Ironman Louisville a lot easier and Isaac hoped he still had a job with HFP in 2011 – we’ll see about that one!
Bring it,
HFP Man
It's always great to bring in a new year with much excitement and hope. For many of us the new year always starts off with a workout and for me that means gathering together with some of my best buddies and getting an EPIC workout in – usually a run.
For 2011 we decided to meet at my house and run the Lobdell Trail loop. This epic loop features more than 6 significant creek crossings and with a sudden warm-up in weather that meant “swollen” creek crossings. Of course that thrilled all of us as we assembled at my house ready for the 90+ minute run. It was already 48 degrees and warm enough for shorts (for some of us) and for my young neighbor Isaac, warm enough for shorts and a sleeveless t-shirt.
It’s a short 2k road run to the park where most of us (except for Isaac) shed some clothes at the park PJ as we were already too warm. This particular park is mostly used by horseman and the trails are very beat up and offer pretty bad footing. Within the first 400 yards we came to our first knee deep creek crossing which was easy enough to cross but provided a serious cold shock to the legs. All of us agreed with little to no feeling in our feet it forced us to move along at a pretty good clip to warm back up. This was the scenario for the entire run – run till you feet warmed up, then another creek crossing to numb them back up.
Sadly no one did a face plant or slipped head over heels into the creek (which makes this blog much less interesting) but we did enjoy old stories and remembered some of our past epic workouts from long ago (when we were all much younger). We concluded our workout standing in my driveway sharing our racing goals for 2011. Mine was to run faster and have another PR at Miami Man, Mark wanted to just keep pace with 2010, Don thinks losing 20 pounds will surely make Ironman Louisville a lot easier and Isaac hoped he still had a job with HFP in 2011 – we’ll see about that one!
Bring it,
HFP Man
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