Staycation Training Camp

I spent the last 10 days on vacation (thank God!) but didn’t go anywhere.  The TriMadness family had a “staycation”.  Normally when I have a staycation it’s because my “honey-do” list is long and I’m relegated to accomplishing some sort of project (painting the house, re-doing the yard, etc).  This year, I had absolutely nothing to do.  My staycation was really a vacation!

So I turned my staycation into a training camp.  It was my first “real” training camp.  Ever.

I swam.  I biked.  I ran.  Most days, I did two-a-days.  Brick workouts, morning runs followed by afternoon swims, tempo bike sessions followed by short-hard run efforts.

I exercised like I was 20 years old again.  And, boy did I ever pay for it.  I keep forgetting that I’m getting close to moving up to the 45-49 age group (Isn’t age relative?), and that it takes me a little longer to recover from hard workouts than it used to.

I put in some serious mileage over the past 10 days.  My legs are tired now, my back is sore, I finally have gotten rid of that soreness on my “sit bones” from all the time in the saddle.  I did a lot of drill work in the pool – focusing on what I learned recently about the necessity of a strong pull.  I read Macca’s book I’m Here to Win.  I followed the Rev3 race in Portland on Twitter.  I watched the movie “Hood to Coast”.  What an EPIC week of training for me. 

I went through some serious calories too…I took in close to 20 Power Bar gels (Kona Punch is my fav flavor right now), more than a handful of Double Chocolate Crisp Power Bars, drank something like 25 liters of water and 10 of Power Bar Perform sports drink.  I ate literally non-stop, and still lost weight during the course of the week.  I slept like a kid because I was so exhausted at night.

I’m refreshed.  Re-energized.  Ready to turn the last half of 2012 into a strong multisport effort.  I’ve decided to shake up what I had originally called my race schedule.  I’m (finally) going to race a triathlon this season.  I’m going to make damn sure I set a new personal best in the Half Rev at Rev3 Florida.  I’ll do a few running races this fall.  I’m totally pumped up – and the root of all of this was the amount of training I did last week.

My Staycation Training Camp was just the tonic I needed to reinvigorate myself.  It’s like I fell in love all over again with this sport.  I broke out of a training rut and I’ve got more motivation and energy than I can remember.

This is what vacations are supposed to do for us.  I loved this experience.  Mental note – in 2013 I must have another mid-year Staycation Training Camp!