Where's Santa?

Thanks to the folks at the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), you can track Santa this Christmas Eve.

Check it out here.

Merry Christmas to everyone!!

Dano

Chopper Ron's Night Before Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

That's what I'm talking about!

Finally, the Bills got one in the win column, with a 17-14 win over the NY Jets.
I really liked the way that Trent Edwards played....looks like he could be the real deal.


No work for me today, as I've got the joyful opportunity to go to the Newmarket court house today for Jury Selection. I'm guessing I'm going to be sitting around for a while, so I've got some reading material along with me. I'm really hoping that I don't get selected for a case...they don't pay you any money to be there (until after 10 days, and only $40 a day) so I won't be able to make money if I'm sitting on a jury. Guess we'll see how the day goes.

It's been a while...

since I last blogged.

I've been working a lot right now, more of a down month for me, and once October rolls around, time to get back at it.

I've been doing a lot of painting recently, as well as working Fri and Sat nights at Magna golf club.

My Sunday's are dedicated to NFL right now, it's been a rough opening three weeks being a Buffalo Bills fan. I'm hoping we can pull out a win this weekend, so that we don't go into the Monday Nighter nest weekend 0-4. Oh yeah, I've got tickets to the Monday Nighter!!! It's gonna be a great time!!


Here is the Week 4 Buffalo Bills rap song, courtesy of WGR 550am.

Let's Go Bills...Week 2

Let's Go Bills week 2 Rap

Ducks roll as Wolverines suffer worst loss since '68

Being an Ohio St Buckeye fan, the above title is music to my ears.

Michigan coming off a loss to I-AA Appalachian St last weekend, continued to implode by losing to Oregon on Saturday. Now, Oregon is a good team, but UM is toast now. Open the season at#5, and become the first ranked team to lose to a I-AA team.

Sunday brings about the start of the greatest time of the year....NFL football!! (I know the season started on Thurs nite, but this is the true start)

Bills Vs. Broncos on Sunday....Let's Go Bills!!!

A Place In the Rockies....

4340 km later...

Halfway Home

Currently in Grand Forks North Dakota. 2500km of driving is in the books.
We drove from Vancouver to Calgary on Sunday, and stayed at a friend of my mom's. 1050km in the books Sunday. Up early and on the road Monday morning, 1450km today.

Lots of driving today but we were able to make a lot of great time. It's pretty boring once we got past Calgary....until I was driving this morning somewhere west of Medicine Hat, and a large deer ran out in front of us on the highway while we were going 130km/hr. My super evasive driving skills managed to control the car, while avoiding the deer. My heart rate basically doubled, as I had a boost of adrenaline afterwards...kinda freaky...not knowing what the deer is gonna do. Luckily there were no cars behind me on the road.

The plan for Tuesday is to drive from Grand Forks ND, to Marquette MI. From there, that will leave us with a 10 hr drive or so on Wednesday back to Holland Landing. We'll cross back over into Canada at Sault Ste Marie MI, back into Sault Ste Marie Ont.

Crossing the border into North Dakota today was a bit of a hastle, the border cop asked us a ton of questions...and we thought he was gonna go through the whole car (which is packed to the brim) but luckily we got through without a search!!

The Week that was....and the Week Ahead

I got back from Kelowna Sunday night, with an evening flight on WestJet. Monday and Tuesday were a couple of easy days for me, just getting back into the swing of things.

Wednesday was a hard swim with the group in the pool....which I stunk up the joint in. Guess I needed one more day...we did 2 rounds of 6 X 100 best average on 1:30. I was really hurting in the water...starting off at 1:09's and falling off to 1:12's by the 5th and 6th interval.

Simon and some of the others going to Worlds did a wicked run workout down at Beacon Hill. They did 4 intervals on the Harder than Hamish loop. Simon took down his own course record 3 times out of the intervals....a very BAMF effort.

Joel has been giving out BAMF caps we had made...for BAMF type performances in workouts. Jordan and Simon were the first to get caps (Jordan for a 200 km ride at high wattage, Simon for breakign the Harder than Hamish loop). Andrew got a cap last week when a group of us went 15:30 for the big loop in Thetis (w. a leadout from Kieren), Kirsten got a cap for a hard ass treadmill workout she did, and Kyle and Terenzo got caps for dipping under 6:00 for the Hamish Loop (Simon has the record at 5:45 now I think).

Joel offered me a BAMF cap for my hard efforts this year, but I told him this morning that I had to earn the cap. We warmed up with a small island in the wetsuit, followed by a small island loop at medium/strong effort in the wetsuit as well (10:20). The group finished with another small loop hard (A Mac leading them through in 9:45), but I took the wetsuit off and attempted to break Colin's non-wetsuit Big Island TT record of 15:51. I ended up going 15:44, earning my BAMF cap from Joel.

I finished off the day helping AP out with his final hard workout before his U23 race at Worlds next week - 6 X 1km on Lochside trail. I jogged the first 500m of so of each interval ahead of AP, and then picked him up at 500m as a pacer for the final half km each time. AP was an animal, having 5 of his 6 at 2:55 or under, and his slowest being 3:00 (the uphill interval).

I'm now all packed up, and heading back to Ontario this weekend for the fall. The majority of the group leaves Sunday and Monday to go to Hamburg World Champs, but I'll be driving from Victoria to Holland Landing. I'm picking up my mom in Vancouver on Saturday (she's gonna provide some company and we'll split the driving) and we'll hit the road Sunday morning for Ontario. Not looking forward to sitting in a car seat for 50hrs or so...but should be a cool trip non the less.

I'm gonna miss the whole group out here....but I'll be able to save $$ living at home, and I'll re-join the group in January somewhere.

I'll try to blog each night on the trip home....

Dano

A Long Awaited Race Report from Kelowna

Race morning was about 17 C or so, and light rain. The roads were wet on the bike...lots of kick-up from wheels during the race. Usually, the interior of BC is dry, and hot...but not race day.

I was race # 15, and thus was a little before halfway in the field for choosing our start spot. I had a good quick start, getting to the first turn buoy right beside one of my training partners, Andrew McCartney. A Mac had the the inside line at the turn, so I tucked in on his feet at that point. We stayed that way throughout the rest of the swim. After the run up to transition, I was third onto the bike, behind Paul Tichelaar and A Mac. The three of us rode hard at the beginning, trying to get a break from the group. We were a group of three up the climb, before the group (8 guys) caught us on the flats up top. Our group turned out to be fairly strong, including Tichelaar, Wells, Bechtel, McCartney, and Evans (Canada), Messenheimer, Dahlz, Sexton, Collington, Chrabot (USA) and Richmond (New Zealand). Round 2 up the climb was fine, I was towards the front of the group, and we all rode tempo up the climb, no attacks, and I was fine.

Loop three was where I got popped. I wasn't able to get to the front of the group before the climb,without having to put in a large effort to ride to the front of the group before the climb. I took a chance that I would be alright for the climb (preparing to work hard to stay in). About a third of the way up, Tom Evans put in a surge, which spread the group out. I got strung out, and was 10-15m off the back over the top of climb. I put my head down and tried to close that gap...but I just wasn't able to, and soon the group pulled away (and my hopes of a good finish). I ended up riding the last 18km of the bike solo, losing 2:47 to the group. I was swallowed up by the chase group just as we entered T2.

I couldn't get any speed going at the start of the run....I figure it was from the hard 18km solo effort. Who knows. I negative split the run (17:55, 17:05) but that didn't do much, as I finished in 18th place.

Oh how I wish I could have hung in on that climb...I know it was a dumb mistake on my part...and I paid the price for it. If I would have been 3 or 4 bikes further up the group, I would have stayed in, and then I would have been running for a Top 10 finish. I guess that is racing though.

Race Photo's can be viewed here (I couldn't download any of the photos)

Hurricane Dean

It won't be too long until we see Anderson Cooper on CNN broadcasting in the heart of the storm. Dean is expected to be a Category 4 storm (winds over 131 mph) by the time it hits Cancun on Tuesday.

A couple solid days of training

Back to some training with the group....we've got a couple additions right now...Terenzo Bozzone is in town to train with the group before Worlds, and we've also got Kieran Doe here training. Terenzo spent some time here after the Vancouver WC, he's a funny guy, and a great guy to train with.

Here's a recap of the past 4 days or so of training.

Thursday:
I headed over to the treadmill early in the morning, to get my hard workout before hitting the road for some 2XU work.

20' warm-up
2 rounds of (3' @ 11 mph (2%), 2' @ 11 mph (4%), 1' @ 11 mph (6%) all with 3' ez in between
A tuner-upper for the weekend Joel called it.
A 10' warm-down to finish off the run. The hardest of those intervals I found were the 2' efforts at 4%, they were long enough and steep enough to start to feel it!

A 60' ez spin finished off the day of training.

Friday:
We had a big group at Thetis Lake in the morning for the swim. A small island warm-up loop, then the main set called for 2 big island loops (1 steady, 1 HARD). Our group is really swimming well right now, and with the addition of Terenzo and Kieran, we were flying today! The steady loop we swam in the wetsuits, and went through in 15:45.

The wetsuits came off for the hard one (Kieran kept his on). Kieran was setting a great pace on the front and we were soon strung out in a line behind him. We ended up losing contact with Kieran somewhere after the turn at the big island, and I was doing all I could to hang on to Terenzo's feet. I kept having to surge to get back on, as were Simon and Colin behind me. I pulled up alongside Terenzo and A Mac by the end of the loop, and we finished in 15:30, which turned out to be 20" faster than the official non-wetsuit loop record held by Colin. Though this one won't count for any of us, as we had the lead-out from Kieran in the wetsuit. All in all, a really solid swim today.

We did a 50' run at Thetis after the swim, it started as a group run with Simon and Terenzo, but after 10' of running uphill on this insane trail (and thinking I was a mountain goat) we (Colin, Kyle, AP and I) branched off and found some flatter terrain to run on.

Saturday:
My legs paid dearly from that mountain goat excursion yesterday! My quads were extremely sore today, as were Colin's, Kyle's and others. Today was a TOUGH couple of workouts back to back.

Leave as a group from Thetis on the bike, for about a 35' warm-up ride out towards East Sooke. Then it was into a tough rolling 27km loop as a group. I was feeling pretty good on the bike, until I went out the back of the group on one of the first climbs. I managed to work my way back to the group, and back into the rotation. I hung in, working really hard, until this massive climb at around 18km. This was a long climb, and my legs were completely shot. I was dropped like a rock. By the time I managed to drag myself over the top, the group was up the road, and AP who was dropped, was getting the moto-pace from Joel. I was left to ride the last 9km solo back to the start.

285 W avg
27km
46:15
35km/hr

We had a quick change, and then onto the Galloping Goose trail for a 10' warm-up jog, before the run workout.

3km tempo - 10:10 (3:23,3:25,3:22)
2km tempo + - 6:50 (3:15, 3:35)
3 X 1km pace - 3:19, 3:11, 3:16
4 X 400 hard

Let's just say my legs were completely trashed after the workout. The group ran really well...Simon setting blistering paces on the front w. Terenzo, Kyle and AP right there, and Kirsten was running like an animal as well.

We rode easy back to Thetis after the run...and my legs were toast.

Sunday:
An easy, easy 30' run this morning. The legs were pretty sore at the beginning, but loosened up as I got into the run. A Mac had the same run, as we're racing next weekend in Kelowna. The rest of the group is still in hard training for World's, so they all backed up yesterday's workout with a 90' long run this morning.

We swam at Thetis this morning for some easy swimming. A small island warm-up loop, and then 2 broken loops around the big island (1 with paddles, 1 alternating 25 strokes fast, 25 ez).
An easy 60' was all that was left for the day....as well as lying around watching the final round of the PGA championship, and the NASCAR race from Watkins Glen.

More Photo's from Drummondville

AP running to his National Silver Medal

Tichelaar running to his 2nd Canadian Title

The Top 3 overall in the race: Plata (2nd), Shoemaker (1st), Tichelaar (3rd)

Out of the water

Onto the bike

180 Turn to start a new loop

Part of our 11 strong lead group

The finish

Photos from Drummondville

The swim Start

1st out of the water, with A Mac and Bechtel with me. We had a 30" lead that lasted for 7km of the bike

Bechtel and I on the bike

Off the bike into T2

Trying to Hold on to Bryden..

Oh How I Love BC Ferries....

Tuesday August 7^th, 8pm

Well, I spent Monday night in Vancouver at the UBC dorms, as I was going to doing a bit of sales work for 2XU on Tuesday. I showed my first shop in the morning, went for a 40’ run in some light rain (it seems it always rains in Vancouver), and had a lot of time to kill still until my 4pm showing in Port Moody. Luckily, I got the final Harry Potter book from my parents in Drummondville and started reading it on the flight from Montreal to Vancouver.

After my 4pm showing, I headed down toward Tsawwassen to catch the ferry back to Victoria. I arrived at 5:35, and thought that I might be able to get on the 6pm ferry. Nope. 7pm ferry? Nope. 8pm ferry? NOPE. I’m stuck on the 9pm sailing to the island. Arrive at 5:35, and finally leave the ferry terminal at 9pm. Geez…I can’t believe they can be that backed up on a Tuesday evening. Oh well….I’ve got Harry Potter…and I’ve saved the last 50 pages of the book for once I get onto the ferry. I’m sitting in the car now, just listening to some music, killing time until I can get onto the ferry, and finish Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I figure in total it will be about 9 hrs of reading to read the whole thing. The book is so easy to read…yet so hard to put down!!

We’re back to training tomorrow, most of the group is in their last training block before Worlds and Beijing World Cup, both of which are Olympic Qualifiers for Canada. We’ve got a swim in the morning, as well as a 2hr base ride, and Thursday brings a pretty solid treadmill workout….just what the doctor ordered, as I think I need a couple good hard tready sessions before Kelowna in 11 days. I’d like to run solid off the bike (like Geneva) there, and make up for the disappointing run from Nationals.

Nationals Race Report

Drummondville ITU Continental Cup / National Championships
Aug 5^th

Race day came with sunny skies, a little bit of wind, great temps (high of 24 C) and NO HUMIDITY! The race was not only our National Championship, but it was also an ITU continental cup, meaning there were valuable ITU points up for grab as well. I was ranked 9^th of 42 men on the start line.

I was positioned between DJ Tache, and Jamie Stephenson on the start. I put my head down for the first 10 strokes to try and get some clean water and get to the first turn buoy at the front of the field. I wanted to really push the pace on the swim, in the hopes of getting a small group away on the front, and carry that into the bike.

At the 750m mark, there were only two guys right with me (Sean Bechtel and Andrew McCartney), with the main chase group a little ways back. I continued to push the pace on the 2^nd loop, trying to make that gap a bit larger. We ended up having a 30 sec lead out of the water and into T1.

I thought that Sean, Andrew and I were working fairly well together on the first loop of the ride, until we looked back at 7km and saw a group of 8 chasing us hard. We realized then that we weren’t going to be able to stay away, and soon we were 11 guys on the front. Our group included: Jarrod Shoemaker, and Victor Plata from USA, Fancisco Serrano from MEX, and 8 Canadians (Bechtel, McCartney, Baillargeon-Smith, Bryden, Wells, Russell, Tichelaar, Tache).We worked well as a group, trying to widen the gap back to the chase group, so that the race would come down to just our group. We managed to build a lead of 2:30 coming into T2, at which point I knew that I was going to finish 11^th overall, 8^th Canadian at the worst, as long as I ran solid.

I fumbled around a little in T2, and ended up starting the run in 11^th place at the tail end of our group. Dumb move. I lost touch with the guys I needed to run with right off the bat. I struggled on the first 2.5km loop, but managed to come back a bit on the second loop, catching up to McCartney and Bryden. The three of us ran together the 3^rd loop, before I fell apart around 7km, when Bryden opened a gap on McCartney, and I fell off the pace. I struggled through the last loop, knowing that I was going to finish 11^th. I still ran well enough to score some valuable ITU points (92) which will move me up the ITU rankings a bit. I just wish that I could have run here like I did in Geneva a few weeks ago. I outran a couple of the guys who beat me today in Geneva, but I just couldn’t produce that run again. That’s why we race.

I’m heading back to Vancouver today, staying in Vancouver Monday night. I’ll be busy in Vancouver Tuesday showing the spring 2008 line for 2XU to a few shops, then catching the ferry back to Victoria, and back to training. Next up for me is the ITU Kelowna Continental Cup on Aug 19^th, where I’ll be looking for a solid run and some more ITU points.

1	Shoemaker	Jarrod	USA	01:45:59	00:18:58	0:56	0:54:27	00:53	30:47
2	Plata	Victor	USA	01:46:08	00:19:09	00:49	0:54:19	00:53	31:00
3	Tichelaar	Paul	CAN	01:46:47	00:19:07	00:53	0:54:19	00:51	31:40
4	Serrano	Francisco	MEX	01:47:15	00:19:12	00:51	0:54:13	00:54	32:04
5	Baillargeon Smith	Andre Paul	CAN	01:47:27	00:19:07	00:53	0:54:20	00:53	32:16
6	Bechtel	Sean	CAN	01:49:00	00:18:32	00:53	0:54:55	00:53	33:48
7	Tache	David James	CAN	01:49:12	00:19:10	00:56	0:54:12	00:53	34:01
8	Russell	Andrew	CAN	01:49:35	00:19:09	00:53	0:54:17	00:53	34:22
9	Bryden	Jordan	CAN	01:49:40	00:19:06	00:56	0:54:18	00:56	34:24
10	McCartney	Andrew	CAN	01:49:46	00:18:29	00:56	0:54:55	00:56	34:32
11	Wells	Daniel	CAN	01:50:36	00:18:28	00:53	0:54:58	00:56	35:21
12	Mackenzie	Dan	USA	01:52:17	00:20:03	00:58	0:56:56	01:03	33:15
13	Yorke	Andrew	CAN	01:52:31	00:19:34	00:53	0:56:32	00:53	34:38
14	Woegerer	Andrew	CAN	01:52:43	00:19:37	00:54	0:56:29	00:58	34:45
15	Hamelin	Patrice	CAN	01:52:52	00:19:32	00:53	0:56:35	00:53	34:59

Quick Update

11th overall, 8th Canadian, made $400 for the 8th place finish.
Not the greatest run, I should have been faster today.
Results will be posted at http://www.sportstats.ca/res2007/drumem.htm soon.

All Systems Go

In Drummondville, and ready to race. The weather for tomorrow looks to be ideal for racing, 24 C and no rain or humidity. The last bit there is great news for me, as we haven't had any humidity to train in out in Victoria and my first day in Drummondville here was a bit rough with the humidity. the thunderstorms yesterday cleared all the humidity out luckily!!

I have start #9 for the race tomorrow, which means I will get a decent choice on the start line. The swim is two loops in the river, which has a slight current to it. The bike is 4 loops of a flat and fast course. The run is again flat as well, 4 loops.

We'll be missing a few key guys in the race tomorrow - Simon Whitfield, Kyle Jones and Brent McMahon aren't racing in order to focus on Olympic qualifying next month, and Colin Jenkins had to withdraw at the last moment as well with a slight shoulder injury. The men's field is still going to be a good one, with Paul Tichelaar the top ranked Canadian, as well as a few Americans up racing (2005 U23 World Champ Jarrod Shoemaker, Geneva ITU winner Victor Plata, and John Dahlz).

I'll be looking for a solid swim to split the field up, and hopefully we can get a nice group at the front, and open a gap on the chase pack, so we don't get a mass 10km run at the end.

That's all for now, here's hoping everything goes according to plan!!

First 720 in Big Air history...X Games

OK...Not quite sure how I posted the video a month ago...I'll have to wait until Colin can help me.
So, I'll just post the link here to this Big Air trick by Jake Brown at the X Games. That's gotta hurt.

I'm in Drummondville right now, Nationals this weekend. I'll post something on the race later today or tomorrow. It's hot and humid here right now!

Gettin Ready...

Nationals are this coming weekend (Aug 5th). I've had some decent training in the past week, and now we'll drop it down, and get ready to race this weekend.

Last weekend we did the Sooke triathlon as a training race. I had a good swim in my new 2XU wetsuit, rode strong on the bike, until Andrew Mac dropped AP and I on a steady long climb, and I came off the bike 1 min down on A Mac, and 20" down on AP. The run was alright, cruised the last bit coming in 3rd overall. We ended the day with a 3km swim at Thetis later in the afternoon for a solid day of training.

Most of our group has been away this week for the World Cup in Salford England, so workouts were small in numbers. Here are a few more workout highlights from the past week.

A great hill workout on the bike, 3 full times up the Durrance Lake road, 3 half climbs, and 3 flat efforts. We've done this workout before, its a good one. I had a couple of really crappy days in the pool, but felt a lot better yesterday when we swam in the morning at Durrance. Good thing we race in the open water :)

Yesterday we also did a good run workout on Lochside trail. A 20' warm-up, followed by 6 X 1km on 5:00. I was trying to run a bit faster than race pace, which I was able to do, but fell off a bit on the last 2 intervals a bit. Still a solid run for me, and the first hard hard run since Geneva two weeks ago. Now my legs remember the hard run feeling, and should be good to go this weekend at Drummondville.

Run Times: 3:06, 3:11, 3:06, 3:16, 3:09, 3:19
It's a bit quicker on the odd numbered ones (its a slight downhill)

The rest of this week is really busy, doing some stuff for 2XU, and getting ready to travel to Nationals.

Finally a good run

Musselman ITU Pan American Cup
July 14th, Geneva NY

I got to Geneva Thursday evening after spending the day at my buddy Greg Danner's place. Check into the free athlete accommodations I had, and then Greg and I grabbed some food before he headed back to Rochester.

I was roomed with Eric Limkemann who I used to swim against while I was at St John's. He was a 4 time Big East Champion in the 1650yd Fr. This is Eric's first year racing as an elite, and he is doing real well.

Race Day:

finally woke up around 8:30, and headed out for a short morning jog to wake the body up. Back to breakfast, and gather around the communal TV to watch the Tour. My dad, sister and her bf showed up around 11am, and I loaded my bike box onto the roof of the car before they headed out for a wine tour before the start of our race at 315pm.

We ended up with 50 men on the start line for the race. It was an in-water start, and we all were lined up on the dock according to race number before jumping in the water and making our way over to choose our start spot. I used stealth like maneuvers and rather than jumping in where I was on the dock and swimming over, I ran down the dock and jumped in beside Doug Friman who had #1.

As a result, I had a good line to the first buoy, and was leading the group coming from the right side after the gun. I came across, saw the feet I was looking for (Limkemann) and settled in for the swim. I knew Eric would set a great pace on the swim, and decided to let him (and later John Kenny) break through the choppy water in Seneca Lake.

A group of 5 of us had roughly 15" out of the water on the main part of the field. I had a quick T1, and jumped on the bike ready to go. Cameron Dye got away at the start of the bike, and Doug Friman and I started to work together to try and bridge, but I soon sat up as we had other riders coming up from behind and I figured it would be easier to go with a larger group. Ultimately we caught Friman and Dye, and we were joined by other groups from behind. By lap 6 of 8, our group numbered roughly 20-25 I'd guess.

A small break by Sean Bechtel and 4 others happened at the start of the last loop, which resulted in them having 10-15 sec on us off the bike. I was starting to worry on the bike when our group was so large, as I knew there were a bunch of guys that I would have a hard time running with if I wanted to score some decent ITU ranking points.

I managed to work my way up to the front of our group as we entered T2, and had a quick transition, heading out onto the run in the top 5 of our group (top 10 overall). I was able to hang with Chrabot, Orton and Green, and Collington for the first mile, but then contact with them, running about 10 seconds behind Collington the whole way. I faded slightly in the last half mile of the run, getting caught for 9th place by Yoni Doron.

I ended up in 10th place overall, earning some valuable ITU points in the process. The race was a good confidence booster for me coming off of the Edmonton WC, as I was able to have a solid run split here in Geneva. I was randomly chosen for drug testing after the race, which was a bit unlucky, as my dad wanted to get on the road ASAP to drive 4.5 hrs back to our house that night. I headed over to Doping Control, where I proceeded to drink water, water, and more water.

After 2.5 L, I thought that I would be able to provide the necessary 80 mL sample, but I could only muster 50 mL. I went back downstairs, and proceeded to drink another 1.5 L. Finally I produced enough urine, and hustled out to the car, back to the dorm for a lightning quick change, and onto the road heading home. It ended up taking me 2 hrs to pee after the race and 4L of water!! Needless to say, we had to pull over on the side of the Hwy a couple times on the way home......

1	Plata	Victor	USA	01:50:21	00:18:08	00:01:01	00:58:27	00:00:24	00:32:20
2	Friman	Doug	USA	01:50:29	00:17:38	00:01:00	00:58:57	00:00:27	00:32:25
3	Fretta	Mark	USA	01:51:10	00:18:08	00:01:01	00:58:25	00:00:24	00:33:12
4	Messenheimer	Dave	USA	01:51:22	00:17:56	00:00:58	00:58:18	00:00:24	00:33:43
5	Orton	Michael	USA	01:51:36	00:17:51	00:00:59	00:58:45	00:00:28	00:33:30
6	Green	Will	NZL	01:52:19	00:17:49	00:00:58	00:58:45	00:00:30	00:34:13
7	Chrabot	Matt	USA	01:52:45	00:18:09	00:01:01	00:58:26	00:00:33	00:34:37
8	Collington	Kevin	USA	01:53:10	00:18:05	00:01:01	00:58:30	00:00:25	00:35:05
9	Doron	Yoni	USA	01:53:25	00:17:52	00:01:01	00:58:41	00:00:26	00:35:23
10	Wells	Daniel	CAN	01:53:36	00:17:36	00:01:00	00:58:59	00:00:26	00:35:33

The swim start
I am on the far right hand side, the first buoy you see if a slight left hand turn

Runnin to T1 in 3rd place

Bike group on lap 2 I believe

On the run, lap 1 of 6

I'm done

Geneva Continental Cup

10th place overall, Top Canadian

full results can be found on triathlon.org

I'm home for until Friday morning, when I fly back to Victoria. I will post a race report soon,thanks to Mr and Mrs Jenkins who cheered me on at Geneva. I'll be doing some easy recovery training while at home, as well as 4 days of golfing!!

Blogging in Rochester

I'm currently in Rochester NY, on my way to Geneva NY for the ITU Musselman Continental Cup this Saturday afternoon. I flew in this morning, and my former St John's teammate Greg Danner picked me up from the airport. I'm relaxing at his place while he's at work, and he's been kind enough to give me a lift to Geneva later on tonite.

This past week has been the usual race week type of training. Monday was a 4500m swim workout, and a legs off day. I took the opportunity to drop my bike off at Fort Street for a tune up before leaving for the race this weekend. Tuesday was a race prep swim workout, main set 2 X (3 X 200, 3 X 50, 150 ez), and a 60 spin on the bike. Wednesday was an open water swim at Thetis, followed by a 90' neg split ride, with a 30' run off of the bike. Pack the bike, and head on up to the airport for my flight later that evening to Rochester (via Vancouver and Toronto).

The course for the race looks fairly interesting, I'll have more to report after the pre-race meeting Friday afternoon.

Some solid training...

I've managed to put together some solid training sessions this week. Here's a brief breakdown since Wednesday.

Wed:

We started the day off at Thetis for an open water swim. Main efforts were a couple of big loops around the island, I took my wetsuit off for the 2nd loop (and was given 15 seconds headstart) and tried to stay away from the group. I got caught at the turn around the island, ended up going 15:55 with no wetsuit.

From there we had a good hard treadmill workout in the afternoon.

15' warm-up with a few strides
5 X (3' @ 11 mph/2%, 3' ez @ 6.5 mph)
5 X (2' @ 11 mph/3%, 2' ez @ 6.5 mph)
5 X (1' @ 11.3 mph/4%, 1' off)

Goal is to maintain the same speed (which was our 10km tri race pace) while increasing the incline as we went through it.

Thurs:
A easy 40' run in the morning from my place, then a good motor pacing workout in the afternoon. 2 X 2 loops (17.4km) motorpace, with 5' ez riding in between.

Round 1: 23:33, 294 W, 44.5km/hr
Round 2: 23:30, 292 W, 44.5km/hr

Happy with the efforts today following the treadmill workout yesterday.

Fri:
Open water swim at Durrance Lake, 9 X 300 (1 start speed, 1 moderate, 1 ez) and a 60' easy spin w. 6 X 30" sprints interspersed .

Sat:
Two great workouts today. We met at the Starbucks for our bike workout. Broadmead loops today. 3 X (2 loops hard w. 1 loop ez). I was able to hold some decent wattage today, good group effort from everyone.

Round 1: 12:47, 336 W
Round 2: 13:04, 357 W
Round 3: 13:04, 336 W

Jones and I went solo off the front for the 2nd interval, and held off the group for 1 loop (though they say they were letting us sit out there before reeling us in.....but Jones and I are going with the story that we were holding them off).

From there we rode over to the Lochside trail, got changed into our running gear and got ready for the run workout.

15' warm-up
6 X 1 km on 5:30 (3;19, 3:18, 3:09, 3:15, 3:09, 3:18)

Pleased with the run efforts, the odd numbered intervals were slightly faster (net downhill) and everyone ran really well. Kyle, Simon and AP were setting the pace on the front, holding below 3:00 for 5 of the 6 intervals.




The Tour de France started today, this year should be interesting for a number of reasons...the cloud of drug accusations hanging over teams/individuals, and the fact that all starters of the tour this year have signed the UCI charter agaisnt doping.

"All 189 Tour de France riders signed the UCI's anti-doping charter in time for Saturday's opening prologue stage. The International Cycling Union requested that all cyclists sign a charter saying they are not involved in doping and promising to submit DNA samples to Spanish authorities for the Operation Puerto probe. Cyclists also had to agree to pay a year's salary on top of a two-year ban if caught doping."

Happy 4th of July

Happy 4th of July to all my friends south of the border