How about a training camp?

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 03, 2018

No 2018 New Year's resolutions for me. I don't make resolutions. In the words of Yoda, "do or do not." In my words, create your plan expecting to execute it, and then act.

Today is day 27 of my winter training camp. My plan has been to:

• Do one or more workouts every day for a month, 31 days.

• Run six days a week.

• Bike or spin two days a week.

• Swim masters workouts two days a week.

• Strength train one day a week.

MY FIRST TRAINING CAMP

Training camps in one form or another have been part of my athletic life since I was 12 years old, the youngest boy on my high school's cross country team.

In late summer, before classes started, we cross country runners gathered daily to run, do exercises on the football field and learn from Coach Zedrow. By the end of day three I was sore and tired. By the end of the first week I was very sore and very tired. By the end of the second week, I was fitter than ever before and ready for my first season as a competitive runner to begin.

This cycle would repeat every August for four years.

OLYMPIC TRAINING CAMP!

Then 20 years later, as a short-track speed skater, I enjoyed the rigors of summer camps that focused on "dryland" training: running, biking, strength and flexibility workouts.

I also chaperoned my daughter and her junior skating peers at Olympic Training Camp at Northern Michigan University. As a master's skater, I did all the skating, workouts and other training the younger skaters did under the direction of a coaching staff led by Olympic gold medalist Diane Holum. Just as was the case with cross country "camp," the rigors of speed skating camp made me very sore and tired, but over the term I got fitter, stronger, faster and more knowledgeable about training and racing.

EMULATING THE 'BIG FOUR'

I found the "training camp" concept at work in triathlon when I started to compete in tris 25 years ago. I read incredible (and funny) accounts of the "Big Four" triathletes, Dave Scott, Scott Tinley, Scott Molina and Mark Allen, putting in epic week-long training efforts before Ironman Hawaii. (I had the joy of spending time with and getting guidance from Dave Scott before my first Ironman Canada race and racking my bike next to and meeting Scott Tinley at the USTS Chicago race in 1993 and running with him before the Chicago Marathon - but those are stories for another time.)

Training camps were a big part of my triathlon training over the 11 years I raced Ironman.

In March 2006, recovering from my bike crash in Ironman the previous summer, I spent the best part of a week in Carlsbad, California, just up the coast from Mission Bay where the sport of triathlon was invented, training with Coach Mike Plumb and other athletes. We ran along the beach on U.S.1, the Pacific Coast Highway, and into the hills, biked on roads with challenging climbs and descents and into Camp Pendleton, and were videoed with an underwater camera to assess our swim stroke. This training not only added to my fitness but helped restore my riding confidence post-crash.

I also regularly applied the "training camp" approach to my final preparation before tapering for Ironman.

22-HOUR TRAINING WEEK PLUS

In the ultimate application of the camp idea, one August I trained 14+ hours over seven days, including a long ride and a long run over the weekend. I had sore legs, sore feet, was weary and sunburned. But I needed just one more dose of insanity. I decided to take a day off of work and add an "epic Monday" to my training camp before I started my taper.

I headed up from Chicago to Kettle Moraine State Park in southeastern Wisconsin, where the Ice Age 50 miler is run. Unlike the Chicago area, Kettle Moraine has plenty of hills.

The temperature was in the 80s, with high Midwest humidity, when I finally made it to the starting point mid-morning. I parked in the shade in the lot opposite the country store as I readied my bike. I had a cooler full of ice and cold liquids. Except for a few mountain bikers heading off for the dirt trails, some mad dogs and Englishmen, no other bikers were crazy enough to be riding around the park on this day.

The opening miles were OK, but the wind, sun in the exposed section through cornfields and sore feet did not bode well for the ride. Furthermore, I was not quite sure where I was going. I had maps, but this was before iPhones and Google maps. I knew where Kettle Moraine's boundaries were and could chart the roads that crisscrossed the long, skinny park. But despite all my research I could turn up little on which roads were good, which were bad, where the hills actually were and what the best route around and through the park was. Everybody said "Ride Kettle Moraine," but except for the dirt trails, little more info was forthcoming. I am an adventurous sort, so that would normally be OK, but today I did not want a tour, I wanted a race course that was marked. I was too weary to "trail find." So I had consulted my maps, marked a possible course (several loops with some options), and took off.

FEELING BETTER

After the cornfields I rode up and down some initial hills and by a lake - a little more interesting - but beyond the lake the cornfields started again. I was feeling better, though. My speed crept up. I got some breaks from the wind as the course wound around. I reached one edge of the plotted course and changed direction. The road started to roll more. And more. More wooded sections appeared. Hills rose under my wheels. Beautiful "kettles" filled with wild flowers rolled into view, with wooded glacial ridges beyond. A little later I zoomed downhill for a good stretch, leaning into the curving road, with the wind more cooling than before. I reached another extremity of the course. More woods and hills. I was not going at race pace, but I was getting my hill miles in, good for Ironman Canada training. Finally, I was on the road back to the general store. I passed the entrance to the John Muir Trail, where the mountain bikers were headed. My car came into sight.

I took a lunch break and got a sandwich, cold drink and *ice cream!* in the *air conditioned* general store/bike shop. (Neat place for in the middle of nowhere!) I restocked from my cooler and took off again. I was stiff. I was sore. I was tired. It was now 92 degrees. But I had 55 miles more to go.

RIDING OFF THE MAP

The same loop, again. But 2 X 45 miles = 90 miles: That was not enough miles. So at the north extremity I kept riding north. Long straight, flat, quiet road.

For a good length of time I cranked at race pace. I could have kept that up seemingly forever. But after a while the road stopped going straight, I rode through some road construction and traffic. Civilization had really appeared. Where the hell was I? I had ridden off my map. Now I really was trail breaking. Through a busy downtown and even further north. The sign said Delafield, Wisconsin. I knew this was a Milwaukee suburb. I rode past Northwestern Military Academy, which I knew from their ads was located here. I rode even farther north. But time was running out and I had added more than enough extra miles to get my 100 miler in. Also, here was the entrance to an Interstate. Way too much civilization! I stopped on the grass near the on-ramp and did a map check. A beautiful deer with great antlers, bounded out of the bushes and stopped short when he saw me, all of about six feet away. We stared at each other, eyeing each other, silent, trying to figure out what each was up to. Yeah, neither of us were where we wanted to be. He trotted across the busy road, toward the trees. I mounted and rode down the busy road, toward the trees.

The ride back to my car was long and hot, but the shaded tree sections helped. The hills were harder this time, but I knew that these hills were really achieving what I needed to condition me for Canada. I would feel the pain for a few days for a later gain! Finally, finally, as the sun was getting low and normal people were sitting down for dinner, the dirt trail entrance rolled by and then my car came up again. Whew!

NO SLEEP YET!

I drank. I drank. I refueled. I changed. I sat in my car. I wanted to make this a leisurely long transition. Actually, I wanted to go to sleep. But it was not a leisurely break, only a couple of minutes. I started my car and drove down the road at the beginning of dusk to the parking lot at the entrance to the John Muir Trail. I knew I needed to get some kind of run in to remember how it felt to run after a taxing long ride. I had a plan, probably crazy. But I had already entered and dwelt in the land of crazy, so why not? I'd only ridden 103 miles in scorching heat and humidity, only a little more than half an Ironman race's worth of time (yes, but certainly more than half an Ironman's worth of effort).

Running shoes on, Fuelbelt on. Off on the mountain bike trails running the opposite direction of the bikers for safety's sake. Would I have any legs, any speed? Could I run any distance? This was a real test!

Whoa! I can run. Heart race monitor says 8 minute mile pace right away! Yes! And the trail was really fun, narrow, snaking, up, down, curving, me leaping from side to side, caroming off of roots, rocks, stumps and more. Hills and flats, curves and dips, getting more wooded and then breaking out into a meadow, as the sun slipped away, the light horizontal and a deepening red, the woods now more ancient and seemingly filled with life lingering in the growing shadows, just a few bikers blitzing by in and out of the increasing darkness, me still keeping up the pace and feeling great, striding up rocky slopes and leaning forward, speeding up, on the downside, finally emerging from the four mile loop.

I had completed my epic training day, a bike-run workout. A 7-hour 27-minute 40-second brick, to be exact.

TERRIBLE AND WONDERFUL

I was soaked. I was spent. I was grinning ear to ear. I felt terrible. I felt wonderful.

I walked toward my car. Only one other car was in the lot, parked next to mine. A friend of my son's was finishing putting his mountain bike on the car. My head spun. I had been in my own training universe all day, and then as I emerged someone from my normal universe totally unexpectedly entered my altered reality. We talked briefly. He said he and his friend had made a last minute decision to drive up after work and get in a ride in the twilight. I knew he was there because my script demanded it.

CRANK IT UP

Years removed from Ironman training, I now have shifted my annual training camp to the beginning of the year. I have learned that between the need for recovery from fall marathons and the time demands of other aspects of my life later in November and in December, my training distances and frequency back down at year-end.

Then the calendar turns to January and it's time to crank my training back up.

The last few years I have aimed at training every day in January. Last year I actually ran, biked, swam and/or strength trained for 39 of 40 days (with a run day missed because of ice covered roads and no time to do anything else).

HEALTHY, FITTER, LIGHTER

This year I got a late start because of illness, and I know my streak will likely end in a few days, day 31 in fact, when my spouse and I are off to Colorado to spend time with non-athlete relatives. But that's a good break point, because the first of my planned seven marathons in 2018 is in two weeks.

So far I have managed to:

• Run 20 times.

• Bike (indoor trainer and spin class) 9 times.

• Swim masters workouts (after a three month hiatus) 5 times.

• Strength train (after a long hiatus during racing season) 3 times.

Is this enough? I have done more. I am ready to do more.

But what counts is that I am healthy, fitter and lighter. I have set myself up for what I hope will be a memorable year of racing.

How about you? Why not try a training camp to raise the bar and get ready to race?