Last month the Experience Triathlon athletes and coaches made their way north for the highly popular Madison Summer Camp weekend of workouts, seminars and camaraderie.

Coach Joe set the stage for the weekend by showing a snippet of Al Pacino’s famous, “inch by inch” motivational speech from the movie, Any Given Sunday.  After noshing on pizza, salad and cookies while listening to educational seminars presented by Coach Sarah, Coach Jim and Coach Cathy, the opening evening ended with Coach Suzy providing an overview of our big training weekend ahead.

Saturday morning began with a casual group breakfast at the hotel before we packed into our cars and headed downtown to Monona Terrace, the starting point for the challenging upcoming race, Ironman Wisconsin.  We enjoyed a beautiful morning swim in calm Lake Monona waters.  After the swim, Coach Joe demonstrated a fast wetsuit peel for the team, and then it was time to head to the other lake in Madison for the run portion of our day’s festivities.

Our run took us along the scenic shores of Lake Mendota, covering part of the Ironman run course.  We gathered at the University of Wisconsin Student Union for some chat time and some post-run nutrition and hydration.

Next up was a signature component of ET Summer Camp – a long and very hilly training ride.  With the large number of campers with varying levels of comfort and experience on the bike, the coaches set up multiple bike groups to make sure that everyone was challenged but not overwhelmed.  We drew upon Coach Joe’s words of wisdom from the night before as we climbed, inch by inch, up the hills of the world renowned Ironman bike course.  Coach Sarah’s hill climbing techniques also came in handy throughout the day, as did Coach Jim’s advice on pacing.

After successfully completing the ride, we employed Coach Cathy’s maintenance and recovery tips on stretching and foam rolling.  Before our well-deserved relaxation time, some took advantage of one more workshop to end the afternoon as Coach Joe shared some of his smoking fast transition tips.

That evening we headed back to downtown Madison for the team dinner at Francesca’s al Lago.  We all ate well and shared training stories and some experiences of our day.

Following a nice breakfast at the hotel on Sunday morning, we rolled out on our bikes again toward the UW Campus.  This time we rode together as a group and took advantage of the chat time during a much lower key recovery ride.  Due to the weekend temps that felt more like October than July, there was plenty of coffee and even some hot chocolate flowing as we continued chatting at the Student Union before heading back to our hotel to conclude Camp.

After Camp wrap-up, it was time for most campers to say their goodbyes and head home.  Some of the long course athletes suited up and filled their water bottles for yet one more time around the 56 mile loop that’s the heart of the Ironman bike course.  This marked the end of another challenging and fun ET Summer Camp!

Enjoy all the pictures from our fun weekend on the ET Photo Gallery!