We just finished 3 packed days of triathlon training in Greenville, SC. with eleven campers. Although we've been holding camps for the last 10 years, this camp was extra special as we only had primarily first-time Trimarni campers. This means fresh ears and eyes to absorb a lot of information and skills.
When triathletes hear the word "skills" they often think that this focus is for newbies or beginners. But we believe that you are never too good, too old, too young, too fast or too slow to improve. When athletes come to our camp, they leave tired. They put in a lot of work over 3 days. But the main focus of our camps is learning. Athletes can train hard at home but when they attend a training camp, we want to make sure that the athlete learns how to train better and race smarter.
We see it and hear it all the time. Triathletes don't have the best bike handling skills. Open water swimming is exhausting and triathletes struggle to translate their pool technique and fitness to the open water. Triathletes have difficulty running well off the bike and believe that running harder, faster and longer are the answers to better run times.
At our camps, we master the basics of better triathlon skills and technique. No matter how fast or experienced the athlete, there's always something to improve on. Rather than believing that more training is the answer for better racing, believe that you have tremendous opportunity to improve in every aspect of the sport of triathlon.....especially on the bike.
While you can improve through hard work, successful athletes have an insatiable desire to learn, improve and grow. They don't feel that they know everything and they seek ways to get better. Often this means, stepping out of the comfort zone and trying something new.
Day 1
75 minute long course swim
60 minute run workout
2.5 hour bike skills and ride
We started the morning at 7:45am at the Westside aquatic center. After a dry land warmup and athlete introductions, we had our campers warmup for 10 minutes. The rest of the session was focused on a variety of drills and technique work. We mostly prescribed 50's so that we could speak to each of our campers at the wall to give immediate feedback. It was a great session to start camp.
At 10:45am we met at Furman University and talked to our campers about the run workout. We started the workout with 20 minutes at a conversational pace (10 min out and 10 minutes back). We ran by the Furman lake and encouraged our campers to talk to one another so that they could keep the effort easy. For the main set: 7x (90 sec build effort from smooth to strong into 30 sec EZ into 60 sec best EZ pace). This was a great session to work on going from a high effort, high heart rate to learning how to find good form and rhythm (best EZ pace). We did an out and back so that all of our athletes were running on the same route and we could also see our athletes in action. We finished the run with 20 minutes easy running on the other side of the lake. The weather was cool and cloudy which made for great running. All of our campers wore hydration belts so that they could work on their fueling and hydration for race day while also keeping the body fueled and hydrated for the next session.
At 2pm, we met at Trailblazer park for a bike session. It was a little cool and drizzly out but our campers came with a great attitude and didn't complain. We spent some time in the parking lot working on important bike handling skills like descending, sudden stopping, u-turns and cornering. We then went out on the bike to apply these skills to real world conditions on our Goats and White dogs route. It was cold and rainy but this allowed our campers to really work on their skills in the less-than-ideal conditions. We finished the 2 hour ride around 5pm to wrap-up day 1 of camp.
Day 2
3 hour ride
40 minute run
75 minute long course swim
We met at Trailblazer park at 8am and did a quick refresher of bike handling skills before we went out on our bike route: F-Mart Loop. With so many different types of routes and terrain where we live, we have endless options for routes. We design our bike routes based on what types of skills and training we want our campers to achieve throughout camp. For this ride, we had ~60 minutes of riding to get out to our out-and-back section for the workout. To get out to this area, we had a bit of climbing and descending for our athletes to work on their skills. The workout was 2 out and back sections (each section was ~3 miles) to spend time in the aerobars. This route has some climbing but a lot of the time can be spent in the aerobars working on skills and terrain management. After this part of the workout, we rode a few miles back and then had our campers do a 4-mile strong effort on River road which has a bit of climbing and descending along with a little flat section in the middle. It was a great almost 3 hour ride and ~45 miles and a little over 2000 feet of climbing.
After the ride, the run workout was 4 rounds of: 5 minute best EZ pace, 2 min "up tempo" as an opportunity to continue to work on settling into a good rhythm after getting the HR up.
We had a short break and then met at the aquatic center at 2:45 for another 75-minute swim. For this session the campers did a longer warm-up to loosen out from the bike and run and then we did a few refreshers on technique. We finished off with some intense open water swimming drills to get the HR up.
At 5pm - we all enjoyed pizza from D'Als at the Swamp Rabbit Inn.
Day 3
2.5 hour ride
40 minute run
We had been so impressed by our campers throughout camp but they really continued to impress us with their endurance and application of new skills during our bike workout. We like to pick new routes and courses for our camps but our Pink Arrow Loop is one of our favorites. This 4.8 mile loop has ~350 feet of elevation and includes every type of terrain. Short and long climbs, long descends, flat and fast and false flats. We rode 45 minutes out to the loop, did 1 recon loop and then 2 continuous loops at a strong effort. We then rode back home. Throughout every ride, we always stop and talk about important features of the course, what athletes are doing well, areas to focus on and we spend time with the campers to give instant feedback.
After the ride, we finished the camp with one last run. The workout was ~6 minutes easy to the Swamp Rabbit Trail to warm-up and then 2 x (10 min best EZ pace, 5 min "race effort), then cool down
Our campers did amazing. They made friends, they learned a lot, they laughed, they challenged themselves and they enjoyed our incredible training playgound in Greenville, SC. We are very thankful that our campers took time out of their life/work to spend three days with us. Also a big thank you to our friend Alvi for helping us out throughout the three days of camp.
3-day camp stats:
2.5 hours swimming
7.5 hours cycling (~7000 feet elevation gain)
2:20 running