It's Thursday 3/19 at 5:30am - time for us to wake-up for the first day of the 2015 Trimarni Clermont camp!!!
After Karel and I had our pre-workout snack, we drove a few miles down to the road to meet our campers at the NTC.
Our 20 campers were wide awake and excited for our first workout of a jammed-packed day.
2.5 hour bike + 20 min run
To ensure my campers were properly fueled and hydrated, I encouraged everyone to start the morning with a satisfying carb-rich pre-workout meal before the workout (around 300-350 calories) and to bring 3 bottles of sport drink (200-250 calories) for the ride and to have at least 50-100 calories of sport drink for the run. Clif Bar graciously sponsored our camp with sport nutrition products for our campers but everyone was able to bring their own nutrition as well.
I strongly advised my campers to have a hydration system for the run (fuel belt or hand held) as that is something that we highly recommend for all of our triathletes to get comfortable carrying their own nutrition/fluids while running. Our local run store RUN IN wanted to help out with the camp and we were incredibly grateful for letting us borrow some coolers for ice cold water and NUUN tablets for post workouts.
We started our ride from the NTC and headed on the trail toward the Great Clermont Olympic Distance triathlon race course. This is a great course because you get a hint of flat roads to start and finish but there are two punchy climbs which take you to rolling hills for the middle stretch of the bike course. If you are interested, Karel mapped out 2 loops of the bike course for our campers on MapMyRide. It doesn't have my mountains that I love but it is a beautiful course.
We broke into two groups with Karel's group working on pacing, rotating and legal drafting whereas my group worked on climbing, descending and gearing skills. All important components to being a faster and smarter cyclist.
We spent around 90 minutes on the "top" of the course before heading back to the lake to head home as a group.
Karel's group working hard!
Another part of Karel's group.
Karel giving a wrap-up talk to our workout before heading back home.
Yes, we like to take up all of the road :)
Just riding along.
Just looking for my furry friends.
After our ride, we instructed our athletes to do 20 minutes total running but they had to include 4 x 30 sec hill strides/sprints at the end of their run. It was fun to have our athletes push each other - there was a lot of "racing" going on between athletes for 30 seconds. After each sprint the athlete walked down the hill before repeating.
After the brick, our athletes had around 90 minutes to get cleaned up in the NTC lockers rooms, grab a recovery drink/smoothie and get some lunch and then meet back at the NTC at 12:45pm for our lectures from 1-4pm.
Karel had a quick hour to clean-up, change, eat and pack-up our car (and give Campy some kisses) before we headed back to the NTC for our afternoon of lectures. Thankfully, my mom served as my other hands while we were training and she washed fruit for our athletes. Thanks mom!
We had plenty of electrolyte-rich foods for our campers, pretzels, Blue Chips and Veronica's Health Crunch. All good stuff for every type of post workout craving.
The BEST crunch ever!! Once you try this trail mix you will never want another trail mix ever again.
A highlight of our camp was having Chris Johnson, PT speak to our group. Although he lives in Seattle, we were able to use the power of technology to have Chris Skype with us, use JoinMe for his presentation and have an interactive, informative session with our campers. If you don't know, Chris has played an integral role in my training since October and he is keeping me injury free by helping me properly design strength training and the correct running mechanics for my training. Check out his YouTube videos - he is one awesome PT and athlete!!
Although we didn't have a lot of time, Karel and I find it extremely important to talk to our athletes and give them the "why's" to their training. If our athletes do not understand why they are doing what they are doing, we don't feel they will get the most out of workouts by just following a plan.
Although Karel is not comfortable public speaking, he did an exceptional job talking about what he knows best and that is bikes. Bike fits, bike gear, bike training, bike racing.....he talked a little about Solestar Insoles which we are using (and many of our athletes), he talked about training with power (ex. Normalized Power vs Average power), the best race wheels for athletes and how to sit on a bike.
I spent a little time discussing the developing athlete and finished by talking about sport nutrition. I could spend hours talking about sport nutrition but I had 20 minutes to fill my campers heads with valuable information on how to fuel for endurance sports and eat for health.
After 3 hours of sitting in a classroom, our campers were exited to jump into the long course pool for their last workout of the day.
Inviting, right?
The main set was as follows for our speedy swimmers (we had 3 lanes divided-up into different swim abilities and modified the workout for each lane)
3xs:
4x (30 sec vertical kicking followed by 50 build to fast with 10 sec rest in between).
After 4 rounds, 30 sec extra rest and then repeat MS 2 more times.
Thank goodness for the Clif Hydration drink to keep us properly fueled and hydrated. I love the Cranberry Razz, Karel likes the Lemon Lime-Aid.
After our swimmers finished their 1 hour swim workout, it was time for 15 minutes of dry land. Oh yes, the good old days of doing dry land exercises before and after swim practice.
I made sure all of our campers left with sore abs!
Never too many modified v-ups!
After we released our exhausted campers at 5:30pm, Karel and I changed and got in the water so that we could do a short swim workout before we called it a day.
We were so proud of our campers. Not one complaint, a lot of determination and focus and eagerness to learn.
And of course, it is just so awesome to see our athletes interact with one another - something you just don't get when you train alone.
At 6:45pm, Karel and I were officially pooped and ready for a good meal, snuggle time with Campy and to get things ready for day 2 of camp.
Stay tuned for day 2 of the Trimarni Clermont Camp which included a track workout, swim and bike!