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Day One | Day Two | Day Three | Day Four | Day Five | Day Six | Day Seven Day Eight | Day Nine | Day Ten | Day Eleven | Day Twelve Epilogue | Aussie Greats After each camp there are a few posts on various forums regarding the big miles we put in. Most people don’t understand the intent of the camps or the underlying values and expectations the campers have when signing up. I don’t want to try and give a spiel here defending what we do on the camps. As I’ve mentioned before, these camps are designed for people like Gordo and I. We know we’re not that common, but we’ve met enough people like us to know that there is a place for this idea. We don’t want a big group nor do we want to do lots of camps. The basic premise is to challenge ourselves -- take the challenge of training to another level. What we do isn’t designed to be the “optimal” training for IM’s or anything else. The camps are designed to give people like me the chance to train as much as they like in great places that we wouldn’t normally go. This camp took us up to the roof of Australia in January! What a magic part of the world to see from the seat of a bike or running. On these camps I want to see things, do rides and runs I wouldn’t otherwise see and do. I want good, plentiful food cooked for me, not to hassle with checking in or out of motels, doing laundry, buying groceries, etc., etc., and I want to share the experience with people like me who enjoy huge training like I do. I do know that everyone who has done the camps has come away with a much different view of what their physical limitations might be. But that’s a side effect of the camps really, not the main goal. That’s it. There’s nothing more to it than that. Past campers have gone on to see huge improvements soon after the camps and although that makes me very proud to be a part of their accomplishments, that’s not the main goal either. Take It to the Next Level -- that little catchy slogan pertains to much more than a race result -- it’s the whole training/lifestyle experience we want to take to another level. Not many are going to appreciate that as a worthwhile pursuit for its own sake. I’m OK with that. We did get a few more coaches along on this camp -- a total of six of us are coaches. That helps make for interesting conversations and sometimes lively debate along the way. Having two orthopaedic surgeons along this time also helped to make it very interesting. These are smart fellas. I can’t say enough about how well we were looked after by our support crew. We flew over, housed, fed, and paid (it wasn’t a lot I know!!!) five crew members to look after us for the two weeks. These camps would not be anywhere near the same experience without their assistance. Darren the bike mechanic from Kona turned out to be such a brilliant addition to the camp. We travel to some very beautiful and remote places and often have bike troubles out there that only a very handy and industrious mechanic can deal with. Plus his good humor and tireless support along the way was way above and beyond what was expected. The next camp will be here on the South Island of New Zealand, but instead of going south from Christchurch like we did previously, we’ll head up north where it’s a bit warmer and sunnier. Hopefully we can get our support crew back for that camp. That was the idea when Gordo and I decided to fly them over from Christchurch for this camp in Aussie. It’s important to have people we know and trust to look after us. Day Twelve - 21 January 2005 - Sydney Today didn’t have any points on the line as mentioned previously. Gordo and I wanted everyone to be able to chill out and ride together to Canberra if they chose to ride at all. We also wanted people to get some sleep instead of training all night. As we headed out at 6:10am towards Canberra it was a chilly 9C although it looked like it was going to be a great day. Vernon got a puncture right away but other than that we had a great group ride to Canberra. Newsom and Clas kept things humming right along after our quick snack stop at about 100km. Seth ruptured his sidewall and had to stop twice to fix it and ended up sticking a 50-dollar bill in there to stop the tube from bulging through. Nothing seems to stop this RoboSeth. We had a few wrong turns and ended up going 200km with 5,000 feet of climbing. The climbing was very gradual for the most part, and it was nice to have everyone ride together, including Kevin (Strawman) from Colorado, who’s just been riding his own pace other days to keep from blowing to bits. Clear, warm and sunny all day with light breezes. When planning the camp this was the type of group ride I thought we would have about 3-5 of over the course of the camp. Unfortunately the hills really separated the guys and we ended up riding in smaller groups most days and lots of guys had a lot of personal time. We finished at the Australian Institute of Sport for a shower, hot tub and swim. We had to load the bikes onto the trailer so our crew could drive them to Sydney. After a dip (Gordo did 4km) we got a shuttle to the airport, flew to Sydney, train to our hotel on Hyde Park and then to dinner at 7:30pm. For some of us with a bit of energy left and a little lubrication the aftermath function included a little stroll into the city. I really can’t say a lot more than that about the evening... other than to say it was nice to go out with the guys and not be swim/bike/running. Day Eleven - 20 January 2005 - Jindabyne The Epic Camp-A-Thon today was a bit of an experiment, but I think we’ll make it a permanent fixture in future camps. I was left to make the final call on the events since the G-Man didn’t want to let his competitive tendencies slant the result his way and also not turn it into a death march lasting all day and night. I came up with a reasonable mixture of endurance and sprint events along with a few fun events. The events were:
Then we did the 1500 and the Baron ran away from us with an opening 69/400. He still had a bit of snap in his legs after all of the hard running he’s done in the last few days. Spencer showed a bit of the old form on the last 150 trying to close the gap, but having trained more than twice what’s he’s ever done in the past didn’t leave him with a lot of snap in the legs. Bjorn just held off the G-Man by an inch with Newsom just behind. I was just glad to finish. The duathlon was similar on the first run, but then Bjorn took over and flew away from everyone. The Baron reeled him in on the second run and Gordo held off Newsom and Spencer for 3rd. I went to the wall to try and haul in the Shilt brothers and Peter Hancock but to no avail. We were all within about 15 seconds of each other. Dr. J, Jeff Shilt, did the bike in his running shoes so had lightning fast transitions. Yet I couldn’t reel him in on the bike. We moved on to the gym for free throws and as expected the Americans (but not me!) spanked everyone on those with Newsom only hitting one and Gordo only getting in two -- and one of those was Rick Barry style -- two-handed under-hand. I had a shocker only sinking six. I normally can do that with my eyes closed, but those push-ups left me barely able to hold the ball up. We had a little snack and a coffee and drove over to the pool. The first event was the 50m f/s from a dive start. We seeded the swim and I was surprised to see the normally not-so-fast swimmers actually have some top end. Every one went under 35. We moved onto the 200m f/s kick. No arm strokes allowed. Everyone was pretty average except for Bjorn who smacked out a 2:59. Most of the guys could barely do that swimming. I did 4:30+ and really couldn’t have gone any faster. My legs are completely gone. The final event was the 400 IM and was quite entertaining. Not many of these guys are very proficient at the other strokes. On top of that they were doing it on fumes. Once again Bjorn won easily in 5:23 with me second in 5:40, Newsom 3rd in 5:47 and Gordo 4th in 5:58 -- a PB for him. I was bit surprised by that. He’s done about 65+ km in the previous 11 days on top of all the bike and run training. The Baron took the over-all title in today’s event, but that didn’t matter too much to the over-all battle for the yellow jersey with Gordo barely inching ahead of Seth in the last few days. Seth got the white jersey for Best New Camper and I got the red jersey for Best Old F….. I just had our camp organizer, Pete OBrien, e-mail me the spreadsheet with the total kms for swim/bike/run for each camper and it makes for very impressive reading. Here are some stats for the total kms over the 12 days:
Day Ten - 19 January 2005 - Jindabyne Today was another “optional” day here in Jindabyne. With this really being the last day to score points for just doing pure distance some campers were pulling some energy out of a hat to get in some solid kms. After yesterdays hammer session up the mountain I thought there would be a few more people sleeping in today. Day Nine - 18 January 2005 - Jindabyne Today was our camp tri race. The weather couldn’t have been any better and thank the Lord for that because we were going to the highest point in the country to finish, and because its also totally exposed it can get pretty nasty up there. We also had our first nasty accident today. Fritz from Cronulla came crashing down hard on the ride to the lake when his wetsuit sleeve got caught in his front wheel at about 60km/hour. He landed head first and it’s safe to say his helmet probably saved his life. It was smashed all to hell. He didn’t break any bones luckily enough, but he mangled his face and his teeth went through his skin under his bottom lip and he had to go to the hospital in Cooma to get cleaned up. He’s such a quiet and unassuming guy originally from Switzerland. Man, did that put a damper on things before we got going this morning. I set out a swim course which ended up being around 1200+ meters. I swam it easy to warm up and did it under 20 minutes so was pretty sure I wouldn’t get too much grief from the not-so-speedy swimmers. The ride went straight up Charlotte’s Pass out of the lake to the base of the Mt. Kosioscko summit trail. We then ran up that to finish 1800 meters vertical gain above the lake. There were a few big dips on the climb up too so it was a damn tough course. In the swim I led it out and Bjorn sat on me without a wetsuit, so after we ran up the beach that was the last anyone saw of him. He won the thing quite handily. I rode up with Newsom. Clas and Gordo bridged up and thought I rode very well, especially considering how tired I was. I knew I didn’t stand a chance against any of them in the 9.7km uphill run, but it was nice to give them a bit of a nudge on the bike. Hard 1:25 ride up. Clas and Newsom put in a very respectable effort to get within a couple of minutes to Bjorn, and the G-Man just ran steady as did I with no point in trying to gain points. Besides, the view was incredible and the G-Man was planning on tacking on some serious run kms in his afternoon session. He ended up running 39km today. The run up to the top of the mountain is actually very gradual until the last 2km. Spencer Punter had the fastest run of the day in just a tick over 44 minutes. He’s also based himself in Christchurch to train with the G-Man over our summer. If he can bring his swimming and cycling along he’s going to surprise a few people. He’s only been in the sport for a couple of years but with a 3:48 1500m PB on the track in H.S. in Calgary about 16 years ago he’s obviously got a good engine. Day Eight - 17 January 2005 - Jindabyne Today was planned as an “optional” day here in Jindy. With the points battle going on and the peer pressure to not be the camp couch potato, some are finding it hard to really take it easy. But some did. I’m trying to swim/bike/run every day the minimum distances I’ve set for myself so I once again did the 4/90/12. I rode a nice loop with Terry Kerrigan from New York. Terry and I have been corresponding over the summer and it was nice to be able to get his full sporting history. He’s been at this game off and on for a very long time -- longer than most -- and it was nice to be able to share some of the things we’ve done over the years. He’s been following the exploits of the folks who’ve done previous Epic Camps and after seeing the campers go 2,3,4,7 in Taupo last year, he decided to join us for the camp and then stay in Christchurch for the remainder of the time leading up to Taupo so he can train with the Christchurch crew. Looks like we’re going to have a growing number of fast folks training in Christchurch in February thanks to the G-Man’s inclusive nature. There are a total of 13 campers here who are doing Taupo this year and once again it will be interesting to see how the campers fare. This training camp is NOT specific to Taupo (more on that later), but I do think that, thus far, I’ve seen all the signs of impending breakthrough for many of the guys here. Clas took a ride up to Thredbo where some of the guys swam in the 50m pool there, but he didn’t swim. He ran the 43km back to our accommodation in 2:55! And although there is a net vertical drop on that route there are also some wicked climbs. I think most of the guys here were absolutely stunned by that run. Some of us have cycled that route in the last few days. In the midst of this volume the young Swede can still crank out some impressive running. He’s not too concerned about the yellow jersey for points champ on this camp either -- he did it because he wanted a long solid run. I won’t be too surprised to see him back it up in the tri race tomorrow either. He says he’s feeling very strong. It was also the best weather we’ve had during the camp so far -- just a perfect 26C with a bit of breeze -- and lots of sun. We’ve only had one cool (20C), partly rainy day so far. It was nice to be able to cruise a bit today. Greats in Australian Triathlon History There have been some amazing people in the sport in Australia over the years and I hope to share some stories with you about some of the characters who have shaped the sport here. Most of you will have heard stories of some of the more familiar people like: Greg Welch. Although many Aussies have been dominant in the world of triathlon, he’s still the only one to win in Kona. I have some amazing memories of Greg dancing the night away after races. Talk about your resilient dudes. The guy was always either flat out or asleep. He came to triathlon through a group of mad guys in Cronulla on the outskirts of Sydney. That group included the Southwell family. If you were in Kona this year you saw the father of the clan Bob Southwell get up on stage to accept his award for winning the 75-79 age group. The man has been doing the sport for over 20 years, is over 75, and still rocks! If that guy isn’t the Ironman poster child I don’t know who is. I remember the Southwell boys from the early days. I always envied them because they were flight attendants for Qantas so they used to fly to Honolulu and back all the time. They were either surfing the N. Shore or training all day on their layovers and days off. What a life! It was guys like that who helped define the tri culture in Australia as one of just going until you drop. Australians are like that anyway, and I guess the training component isn’t really a novelty for Australians who grew up near a beach. And most of them did. Brad Beven. In my opinion he was equal to Simon Lessing and Mark Allen as the best male ever in our sport. His streak of five years at #1 on the ITU circuit and #1 on the Aussie sprint circuit was nothing short of total domination of short course racing around the world. He won both drafting and non-drafting races against the best guys week in and week out for years. Only bad luck, Spencer Smith and Lessing prevented him from winning several world champs and an Olympic medal. I don’t think its necessary for a guy to do Ironmans to be considered an all-arounder, but Brad certainly could have had success there too had he chosen to try. He was like a camel in the heat and trained incredibly hard and long during his base periods. I had the chance to train with him in his hometown of Mirriwini near Cairns one summer and he tore me to shreds when I was in 8:40 IM shape. BTW - The story of him being nicknamed ”The Croc” because he swam in a river by his house that had a huge crocodile in it is true. When he was young his dad would come down to the river to help keep an eye on the croc when Brad was swimming nearby just to make sure his son didn’t get eaten. Brad had an accurately marked 1km stretch of road right from his garage that he would run off the bike regularly to get his bike-to-run speed up. This wasn’t his run for the day just a drill he often did and he would always smack it out in under three minutes. A good day was about 2:52. Greg Welch told me that story and I didn’t believe it until I went there and saw it for myself and measured it out with my bike computer. The guy was so damn quick. Michellie Jones. Many of you will know of Michellie. She’s probably the winningest woman triathlete in the world by now in terms of number of races won. What you may not know of is her humble beginnings as a triathlete. She wasn’t always speedy and she certainly wasn’t always as svelt! I’m certain she won’t mind me sharing a bit of her history because if more people knew how ordinary she was in her early years they would be even more inspired by her than they are now. I remember doing a race in Tahiti one year and Michellie was there -- just an age grouper at that point I think. I’m not certain about that, but I am sure she outweighed me by at least a couple of kilos! She was pretty average in all three segments of the tri. When she started winning races later on and her swimming improved markedly I inquired as to how she did it. That’s when I began to learn of the standard of work that most Aussie swim coaches expect from their swimmers, even the triathletes. Michellie flogged herself in the pool doing 5-6 km sessions for a couple of years to bring her swimming up. Just plain old hard yakka (probably didn’t spell that right). When my dear wife was trying to win a new BMW in Texas at the final event of the Danskin Series one year she had to race Michellie and Karen Smyers and the points were very close. Erin always considered those two her toughest competitors in non-IM races and was always nervous as hell when racing them because they were so tough. Greg Stewart. I remember when Greg came over to Palm Springs to do one of the Desert Princess Duathlon series events, which were very competitive in the eighties. He destroyed all of us including Kenny Souza who was otherwise untouchable in the USA at that time in duathlons. I think Greg also finished 3rd in Kona one year, but injuries often got the best of him. His gazelle-like legs were a bit fragile. He’s now a coach down in Melbourne. Jan Wanklyn. Jan was a friend and competitor of my wife in the very beginnings of triathlon in Australia in the early eighties. She’s won quite a few IM’s around the world, and 20 years later she’s still out there racking up quick IM finishes with her husband Ken Glah. Marc Dragon. Marc was probably the first Aussie guy to make a living in triathlon in Australia and then come over to the USA to race. I remember he went around 10:30 to win Triple M Ironman on possibly the one of hardest bike course ever in an IM – three laps of the Royal National Park. Talk about your brutal steep climbs. Ouch! What a mother of a course. If any one knows anything about what’s happened to these guys then I’d love for you to send me a private e-mail to let me know what’s become of them: Chris Canning, the Bennet boys and Rohan Philips. Rohan was one of the earliest Aussie pros to come over to the USA along with Dragon to start his journey as a pro. He stayed at my condo in Del Mar while I was spending the summer in Boulder. I remember he left a significant phone bill! The thing about the Aussie guys is that they wouldn’t think anything of crashing at your place and accepting any and all hospitality and would be happy to reciprocate if they ever got the chance. Greg Welch’s mum fed and housed a half dozen tri bums at a time for years. People like her are the unsung heroes that helped get the sport off the ground over here. Miles Stewart. The guy made the Aussie team for the world champs for 13 years straight, and with the depth in that country that’s an incredible streak of consistency. He won one the World Champs when it was held in the Gold Coast. Talk about rising to the occasion. What a talent. Kim Hicks & Liz Hepple. Two names I remember as winning lots of races in the early days. More trivia. Before IM Aussie was firmly established in Forster it was held in a lake in an area called the Great lakes, hence it was called the Great Lakes Triathlon. Wetsuits in triathlon were still in the infancy stage and Grant Boswell won when both ST and Grip pulled out with hypothermia. Tinley actually tried to mooch a wetsuit off of one of the lifeguards in a boat and put it on in the water but he was too damn frozen to get the thing on. Raymond Russell and Team Nissan. I did a race in Frankton once in about ’85 called Survivor. Too bad he didn’t trademark the name, eh! Actually, he probably did. It was a half IM and I won a car for first prize. My first wife and I celebrated by drinking a crate of Tooth Sheaf Stout over the course of the next day. That’s about all I remember about the event. I sold the car back to the dealer -- same as I did with all the cars I ever won (four in all). Here’s a bit of Aussie tri history for you -- Scott Tinley (ST) snuck over here in the mid-eighties to win $Aus20,000 at the Triple M when no one else knew anything about it! No internet back then to keep us informed. More recently, Jackie Gallagher, Loretta Harrop, Jo King, Melanie Mitchell and Emma Snowsill -- all world champions and all coached by Brett Sutton. If that isn’t utterly fascinating and remarkable then I don’t know what is. He also coached Siri when she won the world champs. I have tremendous admiration for the work/play ethic and the success that the Aussie triathletes have had over the years. I’ve always tried to copy the way they do it with a carefree attitude and smiles on their faces. Day Seven - 16 January 2005 - Jindabyne Today we started with a swim beginning at 6:30am. Lots of coffee was drunk this morning. I figure we’ve been averaging a total of about 10 cups/day of coffee so far, which has kept the support crew very busy before 6am to get it ready for us. Not a speedy day in toe pool today either. It looked a bit like the 2am point of a 24-hour swim-a-thon in there today. It was certainly my easiest 4km so far. I was dead and that theme continued for me all day today. Gordo stayed in to do 6.5km to start his march towards the 50km mark to get two extra bonus points. He would later do another 7km in Jindabyne to try and convince me to give up the chase and I certainly had to start thinking about how ridiculous I was willing to get just to give him a push. More hills on our ride to Jindabyne – again more than I figured we’d have. My “under-carriage” was once again torturing me like it does at some point on every Epic Camp and I was happy to let my riding partners ride off to allow me to suffer on my own. What a long 90km. I ended up going past Jindy towards Thredbo and its all huge climbs out that way. Others rode a lot today with Newsom and Spencer Punter going 200km, Clive, Seth and Michael Hanreck from the U.K. going 175km and four others going around 160km. It was quite cool and rainy today which was actually a nice change. In Jindabyne there really isn’t any flat terrain anywhere to run so my evening run was a bit of a thigh blaster. Lots of kangaroos about tonight, so not all dreariness. Gordo put in 33km of running today to total 13 points for the day to try and keep Seth at bay in the points, and the big Swede Bjorn did 21km which was quite an effort on his part. He had to stay off his feet completely for six weeks with no riding either prior to getting here in Aussie to heal his foot injury so is really unfit (for him). Kevin from WonderVu, Colorado and Dr. Jeff Shilt from Winston-Salem also ran 21km today. Good to see people are still holding it together. It was good to get to Jindabyne where we’ll be for five nights. It’s hard for the support crew to pack it up and set up in all of the different places and also giving us support along the road during our rides. We’re staying out at the sports center about 3km from town here in Jindabyne. They have a nice tartan track with a cement velodrome around it and that flat area is going to get a lot of use in the next few days as campers try to get their mileage up. More on that later. There’s also a nice internet place next to a backpackers in town so we should be able to get online consistently from now on. I’m still hopelessly behind with coaching work and others are also finding it a bit tough to keep up. The few wireless Blackberry devices here seem to be the way to go. The weather forecast is for sunny mid 20’sC for the rest of the week so we’re looking forward to a respite from the heat. Never thought I’d say that. Day Six - 15 January 2005 - Cooma Today we were in Cooma all day. Not a real exciting town and we will probably remember it most for the pool being about the dirtiest we’ve ever been in. 25m outdoor but covered pool. I felt obligated to give Gordo a bit of a push in the swim total department so I got in twice for a total of 10.3km. Clive from Auckland also got in twice to get 10.3km in addition to his ride of 120km and his run of 12km. He made a real push in the points department today. Before I go any further I’d better say a few words about the points system we’re using this year to “inspire” the campers to challenge themselves a bit further. We usually set out routes for the bike every day with some days having various options. But other than that and our race on Day 9, and our Epic Camp-a-Thon on Day 11, every one decides their own sessions and distance. Gordo and I as “the committee” have come up with the following point structure with the emphasis being on base training and total distance covered. This year’s points system:
In addition the first one to get to specific distance totals in each discipline get additional points.
For our camp tri on Day 9 in Jindabyne the points go from 20 for first, 19 for second, 18, etc but everyone gets 5 points for taking part. For our Epic Camp-a-Thon on Day 11 the points are the same as the tri race. There is an over-all yellow jersey for camp points leader, a red jersey for BOF (Best Old F…….) and a white jersey for Best Young Camper. On previous camps we’ve given points for city limit sprints and KOM’s (mountain top sprints) and certain swim sets but this year we felt we needed to get away from so much racing. Those sprints were just too damn draining!
To continue the story of Day 6 in Cooma... I forgot what the hell else we did! Not a real exciting day in Cooma. Day Five - 14 January 2005 - Cooma We briefed every one before the camp began to pace themselves through the first few days because Day 5 was going to be a humdinger. Unfortunately when I planned the route for the camp I didn’t have a Topo map at my disposal, so even I underestimated. I won’t do that again! In planning the route I imagined one day at the beach here in Narooma, but the waves and shark nets put a bit of a damper on things. A few did take a dip last night, but not a real swim. Still, it was nice to be near the ocean after a few days out in the outback at the Pelican Sheep Station. Another 5:15am start on the coffee and into the water at 6am. The swimming pool was another 50m pool, this time indoors. No speedy swimming going on today. It was easy to see everyone starting to run a bit low on energy. G-man and Seth started their battle in earnest today with 6.5km swims. By the time they got out of the water some were already on their bikes. But get this – Seth woke up early (just did, couldn’t sleep…..) and ran 13km beginning at 4:45am. So that was a good three hours of training before the hardest ride of the camp! The route along the coast to the first drink stop was about 70km and included 5,000 feet of climbing. It was a sunny 27C to start and climbed to 39C by the drink stop. Then we stopped for a quick lunch at 100k and it was 42C in the shade. Then things got hot! We had a climb up Brown Mt. which is approx 12km and people had readings of between 43C and 48C at the bottom. The sun was straight over-head and I can say in all honesty that it was the hottest climb I’ve ever done. I had to stop three times to cool off and was barely turning my 23-tooth the entire way. Luckily we found a fresh water spring 8km up to get some water and get a rinse. The only climb I’ve done that comes close to this one in terms of heat was in Palm Springs in ’88 climbing up into the mountains out of Banning with ST and Erin when it was a sunny 110F. Erin hammered up it because she knew that every time I came close to her it was to grab her water bottle after I was empty. We re-grouped in a little town about 20km past the top of the climb and then sailed into Cooma. Bjorn had gotten into some very severe heat stress on the climb and was drinking and icing himself while sitting in the sun until some one suggested he get into the shade. The big guy was in trouble! He had sat on the group for the 20km to the town and then sat on some more all the way to Cooma to prevent getting into the van. He’s never EVER sat on the back like that in his life so I was a bit concerned. When we got to Cooma he then proceeded to lie on the floor for two hours waking periodically to drink a bit. Everyone was fairly shattered. The distance was only 180km and the altitude gain “only” 8400 feet, but added onto the previous four days it was a brutal day. My average speed for the day was about as slow as any ride I’ve done in the last decade. As we rode today I joked with young John Newsom that although he swears he’ll never run any slower than 5-minute kms in training he sure didn’t seem to mind riding like a granny . We were creeping along. I decided not to run, but hoped it would be my only day to miss running on the camp. I was a bit surprised at the modest digs we had to stay in at the Snowtel Motor Camp for two nights in Cooma. What a crack-up. I suppose it could be a bit better in winter... Sitting outside at the pub in the cool evening breeze was such a treat tonight. The support crew was pretty worn out too after hustling back and forth in the vans all day to get us enough to drink. Day Four - 13 January 2005 - Narooma I’m actually finishing and editing this update in the evening of Day 10 and I apologize for my lack of updates over the past week. If you’ve read the updates the others have written then you probably understand. I also have social obligations on the camp on top of everything else! It’s important to me to provide a well-rounded camp experience. Day 4 began with a swim in the Goulburn. Most did 4km. We included a set of 12x 200m in the long course pool and I had to give the big Swede a bit of a push so we did them on the 2:50 holding just under 2:40. Good effort considering the level of fatigue. Many ran home the 12km from the pool to get that part of the day over with as it was heating up to over 38C again and we had a very big ride in store. The ride to Narooma turned out to include a lot more climbing than anticipated as every single ride has done so far. Total elevation gain of about 8,550ft. Ride length of 217km. Some took a bit of a different route and totaled 230km. What a day. Lots of fun descents but I spent more time in my 23-tooth cog today than I have in a few years. Its one thing to do a ride like that with gradual climbs but it’s an entirely different animal when you have to grunt up dozens of short, steep hills. What a back-breaker. We had a nice picnic lunch at Bateman’s Bay followed by a route along the coast to Narooma, but again, there was very little flat riding. Those of us who did run in the morning headed out in the evening, but the temp didn’t dip under 30C until the sun went down after 8pm -- a few good rays were caught on the run. I was one of the lucky ones to get a massage in the evening after my run. Nine-plus-hour day for me. Okay... Spas... I’d like to just have a good, old-fashioned dig and rant at the spa industry and the people who use them. What a crack-up. According to Spa Magazine there are over 12,000 spas in the USA alone, a 4-fold increase in the last decade. Obviously there’s a demand for these things. No shortage of people wanting to go to pamper palaces and to be in sumptuous surroundings to be coddled morning till night. We’re obviously not running mobile spa for triathletes at Epic Camp. I don’t think anyone who does our camps will ever confuse the two concepts. Spas are for people who want to be pampered and we really try to offer the exact opposite of that. Lately though, there has been a new type of spa popping up that also includes some exercise. Its these places that really crack me up. You can pay very good money to go for a hike and then get your pedicure with adobe clay followed by a “full body Mother Earth wrap with local benonite clay infused with lavender and aloe”. That’s not a misquote. These people put you into very sweet-smelling, high class mud. Or you can do a spin class followed by “an 85-minute extreme sports pedicure”. That’s a real quote from the promotional material of one spa. All this for around $300-1,000/day. Some of these spas have spin classes and "pilates on a ball" and all sorts of various new-age exercise techniques sure to induce some sort of change in your karma. You can get an icy face towel scented with spearmint after a strenuous hike, which actually sounds kinda nice to me compared to Gordo’s deadly penetrating gasses filtering through the paceline. So while I suppose we can take heart that the number of Ironheads around the world is growing its obviously not growing as fast as those who want to spend some of their free time and money on spas. I had a friend once who I spent two days with riding around the big island with. His name is Jeff Jones and he once suggested to me (and this was in 1982) that if everyone in the USA went on a two-week backpack trip every year where they tried to cover some real terrain and had to pack in all of their own supplies and food that there would probably not be much of an obesity problem at all. That advice still seems pretty reasonable to me. Day Three - 12 January 2005 - Goulburn Woke up at 5:15 a.m. for coffee, drive into town to swim at 6:00 a.m. No real ambitious swim sets or targets today! Most were content to do easy to moderate, continuous freestyle. Most did the minimum of 4km. Last year we had a 3km minimum to get a swim point, but this year the G-Man is determined to raise the bar. Plus, he’s in swim shape. I did 6.1km again and Seth and Gordo did 6.5km. Seth is still really learning to swim so his session took 2:10! Having guys like that around makes you feel kinda lazy! Beautiful 50m outdoor pool here. Many of the campers ran the 12km back from the pool and it was already getting hot – a sunny 27C at 8:00 a.m. Those that ran had a nice break or nap after breakfast before heading out to ride. Some who aren’t riding today (Clas and Bjorn) slept in and ran first and swam later with some of the crew. When my group headed out to ride it was a damn windy 95 F and climbed to over 100F. Our 105km was a lot of work, even helping each other in the wind. Our ride time with a few short stops was 3:30. At least we had better roads today, but still no where near an average road in the USA. Many of the roads here are what they call chip-seal, as opposed to the more common tarmac in the USA. It took a total of four hours to cover our 105km including looking around for water. We ended up getting some from a tank of water collected from the roof of a church upon seeing them. Water is very precious in these parts. Some chose a different route, which went over the continental divide and past a wind farm... John Shilt from Winston-Salem couldn’t believe how damn windy it was until he saw the wind farm. ”Thery’re growing wind out here!” was his reaction. Gordo laughed for hours over that. Pays to have a sense of humor out here. Some of us did make it into town for a quiet beer. The staff needed it! This is a place that builds a huge thirst. Day Two - 11 January 2005 - Goulburn Today was a very long day, even by camp standards. Most campers had their biggest training day in their lives today. Woke up in Penrith this morning. Coffee beginning at 5:15 a.m., walk one km to pool, and in the water by 6:00 a.m. We started with a swim. Most did the minimum to score a swim point - 4km. I did 6.1km and the G-Man, of course, had to stay in until he did more – 6.5km. It was mostly just distance freestyle. We have a little rule (one of many) in the camp that if you use a pull bouy without a band then the meters don’t count for points. Breakfast in the hotel was followed by a long ride to Goulburn. For those following along on your atlas we had lunch in Mittagong. The route seemed pretty straight forward but the hills broke things up and people came to Mittagong by various routes. After lunch more wrong turns were made and we ended arriving at our accommodation out in the sticks at the Pelican Sheep Station having done between 200 and 230km. Total elevation gain between 7,000 and 8,000 feet. Wind and heat - a sunny 90F for most of the ride. The UV index was about 15 for most of the ride. But even those stats don’t tell the whole story. We had some of the roughest roads for sustained periods that I’ve ever ridden today. Riding time was between 6:15 and 7:30. Then we ran off the bike. I did the minimum to get a run point - 12km - as did most campers with, Seth from Calgary and Peter Hancock from Melbourne going 21km to take the lead in the accumulated run distance points competition (more on the points later...). Lucky the support crew headed out to give them drinks as it was like a convection oven out there. And it’s supposed to be hotter and windier tomorrow. I headed out for my run at 5:00 p.m. and the Cosine angle of the sun was perfect for tanning the sides of the body on my out and back course - left side on the way out, right side on the return. It’s pretty easy to get the front and back sides of the body but for a well-balanced tan those sides have got to get some specific attention. I tried to keep moving fast enough so the flies wouldn’t accumulate on me. Guess I probably look and smell like dead meat - quite attractive to flies. The sheep station where we’re staying is a hoot! We are sleeping in the bunk rooms that the cowboys and sheep shearers used to use when this was a working farm years ago. We’re eating and relaxing in a big mess hall. We had a couple of masseuses working on us tonight, which was nice. More tomorrow. The total hours today were between 8.5 and 10 hours. Very clear night with an amazing show of stars way out here when waking to take a leak. Very quiet. Day One - 10 January 2005 - Penrith It’s 5:15 a.m. on Day One and I’m behind already. Gordo wrote up his Day One chapter on the flight over yesterday. The guy can type! I think he actually types more than he trains many weeks of the year. Guess I’m going to have to get some voice-activated software going here soon to keep up. One of the main reasons to keep this journal is so that the campers don’t have to. Once we get rolling this morning there won’t be a lot of time or energy to record everything we experienced along the way. So my entries here are largely for them, along with the photos we’ll be taking along the way. You wouldn’t think that with approximately 14 hours/day to train it seems like there should be plenty of time for lots of leisurely pursuits since people have left their work behind to attend the camp. But half the camp are coaches! So they are all getting online nearly every day to try and keep up with the athletes they are working with. With remote dial-up hassles still an issue in many of the little places we go that can add up to a significant amount of time every day. At dinner tonight I’ll have to ask the others how many are falling behind in their coaching duties. I know I am! The normal daily things like eating, also take up a bit more time each day as we try to spend a few moments relaxing so we can talk and share ideas and get to know one another. At home many of us save time each day by either living out of a blender or eating many of our meals in the car while getting from place to place. I’m the cook at home so not having to spend time cooking here on the camp is really a huge luxury for me. Plus the food is a bit better and has more variety than my meager efforts. I’m sure my kids would do this camp just for the change in their diet! But the main reason that the campers don’t really do a lot more than eat sleep and train is they get very tired. And that’s the whole idea of the camp – that’s it in a nutshell - to take on the challenge of doing more than they’ve ever done. The idea here is to minimize everything that doesn’t fall into the categories of eat, sleep and train so they can absorb more training and not be so shelled they can’t enjoy most of the experience. If you’ve read any previous journals we’ve kept then you’ll understand all of this, but not very one has. The previous journals can be accessed from the Epic Camp site if you’re interested. Today was planned to be a moderate day in terms of the camp: 5:45 a.m. start. Order of the day was:
Lots of inner city traffic and the motor ways are pretty damn loud with all of the trucks, but once we got out of the city it went much smoother. The G-Man kept us rolling right along on the second part of the ride today, despite his best intentions before the camp to sit back and relax for the first three days... It’s a very good group of guys. The Swedes, Bjorn and Clas, aren’t all that fit right now so we don’t have them disappearing off into the distance right away. Probably in a few days though. Bjorn has been injured since before Kona and Clas has been largely on a break since Kona with “only a few long runs” in there. I asked him how long those runs were and he said 37km at about four minutes/km pace! Different animal than the rest of us. It’s really nice having the time on long rides to chat to people to hear where they’re from, their history, and their stories. Seth Bitting from Calgary is a young orthopaedic surgeon and probably the whitest triathlete on the planet. He has about 2% bodyfat, too, so his blue-ish translucent, Alberta skin resembles Casper the friendly ghost. He did Ultraman in November so is a pretty durable character. Well, any one who can do IM’s and go through med school is pretty durable aren’t they. Kevin Purcell (KP) spent quite bit of time at the back of the paceline patiently biding his time to see what develops in the Best Old Fella (BOF) category. Gordo actually uses another term for us old geezers but this is mostly a family show so far so I won’t repeat it. Dinner tonight at a restaurant! We had Italian tonight and seemed to be keeping the chef’s pretty busy. We don’t actually do that often on Epic. Takes too long to wait for food! We’re staying in motels with kitchens for the most part so our camp staff will be doing the cooking for us. As I type this Mark O’Brien is in the next room preparing the avocado and tuna mix for tomorrow’s lunches. Nice! Every evening Gordo will be totaling up everyone’s KMs for the day and the points earned for our ”friendly” competition, which is designed to help motivate people to achieve lifetime training bests. As of tonight, I’m leading the BOF’s with young Peter Hancock from Melbourne leading the over-all and open categories with his 6.5km swim this a.m. giving him the edge. That was the biggest swim session of his life. No kidding. Way to open the camp, Peter! That’s what’s it all about here, baby.
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