JHC Tucson Camp 2012!

What a great time!  This year I decided to do only one JHC Camp in Tucson.  Last year we did two in 10 days and it was fine, but with the kids it was too much.  So, for now, while the kids are little, I am doing one.  I was less stressed and while I look like hell today (skin peeling all over my face and cold sores), I really came home in FINE shape.

This is such a fun camp and I look forward to it every year.  This year we had 14 campers and a fun house that slept everyone. It was a little tight at times, but overall, it worked out well and the more experienced campers/athletes helped the lesser experienced athletes and I think everyone loves the camaraderie that sharing a house allows.  Not sure how much everyone slept, but while they were up, I think they had fun.

This is from the first day – before we climbed Lemmon.  Everyone is super fresh!

We jam in as much as I feel is reasonable, but every year I do make the camp harder…and that is not easy.  Of course we have our standard swims at an amazing outdoor pool, but truth be told, we are not in sunny Tucson to swim.  We are there to ride and run.  This camp was, by far, the hardest one yet.

The campers had a little surprise at their house one night!

The weather was AMAZING, we got so lucky.  We rode up Mt. Lemmon, had a cookie at the top (of course!) and did a T run, and it was HOT for that T run….maybe 90F, which is hot and shocking!  Then, we had a great dinner out and was able to catch up and get to know everyone.

Let’s see….we had athletes from Minnesota (I LOVE the girls up in MN, they are so great and I am lucky to work or have worked with many of them), Philly, Chicago, Ohio, Virginia, Washington DC…!  It was great to get to know some of the newer campers and see some of the returning campers.  Kate Oliver has been to every one of my camps!  Love it!

Last day with our JHC Suits!  The guys did not have them on, of course. 🙂  Thanks to Kate for getting these SPLISH suits.

We rode Madera and swam and ran on Saturday.  Trisports.com was nice enough to help us with this ride, but honestly, they let Gail go last week and it was a SHOCK to me and caught me off guard when I was out there.  The SAG was nice but without Gail running it, we struggled a bit with this part!

One day we did Time Trials up Mt. Lemmon.  I was a little excited and prescribed 3 of them…OK that was ROUGH because we did it in the afternoon after a long, hard hilly run in Sabino (2 hours)…so people were DEAD.  This was the make or break part of camp…and everyone did such an awesome job.  I was pretty tired after this ride as I think most were!

One of the things that I work very hard at is spending time with each camper.  Jerome luckily can lead all the workouts and push most of the campers and my job is to sweep the camp, to make sure the last riders are covered.  Jerome did a great job considering he is drinking more beer these days than riding or running miles.  For example, for Mt. Lemmon, it is 25 miles up…I ended up riding nearly 36 miles up that day….because I would go up…ride with a few riders, go back down and keep bridging the gaps.  I never could bridge from last to first, but I did the best I could.  By the time I was done riding on both days, I had put in nearly 5=6 hours of riding and bridging gaps each day!  OUCH.  I had to be super careful with my nutrition to manage all of that in March! 🙂  But, everyone did great and I was able to bring in the last groups on all the group rides and see athletes and talk to them…all of which is so important at camp.

This picture cracks me up.  Glen is like, “I need to swim in this lane”  next to all the U of A co-eds half naked….and of course, I agreed!

The last day we ran the trails again and this time I had time to talk to the lead group (Jerome ran with Caroline) of Julia, Julie M, Glen and Lindsey and we had a great time – albeit everyone was shattered…and then we swam to end camp.  I decided to coach the swim workout and video tape as many athletes as I could and give more feedback on the deck.   Not a bad gig, eh?

And, I did swim a bit too!  Someone had to swim with Lindsey, Sarah and Stacey!  But, gosh do we need sunscreen!  I have NO idea how people do it in that sun all day/every day, EEKS!

Thanks to all the campers who came to Tucson this year and worked hard and pushed themselves harder than they thought they could.  I think the quote of the camp was from Mia, who said to me after climbing and being challenged riding up Madera, “YOU know this was way beyond my ability, Jen!”   And, she was pissed.

Exactly, Mia…that is why they call it camp!  It is not the SPA camp. 🙂  You’ll be happy later.

Cheers until next Camp – March 2013!  More fun pictures are on Facebook…I didn’t have a ton of time to take too  many.

 


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