Epic Camp Prologue

Epic NZ Prologue

This time last year I was embarking on my first Epic Camp not knowing what the hell to expect. Whilst I had done some BIG training and racing in all corners of the globe I had never attempted 12 days of back to back BIG training. Epic Australia was massive!! It was an adventure into the unknown and the athletes loved it. I went on to finish 10th at Ironman NZ, Epic played a big hand in this result. Twelve months down the track and I have joined forces with Gordo & Scott to take the Epic brand to a new level. Last year I was reporting from the inside, this year I will be taking an outsiders view as I am now the Epic Point man on all organization (there’s no Ironman for me this season as I’m getting married in February!). With the daily diaries of Scott, Gordo, myself and other campers we should be able to provide you with an interesting insight to 12 days of sweat, tears and glory (apologies in advance if we don’t get reports up every day as there might not be internet access everywhere we go).

Epic NZ is starting from Christchurch where Scott, Gordo and myself all live. We’ve got an awesome route planned with some monster days taking in the natural beauty of New Zealand. We open up with the Christchurch to Akaroa return ride of around 190km. This is a classic ride with about 2hrs of flat to open up then a 7km climb followed by about 15kms of short sharp climbs. We then turn and do it all again (we gain about 2000m on the whole ride). I love this ride but my god it’s hard if you get a bit excited on the way out. I’ve lost count on the numbers of times I’ve cracked on the final 7km climb. Just to make it interesting we have King of the Mountains points up for grabs on both crossings.

Epic NZ is going to be an adventure we’ll all remember for a long time. The benefits of epic are not just physiological as has been documented on previous camps. Completing Epic Camp makes Ironman seem so much easier mentally. It just doesn’t seem like that big a day when you’ve done 12 days of maintaining around 10hrs training per day. I look forward to sharing the next 12 days with you.

Cheers
John