Tara - Prologue and Day 1

I am just back from the Epic Welcome Dinner at Winnie Bagos and Day 1 of the camp commences bright and early tomorrow morning. Let the fun begin…

The dinner tonight was fun with some good carbo-loading food and a few beers all around (you can always count on Scott to have a beer or two!). Erin (Scott’s wife) came as well and it was neat to finally meet all the campers in person. The only one missing at the dinner was Bevan Eyles from IM Talk (aka Mr. Pump) and I am getting psyched for his HIGH energy and yelling of the phrase “Good times!” when he shows up in a day or so.

It was really great to reunite with last year’s New Zealand campers and support crew again. Scott and John Newsom went over the details of the camp including the rules, points system and general outline of the days that lie ahead. It’s time for everyone to strategize about how they are going to play the game, if at all…Last year I had the goal of completing every workout, tacking on only a little (you get extra points for tacking on extra mileage) and that worked out well, placing me forth overall. This year I may try to go a little harder (or should I say farther), but I will have to assess as the days go on and make some decisions as I go!

I found out today that there were a couple campers in the past who ran a few minutes out of sight and sat on a bench for forty minutes and ran back pretending like they had completed the run for the day. That was a total shock to me. Epic Camp runs on the honour system and it really blows my mind that anyone could live with themselves for cheating…Oh well, I am sure no one will do that again!!

Last year I was the only woman of 21 campers, and this year there are three of us. This is going to be great! Last year, Toby was my partner-in-crime and my “protector” was Andrew Charles. Charlsey and Toby are not here this year (miss you guys already) but Charlsey has sent over another protector for me and I am sure I will find my new partner-in-crime…

Well, I must sleep now so I can start my first day of camp with some good zzzzzz’s.
More later…Tara

Epic Camp NZ 09 Day 1 – Tara

Swim: 3200m, :50
Bike: 180K, 5:55
Run: 20K, 1:40

Day 1 started with a 10K run to the pool. I decided to follow John Newsom’s lead and do a 1000m band only (good for one point) as warm-up to the 2K time trial.
Heath led out our lane with Scott in second, John Newsom in third and me fourth. It was evident from the warm-up swim (as Heath lapped us all with a band around his ankles) that he would be the TT winner! Sure enough he went out at a 1:09/100m blistering pace. I finished the 2K in 25:59 (and we all did an extra 100 in our lane, as did Steven Lord next door), which was good for second place overall. John and I switched places a couple times, each taking a turn to do some pulling and we all caught the Heath love train when he lapped us with a few hundred meters to go! Who knew there would be a day that I beat my coach in the pool!? Thanks for all the great coaching, Coach! Oh, and this was also largely due to the fact that coach isn’t at his peak swimming form right now because when he is, I wouldn’t stand a chance!

Steven, Jo, Russell, Douglas and I all opted to run back from the pool for another 10K run and an additional point. Only problem was that I left my running gear in the change room while we swam and came back to find it was gone! The woman at the front desk said to me “Oh, it just went to the laundry – we always wash our lost gear! And I can’t get it now because I can’t leave my post.” Fortunately they don’t wash running shoes so I had my shoes and had my cycling gear in my bag to run back in, otherwise I would have been running back in my bathing suit! See, that BIG day bag of mine came in handy! We made it back to the hotel in time for a nice, big and yummy breakfast and off on the ride we went. I first lubed up with Vaseline because my cycling shorts were wet with sweat seeing as I had to run in my cycling clothing (and I didn’t have another option). Oh boy, I thought, this could be a painful day…

The ride today was the 150K Gorges Loop (and Steven, Jo and Russell tacked on the Porters Pass climb after lunch which meant a very long ride for those three and I am impressed that they rode over 200K today!!). Instead of doing the Porters Pass climb, I tacked on a 30K extra at the end (on the flat but in the deadly wind) for an additional point.

The wind today on the ride was gusting and harsh. There were brutal headwinds all the way to lunch, including up the KOM of the day. So that made for some hard riding! Chris MacDonald (super strong cyclist extraordinaire and recent Wanaka Challenge Champion) handedly took the KOM while John Newsom, Marilyn - my new fast-bike-buddy (because she declared she won’t be my tack-on-buddy and isn’t running or swimming this camp), Steven and I jogged positions right up to the KOM where I happened to figure out where the end of the climb was…just in time! After the KOM we stopped for lunch and I stocked up on more Vaseline, not without some comments from Scott!

All of us pulled out of lunch expecting a screamer of a tail wind to head back to Christchurch only to have the wind COMPLETELY change directions resulting in headwinds again with gusting and insane side-winds! This meant we essentially rode the entire day into the darn wind! I found out later that poor Lou ended up being blown off the road into a sign but he is tough and went out for a second run after the ride was said and done! Nice!

We pulled into a Shell station to re-fuel (thanks goodness because I was suffering) and eventually made it back to town. As I tacked on my extra 30K I started to wonder if this was a good idea on Day 1 and thanks to Em's Power cookies, I made it alright. Steven and I are actually tied for first place, but I beat him in the 2K TT and the KOM, so I and the lucky one to wear yellow, even if it is just for one day! Hey, I am the first woman to wear Yellow at Epic!

Dave Dwan (and his lovely wife – behind the scenes) made the most amazing dinner and I feel re-fueled (well, almost) to do it all over again tomorrow! Petr (I hope I am spelling that correctly) got the vote for the Green jersey which is camper of the day for all his pulling into the headwind! He definitely deserves it but I also thought tough Jo Carritt should get a nomination for doing that Porters Pass climb (with the other two)!

I am excited. It is a GREAT group and the support crew ROCK! It’s going to be a tough, but amazing eight days together!

Time for bed to get MORE zzzzzzz’s!!!Tara