One final pic from Epic

A beer with Mark P and Scott

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.

Day 7 – another epic adventure

So today’s plan was a mountain run over the Ben Lomond saddle and back to Queenstown. We expected this to take 2.5-3hrs however it turned into an epic adventure. The climb up and over the saddle was incredibly steep and long but the views were spectacular. I think it took around 1hr20 to get to the top - that was a mix of running and hiking. By the time we reached the top I had a splitting headache from the sweet cooling on my head (Queenstown is an alpine resort town and pretty chilly first thing). Little did we know the up was going to be a lot more straight forward than the down. After probably about 30-45mins of descending all of a sudden about 6-8 of us came together at the end of what had been what we thought was the right trail (it was very poorly marked). How wrong we were. For the next 45mins we bush whacked out way through thorns, gorse and head high ferns. We had no idea where we were going but eventually we got back on trail and Gordo and I rolled back to the accom with 3hrs50 on the clock, that’s a big run!!

An easy 3km swim later and it was time for a “scenic” trip up to Coronet Peak ski field. The hammer went down after about 5mins whilst I was about 50m off the back trying to get my legs rolling over. So when we hit the climb I was already a good minute or two down. I don’t think anyone seemed to take it seriously that I had said this was a serious climb, everyone seemed to be hammering and I wasn’t making much of an inroad. I though “just stick with your tempo and they will come back”. Sure enough they did and I clawed it back place by place to finish 3^rd behind super Bevan and very nearly catching Gordo. John Drury climbed like an animal today, he’s really come on strong the last few days after insisting to John Ellis the other day that something was wrong with his bike “it just feels a few km’s/hr slower than back home” – that’s kiwi roads and conditions for you. The ride ended up being 2.5hrs today so there was a bit of time to kick back and tell stories that are already getting longer.

So tonight Albert is clearly in yellow and unless he completes detonates tomorrow should take it home (I need to finish 6 places in front of him in the tri tomorrow). However Molina is only 1.5 points behind me so I can’t muck around too much. I’m pretty sure those two are going to try and smash the living crap out of me in the swim tomorrow. I’m going to be on the coke and caffeinated gels first thing and it will be game on. Gordo is going to be fired up too.

It’s been a great camp so far so fingers crossed we can finish in style.

Sorry no pics today or yesterday.

Days totals

Run 3hrs50

Swim 3km

Bike 2.5hrs (incl 8km climb 10-14%)

Day 6 – Wanaka to Queenstown

Run 50mins x 2

Swim 6km

Bike approx 80km

I got up this morning at 5:25am and headed out for a run shortly after . When I was zombie plodding along I realised I’d moved from getting significant training benefit to really benefiting my mental application. On epic you just have to get on with the job each day, the environment of the camp makes this possible. Where I think this really benefits athletes is the later stages of the marathon when you are absolutely rooted and can easily give up. It you don’t train for these situations when you are tired you’re not likely to get better.

After the run I headed to the pool for a 6km swim which comprised the 3km IM set (repeating 150 free / 100 IM). I backed this up with 30x100’s to get the job done. It was slow but I felt OK.

We then hit the bikes for the planned 180km ride including a KOM on the crown range (apparently the easy side). I wanted to try and claw back a few points and put a buffer between myself, Albert and Tara. The plan was to attack fairly early and try to get up the climbs as quick as possible. It worked to perfection with six of us off the front. Bevan and Paul then eased off into the distance leaving Scott, Gordo, Mark P and myself to battle for 2^nd. Gordo was bleating on the flat sections that he wanted to rest for main part of the climb he then dropped us like stones and went over in 3rd. I was over 4^th which I was pleased with. It was incredibly hard though, harder than yesterdays TT for me.

The forecast today was for a Southerly (cold) change with some rain. This happened as we made our way up the climb and the decent was nail biting stuff – wind, rain, cold, hairpins, narrow roads……. What the forecast didn’t say was if you are on a bike we suggest you get off and walk as their will be gail force winds and horizontal rain. The last 20km of the ride to Queenstown was some of the most challenging conditions I have ever ridden in. We were blown all over the road which was bloody scary as it was busy. It was another epic experience.

We had to cancel the afternoon’s tack on 90km as it was simply too dangerous. I tacked on a 50min run, the Albernator did 2hrs!!!

Bevan told me Rob Chance said the other day he’s had the hardest training day of his life. He said the same thing again yesterday, that’s what we like about epic, everyone pushes their boundaries.