Tri Dynamic has just returned from its second annual Italian Tri Camp with coaching legend Joe Friel in Riccione, Italy. The week long camp took place in the stunningly beautiful Emilia-Romagna region where Italian cycling legend Marco Pantani lived and trained.
With stunning backdrops all around and a wealth of equally beautiful and demanding climbs it was a challenging and rewarding week. Tri Dymanic noted that everyone on the camp made big steps forward in their fitness and training.
As always on a Tri Dynamic camp there was a great range of age, abilities and distances represented as athletes travelled from as far away as Canada, the US, Italy, Armenia and the UK all eager to learn from Joe Friel and Will Newbery and to enjoy the Italian culture, food and riding.
The camp kicked off with the amazing opportunity to ride out from the camp base to nearby Gabicce Mare to watch the Individual Time Trial stage of the Giro d’Italia, which was a fantastic experience and amazing to watch. Athletes received sports nutrition courtesy of PowerBar and a Tri Dynamic technical Skinfit t-shirt.
Commenting on the camp Joe Friel said “This was our second Italian tri camp. We had a great group of athletes who worked hard, learned lots and made big improvements. I always enjoy these camps and working with age group athletes.”
Each day on the camp, athletes were swimming up at the fantastic indoor 50m pool, receiving coaching and underwater video analysis from Joe Friel. By the end of the week there were some impressive improvements from every athlete on the camp on their 500m time trial by up to 45s!
The riding in the region is simply breath-taking with beautiful scenery, challenging climbs and rewarding descents taking in some of the most picturesque towns imaginable. Particularly memorable for the camp participants was the ride up to San Marino, with the reward of a macchiato and the amazing panoramic views from the top of the climb and the ride along the Panoramica towards Pesaro.
The group was taken on all the best local routes by excellent local guides including ultra marathoner triathlete Stefano Gregoretti who won the Yukon Arctic Ultra and is competing in Challenge Rimini as a ‘warm up’ for the Gobi Desert Ultra, self-supported 250K through the desert!
The weather was kind and most days were spent swimming, biking and running in beautiful 24 degree sunshine, which was a pleasant relief from the rain and cold back home for those who journeyed from the UK. Open water swim sessions took place at the beach opposite the camp hotel and athletes also got to benefit from learning about transitions and tricks of the trade from one of the top age group triathletes in the country, Will Newbery who was assisting Joe Friel on the camp.
(Will Newbery returned home late on Saturday night after the camp and on only just 5 hours sleep got up and raced the Primera New Forest Standard distance triathlon and won it!)
As well as training hard and learning each night in evening classroom sessions with Joe Friel the athletes enjoyed the great local Italian cuisine, coffee and the all-important gelato to ensure that they remained fuelled for the training and learning.
On the last night there was a group meal out to Santarcangelo and a fantastic local traditional meal with local dishes and local wines. A final highlight for the camp was the amazing opportunity to take part in the world famous Nove Colli, the largest cyclosportive in Italy over the very challenging 4 or 9 hills on the 130K or 200K ride options along with 16,000 other participants.
Next up for Tri Dynamic is the Darren Smith Age Group Tri Camp in Morzine, France, from 21-24 June. This camp offers age groupers the unique opportunity to train with Darren Smith and also benefit from working with his pro athletes and world class support team to see how he prepares his Dsquad, which includes world #1 Anne Haug, GB’s Jodie Stimpson, Katie Hewison and Irish Olympian Aileen Reid. The Darren Smith camp is limited to 15 places.
