The only thing we had left to do was a final ride and Barrie thought that SV, Taylor and I should head out on this great last ride...the wicked smile on his face should have tipped me off to the fact that it was going to be a challenging one,lol. It ended up being a 115 km ride, probably the flattest ride we had gone on but the majority of it was into a strong head/cross wind. It was a tough ride and with all the biking/climbing we had in our legs I was beat. For the first 50km of the ride we were all chatting and taking pictures and having some fun, the wind was annoying but we were all still in good spirits...at one point we came upon some cows crossing the road and one got a little spooked and took off...I thought SV was done for, the cow came close to hitting him...scary but also pretty entertaining, lol. By the 70km mark our ride got very quiet..we were all down to nothing but a little bit of water and no stores in sight, the wind was getting to us and our legs were done...it was a very tough section to get through, all 3 of us were wanting it to be over and wishing for a few minutes of no wind so we could just relax and take a break unfortunately it never came so we just had to keep on working hard...there was some swearing and Barrie wasn't our favourite person at that moment.. but we got through it and 11 miles from the end we finally found a store and got some calories in us...it was a great ride, a tough one to end a tough week!
I am really impressed with the camp, I wasn't sure what AZ was going to be like but after having the chance to be there I loved it. We put in some great quality rides and I know there are many more rides that we could have done down there. It is a beautiful area with some of the most breathtaking sunsets I have ever seen. I was in awe of some of the views we had and the mountains were beautiful...so different from anything we have here. I would love to go back again and do some more training!!
Barrie put together a great camp and really made sure that each athlete was getting what they needed for their goals. He put together a very well organized camp (SV and I were even early to training events by the end of the week!) and challenged us in a way I didn't think I would be challenged down there. He took the time to talk to me about my training and racing and he put some new ideas in my head and has me pretty motivated to try some things. His knowledge and coaching style is great and I am so glad that we attended his camp and I got to know him better. He is a very impressive coach and I like the way he pushes his athletes. I look forward to doing more training with Barrie (check out his group and event http://www.c3online.ca/index.shtml)
Our goal going down there was to get fit and ready for the tri season...I think we accomplished this as I have never rode so hard in my life...my quads feel huge...ok maybe they aren't huge because my legs are a little scrawny but for me, they feel huge and I have the quad line now and I actually have some calf muscles!) We were both pretty sore and tired and bed time couldn't come soon enough for me.
We met some great people down there of all ability levels and we were able to train with some great young athletes: Sean Bechtel, David Sharrat, Andrew Woegerer, Taylor Reid and Nat Faulkner... their dedication to the sport is inspiring and I can't wait to watch them do some great things within the sport.
It was a great camp....we swam just over 25000 yds, biked almost 500km and ran 30km...a great week for me!
No comments:
Post a Comment