Camp Solo!

Well week 22 has been and gone! Big tick in the box - 5 weeks out from race day and towards the end of this week I feel like I have found my mojo! Hooray! Vital statistics for the week hit 16km in the pool, 345km on my bike and 60km out pounding the pavements......still in my old shoes!!

This week featured a bit of a training camp style 3 days towards the end of it - essentially 3 solid days of training. Usually before Ironman New Zealand our tri squad goes down to Taupo and pushes out between 3 and 5 days of big solid training. The camp is gruelling physically and emotionally but the plus side is the feeling of everyone being in it together as you do battle with each day, fight off the odd demon and tick off the sessions! So this week of training fell at the same time point as the Taupo camp relative to race day - no big surprise therefore that it featured 3 rather meaty days at the end of it! Unfortunately this camp was going to be a solo affair! I tried to persuade a few fellow tri dorks to participate in my 'camp' but there were no takers for any of the days!

Thursday kicked off with a long swim followed by a long run, Friday was a Half Ironman simulation and Saturday I had a swim, a very long bike ride and a short run afterwards! On Saturday morning I was a little excited that I would have some company for the first time on my camp - I was going to head to triathlon squad and do the swim with the group before taking off on my long bike ride. Unfortunately the company didn't quite work out as I had hoped.....I ended up in a swim lane on my own and when someone did hop in my lane to join me they only stayed for 300 metres and then moved back down to their original lane! Probably the most amusing moment came when we had a set of 25 metres to practice drafting and sprinting in a group - at the end of my set fellow squaddie Glen shouted over from the next lane 'hows the drafting practice going' - that sort of summed it up really :) At the end of the swim I had one last attempt to try and recruit someone to the rest of the days activities but there were no takers!

Despite being a solo camp by the end of it I felt the same sense of shattered accomplishment and was mighty impressed that I had the energy to get through it! As I looked back through the weeks programme I had a small smile at the coaches notes for Sunday.....12 hour day shift = rest day! Compression skins on under scrubs for the day - Check!