December 17/10 9:14 am - PCC Holds Successful Camp Despite Weather

Posted by Editor on 12/17/10
 

Pacific Cycling Centre's second camp of the 2010-2011 season was a great success, despite the challenging weather conditions. The camp - which ran from December 9 - 12 at PCC in Victoria, BC - consisted of long endurance rides, technical ITT's and a gym session. The camp was led by Houshang Amiri.

The first day was highlighted by two time trials - the first was a 4.5 kilometre uphill and the second a 11 kilometre rolling course. "Most of us have now done these TTs several times or more and we use them to gauge our fitness against other years on the same course," said camp participant and Olympian Erinne Willock "The new riders this year will compare their December times to their November camp times."

The hill climb times were fast and Willock was particularly pleased with hers. "It was one of the fastest I've had in a while. One of the reasons was that I had a good rabbit to chase in Annie Ewart. She's the new junior rider training with Houshang and she's showing great potential and is really strong. I almost caught her, but not quite." The second ITT was marred by rain, so times were slow, but the riders were still able to clock in over 100 kilometres that day.

On day two the riders tackled Happy Valley Road, a particularly hard endurance ride that has a challenging climb. "What stood out for me about this ride was the steady but hard pace, the rolling terrain, cycling like mad to keep what remained of the group in sight," said Nicola Vogler. "We rode our own pace to get the maximum benefit from the ride and after about an hour and a half, and after our group caught the front group, Rob Britton led the way to the top of Matheson."

The third day brought in the rain clouds and so was spent on the Saanich Peninsula. A familiar loop for the athletes, the ride went through Sidney and out to Land's End, adding sprint and cadence work on the rolling loops at the tip of the peninsula.

"From Land's End, our group went to the challenging, yet rather hidden Panorama climb," said Spencer Smitheman, "After tackling this steep medium sized climb, we continued the ride through Central Saanich on a roundabout way back to Victoria." The rain storm started at Willis Point and continued for the rest of the ride. "The back side of Willis Point is steep and unrelenting and proved a worthy challenge at the end of the day," said Smitheman.

Day four brought more rain fall warnings so Annie Ewart decided to dress prepared for anything. "I put on my heavy duty bright yellow rain jacket, plastic bags on my feet, and (to top it off) vibrant rubber gloves on my hands. I pretty much looked like a rubber ducky, but I didn't care what I looked like because I was warm and I was not going to get wet!"

As it happened, the rain let up and the riders were able to complete their intervals at Dean Park on dry terrain. "We started our intervals up Dean Park - four times for the girls and five times for the guys - lasting approximately five minutes from the bottom to the top. We finished up our intervals still showing smiles on our faces as we finished off another successful camp," said Ewart.

Camp #3 will be January 20-23, 2011 and is now open for registration. For more details go to: www.pacificcyclingcentre.ca/camps/default.html.