Since reviews on triathlon camps are pretty hard to come by, I thought this might be useful for you if you’re trying to decide whether to splurge on a camp.

The Trisutto camp was a 6-day camp in Scottsdale AZ, which was a great location for an early season (February/March) camp.  I was very proud of successfully dismantling, packing, unpacking, and reassembling my bike myself!  I did have a small issue removing the left pedal…nothing that a can of WD-40, a hammer, and some yanking couldn’t fix though :P.  Boy was I sore after that!  Note to self for next time.

Back to camp…  Coaches for the week were Michelle Barnes and Mary Beth Ellis.  Both were superb throughout the entire week – they were friendly, outgoing, and I could tell that they genuinely had great passion for the sport of triathlon and for helping people realize their dreams through it.  There was a great variety of skillsets there, so if you think you’re not fast enough or skilled enough to go to a camp don’t let that stop you!  I wasn’t the slowest swimmer (glad to see the previous four months of pretty much exclusive swimming was paying off), but I pretty much got it handed to me on the bikes and runs.  So it was all good.

We had plenty of time for some Q&A on whatever triathlon-related topics we were curious about; there was also ample downtime (which in my case meant sleeping and eating!).  Great food around Scottsdale BTW.  We swam at the McDowell Mountain Ranch Aquatic Center, which was a fantastic facility – outdoor pool!  That was also our base for most bikes and runs throughout the week.  We did do one longer bike ride out in Fountain Hills (scenery was amazing; post ride nosh at Sofrita’s was most excellent – highly recommend).

As far as the workouts themselves, we did lots of swim/bike/run!  Paddles and buoy in the swim, big gear/low cadence/hills on the bike, and hills, short speed reps, and continuous hilly terrain on the runs.  Sport-specific strength training.

Day one was long hill reps at a low cadence (~60rpm) on the bike.  We did a 5km loop near the Aquatic Center about 6-7 times (I did 6; pretty sure the faster peeps did 8 or more).  Following that was a swim; all with a buoy and the bulk with paddles.  We swam without paddles for the warm up and did a combination of fast and easy 25s, then went into the main set which was all with paddles.  We worked on balance in the water, discussed the differences in typically how males and females should approach swim training (females typically need faster turnover, where males can power through the water with a slower turnover; although exceptions exist!).

Day two was a run/swim/run sandwich.  We ran only every other day, but run day was no joke!  We did some short hills (2 x 10 reps of ~30sec) with plenty of warm up and cool down, then after a short break came back for an hour swim (similar to yesterday, with a different main set – all with buoy and most with paddles), then right after the swim went out for a build/tempo/negative split run.  We ran out easy and came back strong depending on how we felt.  If we were feeling great, then push the pace some on the way back.  Otherwise just run easy the whole thing.

Day three was a bike/swim/bike sandwich (seeing a theme here?).  After an extended warm up, we did some short (~1min), steep, really low cadence (~40rpm) hill reps (I found my glutes this day), took a break, came back for a noon swim, then drove out to Fountain Hills for a build/tempo/negative split ride.  Same concept as the run – out easy/cruising, then pushing the pace on the way back.  My second discovery of this day – Glukos gummies and HoneyStinger vanilla waffles…omg.  Rocket fuel.

Day four, I was thinking to myself that I had truly started to understand why we don’t kick in the pool.  Yes a smidge of kicking is needed to keep your balance in the water, and it is a useful recovery mode after a long/hard ride or run.  But think about it in a race scenario:  when you get out of the water, you still have to bike and run on those legs.  Why burn your energy early in the swim?  We started the day off with a morning swim, took a break, then came back for a late morning run.  Today was some 200/400m  reps at a medium-ish effort – strong but not all out.  Which was fine as I couldn’t have gone all out if I’d wanted to :P.  My discovery of this day was that big double bike days wear me out!  I need to eat!  So I went back to the hotel, ate an entire California Pizza Kitchen pizza, slept for 2.5 hours, then went to Red Robin and got a rather scrumptious cheeseburger with sweet potato fries and broccoli.  Hit the spot.  Then I proceeded to pass out again for a solid 8 hours.  Surprisingly, after the run, my legs felt a bit better than they had going into it.  I was very surprised to find that a short speed workout like that can actually help recovery a bit.

Day five was a long ride.  Since I was focused on short course (sprint and olympic distance), I was prescribed a 3ish hour ride.  My longest ride in recent months was 2 hours and it wasn’t that comfortable so I wasn’t sure how I would fare for 3 hours but I was ready to give it a shot.  I had my Skratch drink mix, a magic waffle, magic gummies, and a bonk breaker bar.  I have never felt so good on a long ride.  I was very surprised given the work I had done up to this point in the week.  The wind cheated me out of some of it though – I cycled into the wind for about 1:40, turned around, and made it all the way back in about an hour, and had to do an extra loop around the neighborhood to finish my time.  Another of my perceived limits had been broken through so I was excited about that.

Day six – last day!  We did a long trail run (ok I hiked most of it since my inner mountain goat was absent that day), I took some great pics, and we had a last short swim just to shake things out from the run (we did actually do some kicking!).

I came away with several valuable lessons.  Probably the most valuable to me was the boost in confidence that came after completing the camp.  I can accomplish more than I think I can.  I will admit I was not sure I would be able to complete all the sessions throughout the week.  But as it turned out, I got in a quality 17+ hours of training!  To put this in perspective, a solid training week for me is 7-9 hours.  It certainly helped that I didn’t have to work for the week, and my homework load from my Master’s classes was mercifully low also.  So I will most definitely not be attempting that many hours in my regular life!  I was able to sleep and eat as much as I wanted.  In addition, the bulk of each session was completed at an easy to moderate pace.  If we were doing fast work in the pool, reps were short and rest was sufficient.  On the bike there was plenty of recovery on the downhills, and big gear reps will tire out your muscles, not your cardiovascular system.  We only ran every other day, and there was always a thorough warm up before doing any hills or speed work.

Also, there’s no magic secret to being successful at triathlon.  The workouts we did were not crazy complicated, there weren’t any magic aids; we just did the work.  Each and every session had a purpose, and that was it – just do the work, be consistent, and the results will follow.

Third, fuelling is important!  I could start to pick up on when I was getting depleted, and made sure to not skimp on my meals.  I also started to understand fueling during longer workouts – my bike workouts this week were the best I’ve ever had.  I felt great and felt like I was able to complete each workout not feeling completely drained at the end.

Bottom line – if you’re looking at doing a camp, I would highly recommend a Trisutto camp.  What I probably liked best was the total emphasis on triathlon as a sport – not swimming, biking, running.  Each workout was specifically built and executed with the overarching goal of having a great overall triathlon performance.