BSLT 70.3 Camp with Playtri

I guess Collegiate Nationals wasn't enough Lubbock for me for one year because here it is a month later, and I'm back! Myself, Ben, Michael, and Philip are all doing the BSLT 70.3 this June, and, seeing as those three guys are all in much better shape than myself, I decided I needed an edge so here I am. (Also, my coach told me I had to go). I came into town yesterday afternoon with Aaron from Playtri - that drive never seems to get shorter. Nothing like seemingly endless brown plains to pysch you out mentally - and of course the wind farms all around the outskirts of town don't exactly put you in the best frame of mind for cycling! But the hotel we're staying at is pretty nice, and my room only costs $36 a night! And we have wireless, so I can do important things, like post on the team blog.

Last night we just had lectures with Ahmed, but we got some fun camp shirts and water bottles and such, and had a chance to get a good meal before the ride this morning. Today we rode the BSLT course, doing the section of the course with the toughest hills twice just for good measure. We ended the ride with a rabbit chase drill to practice legal drafting. All in all, it took about 5 hours. My muscles feel surprisingly good, though I kind of messed up my hydration - I lost abooout 3 pounds during the ride. No bueno. And my arms and legs are definitely a bit sunburned! But I had a great time riding with Jeanne and got so much good information from her - and also an opportunity for the UNT team at the next Playtri camp in Austin. I think our performance would increase dramatically if we all had the information I'm getting this weekend, so anything that gets our members to one of these camps is reason to be excited.

The rest of today is all lectures - on heart rate, power training, mental toughness, etc. Aaron and I hit up Pei Wei between the ride and the lectures, and managed to get back to the hotel for about 15 minutes, so I got to take a cold bath and let my leg muscles recover a little bit better, and I got honey-seared chicken. Talk about a happy end to a long training ride. Today definitely has me excited for the race at the end of June. I'm a little nervous for the Buffman and Squeaky Oly on Sunday, but that's mainly just because it's coming after a loooong weekend of training! Anyways, it can't possibly be as bad (i.e. COLD) as it was at Nationals, so at least there's that to look forward to. Tomorrow we have 2 hours of open water swimming, 2 hours of hill repeats, and we're running the run course for BSLT. Basically, another 5-6 hour day of training. I'm not sure what the lectures are tomorrow.

Anyways, all and all a great first full day of sweating and going hard. I know I'm going to feel much better prepared for BSLT after this weekend.