Day 8 – close but no cigar (two days late)

A couple of days ago someone on the camp said there’s no way they thought they could go hard because they were so tired. I jokingly said tiredness is just a figment of your imagination. Whilst I did say this in jest it’s amazing how athletes can find that little bit extra on epic camp to keep pushing hard all the way to the end of the camp.

When we rolled out to Lake Hayes for the Coronet Peak EpicMan Triathlon my legs were toast. Each incline we went up saw my legs completely flushed with lactate. However once we got going in the race proper I was OK. The swim was a bit of a battle, at least the first half. I was hanging on by threads to Albert’s toes, thankfully in the 2^nd half we slowed down. Mark P (aka the mullet king) was hitting my feet so hard they were almost touching the bottom of Lake Hayes and he seemed sure to fire the pace up early on the bike.

Knowing the athletes I was coming out of the water with were of the mature era and would take their time in transition I moved quickly and managed to hit the bike in first and settle into a steady rhythm. I knew the bike would be decided on climb up coronet so was content to not push the pace too early. Not surprisingly we didn’t see Gordo at the front (again) until we hit the climb. I was determined to settle into my rhythm and expected to see both Scott and Gordo take it out hard. Gordo did open up a bit of a gap but nothing excessive and by around halfway I was back in front and feeling quite good. I’d noticed that most of the guys on the camp seemed to take the flatter sections of the hard climbs easier to recover so I did the opposite here and opened up a gap then just help my form until the top. I guess I had around 40-60sec at the start of the run. We hadn’t really clearly laid out the run course - it was basically first to the top. After doing a few minutes on the cat track I saw a MTB track that went straight up the guts below the chair lift. There wasn’t a whole lot of running but it was hard work. When I reached the summit it was a huge sense of satisfaction on a great week and possibly one of the most spectacular views in the world. I just stood there all alone for a few minutes taking it in. For the record Gordo was 2^nd, Scott 3^rd and Mark P (aka the mullet king) a very solid 4^th.

A great way to finish off the camp. As it turned out Albert was battling today and I closed the gap in the points completion to 1.5 points.So essentially if I’d swum an extra 3km somewhere I would have taken the yellow. However no matter what I’d done I think Albert would have had me covered. He’s a smart guy and trained his guts out on this camp. I was happy to see him take home the yellow and green jersey.

So the camp is now over and on a personal level I got everything and more out of the camp. Firstly as the camp organiser everything ran smoothly thanks to our great support crew of Michaela Rees, Chris McAteer, John Ellis, Rob Creasy and Dave Dwan. Secondly I improved my fitness through the camp and came out stronger than I begun. I feel I’ve kicked off my preparations for Roth in great style.

The athletes that joined us for this camp were a great bunch and they all seemed to go home happy that they had found some new limits (mentally and physically), saw some great scenery and rubbed shoulders with competitive like minded athletes.

For those of you who want to join us in Italy it’s going to be a blast.