Lititz 2014 Training Camp Day #1

For the next 4 days, Jared, Matt and I will be training in Lititz, PA in the heart of Lancaster County. This is the second time we are coming down here (7th for Jared), after last year's 2-day training. This year we had a whole different mindset, focusing on high quality training, high volume, and over 3.5 days, from today until Sunday afternoon.

What did we do today?

Swim

5,300 yards in the pool. The most I have done before today was 4,250 yards back in March. We had a great swim, and Lititz Rec Center provides a great facility, beautiful pool, and warm water. 

Bike 

63 miles riding up and down the hills of Lancaster County was fun! It was a nice ride, yet a bit chilly and windy for April 24. Leg warmers and long sleeve jacket was in order for this ride. Unfortunately I couldn't work on my farmer's tan today! We did not push too hard as we have a long ride scheduled for tomorrow (6+ hours with hopefully 120 miles in), but it was amazing to finally ride on nice and smooth roads, without having to swerve around potholes or tranches like we have to here in the NY area. The other great thing was that we had the roads to ourselves, often finding ourselves riding side by side, and taking the entire road. There barely was any car around, and we did see bogeys...yup we are in Amish country after all! Overall, we covered 63 miles and climbed 3,500 feet. 

Run - We got LOST! 

Matt (left), Jared (center), me

That was one interesting run today. Matt found a trail with a 8-mile loop that looked good. And it looked good, indeed. I enjoyed it. It was how I envisioned it, technical, with lots of rocks and roots on the way, forcing us to be very vigilant with our foot work. Matt and Jared weren't on the same page,
though. The main concern, clearly, was ankle sprains. But that did not happen. Instead, we got lost! Yup, lost on a trail with the sun setting on us. It started to get dark, and though we weren't too far from the car, we just did not know how far. To top it, Matt had stomach issues and could barely walk, let alone jog. Not the best, but I'm sure we still all thought that we were going to make it back to the car before dusk. 

Me running the trail @ Governor Dick Park

Funny fact: Jared, aka Papa bear, started talking about how he would cry, should we have to sleep outside! We were on a trail with trailblazers, so I thought to myself that we were fine. We also were walking back the same way we came from, so it would take us longer in the dark, but we would have made it back to the car eventually...just a fun, unexpected adventure out of what was supposed to be an easy trail run.