"But good."
These five words uttered by a breathless Danny Stanley on Day Two of the Gold Coast SUNS 2XU High Performance Camp in Arizona gives an insight to just how hard the GC SUNS are working to gain the maximum benefit of training at altitude.
New High Performance Manager Stephen Schwerdt is already impressed with what he is seeing.
"I have been unbelievably impressed," said Schwerdt.
"I am new to the club, and new to the players; I have only really known them for about a week."
“I love their attitude and their willingness to do whatever is asked and just to get on with the job no matter how hard it is.”
After a light session on Day 1, the GC SUNS stepped it up on Day 2 with a 2km time trial and a number of prolonged running intervals.
Schwerdt says things will gradually ramp up over the next two weeks.
“We had a moderate first day, because we had been travelling for a fair while, but today was our first real serious day of training with our time trial and a fair bit of running after that.”
"The players are at a stage now where they are ready to be extended a lot in their running."
"We will build things up over the next two weeks to the point where we will be doing a lot more than what we did today."
Joel Wilkinson took the honours in the time trial, and was named alongisde Kyal Horsely, Jeremy Taylor and David Swallow as the early standout performers.
Whilst things are going smoothly at the moment, Schwerdt had a precaution for the players.
"The test will come though."
“We are only in the early stages of camp and everyone is upbeat.”
"But it will get challenging and they will get a bit grumpy."
