IRONMAN TRIATHLETE
My Epic Camp Diaries
Hey Steven, thanks for chatting with us! How are you feeling this week? What's your training been like post-Epic Camp?
Starting to feel pretty rested. I spent the week after Epic focusing on recovery which for me means getting enough sleep. I've avoided setting my alarm and have had 98 hours sleep in the past 10 days. This second week I've started to get back into the routine of training. I'm feeling good in the pool and running but my legs still complain a bit when riding.
Can you give a brief overview of the camp for our readers who might not be familiar with it? What kind of mileage did you rack up in swim/bike/run? How many hours a day were you working out?
Epic camp provides an environment where you only need to think about training, eating and sleeping as everything else is taken care of. You don't waste time with lectures or rest days, you get out and train. They put together a bunch of very fit guys and gals, incorporate a points competition and let us off! You get to train as much as you can handle amongst like minded individuals with races thrown in. The only restriction is you have a 12 hour window to train each day. This starts at the beginning of your first session of the day, which means there can be some tactics involved if you're going for the Yellow Jersey.
For this camp it meant I swam, biked and ran every day other than the rest day and the last day. That's 13 days of swim, bike, run.
In 15 days (1 day was a rest day) I swam 43.3km, biked 2,395km, ran 224km for a total of 110 hours training.
You've participated in 3 Epic Camps and managed to come away with the yellow jersey each time! Congrats! How do you do it? You're up against some great athletes (such as Clas Bjorling who has an 8:15 IM to his credit)…how much of being able to handle the extreme volume of training is mental?
Simple approach:
- train for as much of the 12 hour window as I can.
- "Tack on" whenever possible. If I'm close to a 30k multiple on the bike then I do the extra (At the last Epic Camp this was not allowed and removed my key weapon so I had to change tactics a bit), if I'm close to a 10k multiple on the run then I do the extra.
- Make sure during the camp I do both 25km runs, both 200km bikes and both 6k swims
- Do all available swim sets for points
- Place well in the King Of The Mountains (KOM)
- Place well in all competitions (can be tough)
- Run 10k at the start of the day when I get the chance and then run 10k off the bike if I feel up to it, often when I don't really feel up to it.
Hope that doesn't make winning another yellow more difficult ;o)
As for being up against some great athletes I think it would be safe to say Clas wasn't competing this time. He certainly egged me on, enjoyed being on my wheel a fair bit, outclassed me on every KOM and helped me on numerous runs by chatting the whole way round! I think it would have been a different story if he'd decided to compete for the yellow.
There is a huge mental aspect to this volume. I've always enjoyed seeing just how much I can do so come to camp believing I can do it all. Many campers don't come to camp believing that but I think most leave believing.
Also, with such a group of Type A, very fit guys (and a few extremely tough ladies), how do all of the egos/testosterone get balanced out? Are there really any recovery days in an Epic Camp, or is every workout a race?
I had to "google" Type A … it's used so much in reference to Triathletes that "Triathlete" has almost become the definition. Having looked it up I wouldn't say everyone is Type A but in the early days of the camp there is always a fair bit of hard riding laid down. Partly enthusiasm and perhaps, partly not realizing what's in store. A lot is about establishing a 'pecking order'. The early days normally get it settled down. Time trials in the first few days and a couple of days riding help people work out their position in the Epic Camp pack.
There are a fair number of races on the camp and for me the riding each day is a bit like a race. This isn't the case for everyone as some people might set off early to give them a more relaxed ride. I always started with the scratch bunch and enjoyed the racing. It was great hanging in whatever pace was set and I loved cranking it on the front once in a while. (Jo's edit: most days!!)
This camp was super long so there was a formal rest day on Day 9. It was neutralized, no points, so everyone just did the minimum ride.
How did you prepare for Epic Camp this past year? What races did you compete in in '09, and how did you get your body ready for the onslaught of training?
I don't really do specific prep for Epic Camp. It's fair to say I do pretty high volume training normally - largely because I love riding my bike. I ride a lot which means for me the riding volume on Epic isn't really something completely unusual, it's close to a regular big week though the intensity is higher than I'd do on my own. Coming from a swimming background also helps a lot.
As for this past year, it was far from ideal. I snapped my FHL Tendon (it runs from your big toe to your calf) at the end of Feb. This put me out of my first two races of the year (IM NZ and IM Lanzarote) and in a wheelchair / crutches for quite a while. I did absolutely no training for two months and then slowly built up.
I managed to complete Kona and IM Western Australia. The enforced rest and limited ability to run certainly brought my swimming and biking on a lot. To be honest though, at the start of the camp I thought I may not be able to complete the run minimums. As it turned out I managed more than double the run minimums, which was MASSIVELY encouraging.
Training so much day in and day out, you've got to take in tons of calories. How was the food at Epic Camp? What was the best meal you had? Any idea how many calories you consumed on a daily basis? Do you follow a particular diet (like Paleo?)?
The food on Epic Camp is always SUPERB. Most people put on weight. As for number of calories, not really thought. I'd be guessing at something like 5-6 thousand calories. My diet is something close to Paleo (with dairy added) but I do get tempted away from that. On Epic I always love breakfast, which for me would be a slice of toast that is purely used to carry a serious amount of peanut butter on top of which I would pile on as much egg as I can manage. Gordo reckoned I was eating 12 eggs each morning. If bacon were available I'd pile that on as well which Gordo referred to as "Bacon Loading".
As for favourite meal - on my second Epic Camp we had a great barbeque at Kaikoura with more steak and salad than you could poke a stick at. There was even steak left over for breakfast the next day. That dinner / breakfast combo is my idea of heaven.
In one of your blogs, you mentioned that compared to the others, you had hardly any technical gadgets (such as HRM, GPS, Power Meter, etc). Have you always trained by feel? Did any of the other campers think you were crazy?
Since being a triathlete I've mostly trained on feel. There was a period training on heart rate in my early days but now only use it on my turbo. I had a power meter for a while but gave that to Jo (http://www. Joannacarritt.co.uk ) as she makes much better use of it. I've found I enjoy my training more just going with the flow. It means I have a good sense of what my body can do, how hard it can push. There's part of me that feels if everyone races on power some of the fun would be removed as we could all just sit down beforehand plug some figures in a computer together with our planned power and work out who would be fastest.
As for being crazy - that's generally defined by the peer group you hang out with. At Epic I'd say that's the nearest I get to not being crazy.
Did anything happen during the camp that was unexpected? Any funny stories? Or is there an agreement that "what happens at Epic Camp, stays at Epic Camp?"
I remember laughing an awful lot on Epic Camps. The 400IM race always creates some laughs. I think super tiredness makes things funnier in general and joking can provide a great coping mechanism.
I almost made Scott choke on a piece of carrot when, on finding Jo and I had the honeymoon suite on Day 7, I came in to the communal area and said to Jo " come on Jo, we've got he honeymoon suite we need to make the most of it". We'd just ridden a very hard 200km and Jo was pretty much a dead heap on the carpet! Scott reckoned there should be points in it.
Everyone had a good laugh on our final day on the south island when I busted my chain right at the start of the KOM and had to borrow a bike from the camera crew. It was sized for someone 5'3" and I'm 6'2". I got over the climb (into a massive headwind) dead last and then had to hang on to the bunch for 45km in to Wellington.
That night Gordo recounted a funny story that took place whilst I was swapping bikes. Lee had done an out of character attack at the start of this 7km climb, got a gap of maybe 20m and kept looking back to see if he was away. He won the green jersey for his gutsy move.
There are of course lots of 'in' jokes over the years. You'd only have to include me asking Super Dave whether those avocados are ripe yet to have Tara in a giggling fit at her computer.
After all of the miles, competitions and camaraderie, what are the benefits you get from participating in Epic Camp? What kind of fitness/mental gains do you reap?
Epic Camps are lifetime experiences. The memories will be with me forever and I'm sure some life long friendships have already started at Epic Camp. They are a standalone experience for me without the need to view them as a training boost. However there are great benefits to my racing, which is really the custard. Provided you recover properly they can give you a massive step up in fitness. There are people that have had awesome races after Epic. There are also those that have rather destroyed their next race by doing something stupid (eg all night 100 mile ride round a 3 mile loop) immediately post Epic. Hopefully this time I'll get it right.
I think Epic is the reason my cycling has improved so much in recent years. The camps helped me to cycle harder, faster and bolstered my confidence about the strength of my cycling. As for mental gains, anything that lets you explore your limits certainly helps. So far I've not cracked on an Epic Camp so I've still got further to push to find the limit.
So what races are you competing in this season, and what are your goals? Will you be back at Epic Camp '11 to defend your yellow jersey?
Races:
- Ironman New Zealand
- Ironman Lanzarote
- (Hopefully) Kona
- (probably) Ironman Western Australia
- (possibly) Challenge Copenhagen.
Goals. I'm a believer in making my goals public, so here goes:
- Qualify for Kona
- Better than 3rd in my AG at an Ironman
- Win my AG at an Ironman
- Go sub 9.
There's Epic Camp Colorado this summer, which is the next time to defend. Jo and I would love to go on the camp but think we probably won't be able to. We'd really like to see that part of the world and what better way than on Epic Camp with people that know it so well. We'll be sorely tempted to make it possible.
Anyway, I'd promised myself that if I did another camp I would not chase the yellow so I had more time to socialize and could really hammer the bike. That said, I know I'd just get drawn in and trying for four would be difficult to resist.
