Zach
Poehlman BLOG
Day
0 – Lyon
First EC so I’m not sure what exactly to expect. There
are a lot of unknowns for me when it comes to volume, intensity
and dynamic of the group. Only one way to find out.
Arrived in Lyon Thursday night after trip from the states.
Friday was spent doing lots of walking around the sights,
running along the river and swimming in an outdoor 50m pool
along the river. The pool was sweet but there were no lane
lines and no distinguishable pattern in the other swimmers.
Good open water training I guess.
Saturday morning I met up with Randy and Molina for a short
ride. We tried to navigate via the 1 inch map on a Garmin
which, it turns out, isn’t so easy. The rest of the day
was spent moving out to the camp hotel and relaxing. Group
dinner and then covered all the rules-lots of rules.
Quite a bit of sandbagging going on during the first day.
Turns out no one that’s come to this camp has been training
much lately! I doubt that ever such a fit group of people
have claimed such poor physical shape. For the record, I had
a pretty good build up to the camp and have no excuses when
I blow up on the side of the road, trail or pool.
Day 1 (Sunday) – Logistical Epic Camp
First day started early with a drive to the ride start. On
tap was a 120k ride (mostly flat-ish with 1 KOM), registration
for Embrunman, then a 3k swim on the course and a 10k run
of the course.
Everything was moving pretty relaxed as we moved out to the
start and got going. I felt fine all day but had a high HR
due to the altitude, anticipation and lots of external stimulation.
Clas took the KOM by a big distance while I suffered about
100m back. I need to study the climbs a bit more to have any
chance. The entire ride was just sweet and the weather was
pretty good. Rain threatened but we only had wet roads. Only
had 6 crashes today so that’s also a bonus.
Once at the race site we spent quite a bit of time getting
organized and standing around. Eventually we did get in the
water for a couple laps of the course and then out for a 30min
run. It was getting so late in the day that the completion
lengths were reduced to 1 lap on the swim and a 30min run.
No one told me about the swim though!
Finally, a drive up to our accommodation and a well needed
dinner. Much longer and there would have been some sour attitudes.
Our place for the next 2 nights is sweet-up in the mountains
with an incredible view- also a restaurant, bar and some beds.
Day
2 (Monday) – Embrunman
Today’s main goal was to race the Embrun Man Olympic
distance triathlon. Additionally, to get completion points
you had to ride back up to the lodging from Embrun –
about 15k and 2300 ft about Embrun.
Race morning started (not too early) with standard French
breakfast of starches and strong coffee. Slept like crap so
it was needed. Everyone loaded up then drove down to the race
start. Embrunman is a pretty large race with both an Olympic
distance and Ironman distance version. The IM version has
about 5000m of climbing! Our distance had 2800ft of climbing
across an incredible scenic course. The swim and run courses
were also great. Loads of people out cheering and pretty good
organization despite the fact that I couldn’t understand
anything anybody was saying. Race went well and I felt good
climbing. Also felt good descending until and the Europeans
came racing by me - they put my skills to shame. Not sure
what the drafting rules were but kind of appeared that there
were no rules. Post race I recovered with a couple of Red
Bulls and a 10min stint in an ice cold river with John and
Rob. The group had lunch at the race and then a few of us
headed into town to have a beer and watch the long course
runners. Some headed back up to the Gite to tack on (Steven
Lord with a 2hr run!). After us the non-tacker on’ers
(Scott, Randy, Clas, myself) refueled with beer we knocked
off the hour climb back to the sweet accommodations.
Today the weather was perfect, the race course was awesome
and the relaxing time was suburb-all is well. Tomorrow is
a huge day but should be more awesomeness.
Day
3 - The feed zone
For Day 3 camp completion we had a morning 50min run and then
a 160k ride from our place above Embrun to Briancon via Col
de Vars and Col d'izoard. The weather was perfect and the
route had great scenery. I really want to stop every mile
to take photos but since I would quickly be off the back I’m
logging memories. The two famous cols took about 6hrs of riding
and included about 10,000ft of climbing. There was plenty
of suffering to go around.
The amount of food on offer and consumed during the camp is
pretty impressive. The support staff of Ian, Julie and Anna
have food prepared and ready to go for pre-breakfast, breakfast,
short ride breaks, ride lunches, and post ride. Dinner is
usually prepared by the hotel and is a scene in itself. The
spreads have been really good so far and it is no nice to
roll up to them during a ride – they’ll have chairs
out and table with all the goodies ready. Proper riding.
Let me try to capture what I’ve eaten so far today (and
we have an hour till dinner):
Pre-run: 2 cups coffee & High 5 energy bar
Breakfast: 1 big cup coffee, muesli with banana and yogurt,
1 piece French bread and 2 sweet bread rolls with heaps of
nutella and peanut butter mixed together (the business)
Ride stop #1: 1 small brownie, couple of handfuls of trail
mix, couple of handfuls of gummy bear mixture, croissant with
chocolate inside
During ride/all day: lots of plain water, about 2 bottles,
high 5 energy drink, water with table salt (Molina said I
should do that but it tasted like the ocean), 1 High 5 energy
gel
Ride stop #3, lunch stop: Wrap with tuna/hummus/lettuce, couple
cups of coke, lots of Dorito-like chips, more handfuls of
gummy bears, lots of water
Ride stop #3: salted water with High 5, plain water, High
5 energy gel
Post ride: High 5 protein bar, water, beer (note to self:
always find Scott Molina post ride).
Dinner: TBD, but it will be lots.
I’m one of 14 people-that’s a lot of food!
Have written it down now (and I’m sure I’ve missed
a bit) it seems very heavy on the sports nutrition-have to
work on that. Would guess that the quantity is about average
for the most of the campers. We are looking at 2 more days
of 6hr+ rides so under-eating could be costly.
The actual feeding sessions are cutthroat. You have to get
and there and get the food-manners not required. If you wait
the food will disappear. The skills I’ve learned here
will come in handy at home.
All for now, off to dinner. If I get my act together I will
add power files and pictures.
Day
4 – Alpe d’Huez
Today
we set off from Briancon with the goal of getting over Col
du Lautaret then out to and up Alpe d’Huez. Once at the
top we would regroup and have a running race. After a post
race lunch we would then head back to Briancon on the same
route and head to the pool for a 3k swim. Pretty straightforward.
The role out from Briancon was respectable and soon Russell
Cox and Steven Lord were pulling us to the top. The two of
them have done the majority of the pulling during the camp.
There were no KOM points on the line – I certainly enjoyed
the opportunity to sit in and enjoy the steady pace. Once
a little way out of Briancon and up towards the Col du Lautaret
the valley opened up and we dwarfed by high peaks on both
sides. Again, we could have been stopping every mile for pictures.
At the top we had a quick drink and then headed out for a
long downhill to the base of Alpe d’Huez.
We had another regroup and feed stop at the base of the Alpe
d’Huez. The d’huez climbs pretty amazingly up the
side of a cliff in a very dramatic valley. I would say the
Tour de France coverage probably doesn’t do it justice.
KOM points were on the line so the group rolled out quickly
and with no mercy. Clas and I battled it out for the lead
and under an hour later we were on the top. The village on
the top is pretty cool and full of cyclists and tourists (this
time of the year). The group took a while to reform on the
top and then a dwindling number of us headed out on a recce
lap of the run race course. There were varying opinions on
the directions and distance of the course but it turned out
about 5.5k of hilly running with a steady uphill finish. Next
the dedicated few lined up for another lap for camp points.
Clas was off the front and out of sight within about 1k. There
was not enough oxygen at that altitude but we all suffered
through it. Oh yes, it was hot and sunny as well.
More feeding and then we headed down and back up the long
slog to Col de Lautaret. This time KOM points were on the
line so things were more serious. Shortly after the roll out
Steven and Russell rode off the front. I was on the back behind
John who quickly rolled off the back the group. I hadn’t
planned on contending for the Col and wanted to recover a
bit so I just sat in while Steven and Russell rode away. Clas
then rode off front to follow Steven and Russell. A little
later I decided to up the pace a bit and followed without
going too hard. Even though I wanted to recover I made a big
tactical mistake by letting them go so early. I had to ride
alone for a long time and was pretty miserable. I almost had
to stop for a ‘come to Jesus’ moment. I never really
up’d the tempo to catch the leaders but rode steady for
the entire haul up to the top. Nearly at the end I saw Russell
and Steven way off in the distance but there was no way to
close the gap. By being fourth up I sacrificed a couple of
points to Clas which was pretty silly and by riding solo the
entire way I didn’t save much energy.
At the top I grabbed some quick water and headed down to Briancon
which was another 25k – it was about 5:00pm at this point
and we still had a swim to get to. The descent went by pretty
quickly and soon we were back the hotel. I figured John would
take a while and with the quickly dwindling time I was hoping
the swim would be canceled. Unfortunately he rolled in pretty
soon after and announced the swim was still on. Damn. Once
at the pool we only had 45mins before shutting time so we
hurridly got into 20 x 100s on 1:40. It was a poor example
of swimming but we nearly got through it. We got whistled
out of the pool with 50m left to go but John kept going, ignoring
the pool lifeguard. He should be docked 5 camp points for
breaking the rules. This is not Nam, there are rules. Myself,
being a stand up type guy stopped on time.
Dinner followed and then I crashed. Long day in the sun with
lots in intensity.
Day 5 – Col de Galibier
Today had all the indications of an epic undertaking. 30min
run around the old city of Briancon, 180k ride over the Col
de Galibier and into Annecy and a 30min swim in Lac Annecy.
Mix in about 9,000ft of climbing and 32C temperatures and
wait for the fireworks.
The run started with 50m of slightly uphill and then 1k of
steep climbing. I suspect we could of walked up quicker. None
the less, it was a great run before the tourists took over
the town. Out on the bike I turned myself inside out to take
the Galibier. Pretty classic route that exceeded all my expectations
of climbing in the alps. The top was a mad scene. I sat in
for most of the rest of the bike and let the others pull me
home. Thank you gentleman. Annecy is a bit crazy with tourists
but also beautiful and our home for 3 nights. Finally, just
before dinner, we ticked off our swim in the lake. It was
an epic end to an epic day. If we had AC I would crawl into
bed and sleep until Sunday. No AC though so I’ll listen
to Scott snore for a while.
A lot of people doing a lot of hard work on this camp. Steven
Lord has gapped us all in the points competition and doesn’t
stop. With his lead it would be easy to pull back and glide
into the finish-nope, he has been tacking on at every chance.
Shame he wears those silly Vibrams - bad for his street cred.
Russell Cox has basically pulled 14 people through the French
Alps. Half the time I am pissed at him cause I just want to
go slow and the other half I’m very happy he’s up
there cause I just want to be off the bike.
Clas Bjorling is obviously a monster. I’m not even in
the same time zone running but we’ve had a friendly rivalry
up some of the biggest peaks in the area. My heart sinks when
I hear him downshift on the bike and stand up. That means
trouble. Now if we could just get him to put a shirt on.
John Newsome is the head honcho of the camp and former child
star. He is a very patient person-he basically has to go over
the daily route about 50 times and even then people get lost
(even with GPS). How far is this climb? How high is this climb?
When do we stop? When is dinner? Where are we going? How hot
will it be? Etc, etc. He has a distinct advantage in this
camp however; he basically is making up the competitions &
points as we go based on the current score and how he feels
for the day.
Day 6 – “Easy” day
After a couple of big days in the baking sun I have been eagerly
awaiting our recovery day. On tap was an aquathon with an
open water swim in Lac Annecy and then a 5kish run along the
lake. John needed an event to add some points to his total.
After a leisurely breakfast more KOM points were on the line
with a 16k climb to a local col. The rest of day was open
and available for tack-ons, eating, sleeping or shopping.
The aquathon went off as expected with John Newsom and Steven
Lord out of the water first by a wide margin. Clas, Scott
and I came out about the same time and within a min of starting
on the run Clas had put about 200m on me. He went on to run
down the other two and take gold. I ended up just off the
podium and finished just in time to check out the public restroom.
The race was really quite pleasant and I felt surprisingly
good for being so tired. Back at the hotel we took over the
breakfast room and kept the staff busy restocking the breakfast
spread. I’m sure they’ll be happy to see us go.
At 10am we re-grouped for the 2k warm up before the KOM. I
think everyone was expecting a decent climb but nothing too
hard. Well, it was freaking hard. The group quickly split
up and I was almost red lining for the start. I had to keep
from looking at my bike computer because the kilometers were
not decreasing nearly fast enough. Clas and I were accompanied
by Rob today-he’s getting stronger by the day. He nearly
dropped me at a couple of points on the climb and I had to
stop myself from giving up. It was a serious pace all the
way up. About 1.5k to go I surged to see what kind of legs
Clas had. He was right next to me the entire way. We gapped
Rob and then eased a bit. Shortly thereafter I thought we
were at the top and tried to surge again. I knew I didn’t
have much power and figured Clas would easily gap me to the
line. Well, it wasn’t the top and that crushed me mentally.
I was caned, physically and mentally. Clas took off and I
was left in his Swedish dust. I limped up to the finish and
held on to my second place. The others weren’t far behind.
I guess I wasn’t the only one suffering up there because
there was a lot of coughing atop the climb. What we lacked
in length today we made up for in intensity. On the bright
side the restaurant at the top was nice and the weather was
great.
We descended down the same way and headed back to the hotel.
Now for an easy afternoon of resting. There’s no AC in
the hotel and it’s baking outside still so I’m going
to do my best to unload some of this heat exhaustion.
Some of my pics so far….
http://www.flickr.com/photos/50759153@N00/sets/72157627452652730/
Day
7 – Hanging on
On the EC schedule for Day 7 was an AM swim in the lake for
about 40mins, a long ride out of Annecy and over Col du Pre
and Col de Saisies and an 8k transition.
From the first moments of the day I knew this one would be
a tough one for me. Between the heat, fatigue and length I
expected to only be completing today and not competing. With
the heat of Annecy I haven’t been sleeping well (like
most here) and have a hard time unloading the heat fatigue
that is accumulated across a day. Without a cool place to
rest for an extended amount of time it’s amazing how
warm your body will stay and for how long. Additionally, my
stomach has been bothering me and I’m losing my appetite
for food.
At the start of the day I was only a point behind Clas in
KOM competition. Three more Cols to go, one of which will
be double points. His performance on climbs seems to indicate
he’s getting stronger. Meanwhile, I have definitely descended
off my peak of performance for the camp. The Clas that Rob
and I saw yesterday was the one I expected to see from the
start. He easily dominated us on the climb and had plenty
left to stand and sprint at the finish.
My gameplan for today was to take it very easy and sit in
during anything that wasn’t a KOM climb. On the KOMs
I doubted I would be taking the first stop but I could at
least minimize any point losses.
As we walked over to swim in the lake at about 7AM the group
was looking pretty trashed. Two days out and the end is near.
The swim was a non-event and I again sat on Newsom’s
feet for the entirety. We then had a moderately leisurely
breakfast before a 9:15AM bike rollout.
The first hour or so of the bike was along a moderately busy
bike path with many gates that required slowing nearly to
a stop. By the end this became pretty annoying but it was
also nice to be off a main street. We then had a short climb
before stopping for a refuel. Post water stop we rolled downhill
and flat for a while to the base of the Col du Pre. Rolling
up to the start of the climb I was about 3rd back getting
prepped to do an hours worth of suffering up the KOM. Into
the small town at the base we went the wrong way and the group
had to turn around. Out of the turn around I ended up last
and next thing I knew the climb had started. Steven, Clas,
Rob and Rachel Joyce were out in front and started to attack
or surge up the climb while I was about 25m off the back since
I had slowly made the u-turn in town. What the ?….this
wasn’t a good start. I had to go hard to close some of
the gap but they were too far ahead and moving upward quickly.
I was pretty pissed at them at the time-this didn’t seem
like much of a fair start. Looking back I know they didn’t
do it on purpose and they didn’t realize how the group
had split in town. Even on a neutral start I don’t think
the outcome at the top would have changed. None the less,
I was pretty aggravated for about 15k of climbing. About ¼
of the way up I was able to catch Steven but Clas, Rachel
and Rob were well out of sight I knew I wouldn’t be seeing
them again. I didn’t have much for legs and was just
hoping to hold on to my position in front of Steven. It was
a stinking long climb in very hot conditions but the scenery
was nice and a little different than the climbing we’d
be doing further to the south. A couple K’s from the
top I saw Newsom quickly approaching. Letting him go by would
have been too hard on the pride-he’s obviously been pacing
himself well over the camp while my pacing has been sub-optimal.
The last kilometer I really surged to keep Newsom out of sight
and maintain the 3rd spot over the top. At the rest stop post
climb I was wrecked!
That was pretty much the end of my day. It was a short way
over to the beginning of the Col de Saises. At the end of
a long downhill I was behind Molina as he slammed into the
back of a stopping car. It looked pretty awful and could have
turned out a lot worse. Luckily his bike was only temporarily
bent up and there was no permanent damage. On the climb up
Saises I was in suffering management mode and quickly off
the back. My body just wasn’t responding to much and
the heat was continuing to take it’s toll.
After the climb and descent we had a long, hot flat haul back
to Annecy. Again, Russell pulled us back for most of the way
until the pace quickened up a rise next to the lake and the
group split. I continued to limp home but managed a little
pulling on the flats prior to town.
As we rolled into town the place was bumping and there were
people and traffic everywhere. Pretty cool scene.
We still had our run to get done and I think it was only a
small dedicated few that got for it. I set out with Rachel
Joyce, John, Clas, Rob and Steven. The pace quickly increased
and I was quickly out the back-this was starting to become
a trend. With the heat, fatigue and long day I was just out
to get it done. Luckily the scenery was great as we ran along
the lake and into a posh housing area.
Glad to be done with this one. Only one more to go.
Day 8 – Finale
For the final day of Epic Camp France we had a long bike from
Annecy to Lyon on the schedule. John and I had 800m of swimming
to make up from Briancon so we would also try to tick that
off before departing on the ride.
Slept like utter crap the night prior. Another warm, loud
night. My stomach issues continue and for a while during the
night I was pretty cold and my heart rate was elevated which
had me convinced I sick – and screwed for the final day.
That went away after awhile and then I was hot again.
At breakfast I had no appetite and didn’t really eat
anything. I was pretty much a zombie at the short swim and
was in survival mode. As we prepped for the bike my goal was
simply to get the finish line.
The bike went as expected-a freaking hard climb up Grand Columbier,
lots of people with final day energy upping the tempo, excessive
heat and Steven crushing the final hour.
As we dropped off the last hills and onto the 50k of flat
into Lyon it was close to 100F. Steven quickly went to front
and fired up some tempo pace to bring us home-and whip people
off the back. I was counting the K’s down and trying
to hold onto the group. I was a little pissed cause he was
making me work pretty hard just to stay in the group-but it’s
Epic Camp so all this should be expected. I was seriously
almost dropped about 5 times in that last hour. I would have
been but the thought of riding in the heat by myself was not
appealing. It was so hot that the water in my bottles had
warmed to an undrinkable temperature. 10k from the hotel a
few of us bailed into a gas station for cold drinks. That’s
how hot is was! 6 miles to go after 600+ miles and we stopped!
All they had was vending machines and I didn’t have any
change but John kindly shared his Powerade with me. That was
good Powerade.
Well, we made back to the hotel. I still felt like crap but
it was so nice to shower and not think about the next workout.
I wish I could have finished on a stronger note but I put
it out there on multiple occasions in the camp and can’t
be upset with that.
Epilogue
Training totals for the camp
Run 4:08
Swim 3:06
Bike 41:37, 63,086 ft climbed, 658 miles
I’ve followed Epic Camp for a while now and it was a
real treat to complete one. Not only was the volume epic-the
scenery, routes and trip was as well. It was cool to get a
chance to ride many of the famous Alps climbs.
It was humbling to train with such a talented group of athletes.
I was especially impressed with the unsung heros that left
early each morning to get the rides done. To roll out early
and then arrive after most others is true embodiment of the
Epic Camp spirit. Getting it done.
I had some serious issues the last couple of days of the camp
and was really worried I might be getting sick. I somehow
managed to avoid this but it took 2 days post camp to get
a real appetite back. I’m sure the intensity early in
the camp had something to do with my break down but I also
think I should have been more diligent with my electrolyte
replacement.
It’s been brought to my attention that John’s last
name contains no ‘E’. I apologize for any previous
incorrect spelling of his name.
Updated photos at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/50759153@N00/sets/72157627452652730/with/6095495030/
Epic
Camp France home page 2011
