Lupus Racing Team Camp

We recently had the Lupus Racing Team camp in Atlanta, Georgia. This is a very fun time where we do a bunch of things that we never really do during the racing season. It is the only time of the year where all riders and staff are in the same place at the same time. During the first morning we learned that we had a new teammate in 2013 Vuelta champion Chris Horner. We are going to gain a wealth of experience from him this year. After eating breakfast, we received our Eddy Merckx bikes equipped with SRAM Red and Edco wheels, our Biemme clothing, and suitcases and backpacks provided by Evoc. Our bikes were built by our team mechanic Zack Foley. He worked tirelessly throughout the weeks to ensure our bikes were working flawlessly. After we had our bikes set up in our proper positions we headed out for a light two hour ride around Stone Mountain. Following all rides our soigneur Tony had a ton of food ready for us to munch on. We received media training that afternoon with Deborah Gibb.

The next morning we rode the Tucker ride in Tucker, Georgia. The pace was occasionally fast but also allowed us to socialize with other cyclists on the ride. After the ride we did some stretching and core work with Andrew Johnston of Triumph Training. These stretches were intense, complex, and nothing like anything I have done before. I think the work with Andrew will be helpful going into the future. After the core work we made the drive down from Atlanta to Callaway Gardens in Pine Mountain, Geogia.

During the next two mornings we took photos with Casey Gibson before heading out on some 3 and 4 hour training rides around Pine Mountain. The roads around Pine Mountain are remote, mostly flat, and lined with trees. This combination makes for a nice place to ride a bike. Kudos to our team manager Brendan Sullivan for choosing Pine Mountain as a place to hold camp. We had rider meetings with our director sportifs Steven Carpenter and Phil Cortes. At these meetings we discussed our race programs for the season.

On the third day in Pine Mountain we had lactate threshold testing with Pierre Hutsebaut form Peak Centre de Haute Performance in Montreal. For the lactate threshold tests we used a Computrainer with an ergometer feature. The ergometer feature means the Computrainer uses a break, so you have to produce X watts in order to pedal. We started at a relatively low wattage and increased wattage by 30 watts every 3 minutes. In the final 30 seconds of each stage Pierre pricked our fingers to measure lactate levels. When the level of lactate spiked we were instructed to stop. We then had a 3 hour training ride. That afternoon the entire team had a meeting over Skype with Dr. Scott Black of Sword nutrition. On our rides we drank Sword drink mix and ate Honey Stinger food. Sword is a simple, light hydration mix that has only the essentials for fuel and nutrition necessary for endurance sports. The Honey Stinger food is delicious mostly organic food all of which have honey as an ingredient. That night Marjorie Sullivan, Brendan's wife, who suffers from lupus spoke to us at dinner. She informed us of the struggles that people with lupus have to live with every day. That was a reminder of how lucky we are to be able to race our bikes for a job.

For the final day of camp we had a two hour ride where we finished doing 4 laps on a 3-5 kilometer circuit that had a 5 minute climb. We rode very hard on this circuit, and all the riders proved they are riding well. Camp was really fun, and it wouldn't have been possible without all the help from our sponsors and team staff. I really look forward to the 2016 racing season with the Lupus Racing Team.