After two hard days of training on the swim, bike and run courses with one kinda messy due to the weather, it was time for the campers to knock out a long run on the course. Others chose to swim, some chose to swim and run. A few even raced the Lake Placid Half Marathon as the curtain call of their epic training weekend on the IMUSA course. Most notably, EN member Keith Buell set an 8′ half marathon PR in the race on Sunday, on anything BUT rested legs!! Great job Keith!!

Rich called an end to the camp, over sandwiches on a curb with Mike Graffeo, at about 1pm, taking a cab to Saranac Lake, then a Cessna to Boston (scored the copilot’s seat!!), to catch his flight to LA and then ride his motorcycle home. A very long day to end a long weekend!

Coach’s Epilogue
by Rich Strauss

Patrick and I came up with the idea of the Tri-Rally at our IMUSA camp last year. We talked about how much value, and fun, we could create for our members and the Ironman® community by pulling the plug on the overdone model of the expensive triathlon camp.

As an Ironman® coach and the leader/creator of a community…it was a very fulfilling weekend, personally. After so many years in the Ironman® training and racing game, I enjoy opening up my head and sharing with people the mistakes I’ve made and lessons I’ve learned over the years. I like to think I can save people many, many wasted races, and race registration dollars, by catapulting them several years up the learning curve. While all of our members had likely heard my various schticks many, many times, it was fun to share that knowledge with the non-members. I saw more than one lightbulb come on across my lectures. Just cool to see.

Some of our members have been with us, literally, since Day 1. Others have more than done their time on the squad. I’ve met many of them at the races, similar training camps, etc. Others are mostly a forum profile picture and a personality I’ve gleaned from their interactions with other members of the Team. At the same time, I’ve watched our members create relationships online in our forums, through interactions on Facebook, through their professional lives, etc.  As one of the “dad’s,” so to speak, of the community it’s always fun to sit back on these weekends and just watch it all come together. At Lake Placid this weekend I had many opportunities to sit back and draw the lines of connection between and among the members and their friends. Our members will tell you that these connections are an unexpected value that they have created for themselves, expanding far beyond their previous definitions of coaching, a training plan, having a coach answering questions in a forum, etc.

In short, it was very fulfilling to see the web of connections, relationships, and friendships that have been formed within and around the EN bubble. Total bonus that I get to teach, ride a bike, or have a beer with these folks at the same time 🙂

As the leader of the camp, I learned a ton and will apply those lessons to our next Tri-Rally, this one on the Ironman® Wisconsin course next month. As of today we have 93 (!) people RSVP’ed and I expect the camp to be well north of 100 by the time we kick things off on Thursday, July 8! I hope you can join us!