Over the last 8 days, the Canadian Armed Forces Long Distance
Triathlon Team has been undergo a vigorous camp in a goal to get ready for
various long distance events happening in the next few weeks and months.
During that week plus, 12 athletes
participated and organized the camp; Maj Joel Maley, CWO(ret) Geoff Williams
and Civ David Harju ran it while LCol John Giguere, Cpl Alex Boule, LCdr Dave
Dallin, MCpl Benjamin Guillemin, MCpl Martin Larose, Capt Isabelle Allain, Sgt Pierre
Laporte, Cpl Francis Bachand-Mayer and myself were the primary training audience.
This camp ran from 05 to 12 July 2015 based out of Mont-Tremblant
but had us swimming, biking and running through other places such as St-Donat,
St-Jovite and Ville de Labelle. All had
in common great views, nice people and amazing (nasty) hills. I have recorded just about following totals: 35hrs
of training; 1,000km; 30,000 Kcal; 12,000m Total Elevation Gain.
Day 1 (Sunday 5 July): was a post-race active recovery day from
the CAF National Short Distance Triathlon held in Lake Leamy. That day we went to the Gatineau Park for an
easy ride just to move the legs before we all made the trip Mont-Tremblant. This nice hilly ride was fun for all of us, personally
I really enjoyed that ride since last time I was in the gats it was raining and
windy, so those decent were fast to say the least.
Once we were all done, we got back to the University housing,
packed our vehicle and drove to Tremblant.
Once we arrived and our rooms were setup, we quickly went for a swim
before dinner time.
Swim: 3,500m 0:45:00 │ Bike: 65.1km 2:21:31 │ Run: 0km
0:00:00
Day 2 (Monday 6 July): we kicked off the day with an early intensity
run, the weather was perfect to help us push the speed. I was faster pretty much at every interval
which was a great moral booster. Once we
completed that run, we got ourselves ready for a nasty hilly ride that brought
us o St-Donat for lunch and return. This
120km had us climbing a total of 1,500m of total elevation gain. Finally to polish the day we had an easy
swim.
Swim: 1,750m 0:30:00 │ Bike: 122km 3:40:00 │ Run: 15km
1:12:00
Day 3 (Tuesday 7 July): looked almost like day 2 mixed up a
little. Started with a endurance swim, long ride that finished with climbing
Duplessis 3 times and a transition run for good measures.
Swim: 3,209m 0:46:00 │ Bike: 139km 4:13:51 │ Run: 3km 0:14:00
Day 4 (Wednesday 8 July): That morning was different, we started
with a race start specific swim training.
Followed by a tempo run and finished with an easier bike where we tried
to keep everyone together. We were
lucky, as the rapped up the day, the weather started to act up.
Swim: 1,670m 0:37:44 │ Bike: 74km 2:21:31 │ Run: 16km
1:17:24
Day 5 (Thursday 9 July): was the first test day, kind of a longer
brick to see the progress of the camp.
Started with a 2k swim then a 130k bike and 8k transition run at mild
intensity. This was just to see what
kind of nutrition was going to work best for the event of Saturday “Epic Man”.
Swim: 2,100m 0:35:00 │ Bike: 133km 4:07:02 │ Run: 8km
0:38:42
Day 6 (Friday 10 July): was a recovery day and some sort of race
prep day. Normal size swim followed a
short bike to activate to legs.
Swim: 3,000m 0:45:00 │ Bike: 67,6km 2:12:44 │ Run: 0m
0:00:00
Day 7 (Saturday 11 July): was “Epic Man” day. This event wasn’t an official race but was treated
as such. Epic Man consist of 3km swim,
180km bike and 21km run. To make sure we
really test our self, mother natural added a little twist, the hottest day of
the year in Tremblant 33°C + humidity. On a course who has little to no shade and
only a warm breeze. The weather,
although nice to the beachers and boaters, has an opposite effect on us. I completed the swim in less than 41mins, the
bike in 4h52mins and the run in 1:33mins.
This blistering pace was amazing considering all the mileage made all
week. I also completed the half marathon
in an all-time personal best (PB).
Swim: 3,000m 0:40:50 │ Bike: 182km 4:52:37 │ Run: 21km
1:33:37
Day 8 (Sunday 12 July): was departure day, but not before we
tasted the water one more time. Short
swim it was before sitting in the truck back to reality and family. Not gonna lie, I was looking up to that for
few days already. This day was made all worth it with the end of camp gift, a cup of Gelato at a local ice cream vendor in the Mont-Tremblant Village.
Swim: 2,500m 0:30:00 │ Bike: 0km 0:00:00 │ Run: 0km
0:00:00
This week was great, we all met new people from all corner of
Canada and gain new skills which will help all of us for the future race. This camp would have not been possible
without the support of the CAF Sports National Office and NPF.
Thanks to all athletes and organizer for a great second edition of
the Prep Camp.
