Murtha's Tri - Minicamp! April 23-26, 2011

Ok, so it definately was not as cool as the title sounded.  There was no destination camp (other than driving to where I was training) and I was the only one participating in said mini-camp.  But I had a blast nonetheless!

Classes ended on April 21st, and do not start up again till May 3rd.  Also I have not had a vacation/staycation/etc since 2009, and I needed to have a few days off.  I don't have the Garmin on me right now, but here's the gist on how it went down.

Friday:  After work I went for a 5 mile run (a couple laps) around Chastain Park.  Good way to start off the weekend, and for some reason the run felt particularly good.  Probably something to do with the fact that I did not have to work for the next four days.

Saturday:  Met up with Mike at the Silver Comet Trail for a 2 hour ride.  This was the first time he had taken his new bike (Trek Speed Concept 7.0) out for a spin.  I'll admit, for a bike that I kinda shunned in choosing my Cervelo, it is a pretty nice ride, and I am jealous of the rear bike box.  That's ok, I am still really happy with my ride :)  The first two miles we were just puttering along to get our legs warmed up.  Because of finals that week, I had not been able to get all of my workouts in.  I really tried to keep it at MAX HR between 150-160, but I kept trying to be a speed demon and had to keep putting myself in check.  I have been focusing more on these Oly-distance races, but here pretty soon I am gonna need to put a lock down on my agression with HRM alerts on my Garmin so that I am not killing it on the bike.  I think we did about 35 miles or so on the bike.  Went home and then went to the Nook for dinner/drinks in Atlanta.  For those of you who are in the ATL area, it is on 14th and Piedmont right across from the park.  Patio is wonderful.  And if you love tater tots (and I think this group does) you are gonna be wonderfully suprised by the various selections of dishes called "Totchos."  Just google them and pull up their menu, you will wanna go ASAP.

Sunday:  Got up and did 1900 M total at LA Fitness, 1500M being my main set comprised of 3x500 with the 2nd 500 using a pull bouy.  Wears my arms out for the last set, but I do it on purpose because at some point in the longer distance events I will be swimming with tired arms.  I finished in under 30 minutes which I am happy with, I just wanna get my time down closer to 25 min for 1500 M.  In the afternoon I headed over to Chastain Park and belted out a few laps around the park totalling a bit over 5 miles.

Monday:  The first big day of two.  I did all three sports on Monday, however, there were no brick workouts.  Hit the pool in the morning and belted out 1800 as my main set, comprised of 3 x 600 with the 2nd set using a pull bouy.  Again, arms are worn out, but they are getting a workout, so I am fine with that.  Run came next early in the afternoon (Atlanta Memorial Park), and then followed it up a few hours later with a Monday night group ride (Atlanta Cycling - Vinings Recovery Ride).

Tuesday:  Last Day!  Woke up a bit late (last night was Monday Funday at my house, lots of drinking and such).  Swim was a straight 1500M swim.  It turned out to be somewhere in the 28min and change range.  I already had the bike on the car and the shoes in the back and headed over to columns drive to do my brick workout.  I was short on time so I only did 15 miles on the bike, and averaged about 20 mph.  There was a nasty headwind headed back to the parking lot on every lap, and it felt like I was working twice as hard just to get 18-19mph average on the way back in each lap.  Fortuantely because of this I belted out 22-23mph average on the way out each lap, with the tailwind on the way out.  After this I quickly racked the bike and put my shoes on and went for a 4 mile run.  After adding in a hypothetical 1:20 for each transition, I can project out around a 2:37-2:40 expected time.  We shall see if that actually happens :)

Post Brick I had a scheduled massage for an hour.  Man, that was just what the doctor ordered.  I think I am gonna need to start scheduling those for post race and post high volume blocks of training.  Was almost late to the massage, but made it nonetheless.  I am convinced if I had not gotten that massage, my legs would had been wrecked for the next few days following.  Instead there was only mild soreness on Wednesday, and no soreness after that!

I feel since then that I have absorbed the training really well, and now I just need to keep up the intensity.  It was really fun to have some time off of work and school, and just focus on triathlon for a change.  I hope I can do it again sometime later this season.

I hope all of your training endavours are going well!  Have a good weekend!