Pics can be found here… http://trimarkyv.blogspot.com/...se-camp-day-1-2.html http://trimarkyv.blogspot.com/...se-camp-day-3-4.html
Every year in the spring the birds begin to head north, the baseball players head south and The Posse heads to the desert for the season opening camp. With Doc now moved on to a position at Vanderbilt we have reassembled in Tucson, with Mount Lemmon to the north watching over us, rather than Las Cruces as we have done in the past. We’re staying out east of the city toward the base of Lemmon and East Saguaro N.P. and thus far have had some great sessions. Pools have been hit and miss (smoking hot) but we’re getting the water time in. Saturday was a swim at the Oro Valley pool on the north side of town. Wonderful facility but the 83 water temps really started to get to us at the end of the 6x400’s fast. I started taking rest intervals OUT of the water to cool off. After the swim it was off to Einstein’s and then on to the house. Some airport runs and getting settled in before an evening run for us all from the house.
Sunday we were up and out the door right away. 5 hours for the destroyer and 4 hours for the rest of us. We headed out east toward the N.P. and then south toward the caves and Vail. Then further south on the sonoita climb. It was great to have Doc sag for us as the day heated up quickly and dumping the morning’s warmers was needed. Oh yeah… free water stops… HUGE! 
The Springbok took off for her T-run while the rest of us chilled and then we all headed for a soup swim. Smoking hot we simply got the pool time in. Back home for a run around Udall park and call it a day.
A quick interlude to introduce our cast of characters. You’ve already met Jaqui “springbok-the destroyer” Gordon. The rest of this motley crew would be Danny “little Danois” Montoya, Lauren “WCS, LAHP” Harrison, John “Levi” Fell, Will “muffin top” Ronco and myself, oh, and of course… our resident computational fluid dynamicist, coach and entertainment for the week… Uncle Pablo Honey Doc Salsita. We love you coach… now give us more Zn5. Why you ask? As we are Posse… we always want MORE.
So back to the week at hand. Monday started off with a run (what day doesn’t, especially for me) and then some interneting (what day doesn’t). Off to the pool I had an easy day while the rest of crew knocked out a good swim. If our team could ever get food sponsor we’d love to represent Chipolte. I mean what can POSSIBLY fuel you better after a workout than that. Oh right… there’s some bike team that’s already got that covered. Darn. Home for a quick snooze before on the bikes for a nice evening tour of the lower 5 miles of Lemmon. The light playing on the canyon walls was a beautiful way to end the day (for everyone save me that is… I still had another run).
Doc thought that since everyone came back the evening before with such high spirits that Lemmon was how we would start our day on Tuesday. Up early and on the rigs. Still cool to cold in the morning we rolled easy for an hour-forty, giving our tired bodies some time to come up to speed. I need ALL of that 1:40. Met up at the base of the climb and dumped the clothes. Popped the tunes onto some loud psych up trance and rock and got ready to pummel the climb. The rest of the crew was rolling tri bikes but I was going D-legal style on my AR2. Ready, set, go! We DRILLED our 2x20 and regrouped at ~9 mile mark. I had gotten up to around mile 10 and was beginning to get back into the alpine forest (ahhh, home! :). Will and I thought it would be good to recover with some fresh rabbit at the pull off. We felt we deserved it. A quick nap and some brief emailing (i am sooooo backed up on work now) before heading to the pool for a chillout swim and then (of course) ending the day with a 45 minute run with some strides (oh yeah). It’s good though. I am retooling my form and it’s going to take some time, but we’re on the right path. We finally got a TJ’s run in (I was beside myself with happiness “Dear Colorado blue laws…”) and then more internetting (of course).
And now to today…
BTW… choice pics from camp will be uploaded to the post below. Meshing txt and pics doesn’t always work so pretty in this editor.
Doc says… Bread and Butter… we head out the door… 50 minutes… plus strides. For me… “wittle steps… wittle steps”. Back home, Lauren and I headed up Lemmon for an hour twenty easy before jetting home and jetting off to the pool. In the water by 11:30 and in the process of warming up for a killer set of 400’s on short rest I thought… 3rd workout today… and it’s not even noon yet. Awesome! As the U-23 roadies are want to say… I SLAYED THAT SWIM!!! . Done with the wa-wa we made another stop at our “wishful thinking sponsor” for some lunch before yet another TJ’s run. Mmmmmmm. Home for a nap and about 10 minutes of email (dear athletes and business associates of mine… I’M SORRY FOR THE DELAY!!! but that’s camp for ya. Loaded up the cars and took off for the trails at the end of Speedway that lead into Saguaro N.P. The destroyer had 2 hours while everyone else had 90 with some threshold work. Me… oh the lovely 45min plus uphill strides. Felt good… shins talked a little bit but I’m hoping I can mitigate them from now on… ICE!!! We even got to see some wildlife. Javelinas, rattle snakes, jack rabbits, Gila Monsters and birds of all sorts. I thought it was awesome (mtn man comes to the desert) but some city slickers in the bunch weren’t as thrilled as I was A beautiful evening and with the sun setting over the valley we rolled home. Hot, sticky, dirty and happy from getting the work done.
I know this is a real departure from my posts of norm, as it’s simply filled with the details of the workouts of the day, and not the details of everything else. I can quickly summarize the everything else up with a quick list… eating internetting (much less than i’d like it to be tho) eating napping eating laughing (a whole helluva lot… posse is good people) eating sleeping eating driving around going to pools eating
As Doc likes to say… BAM!
I am now finishing this while rocking out to slacker.com which is just like pandora… but better! AND!!! AND!!! comes with an app for crackberrys! Oh, long rides here we come!!!
That’s all for now… Ice Cream/Gelato run appears to have been cancelled for another night but we’ve another assault on Lemmon tomorrow and it’s time for some rest.
Going short courser - getting faster - getting better,
-MVA