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Training camp exhaustion

Sean Mackinnon of Canada's national track cycling team looks back at his prep for worlds and finds training camp is more than just miles in the saddle.

men team pursuit
March 1, 2016
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On Feb. 24, after 75 hours of riding in 17 days, Sean Mackinnon and the rest of his teammates were ready for the world championships. Here, he shares his thoughts about his most recent training camp in California.

It is difficult to sum up all the feelings that come with looking back at a training camp. Maybe the best way I can describe it is just that: difficult. This word works kind of well if you attach some scale to the word. We’ll create a scale starting at one and ending at three. One would just be a spin to the coffee shop after a 15-hour, three-day block. Two would be a 3-hour interval set. Finally, three would be a 7-hour day of climbing at threshold.

Training camps always have me torn: the training is always amazing, but its tough to be away from home. After riding a bike for hours on end, coming back home and barely being able to string sentences together shows the exhaustion we feel at the end of each day. As Ed Veal would say, “The only people that can relate to the total exhaustion after a 7-hour ride were those who did it!”

For me, this camp will be 17 days and around 75 hours of training. Pretty good prep for a four-minute-and-change race at the track world championships right? Jokes aside, it is exactly what we needed: a good kick in the butt before recovering and hitting the track for our final preparations. The work we did not only will have us flying at worlds, but just adds a bit more to the base for the road season.

 

So what is a national team training camp like? Well, it is always in a beautiful place. There are few complaints about the weather: excellent views and a great time riding. The cool thing about this camp has been experiencing a bit of a switch up from what our usual California camps are. As our last big block of training before track worlds, we threw in more intervals and VO2 work. In the past, we would come down and essentially ride full effort on climbs for four to seven hours before crawling home (just to do it over again the next day). Although that kind of training has a very warm place in my heart, I have enjoyed the more relaxed approach. Although, when I say relaxed, I mean just different kinds of efforts, all just as hard.

The coolest thing about any training camp is the set amount of time you have to just focus on one thing. Training at home is always a bit more relaxed, starting my ride when I want and just checking the boxes at my own pace. I love having that freedom, but I also appreciate being cooped up in a house with shaky WiFi and just doing nothing post-ride every so often. That is why people go to training camp, isn’t it? Not only is the training in a camp environment more intense and structured, it also allows for some pretty classic times and memories to be made with teammates. Whether we are watching food eating challenges (our team’s favourite competitive eater is is L.A. Beast) or spending way too many hours in Starbucks scaring the locals away, there is always a laugh to be had.

The track season is definitely starting to feel like it is coming to an end. As we get ready to close it off with a bang at worlds (the good kind of bang, I hope) it has a bit of that “last week of school” feeling to it. I enjoy racing on the track but, looking ahead, the road season is less than six weeks away. As all of us track guys head in different directions after worlds: some of us to our NextGen road squad and others to different teams. This was one of the last camps together this season. Looking back at all the good times we have had, it gets me pretty excited for worlds and also for next season.

Sean Mackinnon is a member of the Canadian NextGen program. He and his team pursuit teammates will be competing at the 2016 track cycling world championships. Help them offset the Team Canada levy ($3,000 each) through their crowdfunding efforts at gofundme.com/mtecanada