Camp Siberia

Hello 2009!

We spent the New Year's weekend in Galena with the MSM kids triathlon team at "Camp Siberia". Actually were in a remote location outside of Galena with 18 teenagers, 2 kindergartners, 1 dog and a few adults. The training camp was "Rocky" style meant to toughen up these talented athletes. Adam has been coaching the Multi sport Madness kids for a few years, and this year I have been helping do their functional strength training. Honestly I was a bit hesitant about spending my New Years in the cold, barren farmland. Not my first choice of ringing in the New Year. But we had a great weekend with some TOUGH training and fun memories.

We arrived New Years' Eve afternoon. I had done a Masters swim in the morning/ 100x 100s! I did 48 before I had to leave for work. (Everyone celebrates New Years in their own special way :)

New Years Day I did an early a.m. run up and down the hills around Apple River Canyon. It was so cold and wooded and hilly but even though frozen, a change of scenery was so cool. I only saw 1 car the whole time and it was so quiet. I ran several long climbs out of the canyon and once on top/ I nearly was blown over by wind. We packed up all our snow gear and headed out to the site of the camp and met up with the team. They did a very challenging run/ plyo strength/ run workout. I helped coordinated the kids and this workout of jumping over, bounding over and lifting logs. See pic above. They concluded with a sled relay race where the pulled our 5 and 6 year old on their sleds through the snow. Of course our kids loved it and couldn't wait until we could do sled races again! The second workout of the day were stair repeats in Galena. Jack and Kaitlin called them the stairs to the sky. We did a descending interval set of stair repeats on a set of steep stairs. I have no idea how many stairs we did but it burned like nothing else I've done in a while. For sure I thought there would be 1 OCD athlete doing the workout who would count them, but I guess O2 debt made it a little too difficult. Later that night they built a big bonfire with the logs and wood they had been tossing around for the past 2 days.

The highlight of Day 2 included a trip to Freeport IL. The team had rented some pool time at the YMCA. This was a surprisingly very nice pool which raises the question again, how do these small towns have such nice swim facilities with normal pools and we live in the suburbs of Chicago and swim in small health club pools. We swam a massive set which left my arms dragging on the ground, then played some basketball. Thankfully, no sprained ankles from a bunch of triathletes trying to run, jump and shoot hoops.

The final day everyone skied. This was the first time on skis for Jack and Kaitlin and they were rock stars on the slopes. They loved it and did great. I had so much fun seeing them get better with each downhill they took.

So 2009 is of to a great start. While I only did a portion of "Camp Siberia" (mom duties called), I still left tired and sore in strange places. The MSM kids team is a hard working, dedicated group of athletes and it is hard not to catch some of their enthusiasm.