'25 Early Season Training Camp - behind the scenes

 

We held our first training camp in March of 2014 (picture above). It's wild to think that it was 11 years ago when I told Karel that I wanted to bring our coaching athletes together for a group training camp.  At the time, we lived in Jacksonville, Florida. Clermont, Florida was a few hours away and the perfect location for a triathlon training camp. After a successful first camp, I started planning the next camp. We learned a lot and I wanted to make it even better. A few months later, we moved to Greenville, SC. We continued hosting our early season training camps in Clermont for a few more years, while also holding a second training camp (endurance camp) in our new home of Greenville, SC. 2020 was the year of our last training camp in Clermont, Florida. The world shut down due to Covid the week after we finished our camp. Since then, we have held all of our triathlon training camps in our incredible playground of Greenville, SC. Over the past few years we have added gravel and off-road triathlon skills to our camp registry.

This past weekend we held our 11th consecutive early season training camp. Over the past eleven years we have held over 30 different training camps. This means we have had over 200 athletes attend a Trimarni training camp.  Putting on a triathlon training camp is no easy feat. It requires a lot of planning and logistics.  When I plan our camps, I have a tentative idea of what we want to accomplish throughout our 3-day camp. However, it isn't until our campers complete their pre-camp questionnaire that I can start planning the routes and workouts. Unlike other group training camps which send athletes out on a specific route to complete, we prescribe specific workouts for each training session. This requires us to be creative with the routes so that we can keep everyone somewhat together. We do a lot of out and backs and loops so that no athlete feels too fast or too slow. Even though we have pre-reqs for our camps (for safety reasons), we have to work with a variety of fitness (and experience) levels.  At our recent camp, we dealt with a very unpredictable weather forecast. With rain predicted all day on Friday, I was obsessively checking the weather all week so that I could have a plan A, B, C and D. This required a lot of communication with the aquatic center in order to tentatively reserve lanes and communication with our campers. Thankfully, we could stick to our schedule (with a slight modification of swapping when we would bike and run) it all worked out and we didn't experience any rain on day one of camp.  We started the morning with an hour swim at the Westside aquatic center. I enjoy starting off camp with swimming as it's the least stressful sport on the body after travel and athletes are generally pretty fresh and eager to start training. We always start with name introductions so that everyone can get to know one another. One of the highlights of Trimarni camp is seeing the friendships form throughout camp.  We focused on technique with a variety of drills and finished the session with a main set to put everything into action. After the swim we had a short break (~90 minutes) before we met at Trailblazer park for our bike skills session. We brought cones to work on bike handling skills and Karel demonstrated all of the skills before we worked with our athletes. We have found that the bike handling skills and terrain management component of camp is always a favorite by our campers. We have learned that most triathletes do not have great bike handling skills. This is for two reasons. Many triathletes did not grow up racing bikes. There's a big difference between casual bike riding and riding a bike that is designed to go fast. Secondly, many triathletes ride primarily indoors on a stationary trainer. This limits the opportunities to work on bike handling skills outside in real world conditions. As a result, the risk for accidents and unsafe riding increases. We love helping triathletes with bike handling skills as it allows for faster and more confident riding. After the skills session we bike a few miles down the road to a road that we had our athletes work on u-turns and terrain management (gentle climbs and descends). After the session, our campers had another quick 90-minute break before our last session of the day at Furman University. We love running at Furman because it's a beautiful campus and it offers a variety of terrain. Plus there are bathrooms if needed. Karel and I were on our bikes so we could watch everyone run around the lake. After the warmup, the campers finished the day with a run main set of 5 x 30 sec strong, 3 min steady, 30 sec strong followed by 1 min walk into 1 min easy. This set took 30 minutes.  We like loading our campers with a lot of training on the first day as they are fresh and able to absorb a good amount of training.

On Saturday, we were presented with perfect weather conditions. We drove ~30 minutes away to Tuxedo, NC to start the bike session. Although we try to limit driving at our camps, this location provided us with a great time trial bike course, a steady climb for the bike and a packed gravel road for running. Our campers found the bike course to be beautiful and perfect terrain for the workout. We all rode together to the "course" and we instructed our athletes of the workout (which was also written out on an index card for each camper). The workout was:  4 rounds of  3 x 1 min strong, 4 min half IM effort, 1 min strong Then 2 min EZ  Each round took 20 minutes and our campers did the set 4 times for an 80 minute main set. Karel and I would ride with each camper here and there. We had a turn around at each end of the "course" which allowed our campers to continue to work on their u-turns.  After the workout we finished with a 4.5 mile climb up Cabin Creek road. For many of our campers, this was the longest climb they have ever completed. We love seeing our campers stretch their comfort zone and try new things. We helped our athletes safely descend down the climb (while reminding them of their new and improved skills from Friday).  After the bike we gave our athletes a 45-minute run workout. We love seeing our campers work through self-doubts and fatigue and surprise themselves. Plus, in a group environment, everyone brings out the best in one another. The run workout started with 10 minutes easy into 20 min best easy pace (best effort that feels easy and with good form). Then came a 10 minute build effort followed by 5 minutes easy. We did an out and back by the lake and Karel and I ran with our campers.  In the evening we ordered pizza from D'Als for our campers and enjoyed getting to know everyone even better at the Swamp Rabbit Inn (where two of our campers were staying). Sunny got to meet everyone and he enjoyed his first Trimarni pizza party.

Now that our campers were nicely tired, it was time for the last day of camp. Karel and I were really looking forward to this session as we planned a transition workout. We biked to a location where we set up a transition area (bike rack and floor bike stands) for our athletes to perform an hour of biking and running. We had a course laid out for a 2-loop bike (~3 miles) and out and back (~1 mile) run. We biked to the transition area while Alvi (our camp support) set up the transition area and brought bags (run gear from our campers) to the area.

Although this workout was super fun, logistically it was the most difficult to organize and plan for. We couldn't have done it without the help of Alvi. And to make the workout even more fun, we threw in some obstacles that our campers may experience during a race - like changing a flat tire (Karel brought two wheels for our campers to practice on), filling a flask, putting on gear while running and dealing with a few unexpected challenges like shoes tied together. Let's just say that our campers had fun and Karel and I had a blast coming up with different ways to challenge our campers during their transitions. This was one of those workouts where it's impossible to do by yourself and so much more intense and fun to do with others.  After the session we biked back to Trailblazer park and finished with closing remarks and questions.

And just like that, camp is complete. 1 hour of swimming  7 hours of cycling  2 hours of running And in August we get to do it again - but with even longer workouts - at our endurance triathlon camp.  Although training camps are a lot of work to put on, we know our campers find value in learning new skills, training with others, stepping out of their comfort zone and showing off their strengths.  If you'd like to read more about our recent early season camp, Trimarni athlete Brittany attended camp and wrote a great recap about her first triathlon camp experience. You can check it out HERE.