Hi Gretchen,

I'm sure you can hardly wait for next week to come around! Good luck!

Yeah, our training camp was pretty exiting. We did biking, running, swimming and yoga.

The biking would be up to three hours in the morning, varying between speedwork, hilly rides or just plain long rides.

We did the running in the early morning in that wonderful orange groove just around the corner for about an hour on red clay. But running was not a priority, we only did it twice.

Once we did a BRICK workout: Biking - running - biking one after the other several times.

Swimming took place, normally in the afternoon from 3 to 5 pm in the National Training Center in Clermont. They have a wonderful outdoor 50m pool - best of all: no clorine but ozone. The swim (4 Km) was normally about endurance, speed and technique.

Yoga took about for an hour.

It sounds like a lot of work but it was just great. Between the workouts you normally had 2.5 hours to recover and eat before you had to get to the next event.

The group was divided into the elites, marathoners and beginners and we had really excellent coaches for each specialty. Some of our people were doing the final preparations for the Worlds in Madeira in May, others were preparing for the Ironman in Sweden in the summer and then there were those who just wanted to get a headstart for the season.

I am preparing for my very first Triathlon at the end of May here in Canada. If I'm ready by then - no idea. But I'll do my best and will have a lot of fun.