Altitude Training Camp - Update 6
SNZ Altitude Camp Flagstaff Arizona
My participation in this camp was an extremely valuable learning experience for me. Coaching alongside of Mark Regan (arguably one of the world’s most experienced Olympic coaches), and working with sports scientist Tom Vandenbogaerde for two weeks was a non-stop opportunity for me to gain an insight into Marks’s coaching philosophies and methodologies. It allowed me to compare, evaluate, judge, assimilate and question my coaching knowledge to that of Mark and Tom. It has also been an honour to be able to contribute towards the New Zealand 2012 London Olympic campaign. In the 23 years that I have been a Head coach I have never had the opportunity to coach alongside a master coach apart from pre-Championship staging camps where tapering and pre-competition practise is far different to the 'meat and potatoes’ mid season work that was the focus of this training camp. I am extremely grateful to SNZ and the Capital board for allowing me this opportunity.
This camp was held at the Northern University of Arizona. They have a fantastic 50m swimming pool that can be converted with lane lines across the pool to become both a 25 yard and 25 metre setup if necessary. The food and accommodation were excellent, and well priced compared to an equivalent product in NZ.
An arduous training schedule of 2-3 three pool sessions per day plus gym sessions kept us busy most of the time. We had 5 days of snow on our third day in Flagstaff, and this made the -12 to -16 C temperature morning walks to the pool slippery and freezing. The sunny midday temperatures were nice at 2-4 degrees.
On my day off I hired a car and drove the hour and a half drive to the Grand Canyon. This was quite breath-taking with all the snow that had fallen into the canyon. One of the greatest sights I have ever seen!
Altitude Training Camp - Update 6
Wow, last week was one of the hardest we have had. We had fifteen swim sessions and on top of that three gym workouts and three fitness workouts. This training is definitely setting us all up for a great summer of racing ahead. Now that the hardest week is behind us it’s a little easier to see how it will all pay off. We were rewarded for our hard work with a day off yesterday. Tom drove us up to the Grand Canyon National Park and we toured around for a while checking out sights from lots of different angles. We took quite a few pictures and may have been a little close to the edge of the 1800meter drop into the crevasse at some points. I actually almost killed myself. I was trying to get to a narrow high point overlooking a massive dip near the South Rim for a photo. I lost my footing and fell down almost tipping over the edge. Woops. It was pretty scary but also gave me an awesome adrenaline rush.
The Grand Canyon really is breath taking - it's so vast spanning almost half the length of the North Island! It made me feel small and insignificant. The visit was very refreshing after a week of hard training and helped me remember whatever I’m doing, trying to achieve, or really want is pretty unimportant in the scheme of things. The feeling of insignificance was a nice reality check when we may have all been getting a little too involved in our swimming brains.
After the trip to the Grand Canyon yesterday a few of us were reflecting on some of the great times we have had and amazing opportunities swimming for New Zealand has provided us with. We managed to come up with an impressive list of the amazing places we have visited thanks to swimming. Among them were the Great Wall of China, the Colosseum, the Taj Mahal, the Great Barrier Reef, the Grand Canyon, Carcassonne, and hopefully soon Stonehenge and Big Ben in London!
