Enjoyed my ‘home training camp’ last week as I couldn’t get anything family done at half term.
I have another week to take off work in March.
Are training camps worthwhile or are you just paying a few grand to have company while you train?
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Do your own unless you consider it a holiday as well
I have one in May and June ( week each time)
All bike related this year
Yeah, I think I need to get away even if it is on my own.
It depends really. I’ve done a few for cycling. Some, like the Roche camp have been on the light side with 4-5 hrs per day and enough time for family, chilling after but they were divided in to ability groups. They were really more about riding at your pace with some winter sunshine.
Others I’ve been on were full on 8-9hrs a day with different a different focus on technique, motion, position. They are most definitely not a ‘holiday’. They were great at the time but I wouldn’t do those these days. They are extremely hard work.
If I did another it would probably be a small group mtb one in the Lakes or somewhere like that.
There is a trail running camp in Colorado I’d like to have a crack at but it’s hard to justify the cost these days.
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I have done a few camps in Lanzarote with the tri club. It is good if you are at a facility that is set up for hosting that sort of thing.
We stayed in a villa, it was big, slept about 16 people, had a 25m pool, secure bike room, gym, hot tub, and was fully catered.
The last part is really important I think, if you are getting up early having a swim and then going on a 5 hour bike ride you dont want to have to be making your own breakfast, lunch and dinner. Having coaches was good as all the sessions were planned out and routes chosen and it was all taken care of. There were people of differing abilities and so we were put into groups and the stronger riders did longer rides
Downsides were having to share a room with others, and when you had free time you couldnt really go out anywhere on your own, probably because it was a coached camp and their insurance our whatever made them liable.
I would say if you going to do something on your own go for some all inclusive accommodation
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I like to go on training camps/events where I feel the coach/athlete is interesting and has something to offer, but is also deserving of the money as an up-and-coming or struggling participant, so I am helping them out. Daughter’s swim club occasionally has a swim coaching day where a swimmer (sometimes one of our own ex-members) from the senior National squad comes and does some gym, nutrition, strokework and general training stuff and talks about their ‘semi-pro’ swimming lifestyle, plus usually has a few sponsor goodies, team kit etc. to hand out as spot prizes. The cash keeps them going in the sport and it is good to see them up close.
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I fancy doing a DIY camp. A friend of my mum’s has a place just near Nice and I can rent it cheaply. Lots of climbing available within minutes and plenty of trails to run in the Aples Maritimes too. To do any flat running would probably require a trip to the coast. There is a pool there but doesn’t open until May as it is open air. Just need some people to go with. A few of my riding mates sort of fancy it but I have to wait for them climbing in the Pennines, nevermind long climbs.
I have thought about a week away in the UK but the weather…
A mate of mine did JOGLE and when he went for a ride with his mates a week or so after, he rode them off his wheel everytime the road went uphill, which he says he couldn’t have before.
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Nothing fills me with more dread than a week with Type A GeeeeeeeBeeeeeeer’s taking about how great their sub 12 IM was and how they “culda been a pro” and smashing each other with some “coach” who is an also ran Z list pro. Best training camps are with people you know, want to spend time with and/or organised by a club you are an active member of.
Tritalk Camp anyone, could go to Qatar with Fruity 
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My brother and SiL have done a couple of camps. Sounds just like that. They did a session on ‘how to run into the sea’. A whole session!!!
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Was it at the Red Sea with a coach called Moses? 
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For real? If it was a tri camp in South America (Stereotyping vigorously here) then I could see there being strong advice not to leave the villa alone, but Lanzarote? They wouldn’t let you go for a bike ride or a run on your own? What was the sanction for breaking that rule, expulsion from camp?
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cant go for a few beers with your “mates” , isn’t that half the fun of a camp. Id understand if it was a High Performance Squad with rules but a paid for “holiday”
I’ve led a few camps in various places and they are hard work if the coaches intend to ‘coach’
Leading sessions is less demanding and can be fun, but group compatibility is key…
Why wouldn’t you want to let the group loose? I was always grateful for the rest when athletes went out for a beer or two…
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We werent locked in, and no none really pushed it. I am sure if we said we want to go down the pub it would have been fine but there was free beer and wine at the villa and not much around locally so made sense to spend the evenings in. We went our for dinner as a whole group a couple of times.
There was so much stuff arranged you didnt really need to go off and do your own thing anyway
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Hmm, lots to think about. But reading through, I really don’t want to be meeting people and making friends, I guess it was the structured training/eating I was thinking of.
I have a training plan so a camp would blow that up. I could just do another home one with a bit more ‘outside’ and a bit less pain cave.
Drive somewhere to start a run. Train somewhere to start a bike. Something like that.
Maybe I could go up to the Cotswolds and practice on the 113 route.
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Personally I would say the benefits of not having to think, cook, work out routes and times outweigh the negatives of having to talk to people.
Just
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Absolutely. First year I went I hardly knew anyone and even I got through it
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There’s a huge Caveat there
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Check into club La Santa for a week. Breakfast buffet every morning after an early swim. Take the bike out for 5 hours, eat lunch in a cafe when you’re hungry. Sunbathe around the leisure pool for what’s left of the afternoon once you’re back from your ride and have a second lunch from the pool bar. Have a jog around the track and/or the lagoon to work up an appetite for dinner. Eat at one of their restaurants or wander down to La Santa village and eat there. Go for a couple of drinks at the bar in the square. Go to bed. Rinse and repeat.
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