Day 2 has come and gone! Whew that was a BUSY DAY!
I will say this, despite what am I happy with as far as content of workouts, they keep us busy and have something for us all day!
** DISCLAIMER – Before you start further reading below, I’m going to throw out a disclaimer. I am writing these up while they are fresh, and sometimes raw in my mind to get everything down. Some for posterity, some to help my readers figure out if a training camp is for them. In no way am I being critical of the organizers, coaches or sponsors of the Team Zoot Camp. If you read along, and you get offended, please keep in mind this is my experience and it’s not meant to bash anyone personally. I’ve never run a camp, so don’t see this as me thinking I could do it better. Frankly, I’m not sure if that would be something I would ever want to do. Time will tell. **
DAY 2 AM
Meet and potatoes!
Got a solid swim in the AM. Again not crazy different than my workouts aside from being in a group. Some interesting diving off the deck 3 abreast to simulate race swimming was thrown in. I suck at diving off the deck and proceeded to belly flop 3 times. Ouch and my wrists and hands are swollen from repeatedly hitting the lap lane dividers. I’m just not as skilled sharing the lanes. It’s also a bit more chaotic and hard to track the swim with my watch. It gets all kinds of goobered up and doesn’t keep the distances right so at the end I true it up, but have no idea what paces I was doing.
After that it was a quick turnaround to the Canyon Bike HQ in Carlsbad to start our ride for the day. I was definitely looking forward to some time on two wheels since Kansas in the winter is a no go for tri bike riding. Problem was we had to ride through traffic, stop lights and stop signs to get to more open road. There was a lot of stopping, unclipping, clipping back in and the roads were not exactly the best at times.
Another item of note is the traffic is crazy compared to Kansas for me. Cars whizzing by ALL THE TIME. We were pretty much crowded the entire ride. I’d guess 66% was traffic and congestion and 34% was open riding, wide shoulders and nice pavement.
Couple things on the bike being in a group stood out to me. There was a large lack of bike etiquette in the group – but from a small percentage of the group. Most were good with hand signals for stopping, gravel, potholes and that sort of thing, but then you’d see people riding two, three abreast pushing into traffic and non bike lanes. Passing on the right. Weaving in and out of the group to get to the front. Taking off from the front. Taking up multiple lanes at stops and blowing off drivers requests to move into one lane. Just kind of not being safe and perpetuating that image of cyclists that drivers hate. Added another element to the dynamic of riding around with a lot of traffic.
Made me think of a few things to really dig into before considering another tri camp like this.
- Get course maps and review all of the bike courses and everything they’re going to do to (skills work?) and make sure you are ready for potentially difficult rides or very easy rides.
- Check out the bike course to see if it’s going to be in a congested populated area or if you’re going to be on wide open roads with less traffic and plan for it (if you want to take it on). In hindsight I would have brought my road bike or rented one for this camp.
- If I wasn’t somewhat ok riding in groups or traffic, today would have ended me. It was stressful for me as it was, but if you are not ready for it, it would not be fun. Check the maps and know where you will be riding.
- Ask for itineraries and theme for the training camp to see if it’s going to be more drills oriented and laid-back, if it’s going to be volume or be a hammer fast and make sure that aligns with what you want out of it.
- Had I not been doing the swim volume I had and have my background that I had to this point the swims would have been a little more difficult. If you are newer and get thrown in a 50 meter pool and busting out 3000 meters a shot, you might suffer a little.
Here’s a little video on my morning thoughts:
DAY 2 PM
Back to being a little more tame.
They probably were not interested in destroying us day 2, so the PM work was a jog to a park and run drills. Reminded me of football in high school for warm ups and the PT work I have done in the past for calf and foot injuries. Don’t get me wrong, solid stuff and important, but from my perspective I already have an appreciation for the need (maybe don’t do it as much as I should, but I do some) so it was somewhat rudimentary. Not to mention the clowns came back out with a dose of more antics for MK to deal with. I felt bad for her… wonder if her college athletes give her this much grief. She seems to be over by now.
We jogged back and then back over to the cross fit box. The instructor seems legit, but they are spending a lot of time talking technique, needs for doing the routines, etc. We spent less than 20 minutes doing a workout and around 30 listening to instruction or practicing moves. Again, this may come across whiny, but from an athlete perspective, I’d like to get in and get dirty. Beat me up man… but from a coach point of view, driving home the strength and conditioning issue is VERY valid. I give ALL my athletes strength work. Some do it, some don’t. Kind of like how the group took to the workouts. Most seemed into it today, but I wonder how much the will stay on top back in real life.
Unfortunately I needed to skip out of the social event with Bob Babbit. Just too much to do since they keep us hopping all day.
Overall day 2 had some more meat to it. We have a 40+ mile ride for day 3, swim, run of the bike and some strength. Curious to see how they will approach it.
Oh, also added some 3M double sided auto tape to the QR PR6 rear box that the bracket came off in shipping. So far the JB weld held today on some rough roads, but I wanted to extra security and piece of mind. Should be bomb proof now!
