GEC-EH 2011 Winter Triathlon Camp – Day 2

Day 2 MVP Dan:

I am honored to share MVP honors today with legendary World Champion triathlete and blogger Tracy DiSabato-Aust. I am no match to her blogging talents, but I will attempt to do my best to rise to her standard of excellence. She did, though, let me quote her for the record: “Today was a hard day.”

If Day 1 of Triathlon Camp was the Ode to the Snowy Cactus, Day 2 was the Tale of the Wicked Wind of the East.

After a exhaustive (and exhausting) first day, the campers all made the 7am morning call with a bit more spirit, and a bit more bodily soreness, than the previous day. Temperatures were still chilly (34F), but a clear sky made for perfect running weather. Today’s run found us at a new place, the Douglas Springs trailhead at Saguaro National Park East. There’s apparently an extensive trail network here and Brian and Eric, as usual, picked the only hilly one.

After a brief jog down the trail to warm up plus a stretching session (which both brought back sensations and memories from yesterday), as well as a surprise (Smile! It’s Jill!), the journey up the hill began in earnest. You just can’t find good, scenic, and challenging trails like this anywhere else, and after a fair bit we were high above the valley floor looking down at the little specks of our vans back at the parking lot.

Another local triathlete sensation, Leo Carrillo, joined the camp this morning. Leo is a superstar talent all around, especially in the pool. Between him, Tall Swimmer Sean, and myself, we are destined to eventually stop perpetuating the myth that good swimmers can’t run. By the end of the week, I am certain that we will succeed, but today was a shining day for the mountain goats of the camp. After a brief rest & regathering, 28 minutes into a planned 35-minute run outbound from the trailhead, Eric and the mountain goats led on up the tallest hill yet for the final “seven minutes”. I got to the turnaround point at what seemed like 15 minutes later.

One thing that I’ll say about Eric…he’s never been anything but truthful and honest in the many years that I have known him. But occasionally his concept of when the hard training session is supposed to end (e.g. he might lose track of time or the number of intervals in the swim set or tell you to expect “rolling hills”) can differ with that of the campers, and that helps keep triathlon camp fresh…as well as a mental challenge!

By now, everyone was running on tired legs, but the downhill return (3.5 miles with 1000 of elevation descent) brought some life back. The fast downhills runs that have ended both of the first two runs of camp helped bring everyone back to the vans with a smile.

After breakfast, it was time to put on sunscreen (for once) and bring out the bicycles for the first ride of the camp. As Brian G noted, we are a pretty compatible group and all of us are comfortable riding in groups. Nonetheless, the first ride with a new group scares me a bit because there’s a little fear of the unknown. (Like when I was the first casualty of the 2009 camp when I locked my wheel spokes into another camper’s pedal.) The planned ride wasn’t much to worry about, an “easy spin” out and back to Colossal Cave. So, as long as we all could avoid colliding into objects and ourselves, there was nothing to worry about, right???

Rolling to the east edge of town, we had one random mechanical casualty but otherwise made it to the open roads unscathed and smartly as a good single-file group of 17. The first open road starts out with a good steady incline, and when I finally took a peek forward from my slot in position #16, some leaders had already broken away by a good distance, with Brian N (and his GoPro camera) pacing the trailers and getting some cool video. It wasn’t an aggressive “breakaway”, and I felt compelled to bridge up to them. I latched on to the leaders after the crest and our flight-of-six (Eric, Leo, myself and three others) built up some momentum on the ensuing downhill.

Then we really hit some wind. One moment it seemed calm. The next, we were in a stiff headwind and shortly after that it was 20 mph gusts. No dust or tumbleweeds flying around, but this was certainly something that can’t be simulated by indoor trainer rides. There’s no such thing as an easy spin uphill into a 20 mph wind, and the only thing that we all could do was to hammer our way through it. It wasn’t that long ago that my power meter was in single and double-digits, and now we’re cranking at least three bills to stay upright and move forward. Colossal Cave couldn’t come soon enough!

After rounding to the back entrance of Colossal Cave, with one more blast of headwind and one more steep climb, we enjoyed a well-earned break at the top, about 1200 feet in elevation above our starting point in Tucson. We enjoyed the great view and took pictures, briefly, before we got blown off the ridge.

The ride back was pleasant (speeds over 40 mph in spots) with the tailwind, and we returned with more smiles and well-toasted legs.

The late afternoon brought out our first taste of starpower…a great presentation / discussion by (fellow camper) Scott Tucker of Scott USA. Scott (person) represents Scott’s (company) line of running shoes and he presented on what running shoes are supposed to do.

We wrapped up Day 2 with the dinner at the best place in Tucson (at least until tomorrow night), and then retired for the evening. After two days of camp, we’ve done so much hard work that we chose to forego the usually obligatory post-dinner gelato…but it’s all worth it to be ready to bounce back and hit Day 3 strong.

Day 3 is planned to bring a morning swim followed by a difficult ride across Gates Pass and the McCain Loop. It should be a challenge again for everyone, and a chance for a few more MVPs to shine. (Don’t worry, us budding swimmer-runners will have our day later…the inevitable won’t be postponed for long!)