EC 2007 days 4 & 5 (Dave C's blog)

Day 4

The day began with a 3k swim - two laps around the "island" in the lake (actually more like a clump of half-submerged dead trees). Being a 1:03 IM swimmer certainly places me well back in any swimming events at the camp. However, on the return leg on lap 1, Scott M (on the out leg of lap 2) rightly saw the threat of an impending surge from me. In what can only be described as a cowardly and deliberate act of sabotage, he took me out. My rhythm was shattered and I finished 14th.

Given yesterday's mammoth bike, the rest of today was "at our leisure". But such is the points system at EC and the atmosphere of healthy competition, that everyone pushed themself fairly hard. I did a 90k ride with a couple of others, and backed it up with a 2 hour run - something that would have been inconceivable only a week ago. It's fair to say that EC is living up to its reputation as creating an environment for people to challenge their limits.

Weather still pretty crappy. Intermittent heavy rain.

Four days into the camp and I've already exceeded my biggest week ever.

The battle for the yellow jersey is currently a two-horse race between Brandon and Mike M. The off-the-course battle is almost more interesting than the on-the-course one. Worth the price of admission alone. Very entertaining.

Day 5

A second entry to be checked in the new dictionary I'm getting for John - "much distance". Context? At the morning's briefing, John tells us the route to Hokitika is to be changed "but it won't add much distance". Anyway, to cut a long story short, a 70k ride becomes a 100k ride and some of us run a little short on food and drink.

But I've got a little ahead of things. The day started with a 3k/12k aquathon. (I'm getting a little sick of these events favouring the stronger swimmers!) Quite a fun event, although the combined effect of all our biking and my 2 hour run yesterday took their toll towards the end of the run.

Then the real fun started. The group headed out on the bike together, everyone behaving themselves. Then, a couple of the rockstars got a little crazy. Next thing I know, I'm staring down at the SRM repeatedly seeing 350-400w surges. That's writing cheques my body can't cash. Thankfully, 3 others saw things the same way and we rolled into Hokitika at a more sedate (although still solid) pace. That brought up 100k for the day, so we refueled and headed out for the extra 20k to get another bonus point.

Relatively speaking - a rest day at EC. Just the 6 hours.

The body is holding up ok. One thing I've found is that it is becoming increasingly difficult to elevate my heart rate and that my h/r for a given level is intensity is WAY lower than when I'm rested. Sure sign I'm pretty shelled.