The stats are in!!!
SWIMMING: ~2.5 hours
BIKING: ~10 hours and 11,600+ feet of climbing
RUNNING: ~4.5 hours and 3,300+ feet of climbing
BIKING: ~10 hours and 11,600+ feet of climbing
RUNNING: ~4.5 hours and 3,300+ feet of climbing
TOTAL: 17+ hours of training and over 14,900 feet of climbing in 4 days!!!
They swam......
They biked.....
They ran.....
The 2015 Trimarni Greenville training camp is now complete and our exhausted campers are just a few days of recovery away from a mega boost in fitness!!!
When Karel and I moved to Greenville last May, we quickly discovered that Greenville was a beautiful place to live but our new training playground was not easy.
Easy is not a word that we can use in our vocabulary when it comes to running or biking outside and because of our terrain, we have no choice but to adapt to our training environment.
For over a year, Karel and I still find ourselves feeling/getting stronger with every workout. And you have no choice but to learn to become mentally tough here in Greenville if you choose to train outside (and how could anyone not want to be outside with our nature-filled, bike and run friendly roads).
After two camps in Clermont, Florida we knew that we needed to have a camp in Greenville for endurance-focused athletes as there is no better place for athletes to improve confidence in challenging terrain, than in Greenville, SC.
Karel and I are strong proponents of training camps as we feel it is good for our athletes to intentionally check out of life for a few days one time before a key race (whereas the majority of the season we need our athletes to stay balanced with family, work, life, etc.). With this training camp, our athletes provide an environment (and mindset) that they will intentionally place a tremendous amount of stress on the body to train through planned fatigue and to work on fueling/hydration. Recovery is a key element in the training camp so in the case of traveling for a training camp, it's easy to have no excuses when it comes to relaxing post workout in a condo/house or hotel room. Whereas if athletes are at home, we want them to pass on chores and other to-do's...just for three days. We never ask our athletes to check out of life throughout a season....except for their one training camp.
We have our coaching athletes perform their own "mini" training camp for 3 days around 4-5 weeks out from a their key half or full ironman distance triathlon and we ask for them to communicate with their family/work about their scheduled "camp". In an effort to ensure success with a mini training camp (or with our Greenville camp), we make sure that our athletes do not overload the body with high volume workouts too often throughout the year. This allows the athlete (and their family) to not feel as if training is taking over life and the training camp is a welcomed opportunity to overload the body. The camp is planned training stress and the massive training volume achieved over a few days only happens once before a key long distance triathlon race.
We wanted a small camp in Greenville to provide lots of one-on-one work so our campers would really learn how to improve skills (specifically biking) on the hills (ex. descending, climbing, bumpy roads, switchbacks, changing gears, learning how to properly sit on a bike in changing terrain, bike handling, etc.). We also wanted our athletes to experience the joy that we have when we swim, bike and run in Greenville as it's really hard to have a bad day with our amazing views when we train.
Lastly, because our terrain is so challenging, we knew our campers could use each other to bring out the best in one another. It's hard to give up when your roommate/fellow camper is fighting through the fatigue and he/she is not willing to give up.
I will be spending this week breaking down the information learned/discussed throughout our camp, discuss the workouts that our campers accomplished (they were not easy!) and share lots of great pictures.
Stay tuned for Day 1 of the 2015 Trimarni Greenville Training Camp.