I was more apprehensive about today’s 100x100m swim than any other session at Epic Camp. On top of being a bit nervous last night my stomach was a bit off and I was up every few hours sitting on the toilet. I was very worried about my stomach so had only some black coffee and dry cereal for breakfast. The pool opened at 9am so we were in the water shortly thereafter. 6 campers were attempting the 100x100m mainset. With bonus points awarded for doing the repeats on 1:45 (3 points), 2:00 (2 points), 2:15 (1 points). George Grey and John Newsom were planning on the 3 point option. Which left Ben, Glenn Olsen, Phil and myself attempting the 2 point option. Without any planning, we ended up having each of us lead 5 efforts and then we would take a 2min break after each 20x100m block. It was amazing what a mental exercise this session was. Once we got into this pattern things went by amazingly smoothly. Physically the pace felt very comfortable, partially due to the pool being “fast” and partially due to the drafting affect. I would lift my effort and focus when I was leading, perhaps a bit too much on the first two rounds as we were usually coming in ~1:44-1:47, but on the first few I was unintentionally lifting the pace to 1:38-1:40 on the first few but then focused on just relaxing and staying smooth. The time actually flew by. However, I was so deep inside my own head that anything that disrupted the flow seemed like a massive disaster. The lifeguard telling us we had to put on bathing caps threw me for a bit of a loop…”WAIT…WHAT…bathing cap?…I’m gonna miss the interval”.
Once I had my cap on my head things flew by and we were soon half way through. I would always anticipate my chance to lead for 5x100m, but those 5 actually went by the fastest likely because it required more mental focus. We all completed the 100x100m efforts and we averaged 1:47/100m.
It took us 3hr28min to complete the swim. I wanted to get a ride in before the planned trail run in the afternoon. I thought I could get 30km done in an hour, but because nothing is flat around Andorra I actually got the minimum 800m of climbing done before reaching 30km. It took me 1hr25 minutes so I only had 10minutes to get changed into my run gear and off we went on our trail run.
The trail was very steep and technical in spots so it turned into a mostly hike, some jog.
I lost my footing at least four times and was a bit concerned I was going to actually injure myself. No major injuries but I definitely aggravated my left foot which had been behaving quite well before the trail run.
Swim 10km 3:28
Bike 28.5km 1:25
Run/Hike 2:10
Total training time 7:03
Tomorrow the forecast is for rain as we ride back into France. The planned route is ~180km with ~3600m of climbing but also 4000m of descending
Epic Camp France 2019 