One week until it begins.
HTFU Camp
An idea came to us a few months ago. What if we – women of the winter – were to head to somewhere sunny and warm to train?
First matter – where would we go? Who do we know? Ashley lives in South Carolina. Like it or not Ashley, we are crashing your place. And we’re bringing our bikes and more friends.
The plan was quickly set in motion. Jennifer, myself, soon we had talked Mary Eggers, Leslie Curley into it. Ashley Long had no choice but to agree. A few weeks later we wondered – what is Marit up to? She was in. Then just recently Bri Gaal confirmed that she too will be there.
First things first – we need a swimsuit. Why? Why not. If we are going to go full tilt on the all female weekend we might as well get semi-matching swimsuits. And matching pillowcases for our naked pillow fights, right? Each of us designed what I would call perhaps the most flamboyant swimsuits EVER in nauseous colors of pinks, purples and light blue covered in flowers, the letters HTFU written across the chest, our names on our ass and on the upper back the words I LOVE TO SWIM.
Because we all do. Sort of.
Next up – code names. No camp is complete without code names. Jennifer – easy – Miss Daisy. Myself – I am Smallie Biggs (thank you to one of my athletes for revealing this identity to me) or ELF, Marit – I deem her The Kid because she is like 12 years old, Leslie – Curly. Come on, it’s her hair. Ashley – The Sleeper. Because I have a feeling she will surprise all of us. Mary is Miss Mary Sunshine. I have never met someone more positive than her. And after much resistance Bri accepted the title Shorty. Not because she is, but because she was never ridden longer than 75 miles.
Apparently, those people really do still exist.
Ok, next on the agenda is the agenda. We have left this in the hands of Miss Daisy and Sunshine. Better to go in blindly than the fret about it for weeks on end. They have some rigorous plan of 400’s, hill climbs, and trail runs planned out. I think. All I know is that I will show up at the airport next Thursday with trashy magazines in hand and a bike box ready to go.
(and ear plugs, mustn’t forget the ear plugs for sitting next to Missy Daisy on the plane)
Aside from that we are also hoping to accomplish three very serious things:
1 – Drink coffee – mandatory! Invitation to camp came with disclaimer that you must be capable of consuming large quantities of coffee without peeing yourself (though this last part has come into question recently)
2 – Locate one large handsome pro cyclist with the initials GH, wrestle him to the ground & shove him into my bike box so I can bring him home (my sources tell me he lives in Greenville).
3 – Have fun – fun? Yes, fun! Training and fun can co-exist. We think. In the spirit of fun I have put together a list of possible extracurricular activities for the camp:
Sitting around with our heart rate monitors on while telling stories about our husbands/dogs/children/significant others and then downloading heart rate data to see whose story got us closest to our LT. Figuring out how you could use an SRM in the bedroom to download power data – and more importantly, determine who would wear the crank. And where? Hypothesizing what would happen if we sealed Jennifer Harrison’s mouth shut for one day straight. Or, better yet, secretly feed Jennifer caffeine all weekend long as an experiment in how many words can one person say. Maybe just freeze Mary’s skort. Oh like who didn’t freeze their friend’s clothes during a slumber party in junior high? Make Marit confess that she was born after 1990. Play truth or dare where the person that doesn’t tell the truth has to take a gel for every year since they were born. Throw a banana in Ashley’s spokes while she rides. Pour Parmesan Cheese in Jen’s bike shoes overnight. Better yet throw it in mine to see if they can possibly smell any worse. Play guess whose orthotics these are. Make prank Skype calls to all of our favorite pro male triathletes. Talk about boys. Tell stories about being stuck being smelly boys in triathlon. Eat chocolate power bars dipped in chocolate power gel. Decide which male age group has the best looking legs. Body mark the first person that falls asleep with numbers representing their CP6, CP30 and CP60 power output.
Seriously, though, I am really looking forward to this. I have already warned camp participants that I am generally a great person except that when training a lot the first thing I lose are my social skills. It’s a combination of lack of food, coffee, and fatigue. The social skills just walk right away and I’m left with moody and aloof. If you can get past that and quickly revive me with food/coffee, I am otherwise a fabulous person.
I swear.
Now, a lot of people have asked what do the letters H – T – F – U stand for. Well I guess Mary has been telling everyone it stands for Hot Fun. Which isn’t so bad. Although it makes our tri camp sounds like porn star camp. So it really stands for harden the f – up. That’s right. This isn’t a girlie girlie namby pamby camp. It’s for the hard core . We’ve come from the lands of cold and snow (Kansas, Illinois, New York) and we require at least 10 gallons of coffee to thaw out. We’ve been strapped to our trainers all winter so when we finally have pavement under our wheels and permission to roll….well, there is no telling how fast we will go. So if you see us out there feel free to hop on. But you better put your aero helmet on cause we’re not waiting at the corners for anyone.
