Spinervals Lake Placid Camp, June 2013, Chapter 1

Raison D'etre: I've been incorporating Coach Troy Jacobson's Spinervals training videos into my workouts since January of 2012. My friend, Mary Duprey, suggested I use them when I was recovering from hip surgery. At the time, about all I could do was spin easy on a bike. Six months later, I PR'ed at my first post-surgery 5K. That made me a believer. This past fall and winter, I participated in Coach Troy's Super Six Challenge: six months of structured training, including the December "Challenge" month of serious strength-building on the bike. Around that time, Mary asked if I would consider attending the Spinervals Lake Placid Camp. At first, I said no. Camp conflicted with work, I'm not racing IMLP, and just generally felt like I'd be over-reaching. Winter progressed, and my fellow Spinervals teammates and I virtually trained and suffered together. I had an opportunity to meet two team mates, Kelly and Eddie Mendoza, while training and racing at Battenkill. Mary asked me again, and I decided to resolve my work conflict and sign up.

Registration and Orientation, Thursday, June 20th: I had originally reserved Friday and Saturday nights at the host hotel, the Golden Arrow Resort in Lake Placid. A couple of days before camp started, I called and added Thursday night. I arrived at the hotel around 5:15, checked in, and headed to the conference room to register. That's where I first met Dan and Dave, Troy's detail guys. I would learn to look forward to the sight of this father and son team before the weekend was over. I filled out the paperwork, got some swag--a Spinervals jersey (which I love and fits perfectly!), a water bottle from a local bike shop, and a couple of other random items. We also were instructed to choose three titles from a variety of Spinervals DVDs. I had all but two of them, and both are Runervals videos (which I'll have to rip and put on my iPad or iPhone to use at the gym). We proceeded into the conference room, where we met Coach Troy and his team. Troy put up a PowerPoint presentation with a few questions for us to use as a guide to introduce ourselves. After the introductions, Coach instructed us to stand up and do a five-minute isometric squat, as a way of simulating how one feels throughout the day when competing in an Ironman (Coach Troy had done his iso squat that morning, so didn't join us. Yeah, where have I heard that before?!) Longest five minutes of my life; the room became very quiet, my legs were shaking, beads of sweat started rolling down my face. Somehow, I and everyone in the room made it through the five minutes without sitting down. In retrospect, this little exercise accomplished two things: 1. When Coach told us he expected timeliness for meetings and workouts or we'd be doing squats, we took it seriously. 2. I think we impressed Coach Troy. He knew the caliber of the group he was dealing with from those five minutes. At that moment, however, all I could think was, what the hell had I got myself into? Coach talked some more about racing IMLP (I'm not going to give any details from the lectures. I think you should attend a camp to hear those), gave us the overall plan for the weekend, and sent us on our way for the night, with the instruction to meet in the hotel lobby at 6:40, for a 7:00 a.m. swim. As I walked down the street with quivering legs looking for a place to eat, I resolved I would be up early. My favorite sandwich shop was closed, so I started to head back to the hotel, thinking I'd grab some take-out pizza. I ran into fellow campers, Merle, Lola, Jerre and Christina, and they invited me to go with them to Milanos. We had a great dinner (I ordered the pizza special and a beer), and some good conversation getting to know each other. As we walked down the stairs leaving the restaurant, we felt that damned iso squat in our legs, and I secretly worried if I was up to the challenge. When I got back to the hotel, I called my husband and told him I didn't know what I was doing there, that I was in over my head. Then, I went to bed and worried about getting to sleep, waking up on time, iso squats, swimming in cold water, and on and on...