It was a long 4 days of winter after returning home from Wattie Ink training camp in SoCal.
This girl lives for weeks like that, guiltless hours of training, plush accommodations, training partners, sunny skies, warm weather, good food, great beer...good times.
Fellow Wattie and Carlsbad roomie already nailed a camp wrap-up here, so I won't give you all the play-by-plays, but here are my highlights and take-aways.
First of all, sitting down to write this is quite literally a pain in my ass, more on that later. I'm grateful I finally found a comfortable position and my goal now is to get it all written before I have to get up again, so it may be brief and/or have an abrupt ending. Or not.
Attending this training camp had been on the back of mind since first hearing about it, but I had other priorities and didn't think I'd be able to swing it. After a few long months of solo training in the cold, my priorities started to shift a little bit (go figure). That's the exact moment when Dusty and Karin invited me to stay with them and a little (by a little, I mean a lot) help with camp expenses...I couldn't get there fast enough!!
My trip began with a night in West Village with Dusty and Karin, and dinner at Pedelars Fork in Calabasas...um, yummmmm! Dinner was great, company even better and I was ready for a good night's sleep and a little morning road trip into Carlsbad for the first day of training camp.
We arrived just in time to grab a quick bite (Broken Yolk) and head to the seemingly brand new expansive outdoor community pool = heaven. Before I knew it, we were off to the "races", I was encouraged and excited to see how the rest of camp would unfold.
We had enough time to scarf down a sandwich from Board and Brew and load up our bikes to head south to Torrey Pines along PCH. It was a little trafficky (?) and the group was a little squirrely, but the views took my mind quickly away from that and for most of the ride I was in another world, until Flanny ripped one right in my face. Hey, it happens.
One quick run and shower later, we headed to Nytro for a little team gathering and Q&A with super pro Heather Jackson. Heather spoke on her recent race at Panama 70.3, nutrition, keeping a balanced racing season, blablabla, she drinks beer - yay!
One quick run and shower later, we headed to Nytro for a little team gathering and Q&A with super pro Heather Jackson. Heather spoke on her recent race at Panama 70.3, nutrition, keeping a balanced racing season, blablabla, she drinks beer - yay!
Speaking of, food stop #3 was Union ...I was so hungry, I barely remember what I ate....salad, I think?
What I DO remember was my bed was awesome and morning came WAY too soon!
First on the docket was a 90 minute swim. Woof. To my delight, it actually went by FAST! And was made even more fun by ending with my first ever 200 IM race. In my defense, the starting protocol should have been discussed...since when do we not get a ready-set-go? UGH! I totally would have taken it had it not been for my 3 second start delay ;)
Post swim, we headed to the digs where all Wattie-wear will be produced. The first-hand view of the fabrics and laser cutting technology were pretty sweet, looking forward to getting my mitts on some!
At this point, I'm pretty sure we ate something as fast as we could and headed out for ride number #2, this time heading north. It was nice to get out of traffic a bit and see some great scenery, but the best part of this ride was pace-lining through Camp Pendleton! After our 3 hour ride, Pizza Port was in order! Great beer, good pizza and a quick stop for ice-cream on the way home wrapped up day 2.
Since running is arguably my favorite, I was thrilled to be starting the day at Penasquitos for nice trail run, with a little tempo work thrown in the middle. Yay!
Straight from there we headed to the pool. Buzz kill. I wasn't thrilled about the idea, but once I was in the water, it felt SO good!
Of course, we had a little recovery ride thrown in for the afternoon and finally a somewhat relaxing evening! Between us all, Dusty, Karin, Wattie pro Erin Green, and soon-to-be-pro Carly Johann, we cooked up some great fish tacos and settled in for a quite evening....there might have been a quick trip to the chocolate shop thrown in there too.
Next up, long ride day. We had an 80+ miler planned that had us all a little nervous, but I was looking forward to some open road and getting in a rhythm. As it turns out, it wasn't bad AT ALL! Due to some great sag support, carefully chosen pit-stops, lots of drafting and level headedness, we managed to bust out a decent ride in the California sunshine. No complaining here!
Another decent run along the ocean and headed to dinner at 83degrees in Carlsbad. Goodnight.
We were up and at 'em for our last swim of the camp, and our last day of training. Boo.
My swim wasn't the best, but I managed to hang in there and had some good take-aways. Mostly I was looking forward to hitting the trails again for another 90 minute run. We kept the pace chill and had a very informative aero Q&A with Dusty. Thanks to Karin's great idea, we had lunch at a fantastic Armenian restaurant, ate as fast as we could (again), power packed and headed out for our final ride of the trip. It was a great, low key ride, we headed south and pit-stopped at Pizza Port on the way back where most enjoyed a beer to top off camp.
My swim wasn't the best, but I managed to hang in there and had some good take-aways. Mostly I was looking forward to hitting the trails again for another 90 minute run. We kept the pace chill and had a very informative aero Q&A with Dusty. Thanks to Karin's great idea, we had lunch at a fantastic Armenian restaurant, ate as fast as we could (again), power packed and headed out for our final ride of the trip. It was a great, low key ride, we headed south and pit-stopped at Pizza Port on the way back where most enjoyed a beer to top off camp.
...and less than 5 miles from the end of our trip, I had a little run-in with an over zealous teammate, leaving me with a little bike damage and a bruised tailbone. Don't get me wrong, I am grateful the damage was relatively minimal, but kind of bummed to end camp on this note. We hung out with the great guys at Ride Cyclery to assess damage and wait for a ride back to camp head quarters.
One last dinner with the crew and headed back with Dusty and Karin for the night.
Dusty and Karin are the BEST HOSTS EVER!! They even took care of getting my bike fixed and shipping it out to Tucson for my next training endeavor. Grateful.
My Camp Stats:
Bike rides - 5
Hours in saddle - 14
Runs - 4
Hours running - 4 1/3
Swims - 4
Hours in the pool - 4 1/2
Total hours training - 22 4/5
Beers consumed - 4
Glasses of wine - 3
Ice cream - 2
Chocolate bar - 2
Hours of sleep - 41
Naps - 0
Powerbars - 1
Powerbar Gel Blasts - 2 pouches
Powerbar Gels - 2
Powerbar Harvest - 3
One last dinner with the crew and headed back with Dusty and Karin for the night.
Dusty and Karin are the BEST HOSTS EVER!! They even took care of getting my bike fixed and shipping it out to Tucson for my next training endeavor. Grateful.
My Camp Stats:
Bike rides - 5
Hours in saddle - 14
Runs - 4
Hours running - 4 1/3
Swims - 4
Hours in the pool - 4 1/2
Total hours training - 22 4/5
Beers consumed - 4
Glasses of wine - 3
Ice cream - 2
Chocolate bar - 2
Hours of sleep - 41
Naps - 0
Powerbars - 1
Powerbar Gel Blasts - 2 pouches
Powerbar Gels - 2
Powerbar Harvest - 3
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