Camp Lone Wolf

Galveston 70.3 was a real wakeup call as I received a good butt kicking. Did I expect that to happen?.....yes, but not really to the level I'm which it happened. So there was only really one thing I could do. I sat my wife down and told her I needed to train Lone Wolf style. There would be no distractions and I would just focus on three things and three things only: Training, Recovery, and Nutrition. She was all for it and gave me her blessing. Camp Lone Wolf for me meant going to my secrete location and isolating myself from everything. I like the solo training style and logging hardyards while being very honest with yourself and the efforts you put in. I still held down my job and showed up for dinner every now and then but for the most part it was me, my bike, my FAVORITE shoe the Konejo II , and my Timex GPS at my secret location hidden in the bush.

After a call to my coach, Matt Dixon, we set up a 10 day plan to get me into some shape to be a competitive athlete.Since my swim was where it needed to be, it would be a very tough ten days with the  focus being on cycling and running. Last year we worked so hard on my cycling and it was tough being left behind. As much as I hate the alpha numeral Z4, we would get to meet and greet again in 2011 and get to become pretty good friends. There was nothing crazy on the camp, just long hard work.

The running in Austin is simply awesome! There are soft trails everywhere that are all so easy on the knees :) Where we live we can walk out of our front door and have access to 20 miles of soft rolling trails. When things start to heat  up trail running tends to be very interesting as the snakes come out to play. Last year I had three rattlesnake kills and a total of seven sightings. Always gets your heart rate going when you hear a rattle! Here are some trails shots from closer to my secret location! I managed to go in a cycle of two day on and one day off which resulted in no pain at all. Came out of this little camp with lots more confidence and faith in the strength of my knee.

Riding in the hill country has to be one of my top three rides I love to do. The other two rides would be the Kohalas loop and the ride Cameron Brown took me on in Auckland, New Zealand.
Riding the hill country, once you get there, is top notch. Very little traffic, rolling terrain, and great views. Perfect roads to do 30-60 min efforts without any interruption. I pretty much spent all my time on Fitzhugh road during this camp. The roads and terrain are just very tough and rugged looking. I love it. For all other specific hill work Riverplace was where I was at.

Camp ended a while back and I had a great time. I achieved all the goals Dixon put out for me and ended up at a good level of fitness. Next up is the Orlando 70.3 on May 15. I hope everything will pay off and I end up executing a near perfect race.

Hope you enjoyed some of the pics of Austin, TX training grounds. Until next time.
-Cotter