We're on our way home now from our first training camp for 2002/03, all a bit tired and sore. It's starting to rain, which is good timing since it was sunny the whole weekend, not counting the weird grey looking sky on Saturday which turned out to be from a forest fire in Quebec (also good timing on our part to be further away from that!)
So, the training camp was held at my (Megan's) cottage, just north of Huntsville. It's on an island on Lake Cecebe, along with 7 other McTavish cottages. Only one other was inhabited this weekend, by my cousin and 14 of her friends. They spent the weekend, water skiing, seadoing, tanning and drinking beer so they naturally thought we were a bit nuts…We did take advantage of their hot tub in the evenings though. Friday morning started with running speed work (biking for those injured ones) and ended with a lively game of water polo, some canoeing and a bit of cliff jumping (good mental training).
Saturday (the smoky day) we did a pseudo triathlon for distance training. First we swam from the island to shore, then rode for a few hours, ran (canoeing for the injured) and swam again (back to the island). The ride was definitely the highlight. Our first destination was "the Ghosts" that Karl, Tom and I had discovered on a previous ride. There was a haunted house with a dragon coming out of the chimney, spider web gates, gargoyles, real live peacocks and emus, but that's not all….. The owner had about 3 farm fields with at least 50 huge concrete structures of ghosts, haunted trees, hands coming out of the ground…. Definitely a must see!
The rest of the training was pretty tame in comparison, nice roads for road bikes and hilly gravel roads for running. We didn't get back for lunch until 3:30pm and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening relaxing.
Sunday (today) was very sunny and a great day for paddling. We took canoes and a kayak down the river to a nearby town, Magnetewan, where we stopped in a park to do some plyometrics. We also cooled off at the public beach where Bruno borrowed some kid's bike to do jumps off the dock! Then we paddled back. Once arriving at the cottage, we had one last swim where Alicia and I practiced our balance skills while trying to remove duck droppings from the raft.
We had a big lunch and tried to finish off the rest of our food (we didn't quite succeed) and we were off...back to Ottawa, work and school.
The next training camp will be held in Quebec City with the Pierre Harvey Training Centre in August.
"Setting the Stage. Setting the Pace.
La mise en scène. Au rythme du client."