Day 8: Last Day!!!

The last day of Epic Camp has come and gone.  It started off with a “fun” swim relay, which was kind of an intimidating event for me. It wasn’t until I turned 30 that I learned freestyle, and I’ve never really learned any other strokes, other than crappy breaststroke.  We started with relay IM (breast, back, fly, freestyle).  I knew I could kind of fake backstroke, but the one and only time I have ever tried fly, I ended up syringing 2 lungs’ worth of water.  Anyways, the relay hurt, but somehow I managed to do a comical rendition of fly back and forth along the pool without drowning myself.  Jo made sure to get video of it – thanks Jo.

We did most of the Ironman Lanzarote bike course for the remainder of the day.  The wind was supposed to be a light 25kmh, but I think it ended up being in the solid 30′s.  I hung out with Alisha and Wendy for a good part of the first half. My lower back was spasming for most of the windy sections. Alisha was an angel and let me draft through Famara.  We stopped at Teguise for a lunch stop.  I was dreading the next section (25km straight into wind), so I decided to just get moving and get it over with, so I head out solo and spent the rest of the day alone. *Luckily*, it was a pretty hilly 25km, which gave my back some time to change positions.  Once I hit the 100km point, I knew the worst was behind and just pushed through the rest of the ride, stopping only briefly to replenish water.  I did quite well on the Gu products this last ride – I didn’t eat a lot at our lunch station, but with the Chomps and gels, was able to get through the long ride without any energy dips.

Speaking of the camp sponsors, I just wanted to give some honest, positive feedback on some of the awesome shwag that was supplied to us.  First of all, I love the Zoot visors.  I have an enormous head and have found that most caps/visors look ridiculous on me.  The Zoot visor is the only one that I can kind of pull off, so I am really thrilled to have a hat that won’t make my race photos suck. That means a lot to a girl. The Zoot tri shorts were also really flattering and comfy, especially considering how itty bitty they look when you pick them up.  I ended up riding Thursday’s ride in the new shorts, which is usually a risky thing to do on a longish ride so late into a camp when you don’t know if the shorts will work.   I actually kind of missed them yesterday, when I opted to go back to my tried-and-true shorts. The Gu Brew was a nice change from the more acidic electrolyte drinks, especially on my throat, which was raw from seasickness.  As always, the Gu Chomps and gels are standard parts of my fuelling. I seem to be able to get them down when nothing else will go down (I took 50 Gu gels during Ultraman Hawaii in 2007, when my seasickness was so severe that my body rejected every other type of food that I’d brought along). It was all great stuff and much appreciated – but these things made the top of my list this year!

Thanks so much to Tara and Jo for putting on this amazing event. I really live for these camps. I’ve trained so much in mixed/male-dominated groups, but sometimes find it difficult training with guys who are either just way too fast, overall, or who hammer and then fall apart.  It is nice to train with a solid group of like-minded women. I have such respect for how strong Tara, Suzanne and Jo are.  I am just so happy to be able to participate!