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Characters & Highlights To Auckland
Petro says that I'm not writing enough. Well, Big Boy, that's because I'm calculating the points every night and it takes about an hour to sort it out! ++ Broke a spoke today, and nearly ripped my derailleur off! That could have been my tour right there. Must be getting tired and need to be more careful with my shifting. Did a lot of work before lunch (nothing crazy though as my CP20 was 268w) then rode it in easy with Petro/Charlesy. Didn't get KJ after lunch but was 114KM to lunch with 4hrs ride time and 3125KJ - 48K from lunch into the hotel was done easy with my pal Petro who got a bit depleted in the early riding. Think we did another 2000m of climbing today. Swam and run with Steve Lord, who will be in Yellow tomorrow from a bonus 10K tack-on. That's was a good tactical move as we had spare time this afternoon. I'm going to have my hands full completing the camp and running 180K for full points so I'm not really in a position to get into a zombie-a-thon with extra running. Besides, another of my goals for the camp (I've been laying them out gradually for you!) was to have fun the whole way. Aside from a bit of suffering to bridge up yesterday, it's been a fantastic camp. It's a lot of fun to be one of the fitter guys here - makes me feel safe when I pull the group. A personal highlight came this morning with Steve dragging us around for a 42 minute 3K in the pool (faster than his 1500 TT on day one!). A few people tried to sit on us and simply fell away - Steve's one heck of an athlete and I've been appreciating the British Motorpacing in the water. I'll have to try the 200 fly on my own (post-camp) as I was 1-2 meters behind Steve for the one we did the other day. It makes a HUGE difference! As I expected, Clas is getting stronger each day - he torched us on a KOM today. No official points but it was a "prestige" climb for a bit of fun (Johno was 2nd). The route that John has laid out for us has been fantastic. We have been using secondary routes wherever possible and we've had outstanding views of the seas, harbors and countryside in the region north of Auckland. Tomorrow we're taking a ferry transfer over to the Coromandel Peninsula and we'll have a mini-aquathon there followed by another KOM. Should be a solid dose of high intensity training. I still think that the key challenge that most of us will face is illness -- we have a couple campers that are on-edge in terms of health. However, the groupetto is starting to form and that's allowing folks (that are smart) to have a more moderate ride. It's amazing what the body can do when the mind is keen to keep training. For example, my day was a "recovery" day but I still did about 8 hours of training. To do well at our game, an athlete needs the capacity to recover while training. ++ This morning, I asked Scott if he'd been in a fraternity when he was younger (answer was no). There is a certain fraternal element within the camp and Scott's leading that segment, kind of like Will Farrell in Old School. We're sponsored by Steinlager this time - good thing too as the camp/crew are throwing down some suds. The post-ride beers are proving very popular. I've been taking a look around at my fellow crazies and noticed that we have quite a few eccentrics. When you start seeing that everyone in your peer group is nuts... kinda makes you wonder about yourself! ++ Surprises so far on the camp: Pacing: a lot of us (myself included) are throwing down some fast, and tough, training. The cracks are starting to appear with some athletes but, largely, everyone remains intact. However, the random attacks seem to be settling down on the bike as people figure out where they fit in the scheme of things and start to work together. Fitness: resting works (who knew!) - I had two weeks of active recovery leading into the camp and arrived with great form. I've been surprised at my top end bike/run performance as well as my recovery. We will see how that holds up - we're now heading into uncharted territory as I haven't gone past three-big-days in a year. Fun: I'm have a lot of fun. As I wrote before the camp, this is probably it for me doing the truly extreme training so I'm committed to enjoying it. Frankly, that's really easy as the experienced guys (Steve, Johno and Clas) ride the same way as me. Molina and Pete are part of Team Sumo so they can be a little erratic in the rollers. I'm working on Blanco, who saved the day AGAIN with a wheel change for me after I broke my spoke this morning. I didn't get to speak with M yesterday and miss her quite a bit. A few of the guys have their ladies along so be sure to appreciate their presence as most of us are roughing it on our own. I won't be doing any wife rides this camp but did get to shepherd Petro into Auckland this afternoon and that was FAR under Monsy-pacing! I didn't mind though, I needed to freshen up for tomorrow. There are a lot of ways to be strong and I hope to share ideas on that in the future. OK, off to dinner. Let's see how this scores in the informal blogging competition. g
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Well, we made it to Auckland -- that was a fair amount of effort to get back to where we started!