I take it back about Epic being mostly mental and not that physical.

It still was a very mental experience, but I am feeling what it did to my body on this rainy Texas morning. I finally got a good night sleep last night. I just haven't been sleeping well since I got back from NZ. Kinda glad I am getting rained out right now.
Well this week I have taken down the volume a bit and added mild spurts of intensity.

Everything was fine until I went to the track on Thurs. I had a great session but have now been so sore for two days. I was having this talk with my dad on the phone yesterday. I was telling him how my track session went. How surprisingly fast it was considering I have been doing long slow stuff. He was telling me how when he was running his life best, he was doing massive volume, and when done right he was getting faster on the track. He used to do alot of steady state stuff. Stuff like 4x5 mile intervals trying to hold even splits. 18x1 mile repeats. Just crazy stuff. Now he didn't do this over night, he bascially was building the physiology needed to complete these sessions over years of volume. I know some will tend to disagree, but without that volume(when I say volume I mean high volume on an individual basis, what that individual can absorb. Not just going out there and smacking it when you aren't ready.), and laying down the physiological infrastructure, how could be possibly be fast in an ultradistance event?

I truly believe this is why last year I used to fade around 10 mile mark of the run in a half Ironman. It wasn't because of improper pacing, poor nutrition, etc. It was because I could not hold that steady state pace for an extented period of time.

Now tieing this babble together. I think that I really got the benefit of epic and made some physiological changes. Two years ago I wouldn't have, epic would have just shelled me. One thing that I noticed from the guys at the front at Epic. They had the ability to hold a very high intensity for very long periods of time. I had the ability to do work for a long period of time.

Yes, I think for the average age grouper you can get away with learning how to race, training to race, learning technique, and have a very successful outcome. To get it to another level requires consistently doing work over an extented period of time. Well anyway, take it for what it is worth. Just my opinion. Time to get on the trainer for a couple hours.

Cheers,
RT

Picture day....

Because I have nothing really that exciting to say today. The next couple weeks are extremely important for the success of AZ. Here are some pics from NZ. I am recovering alot better than I thought I would. Pretty much back at it 100%.

"It's Not Called Easy Camp....."

Bevan in the KOM jersey

The title is a quote from Bevan. This guy was unbelievable. He won the KOM for the camp. He was always upbeat and no matter how tired he was, he never showed it. Everytime he heard someone ready to break, or just be hurting, he would throw out that one liner with his Kiwi accent.... "Its not called easy camp, this is epic camp boys". I tell you this because I think it is what got me through a majority of the training sessions.

One experience on the camp that hits this point was I think on day 3. I was off the back after lunch. We where into a 130 mile mile ride and still had Lydis pass to climb. I wanted to get in the van so bad, but I just kept hearing Bevan in my head. Well just when I thought it couldn't get any worse I made it to the pass, climbed it, got to the top. I was so shelled, that I was blacking out from the effort. I reached for a water bottle and drifted off the side of the road and crashed on my intial decent. That was my lowest point of the camp. Again, I wanted to just get in the damn van. I got up dusted myself off, poured some alcohol on the road rash, and finished the ride. I tell this story because I don't think the biggest gains for me where physical on this trip, they where more mental.

I could go on and tell you the numbers, but I decided that I wanted to recap Epic Camp differently. It is so much more that just smacking out huge numbers. It will probally take me a few posts to get all my thoughts down, but I figure this is a good start. In the next couple days I think I am going to cover epic camp from a physical, and mental perspective. I also want to touch on the people that make it pretty special.

Thats it for now.

RT