Vanderbilt Triathlon
Annual Winter Boot Camp
Jan 16-18, Friday through Sunday
This boot camp has traditionally kicked off the Vandy Triathlon Club's hardcore training season. The purpose of this boot camp format was to "kick start" everyone's fitness into high gear and spend a full weekend dedicated to your training. This boot camp had about the same number of participants as last year, but my impression was that the intensity and passion was higher.
Below is a write-up of the schedule for each day along with some extra notes on what happened. Enjoy the pictures.
Friday Night:
6pm Big Swim. 2 hour swim lesson and workout at the Vanderbilt Recreation Center
8pm Stretch Session Learn quick stretches to do before any run
8:30pm Nashville Urban Night Run Hear the sights and sounds of Music City
I have been known to say that "coaching triathletes is like herding cats." They all tend to go their own way. So I like to start the weekend off with a team building icebreaker to get everyone working together. As you can see everyone was "knotted up." Next was a swim workout in the Vanderbilt pool. This was awesome as the overall level of swimming in this group is quite good. We covered some good technique drills and reminders on form. The final phase of Friday night is the traditional Nashville Urban Night Run. They all left me behind so I took some nice pictures of the neon signs on honky tonk row.
Saturday:
7am Early am warmup-up jog and stretch Get the blood flowing and wake up
8am STtrainer Big Spin at Baptist
11:30am Lunch in Classroom at Vandy (Lunch orders will be taken Friday night)
12:00 Discussion/Mini-Lecture Learn about some training topics while you fight off the food coma!
2pm Afternoon workout TBD You're not done yet! This one will depend on weather and mojo.
5pm Triathlon Houseparty hosted by STtrainer: Dinner and Triathlon-Related Videos
Saturday Vandy Tri Boot Camp dovetailed with the normal Big Spin that I teach on Saturday morning. This allowed for a new record of 31 participants! After a lunch of some Mexican food (yum!) we headed to a classroom at Vandy rec center. Unfortunately I did not get a picture of this but we had a very lively discussion of recovery techniques and training strategy. We ended the training on Saturday with another swim, involving some distance conditioning training and a few games of pool tag. At the end of the day we convened at Susan's and my place for some pasta and dvd videos. I showed some of my races on video (both good ones and the meltdowns) and then we watched a video about bicycle couriers in NY.
Sunday:
8am Reverse Triathlon at Hamilton Creek Park: Trail Run, Hill Repeats
on Bike, and Polar Bear Dunk in Percy Priest Lake.
This day actually worked out well as it was not quite as cold as the 2 days before. The trails were great for a run except I always get lost in Hamilton Creek Park. Surprisingly, it was not too cold for a little bike ride. We did hill repeats to make sure we stayed warm. The grand finale was a polar plunge....those pictures are pretty self explanatory.
Here are a few pictures from Vandy Tri Boot Camp 2007.
