April 21, 2010 (Estes Park, CO) – As I ran along a trail in Rocky Mountain National Park with a group of ten triathletes from Team 3xFast, we were led by the energetic Terry Chiplin.  Chiplin, a 56-year old runner and British expat who still looks as fit as a 26-year old, introduced us to a method of group running he calls ‘sheep-dogging.’  This is where the faster runners go ahead for a few minutes, turn around and run back past the slower runners before reconstituting the group.  In this way, a group run can progress more or less en masse even with runners moving at different paces.

Team 3xFast after their Saturday trail run

As we moved through the alpine meadows of Moraine Park, Chiplin seemed to be covering the most ground as he jetted up ahead to give directions on what fork in the trail to take next and then sped back to the end of the group before corralling everyone together again.  Chiplin is the owner of Active at Altitude, a residential retreat for athletes near Estes Park, and he is every bit the embodiment of his retreat’s name.  In addition to organizing training camps at his lodge, Chiplin is also a coach for the Bolder Boulder’s training club and the race director of the Estes Park Marathon. 

On this particular spring day, I had gone to Active at Altitude to run with the Loveland based triathlon club, Team 3xFast.  The team was in the middle of a weekend training camp where they could uniquely focus on training for two and a half days without the distractions of work and chores around home.

For most of the triathletes on the team, their weekend training camp began Friday afternoon around 2:00 pm when they left Loveland on their bikes.  They rode about 35 miles up to Chiplin’s lodge perched in the Roosevelt National Forest.  Given that Loveland sits at just below 5,000-feet and Active at Altitude at around 7,800-feet, the ride provided ample climbing for the first training session of the weekend.  Once they arrived and got settled—a support van had carried the items they would need for the weekend—the team did an evening four mile run around Lake Estes before calling it a day.

The Active at Altitude lodge near Estes Park

The team’s training schedule for the remainder of the weekend included a yoga session and an hour trail run Saturday morning with an optional swim in the afternoon, and then yoga and another trail run Sunday morning before biking home to Loveland in the afternoon.  The mostly downhill return ride on Sunday allowed the tired athletes to reap the rewards for the climbing they had done two days earlier to get to the camp.

But this training camp was certainly not all about sweat and lung-busting workouts at altitude.  Interspersed among the physical training sessions were the equally important motivational and mental training sessions.  When I arrived at the lodge before the Saturday morning trail run, Chiplin was leading the team in a discussion of goal setting principles.  Additional sessions on training theory were scheduled later in the day.  And, of course, the final yet crucial component of the training camp was camaraderie and fun, as the athletes shared meals and bonded as a team. 

Many of the members of Team 3xFast are new to multisport, and their reasons for getting involved are as varied as their athletic backgrounds.  Kristi Leonard was a miler in college where she posted her best running times.  Triathlon has given her a new challenge with opportunities for continued improvement.

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