This past Sunday evening I had dinner at Mint with 4 of my very favorite people....Lori, George and Stephanie Russell, and Justin Daerr. We were celebrating a successful conclusion to the Mississippi Heat Tri Camp. What a weekend!
Like I mentioned in my last blog post, I had the pleasure of serving as Camp Director for a weekend triathlon training camp hosted by our local triathlon club, the Mississippi Heat Triathlon Team. It was almost a year ago that I sat down at Sweet Peppers Deli with Matt and Amanda Cassell, officers of the club, and Kendrick Gibson to brainstorm about the possibility of organizing the camp. At the time, we had already secured the commitment of Gordo Byrn of EnduranceCorner to visit with the club for the weekend. Gordo had suggested that a weekend training camp might hold interest for a wide range of athletes on the Team and this idea appealed to us.
The Mississippi Heat has produced a local triathlon called the Soak Up the Sun Triathlon for several years now, so there was some experience in event production. We've also had invited speakers on occasion, including big turnouts for dinners with professional triathletes, Justin Daerr and Heather Gollnick. But we had never hosted a single-day yet alone multi-day clinic or training camp, so I knew at the outset that we'd have our hands full getting this organized.
The concept here was to bring a high-quality training camp to our own backyard. There are very few triathletes who can afford--either in time or money--to travel to the typical weeklong spring training camp held in the warm climates of the desert Southwest. We thought that we could create a high-value opportunity not only for members of our own Team, but for other triathletes in the Jackson area and even throughout the south central U.S. I'm actually surprised there aren't more events like this.
At the very beginning, we decided to aim for an event that would take place on Friday evening, all day Saturday, and a half day on Sunday morning. Our goal was to create a program that would draw 75 athletes for a weekend of swim, bike, and run training combined with educational sessions in each sport. It was important to us that the camp hold interest for the entire spectrum of ability levels since this would reflect the membership of our Team. We settled early on that we would have a special camp-within-the-camp called Triathlon 101 for beginners.
We were quick to announce our plans on Twitter and Justin Daerr was the first to "sign up." I seem to recall that it took only minutes for JD to let me know that he wanted to come along. Knowing that I could count on JD and Gordo made it easy for me to agree to be Camp Director for the weekend. I was certain that, with some careful planning, we could put on an event that we would be proud of. Endurance Corner meets Mississippi Heat!
We gathered a small staff of volunteers to help with organizing the event. Stephanie Russell would be in charge of the Friday night session, Matt Johnson and Darryl Lehtola would be in charge of the Saturday/Sunday sessions, Martha Davis would be in charge of food for the weekend, and Kendrick Gibson would serve as Head Coach. I recruited my sister, Lori, to help with photography and all sorts of other things. That small group of people, along with help and encouragement from Matt and Amanda, would make it happen.
We met on several occasions to work on developing the program for the weekend. You can find the details at the event website. There were many considerations, but we worked hard to find a balance between training and didactic sessions....and we worked hard to develop a program that would suit all ability levels. This was probably the biggest challenge in planning the event. Gordo and JD helped with ideas and we recruited Jeff Fejfar of Midsouth Multi-Sport Endurance Coaching when we saw the need for at least four coaches.
The selection of venues for the camp was both easy and hard. The pool at the Lakeland Branch of Courthouse Racquet & Fitness is the only pool in town large enough to host a group this large. We were fortunate that Johnny Black and the kind folks at the Courthouse welcomed us at their facility. The selection of the Saturday/Sunday venue was more difficult and we considered many options from hotel meeting rooms, to neighborhood clubhouses, to my own home. In the end, David Seago, the co-owner of StinkyFeet Athletics, helped us make arrangements to use the clubhouse at Arbor Landing on the Brandon side of the Reservoir. This would turn out to be a great choice.
We would enlist the help from four great local sponsors: Courthouse Racquet & Fitness, StinkyFeet Athletics, The Bike Rack, and Fleet Feet Jackson. We couldn't have done it without the kind help from these folks.
We'd go on to gather the help from a long list of other local and national sponsors: Rudy Project, FuelBelt, Polar Bottle, Xterra Wetsuits, Larabar, All3sports.com, GU Energy Systems, Little Red Wagon Granola, VeloPress, Yurbuds, Coffees of Hawaii, QuickQuakes, Clean Bottle, Smoothie King, Infinit Nutrition, Bonk Breaker, CycleOps, Resource Revival, Skeese Greets, Yankz!, SBR Sports, Spibelt, PerfectFoods Bars, Sal & Mookie's Chik-Fil-A, Skin Sake, Tri4Life Triathlon, Race of Grace Triathlon, Heatwave Triathlon and the City of Ridgeland, and our own Soak Up the Sun Triathlon. In total, these great sponsors contributed more than $11,500 of goods and services to our event. BIG thanks to all of the sponsors.
The Mississippi Heat generously agreed to contribue up to $5500 to the training camp. With that in mind, we developed a budget and pricing strategy that would allow us to operate this first edition of the camp at a loss. We settled on a price of $240 and offered a discounted registration price of $185 to Team members. We also offered a more modest discount to various friends of the Team and gave free registration to the core group of camp staff and key local sponsors.
The camp was almost a year in the planning. I took at look back yesterday and saw that I had sent or received almost 1200 emails about the camp during that year. Wow! And there were more than a few calls, letters, meetings, Tweets, texts, etc. along the way, too.
The camp was over in a flash, but we had a terrific weekend. There were 66 athletes and coaches for the event....and there were lots of smiles. A large collection of photographs from the weekend can be found at our SmugMug site, but I'll share a few photos here....
Head Coach Kendrick Gibson surveying the registration activities at the pool on Friday night.
Supper after the workout would be from Newks.
Campers in the water for the swim workout.
Coach Jeff Fejfar working with some swimmers.
The night concluded with a swim relay race. JD powered his team to victory!
Saturday morning began with a bike workout and mechanic Andrew was working hard to get the bikes ready.
The bikes before the group ride.
A prized photo....the only photo I have of me, Gordo, and Justin. Thanks, guys!
The group ride was organized into 20-, 30-, and 40-mile groups. Larkin was sporting the King of the Mountain jersey. I think we had a 50-foot climb.
After dinner on Saturday night, Gordo autographed copies of his book, Going Long.
The thunderstorms cleared on Sunday morning, just in time for a group photo and long run.
....with Gordo leading the charge!
Some Lessons Along the Way:
1. Good people guarantee success. A training camp is inherently a "people event." Choose the right people to plan and conduct the camp and you can't lose. The collection of coaches for the camp--Gordo, JD, Kendrick, and Jeff--are exceptional athletes, but they're also great teachers. That's key. I was thrilled about how the educational sessions turned out....and that has everything to do with choosing the right coaches.
I can't thank Gordo and JD enough for coming to the camp. I know that our event came at a busy time for both of them, so we owe them our special gratitude. I wish them both well with their races this weekend....JD at the Kemah Olympic-distance race and Gordo at California 70.3.
Good people were also essential with the event planning. It was a terrific group. And I think we honored our promise to Amanda and Matt that we'd get the job done with little help from the club's officers.
2. Be prepared. I thought we were well-prepared for potential emergencies. But you never expect the emergency. As it turned out, we had a camper suffer a heart attack on Sunday. I've written about the event at my Athletes Heart Blog. He's recovering after being treated with a coronary stent for a severe blockage in one of his coronary arteries. If I did this again, I'd redouble our efforts on safety. You just can't be too prepared.
I've spoken and written about the issue of athletes and heart disease many times over the past couple years. Our event on Sunday just reinforces the importance of taking warning signs of heart disease seriously; of careful event planning in terms of safety; and remembering that heart disease is a common problem, even among "healthy" athletes.
3. Inspiration. Lastly, a couple thoughts about the lasting effects of the camp. We didn't change the campers' fitness levels appreciably with a few hours of group training over the weekend. And I'm sure that many of the coaches' tips and messages will be forgotten with time. But I'm certain that the campers left inspired. You could see it in their faces. That will be the lasting effect of the camp.
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