Epic Camp has Begun

Hello,

Well like I said in my last post Chris and I have the treat over the next week of joining our old pal Scott Molina and a great group of people for Epic NZ www.epiccamp.com
The fun has started!! I will have a little different view as I am only doing the riding, being a roadie now But I will note I have done this camp doing all the running and swimming before first time I did this camp, so I know what these campers will be going through.My thought pattern is to ride each day as much like a race as I physically can to make sure I feel my own level of fatigue.

I wanted to do this camp for a couple reasons. I knew it would be a ton of fun, I knew I would increase my fitness huge in one week before the series of races I’ve got coming up and Chris and I would take it as a bit of a “holiday” for ourselves.

I did go as official timer to the pool today and it was fun to watch people go after points doing band only and the efforts put in over the 2km TT. Well done group!! I was impressed!

The ride started at 10a.m. We did a ride called the Gorges, 150km. I’ve done this ride a fair few times before. My plan was to ride pretty easy the first day, but of course a group of fit, excited riders didn’t let that happen. It was a full blast ride from day one. So, I stuck to my commitment to myself to try to go with any front break or attack, trying to find my own level of fatigue
In the races I have coming up they are all tours, so I need to be able to race very hard everyday, this will be good training for that
We faced some really tough head winds!! Being the new found roadie I am , I was pretty persistent in finding the best protection for myself in the group. In the past I have sucked at protecting myself in the wind, today was a very bad side/ cross wind and I finally did a good job riding the gutter and staying protected. Unfortunately just behind me was my pal Molina and he was left in the dirt with no protection.

It was fun to see the different tactics people were approaching for the camp. Some want to just survive, some are still pooped from there travel and trying to figure out if they will survive, some are very excited and smashing everyone and then there are the wise ducks who have done these sorts of things many times before and know exactly what they are in for over the next 8 days. Not sure if that is a good thing or not, sometimes ignorance is bliss.

At the end of the day everyone looked relieved and a bit scared to realise what they got themselves into. There were allot of hungry dazed looking people already. But everyone was still smiling

Oh…and JD….we played 3 games of UNO after dinner with a few we could sucker into it I’ll try to bring our fun UNO to everyone at least once this camp

Next….180-190km with 70km TT. ….

Cheers,
Marilyn