Tucson Camp #1

Just finished up a couple days ago with Tucson Camp #1. What a great 4-days and a nice group of people! Coming to Tucson from as far away as the east coast and Canada, we had a truly focused group of campers.

This was our 9th year for the March Tucson camp and each year it seems to offer something unique and different. This year, we decided to ride 2 hours up Mt. Lemmon before turning around. As the weather here has been very cold lately, we ran in to 35 deg. temps and arctic gusts of wind above mile marker 10 and there was a ton of snow on the ground past mile marker 15. The winds made for an interesting (scary) descent as you had to white knuckle the bars to avoid getting blown off the cliff. Mt. Lemmon is always an epic riding experience for everyone.

Here's what our training looked like for the camp:

Day One
70 mile ride, out and back, to San Manuel from Oro Valley followed by a 40 minute run. In the afternoon, we swam a light 2000 yd workout. Evening included a lecture and then we all went to dinner.

Day Two
65 mile ride. We warmed up with a nice spin to Saddle Brook (20 miles) and then reorganized and blasted out a timed, 7 mile TT / Tempo ride around Rancho Vistoso Blvd.! We finished up with a ride to Dove Mountain and back to the hotel, followed by a 30 min aerobic run. After a lecture in the evening, campers were t i r e d.

Day Three
6 am Masters Swim at the Oro Valley Community Pool. It was a 1 hr workout with over 1000 yds of kick sets!! (ouch!). Then we loaded everyone up and headed over to Mt. Lemmon. The idea was to ride 2 hrs up the mountain at a steady, comfortable pace and then turn around. It was about 3.5 hrs of total riding that day, including warm up and cooldown. Lunch after, followed by rest, a lecture and then a group dinner at Cayton's at the Ritz Carlton Resort in Dove Mountain. Great food and great views!

Day Four
6 am Swim. Longer sets of 300's. Then campers have the option of riding 40 miles or running 1.5 hours prior to departing at noon.

We have Camp #2 coming up next week with about 15 athletes in attendance. Some will do the 4-day program and some the 7-day program. Weather is expected to be in the upper 70's and sunny! I'm sure we'll have another great training camp.

I hope you can join us someday if you have not already! Early season training camps like this are a great way to build some fitness and some momentum for the new season.

Train smart,
- Coach Troy