Training camp

This past week I have been attending a training camp at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado.  Last fall, I spent a week at the OTC for an introduction to para-cycling camp (and wrote about it here).  This week, however, has been a fairly intense line-up of rides on both the tandem and single bike.

Starting last Thursday and ending on Monday, we put in five consecutive days of 3-hour rides; the most riding I had done in some time.  I am starting to feel like a bike racer again, and piloting the tandem is becoming much more comfortable.

One of the perks of doing a camp at the OTC is that after each training ride, it is a short walk over to the cafeteria for a post-ride recovery meal.  On that short walk, there is a classic Colorado Springs view of Pikes Peak.

Between my dorm room and the cafeteria, there is an excellent view of Pikes Peak to the west.

The dorms here are a lot like university residence hall dorms, except they seem to mostly be single rooms.  The resident athletes typically decorate their rooms to make them more of a home, while us campers who are here for the week tend to have a more spartan look to our rooms.

I'm probably a bit unusual as far as OTC campers go; I brought two laptops and some circuit boards for developing microprocessor firmware during down-time at camp.

Last Friday I completed the week 2 WOD (workout of the day) for the 2011 CrossFit Games competition over at Pikes Peak CrossFit.  Week two gave competitors 15 minutes to complete as many rounds as possible of:
9 deadlifts (with 155-lb for men)
12 push-ups
15 box jumps

I finished 8 rounds, and then hopped back to the bar to complete one deadlift before time ran out.  This week, we have five minutes to complete as many squat cleans and jerks as possible with a 165-lb (or 75-kg) bar.  Lucky for me, I cleaned and jerked 75-kg for the first time in my life on 8-Oct-2010 at CrossFit Central Manchester.  Therefore, I'm in only slightly over my head.

On another competition front, I found some more road SWAG while pedaling the tandem around Colorado Springs this week.

I found (from left to right) a Bosch rubber cap (for some part of a car), a golf ball (red), a toothbrush (like new condition), and a hat (which was full of dirt when I picked it up).

Who knows what I'll find next?