Love the Hurt: Mini Training Camp

One of the many canyons we went through -Mulholland Dr.

So last week was a huge volume/intensity week for me. I was all set to go out to St. George for the weekend to go over the course and get some good training in but when that fell through I had some training days planned that I needed to fill. The wife and kids were all set to go out of town and the last thing I wanted to do was stay at home. So I asked around to see if anyone wanted to do a little mini-training camp. My team mate Dusty Nabor jumped on board and even invited me up to his palace to train for the weekend up in Westlake Village. I've only traveled through that part of CA, but I quickly realized this was a very wealthy area with a lot of celebrities as the first lunch we went to we saw Jamie Fox- dude has a big huge tribal tatoo on the side of his forehead ---don't see that in the movies...haha. It also ended up being one of the most beautiful places I've ever ridden in and thoroughly enjoyed the views, weather and company.

Beautiful pools...

The first masters swim session I went to was nothing out of the ordinary from what I've been doing. I was a little nervous to see how my swim stacked up to this larger group but I ended up leading the 2nd fastest lane and felt good/easy by the time it was over. However, the next day was a different story. A bigger group comes out, including former Olympic Champion/World record holder Matt Biondi with a 5k swim on tap. I've put in 4500-4700 days pretty frequently now but not outside of the comfort of my masters group. After warm up, the coach gets us out of the water for a 100 meter TT off the blocks. I just laughed, what the hell!?? I've never started off the blocks in my life! She said for the wimps (myself) to just dive in off the deck instead which I was happy to do. The first wave goes which includes Biondi and Dusty. Biondi swims a freaking .46 at 47 years old! Don't know if I was more impressed with that or Dusty's .55. He learned as an adult and has quickly become a force in the swim. Before I took off, Dusty told me to tuck my head when I dive in to avoid my goggles slipping off. Well I thought I did that but as soon as I dive in, one goggle lens is in my mouth...Great. Gonna be a long 100! I ended up swimming 1:10 which is 3 seconds slower than my PR but I was still happy with it considering the bad start, open turns and no goggles! The rest of the swim ended up being pretty brutal - especially since they moved me into Dusty's lane...It's the first swim workout I've ever done where I cracked. Like, completely fell apart. I barely dragged myself up onto the deck when it was all said and done and left there with a whole new outlook on swimming. I've been swimming my ass off these past 6 months and have noticeably become faster but that workout kind of made me realized that I haven't been swimming hard enough. That's gonna change, along with my times.

BIG day

I was curious how I was going to respond to the rest of the days training after a really hard swim like that. After getting a bite to eat the next thing I know we are off for a 4 hour ride that ended up being absolutely brutal. About a year ago I found this workout in Pro Cycling magazine that I have always wanted to try. It was never really the right timing until recently. With St. George in the near future I've been focusing a lot on climbing while tired. Too often we do hill repeats when we're fresh. Well in a race you're not going to be fresh, so this is what we did:

2 hours of hilly/rolling terrain with a few TT efforts (arriving to the hill repeats tired)
4x2:30 min max hill repeats with last 30 secs out of the saddle ALL OUT (recovery is the trip down)
20 minute continuous steady climb
4x2:30 all over again
Cool down to 4 hours.

We destroyed this workout. I was really happy with how I climbed and am very excited to see how St. George pans out. Once we got back we threw in a 20 min transition run for good measure and called it a day. The next day we had another 3 hour ride and 30 min run to cap off a great weekend of training, goofing off and great food/company. Oh ya, Dusty bought a Range Rover and looked at a $1M home to buy - found out how that dude rolls. Different zip code!

Well, next week it's time to race! Desert Tri will be a good tune up for Oceanside which I'll train straight through and then prob an Olympic distance in April then my A race St. George first weekend of May! Pumped to race alongside my team mates this year with a huge breakthrough in the near horizon.