Anyone have any experience with Multisports Training Camps, I am thinking about doing the one in Lake Placid in 08 prior to the event to get some experience on the course.
I have not, but Troy Jacobsen (www.coachtroy.com) has an annual camp up there about the same time and for $300 less. I don’t know if the multisports camp is better, but Troy’s is longer. Neither includes accomodations.
Bob
Let me recommend Rich Strauss and Patrick Mcrann’s camp. Check out www.ironcamp.com
I did this camp this year…and it was fantastic. Great people, good time, and as much riding, swimming, running, coaching as you want. Plus lots of beer and ice cream in the Strauss house.
The swim course is marked all year. Bike course is easy to follow and has signs posted advising motorists that athletes train there. Run course is easy to follow.
Get a buddy, find affordable accomodation and go train your arse off, can’t see why you’d drop a ton of $ for a camp. Plus, about six weeks out, Dev puts on Epicman, a one day training event consisting of 50min swim, 180k bike, 21k run. This year, in extreme heat, it left me a shatterred, hollow, shell of a man…but prepared me for a sub 11hr IM (fairly decent for my first effort).
You can always do Epicman!
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/gforum.cgi?post=1335684#1335684
Fred.
I did the Placid camp this year before doing IMLP.
It is truly a fantasy camp as you don’t have to deal with anything except for swim, bike, and run. The food was excellent and I am a picky foody. Also you are surrounded by coaches who total more than 50 IM wins, although PNF is obviously the overachiever in the bunch. Gatorade, Newtons, and other products are in abundance to try.
The head official for Placid is one of the coaches. The race director for Placid stopped by and answered questions. And again PNF is the president of the company that owns IMLP.
This is not an overly physical camp even though you swim, bike and run a fair distance. There really is no “racing” and is very low testosterone.
If the weather is nice you will hate biking to a pool on Friday to do a 4K meter swim when Mirror Lake is right out the back door of the Golden Arrow. You do swim in Mirror Lake the next day.
Some people want a no frills, hard workout on the course, whcih this is definitely not. It is pricey, but I can’t imagine a camp that treats you better.
I would highly recommend doing Epicman. It is on a Friday. You can stay the weekend, train til you drop and you won’t have to pay any $$ for a camp.
I guess I’ll vote for my free training event and take a quote out of the post that I put up before this year’s day:
"Epicman strives to break you, but in reality, if you are well prepared, it will take you to the point of bending but not cracking and harden you that much more for race day. "
Be there on Jun 6, 2008 at 6 am at Mirror Lake Beach in your wetsuit in the water, ready to take on 50 min swim-180K bike-21.1K run.
And to Boney’s point…it left him bent, but not broken…he did break 11 hours 7 weeks later, although on that day, I think it would have taken him 11 hours to haul his butt to McDonald’s for some post event burgers, fries and shakes :-). In 2006 we qualified 17 people from Epicman to Kona. I have not done the tally from this past year, but it won’t be quite in the same range, mainly because many of the participants either did not take their Ironman slots or did not race LP…they just came out for the training and comraderie!
The swim course is marked all year. Bike course is easy to follow and has signs posted advising motorists that athletes train there. Run course is easy to follow.
Get a buddy, find affordable accomodation and go train your arse off, can’t see why you’d drop a ton of $ for a camp. Plus, about six weeks out, Dev puts on Epicman, a one day training event consisting of 50min swim, 180k bike, 21k run. This year, in extreme heat, it left me a shatterred, hollow, shell of a man…but prepared me for a sub 11hr IM (fairly decent for my first effort).
I second this. There are usually dozens (if not hundreds) of people out on the course from May till race day. It is easy to get any other details (besides the well marked course), like where is the special needs area going to be, where is the transition, what is the swim start like, etc explained by people just out on the course. Peope love to talk about the race for free, doesn’t make sense to pay to have someone “show” you the course. Good luck.