Tucson Training Camp 2008

After the Zoot Camp ended, I hopped on a plane to Tucson Arizona. A good friend of mine, Pro Triathlete Tara Norton, had invited me to join her in Tucson at a training camp that her friend Richard Pady organizes yearly. Rich is the head coach and owner of Canadian based company “Healthy Results”. Some of the athletes he coaches, as well as some that Tara coaches attended the camp. Most were from Canada with the exception of a few who were from the US. We shared a house in an area just outside Tucson called Oro Valley. This was one of the most ideal places I have been to train. The community was bicycle friendly, the roads were great and the climbs were sweet! The group was mainly age-group athletes with full-time jobs and families back home, so this week was a HUGE amount of volume for them. I was totally impressed with how they all handled the training and the volume that the week encompassed.
Throughout the week, we swam daily (with the exception of one day), biked daily and ran daily. Being that I came in on Monday, I missed the epic climb up Mt. Lemmon, so I decided to do it on Friday. You cannot be in Tucson and not climb Mt. Lemmon! It’s a 25 mile climb up to 9000 ft. and it is awesome. The road is steady, but not so steep that you have to “grind” your way up. I’ll describe my climb in a bit, but for now back to the week. I highly recommend setting up a week, or several days with a group to train. The atmosphere is unique in that everyone is on the “same page”. Basically we sleep, eat and train. Of course, this is what my days have revolved around for the past few months anyway, but to be surrounded by others doing the same thing was a great break! We cooked dinner together, trained together (I tried to coordinate as much as possible with the group) and got to know one another as many of us knew no one before arriving. It was so great to be in the company of a great athlete like Tara. Tara had an outstanding year last year topped off by finishing just outside of the top ten women in Kona last year. It was a treat to train with her! The two of us agreed that is was special to be able to do this, as we rarely get to train with other pro women. Tara will be competing in Ironman Arizona this weekend, and after training with her I expect great things. She is STRONG! As far as the others, I look forward to running into some of the athletes at races in the future, and I hope to return to Rich’s camp again in 2009, wherever it may be!

So, my climb up Mt. Lemmon... This was the pinnacle of the trip for me! One of my house-mates, Rob from Toronto, decided to join me up Mt. Lemmon. Rob is a Doctor back home in Toronto and he has a wife and two kids. He has been doing Ironman since the early nineties (maybe even eighties?). He and his family will be in Florida to race the IM Florida 70.3, so I hope to run into them there. I was grateful to have the company for the climb (this was Rob’s THIRD time up the climb during the week)! We drove to the base of the climb and Rob started climbing right away. I decided to do a 25+ min warm-up as my goal was to push the whole climb and I wanted to be warmed up properly. Being that this was Rob’s third time up, he took a more “leisurely approach” without a warm-up. Once I was done with the warm-up I started the climb. I hit my interval button on my power tap at the “zero mile mark”, and decided to hit an interval every time I reached another thousand feet. I did this because I wanted to see the change in watts. As Mike had explained to me, watts become harder to push as altitude goes up, so for example, at 9,000 ft. 150 watts feels like what 190+ watts would feel like at sea level! It was interesting to see for myself, because the speed stayed constant as I climbed, but the watts went down as I approached 9,000 ft.
Mt. Lemmon was AWESOME!! Not only was it one of the best efforts I have done to date, but it was BEAUTIFUL! The temperature was perfect, the sky was blue and the winds were light. It took me 2 hrs and 8 minutes to climb, and once I reached the top I refueled and waited to regroup with Rob. Once we ate (Rob got some yummy home-made fudge) and took some photos, we headed down the mountain. On the way down we stopped a few times to enjoy the view and take some pictures. The descent was gradual enough that I was able to really enjoy it. The weather was beautiful as well, so although I put gloves and a vest on, it wasn’t too cold at all. As you head down from 9,000 to 2,500 ft. you can feel the warmer air. It was HOT at the bottom, especially during the run. I ran 3 miles at “tempo” off the bike to see how the legs felt, and surprisingly, they felt great! In all it was a great day. I can’t wait to come back, hopefully with George next year…I am determined to get back to Tucson and I would love to have George and some friends from home with me next time!

Views from Mt. Lemmon...