Internal Mono(b)log

June 8-10th I organized an Ironman Mont Tremblant Training camp.  It was a “ruffing it” style event where people were generally on their own for meals and accommodations.   The majority of us were camping at Camping Boreal, but some, in light of the terrible weather when we arrived on Friday, chose to find a nearby motel and rough-it a little less 🙂

The loose schedule going into the weekend was:

Friday

• arrive and setup site
• grocery shop
• light shake-out workout of athlete’s choice
• drive the bike course

Saturday

• morning loop of bike course followed by swim and lunch/rest time
• afternoon loop of bike course

Sunday

• Run of 21 or 42 k on course
• pack and depart

Friday

As with all great plans this served as a guide, but wasn’t enforced and due to conditions and timing things did change. 🙂  When we arrived at the campgrounds on Friday we’d just driven through a crazy-intense monsoon downpour.  People were pulling off to the side of the road it was *that* crazy.  When we got to the site, everything was wet but the rain had stopped.  Marcio and I arrived at 2pm and were the last to arrive!  We promptly setup our site.  I distributed the grab bags stuffed with a t-shirt from Biestmilch, protein bars from PureProtein, Clif Bars and EFS drink, powershots and Ultragen from FirstEndurance.  With the site setup, and grab-bags distributed we set off on the course in-car recon.  More on course specifics below.  After the recon, we grabbed groceries, had dinner in the fading daylight and hit the hay.  It was cold and dark.  People were wet and fatigued from 6+ hours of driving and Saturday promised to be a “big day”™.

Saturday

Before bed on Friday everyone was boasting about how early they got up in the morning.  I’m normally up at 5:15 and this day was no exception, but where was everyone else?  Based on Friday’s bravado I expected to be the last up, not the 1st… so I had breakfast.. made and drank a pot of coffee.. walked around the campground to see if anyone was awake… had some more to eat… at 6:30 I started walking past peoples’ sites a little louder.. Charlie, Ian’s dog heard me and got their site woken up..  around 7:30 everyone had put themselves to gather and were eating breakfast.

Over breakfast and coffees we decided to augment “the plan” to be hill repeats in the morning for about 1.5 hrs, some downtime for food, swim, etc. and then ride the course in the afternoon.  This plan came together pretty well, though 117 seems to like to eat tires and 2 athletes got flats in the morning!   By the time we got back from hill repeats and put some food in, swimming seemed improbable.  We reloaded fuel and headed back to Mont Tremblant to ride the IM course.  Yup, another teaser, details on the course below.

After the 2nd ride today people were pretty bagged.  We stopped in Sainte Jovite for some poutine on the way back to the campground. At the site we ate, socialized briefly talking about the lessons of the day, and crashed soon after dark.

Sunday

Knowing that others were not, in reality, going to be up until at least 7am, I forced myself to stay in my sleeping bag til at least 6:30.  Netflix on my iphone helped with this as did the single digit (Celsius) temperatures outside.  Eventually I couldn’t wait in bed any longer, I got up and had breakfast.  Was still hungry and had more breakfast.  I would have made coffee, but we’d somehow (lookin at you, Marcio 😉 ) run out of coleman fuel for the stove, so I had to wait for Ian and Katherine to wake up so I could use their camper stove.  Soon Marcio woke and I convinced him to head to town and pickup coffee at Tim Horton’s.  I’m not a fan of Tim’s coffee, but it was hot and I was cold, to it was heavenly 🙂

When we got back people were waking up and thinking about food.  They were all happy for the care package of Tim’s coffee.  I made a few pots as well and, as the sun started making his presence known, we setup to go on our run.  We decided to do 1 loop of the IM run course and so didn’t need Ian to hang out for on-course support.  Around 10:30 we head over to Tremblant and did the run.  It was HOT… OMG I was dying of heat and didn’t have nearly enough liquid with me (750ml).  I, fortunately, found a place to reload my waterbottle on the way back. My pace really suffered as I overheated without any liquid to drink, going from a 5:10-5:15 pace to nearly a 6:00 pace (per km).  Having some liquid my pace came back up, but not to the 5:10 pace I was at. Probably closer to 5:30… meh.

After the run, we headed back to the site.  Packed, showered and hit the road for the 6+ hr drive home.

Definitely a good weekend of training, learning, and socializing!

Bike Course Review

The bike course has 3 distinct personalities: the section to and from Tremblant village and on Hwy117, the Sainte-Jovite loop, and the “back section”, a 25k stepped-climbs loop beside Tremblant village.

All the road surfaces except for the Sainte-Jovite loop are excellent!  Smooth, wide and fodder free.  (That said we did have 2 flats from the hill repeats on 117, tho I don’t know why).

The Hwy117 segment features long straight segments, some long climbs and descents, nothing super-steep or super-long. This section is almost a rest segment compared to the back section of the course.  It will be tempting to push too hard on this segment, especially on the 1st time through early in the day.  Don’t do it.  Watch your output here.  If you push too hard here, you’ll burn your matches for the back segment especially the 2nd time through.

The Sainte-Jovite segment features the worst roads on the course and a crazy hairpin corner at the top of a steep but short climb at the far end of the loop.  I expect that Sainte-Jovite main street will be closed on race day or the course will follow a different route than they had us training on.

The back segment 25k near Tremblant village is the last distinct personality on the course.  This section features many short-steep climbs, followed by shorter descents on the way up the hill, it then turns around and you get a bit of a reprieve on the way back.  For those of you who know the Muskoka bike route, these hills are similar to the last 30k of the Muskoka course.  Again this section will tempt you to push too hard, watching your wattage, fueling before you hit the section so you’re energized for it and having good gearing will all encourage success in this segment.  I recommend a compact crank front and at least a 25 (a 27 or 28 would be better) on the back.

Run Course Review

The run course is very pretty.  There are no crazy climbs, tho there are a few hills and rollers.  A large segment of the run is on a railpath and is gentle on the feet, well treed and pretty flat.  The worst hill you have to climb is right near the end of the loop/finish where you re-enter Tremblant village and run through the core of it.

Thanks

Wanted to end this, already long, post with a shout-out to all the folks who made this weekend such a great success.

Ian MacLean, my coach (and the coach for several of the other athletes) who came with Katherine (his fiancé) and dog Charlie.  Ian provided some coaching, advice, and perhaps most importantly on course support for the bike rides on Saturday.

First Endurance for their donation of Ultragen, EFS Liquid Shot and EFS fruit punch drink for workout and post-workout nutrition.  Many of the athletes had never tried First Endurance products and were very happy with them.  First Endurance has been my go-to for sport-nutrition for years now.  I absolutely believe in First Endurance products and was happy to introduce others to the product line.

PureProtein and Clif for a selection of protein and energy bars.  We had some pretty well fed athletes, to be sure.  I know that Clif bars were one of the 1st products that people dove into as I recall seeing people mowing them down during the drive recon on Friday night.

Biestmilch for the camp t-shirts.  It was great to provide people something in the goodie bags that wasn’t food and the t-shirts were a welcome addition, especially with the wet weather and under-packed athletes.

Thanks again folks for your awesome support!

Finally, thanks to all the athletes who came out for the weekend and shared the pains and joys of the hard work.  Was definitely a good time!