Flagstaff Training Camp: The Adventure Begins…
Hello everyone from 7,000 ft. Sunday, October 1st was the beginning of a five week back-to-basics altitude training camp that will hopefully set me up well for the last race of the season – the Ironman 70.3 World Championships in Clearwater, FL on November 11th. One disappointing thing about being in Flagstaff is that it means I am not at home in New York. And if I am not in New York, I cannot do any races that are in New York, which means, sadly, that I am not racing the American Zofingen Duathlon this year as I had hoped. AmZof was a race that I was really, really looking forward to this year. The race is great, and defending a title is always special. But after my body and brain decided to veto my plan for the season, I knew I needed to rethink my end of season training. As fun as AmZof would be, the 70.3WC was my big goal for the season, and coming up to Flagstaff to train was too great an opportunity to pass up. I also was very nervous about recovering from AmZof in time, since last year it literally took me three days before I could comfortably walk after the race. If I was firing on all cylinders, I felt confident that I could do both races well. But with things not going perfectly, I knew I needed to pick one race to really focus on. So I packed up my bike and my bags and headed out to Arizona.
I’ll be here for the next five weeks or so, and then I’ll head down at a to-be-determined date to race in Florida. I’m working with some of the folks up here to figure out the best timing for coming down from altitude in order to peak properly for a race at sea level. Another big bonus of being in Flagstaff is that Simon Whitfield is here as well getting ready for some end of season World Cup races, so I’ll have my number one training partner “in da house.” I can’t think of a better combination for success than a great person to train with, a great environment to train in, and a serious lack of oxygen…
Jordan Rapp 