3rd Times a charm

The third camp with The Triathlon Squad has come to and end and my main goals for the camp were accomplished successfully. Namely, to make it all the way through camp; a) without injury and b) without missing a workout.  I knew coming off injury that these goals were important to the progression of my season, and also knew that I could not cling to them too tightly and risk falling back into the denial that lead to the aggravation of my achilies injury in the first place.  As much as I wanted to accomplish both (a) & (b) above, I made a deal with myself that if something felt "off," at any point in time, I would immediately let Paulo know about it, and take a break if need be. A "better safe than sorry" approach if you will.

I am happy to report that any resurgence of my achilies injury or the emergence of any other injury never came to pass.  The four weeks in Las Cruces flew by and I got the work, all the work, done.  That is not to say there weren't some "failed" workouts, where the numbers, splits, or paces called for were not hit, but the workouts were "completed" to the best of my ability.

Going into the camp, I knew my most difficult, and also the most important task, was to get my "running legs" back under me.  After a six week break off my feet, this was a primary objective in my mind.  Fortunately, when I first arrived at camp, Paulo confirmed that we were like-minded in this goal.

As far as the running goes, I did get in some good mileage.  Some of the bigger weeks I have logged.  As in the first camp, there were no "crazy" workouts, no epic runs to recount the details of to you here.  Plain and simple it was just a solid four weeks of consistency.  At times I was drained to the point I thought I had nothing left to give.  Then the next workout would come off without a hitch.  The first time this happened I knew my body was responding. That I had reason to trust the method and the consistency thereof.  Just keep plugging along, getting the work done, and not looking towards the next workout, or the one after, but focusing on the now. Concentrating on the task immediately at hand, living in the moment.

If I had to point to only one element of training camp as being the singular aspect that makes them so effective, it would be just that.  A training camp, with a coach present, allows you to simply focus on what is immediately before you.  You need not worry about what is next, when, where or whatever else.  You simply show up, do the work prescribed, go home, eat, sleep and repeat the next day.  You simply trust the coach to handle the logistics of planning the time, location, duration, etc... of each workout.  It might not seem like much, but trust me, not having to concern yourself with, and not having to spend the mental energy thinking about the details and logistics of the next session makes things MUCH easier.

So the third camp is in the books and I am beyond happy to report that it was a complete success.

I am now in Tucson, and thanks to the hospitality of friends Chris and Marilyn Mcdonald, enjoying the first few days of my taper week here on training grounds I know fairly well.   I will fly out of Phoenix on Friday to Orlando Florida where I will finally kick off my 2011 season at Ironman 70.3 Florida on Sunday.  To say I am excited would be a drastic understatement.