Epic Camp 2008: Thoughts

I let out a sigh as my plane touched down in Tulsa at 10pm Monday. My epic journey was over. It had been a long trip and I was exhausted. I had lived the dream for eight days on the south island of New Zealand with some extraordinary athletes. Most of those days were in a fog of fatigue but I look back on them fondly. It was a tough camp but I really enjoyed it. I didn’t win the camp but I was far from being last thanks to my swimming skills. Albert Boyce told me during his first epic camp he had the thousand mile stare for most of it. I know what he means now.

I explored my limits and dealt with my failures. I think I gained fitness from it and I gained a mental edge as well. It’s strange, but I feel different. I can’t explain it. It feels like a calm confidence. I like the feeling. I came away with the knowledge of what it takes to bring me up a notch and how much time and effort that’s going to take me. I am happy with my decision to step back and take in the shorter distance races this year. It’s just not a place that I want to go now.

After day two of Epic camp when I shelled myself, I put it into this perspective. “This is my camp and I’m going to do it on my terms to my fatigue level. I’m not going to let myself get shelled by someone else‘s pace. I’m going to enjoy training in New Zealand and not get injured.” After I took this approach, I enjoyed it. If I felt like crap, I didn’t do a task, or I took it easy if I was tired.

I remember in the later days of the camp I was standing next to Gordo while he was tallying up the quantities of training for the day for everyone. It was 6:10 and training was not allowed after 7pm. I had missed my run and I was just going to blow it off. I was holding an unopened bottle of Corona beer in my hand. Gordo said “you still have time to get in your run….or you can have a Corona” You can guess which one I chose.

While I was in the camp I would often think “This is really silly, is all of this really necessary?” I’m just building my base. I would think back to the days when I swam as a kid. Our coach would make us swim twice a day. I didn’t know how much I was swimming. I just did what he said without question. It wasn’t until my dad mentioned “Do you know how much you’re swimming a day?” He added it up and it was over 10 miles a day. It was then I began to question the sanity of it all. Hell, I was just doing a 2 to 5 minute race. Why did I need to swim 10 miles a day?

The same topic has been brought up in the book “Golden Girl” by Michael Silver which describes the new swimming training methods of Natalie Coughlin by her coach Terri McKeever. McKeever questioned the methods of overdistance training for swimmers and instead concentrated on technique, strength, and speed with some extraordinary results. However, most of the swimmers Mckeever trained had large endurance volume bases prior to swimming for her. I have heard some folks respond to volume whereas others respond to intensity. Everyone is different, however I don’t doubt to be successful in Ironman you need a huge aerobic volume base.

The Brett Sutton technique utilizes huge training volumes and frequent racing. All folks can’t handle this method and can’t hang with it or get injured. The analogy “throw a handful of eggs against the wall….keep the one that doesn’t crack.” Some folks can train better than others, do huge volumes, but when the race comes around they’re flat. Others don’t do as much and with a well thought out plan can really execute and nail a key race with just the minimum.

So I came away from Epic Camp with some questions about the training methods but it is still too soon to see if I benefited from the approach. I have always wondered how some hard core athletes train when I am in my own little world here in Tulsa. I heard a lot of stories. Epic was something that I wanted to experiment with this season. Who knows, it just might be the right thing for me. It just is impractical with my time constraints due to family and occupational commitments.

By the way, on my arrival back to the country I was pleased to hear that my son had won 1st Place in the school science fair with a project that we both worked on prior to my trip. He also won the Cub Scout pinewood derby race with our top secret car. He really made me proud. I could have been training during the time that we worked on those projects but I chose to do something that would help build his self esteem instead.

Jurgen's Helmet

Ten years ago my wife and I attended a triathlon camp in San Diego. A week from now, I leave for my next organized camp, Epic camp, in New Zealand. Above is a photo of me doing quarters on the track with Jurgen Zack. I think we did 10 or 12 quarters in 70 seconds or better. It was a pretty good workout for February. Every year I watched Zack get run down in the Hawaii Ironman on TV. I was very surprised how fast the guy really was. After he was through with me, he smoked Kenny Souza with a sub 60 second quarter.

The camp we attended was in Solano Beach, a coastal community on the Pacific Coast Highway. Paul Huddle, Roch Frey, Paula Newby Fraser and John Howard ran the camp. Pro triathletes like Zack, Wendy Ingram, Heather Feur, Kenny Souza, and Mike Pigg were their elite ambassadors. Danny Abishire, who later invented of Newton Running shoes, provided running analysis.

I had good time training with Pigg, who at the time was one of the premier short course athletes. He showed me the correct way to warm up for a short course event. We time trialed our bikes up PCH. Mike and I would also compete with each other to see who could swim the length of the pool with the fewest strokes.

Dana and I found the triathlete community in San Diego to be much like our own back in Tulsa, where everyone knew everyone else, and knew what the other triathletes were up to. But of course, these athletes were much faster and famous in the triathlon world.

Perhaps the most fun we had was at the Competitor Magazine Endurance Sports Awards held at Sea World in San Diego. These awards are the Academy Awards of endurance sports. Athletes came dressed in tuxedos and arrived in limousines. Anybody who was famous in endurance sports was there. We had the distinction of sitting at the one of Triathlete Magazines VIP tables at the front of the action with John Duke, the editor of Triathlete magazine.

There was one guy in our group that was out of control. He was an Army Ranger and when I saw Huddle last summer at IM Canada and reminisced about the camp he still remembered his name. He said “some campers you never forget”. I will just call him “Steve” to tell the story.

Alcohol was served at the party along with dinner and Steve put away the booze like a Special Forces captain. Once dinner was finished the awards portion of the program began. Steve, I, and a few others were at the bar. Zack was awarded a competitor award and he made his way to the stage.

In the 1997 Hawaii Ironman, Zack came into T1 with a great swim, however, his chin strap buckle was broken and he frantically began yelling….Helmet, HELMET, HELMET. This was captured on the NBC coverage which made for exciting television. The race was leaving Zack behind. This was a moment I’m sure he wanted to forget.

Jurgen, dressed in a tux and looking quite dapper, started in on his acceptance speech. Then from out of the blue Steve started heckling him……Helmet, HELMET, HELMET. It was funny and everyone started to laugh, as the Ironman coverage was still fresh in everyone’s mind. However, Jurgen started to stutter and became quite uneasy as he went on with the speech. Steve on the other hand continued with the heckling and Jurgen continued to stutter. I and a few others nudged Steve and finally got him to quit. The show was televised on a local cable channel so who knows how it turned out.

By the end of the awards, a party started to roll and before you knew it Steve was up on top of a table dancing with some hottie wearing a slinky mini dress. I saw Bob Babbitt who was the emcee come over and ask John Duke” who is this guy?” The party was totally out of control and Steve single handedly started it. It reminds me of the movie “Wedding Crashers”. I thought this is probably the last time they take a group of tricampers to this thing again.

I doubt Epic Camp will be this wild, and I doubt anyone will have the energy that Steve had. There has been some banter back and forth on the message boards regarding the “Yellow Jersey”. I can tell some of the folks have some personality. I might try to blog some of it but if I do, it will be short and sweet.