I’m thinking of doing the Bike Tour Colorado bike tour with some friends, but turning it into a 7-day Epic(style) Camp experience and wondered how many of you have done / would do this sort of thing?
What I’m looking at is 7-days of 75-120 mile rides (the BTC daily rides are about 70 miles/day) with daily runs and some swims when it’s possible. We’ll have to do some specific planning in advance to make sure we can get in the extra miles and figure out some pool hours, but basic planning says we’ll be able to hit 600 miles biking / 50-60 miles running / 4 pool sessions 1 open water.
I did Epic NZ last year. Experience of a lifetime and I will definitely be back (hopefully in Jan '08 after my broken leg heals and I get some fitness back).
I would say I was a little overambitious last year. I went into it averaging 16hrs p.w. (with a couple of 30hr “stretch weeks” in the lead up) and I ran out of gas at about the 30hr mark. I hung in tough for a 42hr week during the first week (830km on the bike) but there was a good amount of “survival” mode training at a very low HR (below training threshold).
I will be trying to hit 1000hrs for 2007 and I think this volume is really necessary to really train over the course of an epic. To hit 600mi of good quality training (plus swimming and biking) and avoid overtraining, I think you would want to be have a good 600hrs of biking under your belt over the past year. Just my opinion.
Another thing that helps a lot is to keep the ego in check. Too much zone 2 on any given day will end your week (save it for the climbs). Any zone 3 for anything but a 9hr guy will end your week. Save it for the last couple of days if you have any energy left.
Hope these observations help. Remember they’re just thoughts from one guy. That’s part of the joy of Epic training - discovering your* own *limits.
Even on a three day camp at these levels of volume, best if everything is zone 1 till the last workout of the last day. If not, people gradually start dropping out, and those that are part of it get more irritable and grumpy. Keep it down in zone 1 and you’ll make it through and the campers will be more pleasant. Nothing worse than one or two dudes getting dropped to piss them off and then the negative energy can permeat the group. Train at the pace of the slowest athlete, and everyone is happy. If fast guys need to burn off testosterone, send them ahead with the understanding that they will loop back, but never leave slower athletes to hang out to dry! This sounds easy to do on paper, but you have to rule the camp with an Iron first to keep fit type A triathletes back in check and get them to pace things over multiple days.
Also you have to keep people on a schedule, or your 8 hour training days quickly turn into 12 hours of dilly dallying of which only 7.5 hours of actual training occurs. Better to get the training done efficiently and spend the rest of the day recovering and preparing for the next day’s “stage”
Personally, I think there is greater benefit in doing 2xThree days over back to back weekends with 4 easy days in the middle than pushing through for 7 days straight. The 7 day camp at 5-8 hours per day is pushing the limit of overtraining for most mere mortals, even if it is all zone 1 (unless of course you do it all on the bike…the moment you throw running in, its playing with fire).
I would DEFINITELY pay for the service of setting up camp. I promise you are not going to feel like setting up camp at the end of the day and knowing that you have to set it up might be enough for you to bag the run or swim after your ride.
That is the real value in doing the organized Epic camps with Gordo and Scott. The support is absolute. ALL you have to think about is training and sleeping. I would get as much of this organized (camp, catering etc) prior to the camp.
Btw, I’m jeaous as hell. Damn these broken bones!!
I did an epic Colorado camp this past August, and loved every painful minute of it. We started in Boulder, where rode, ran and swim for the first couple of days, then climbed longs peak (ran as much as we could), before moving on to Winter park for the remainder of the week. It was a tough week, and we were quite shelled by the end, but we are doing another here in Austin in January.