Summer Camp

When I was a kid I use to go to this summer camp in the San Jacinto mountains of California above the city of Hemet where I was born and raised.  The town was called Idyllwild and it was beautiful there, mountain meadows, fir trees that smelled of vanilla, Strawberry Creek for wading, hot days for playing frsibee and swimming, cool nights for campfire songs, star gazing and roasting marshmallows, all presided over by Taquitz Rock, a several thousand foot tall spire that I would return to climb much later in life.

I loved going to camp as a boy because of how much fun it was, then as a teenager because there were cute girls there and they were interested in me too.  Somehow it was different than normal life and we all played and flirted with much more abandon.  I think the first time I ever made out with a girl was at Idyllwild Pines after the nightly camp fire gathering.

When my daughters reached a certain age, they went away to a 4H camp, and later to gymnastics, field hockey, and dance camps.  I don't know if these made the same impression on them that my summer camping made on me, but I hope so.  As a grown-up our days of summer camp are far behind us and we can only feel envious as we drop our children at Art Camp or Farm Camp or Sailing Camp. 

However, last week I got to relive a little bit of my youth....I got to go to camp.  On Thursday I packed up my bike and all my other triathlon gear and drove over to Lake Placid for an Ironman Lake Placid training camp put on by Trimoxie Multisport and Personal Best Multisport.  The setting was absolutely breathtaking in a huge meadow a few miles outside of the town of Lake Placid, with 360 degree mountain views. 

I'm not sure I know the final count, but there were about 20 of us there for camp, which started on Thursday evening with an hour swim in Mirror Lake on the Ironman course.  I rode over with a few other campers, got into my wetsuit and swam two loops of the course.  Unfortunately the course as laid-out was for canoe racing and was longer than the Ironman course.  My two laps was probably more like 6000 yards and took me an hour and a half.  When I emerged from the water, everyone was gone.  I lugged my wetsuit and towel to the car, only to find it was gone too, with my phone and wallet!  I trudged through town and eventually found my group on their way to dinner.  So much for an auspicious start to camp.

On Friday we rode the Ironman course, 112 miles and then ran off the bike.  I did a 5 mile run, others went a little longer or shorter depending on their coaches instructions.  Saturday we did a timed swim on the course, had a late breakfast, then an easier ride and run than on Friday, complicate somewhat by summer thunder storms that pelted us with hail and soaked us with downpours.  Camp finished Sunday with a long run on the course, the blue sky above and the Olympic ski jumps in the background.

I could bore you with the details of my rides and runs and swims, but that's not why I'm writing.  I went to camp excited, but also with some trepidation about whether I would make it through the weekend.  My confidence about Ironman Lake Placid has not been high lately.  After spending the weekend on site with other people who's goals and training are similar to mine, and having survived the workouts my coach assigned, I can report that training camp was great for me and I have a renewed confidence that I will finish Ironman Lake Placid.

I should mention that my fellow campers were predominantly women.  There were two other guys at camp and all the rest of the attendees were amazing, beautiful, accomplished, funny, talented Ironwomen.  Unfortunately for me there weren't many who were single, so it wasn't like camp in my early teens, but I enjoyed the experience and their company immensely.

I think what made the deepest impression on me was just being around a group of people who came from all over, had a variety of careers and were at greatly different points in their lives, yet we all had Ironman triathlon in common.  Beyond that, we all shared coaches and so our workout prescriptions and training plans were also very similar.  I didn't necessarily swim, ride, or run with my fellow campers, but we were all doing the same workouts, which we planned ahead of time and discussed afterward.  The common, shared experience was a serious jolt for my solitary habits and I loved it.  I came back home thinking about how to have more of that kind of training and camaraderie in the future.

I would like to thank my coach Kurt Perham of Personal Best Multisport Coaching for recommending the camp and for being there to help run it, push us through the workouts, and for all the advice he gave to me and the other campers.  Similarly, Mary Holt-Wilson of TriMoxie Multisport Coaching deserves a huge thank you for organizing and running this camp. 

I don't know if I am truly ready for Ironman Lake Placid, but thanks to Kurt, Mary, and all my fellow campers, I am a lot more ready than I was.  It wasn't like Idyllwild Pines in my youth, but I loved summer camp circa 2012 just as much, even if I didn't have the energy to play Frisbee all afternoon.