Although our campers have a lot of fun at camp, we've never had a camper return home, wishing that they would have done more training. With years of experience, we've learned how to provide the perfect mix of education, challenge and fun to remind our campers that the sport of triathlon is a lot of fun, but to improve, you must be willing to try new things and there's always something more to improve upon - which is not always easy (mentally and physically).
With our first official day of camp on Thursday, our 15 campers had the opportunity to loosen out from travel with a 60-minute social spin. There's never an easy ride here in Greenville so our campers still did ~1000 feet of climbing during the "easy" spin. We use this ride as an opportunity to get to know our campers (specifically athletes that we've never met in person or new campers), see their skills and familiarize the athletes with our terrain (which is not easy). This ride also helps campers shake out (or spin out) some nerves for the upcoming training load.
On Thursday morning, we planned a hill focused run workout for our campers. The weather was crisp, in the mid 40's, which made for perfect running weather for our athletes. Karel and I accompanied our athletes on our road bikes as it was easy for us to quickly move through the group to provide feedback and encouragement. We had our running shoes on so it was easy for us to get off our bikes and run with our campers.
Here are a few pics from the run, thanks to our amazing photographer/SAG Joey:
Around 11am, it was time for our next session of the day which was a bike workout. With tired legs, we all rode out to the start of our course which provided a nice mix of variable terrain to work on bike handling skills. We had a bit of everything, a tight switchback, long rolling hills, steady climbs, false flats, u-turns and punchy hills. The course was clover shaped so our athletes were able to get familiar with the course and then repeat it a few times on their own. Karel, Joe and I were able to rode individually with every camper to provide one-on-one help. The ride was a little over 2 hours and included about 3700 feet of elevation gain.
Here are a few pics from the bike workout:
Throughout the training sessions, there's always stops for education and questions, so that our campers can combine the learning with the doing. After the ride, our campers had another short break before the afternoon swim session.
At 3pm, our campers met us in front of the PAC in Furman for a discussion on swim technique. The weather was beautiful so we chose to do our educational session outside, under the warm sun. At 3:30pm, it was time for a 90-minute swim. Although our campers "only" covered about 2500-3200 yards during this time, we spent a good chunk of the workout breaking down the phases of the stroke with specific swim drills to emphasize what you should "feel" in the water.
Athletes often ask how Karel and I fit in our training during our camps and the answer is, we don't. Camps are mentally and physically exhausting for us so aside from riding with our campers, we don't do any of our own training throughout camp. And that's ok for camps are extremely rewarding for us and we don't mind stepping away from our own training needs for a few days to be 100% attentive and energetic for our campers.