A bit of slacking on the Blog Front....

OK, I got an instant msg today, letting me know that it was Wednesday...and still no blog update!!

So, here it finally is, 4 days worth of activity to catch you up on.

Sunday we ran in Sabino Canyon in the morning, 70 min in total (16km), with a circuit of hill repeats thrown in as the main set. It was 6 times a loop that Joel had mapped out, 90" of hard uphill running followed by 90" or so or downhill recovery running, that we ran 6 times. A good strength workout.

We headed over to the U of A pool to swim in the afternoon. It was yards again (Yeah!) and we put in 5000 yards, a mixture of swim, pull, and some pace 100's.
600 swim, 600 Pull Neg Split, 6 x 100 on 1:15
400 swim, 400 Pull Neg Split, 4 x 100 on 1:15
300 swim, 300 Pull Neg Split, 3 x 100 on 1:15
300 swim, 300 Pull Neg Split, 3 x 100 on 1:15

The Texas women's team was still there, and swam after us today. I managed to snag a Texas swim cap from their coach....Hook Em Horns!

Monday we were back at the University, as Fort Lowell pool was closed because it was Martin Luther King Jr Day here in the US. 5000 yards this morning, though I can't quite remember what the workout was. I remember that we did a couple sets with the "Power Towers" which are basically a pulley system that you lift up a large pail of water as you swim (a good strength workout!!) We did a 2hr base ride in the afternoon, spinning the legs out. 60km in total, basically the same route as we did on Friday.

Ready to use the Power Towers

Power Towers in action, as we swim across the pool, we lift the buckets up

Tuesday was a full day of activity, starting with a trip back to the pool (this time at Fort Lowell, which means LCM).

400,200,2x100 IM
12 x 50 (alt build, ez)
2 x (3 x 200 on 3:00, 3 x 50 on 60, 250 ez)
Got down to 2:20 or so on the 200's....felt good in the water today
1500 aerobic pull, negative split
100 ez

We then headed out for a ride at noon, with the goal of 3hrs or so, including a climb up Mt Lemmon. Jordan and Kyle set the pace on the front, riding really well. I just put my I Pod on, and settled into my own rhythm, I wasn't going to get caught up trying to ride above my limits this early in the year. I stopped at mile 11 and rode back home with Kyle. I was 57.5 min this time, week 1 was 62 min. Most of the group rode to mile 14, with Sean, Paul and JonnyO riding to mile 18.
A 40 min easy run in Sabino Canyon with Kyle ended the day (9km)

Climbing Mt Lemmon

Looking down Mt Lemmon

And it finally brinigs me to today's training. 5000m this morning in the pool....an endurance set this morning.

300 swim, 200 kick, 300 swim, 200 kick
12 x 50 (every 3rd fast) on 50"
4 x 800 w. 30" rest (2 pull, 1 PB only, 1 swim)
200 easy

We headed over to the Wash at noon, for our weekly fartlek workout.

2 rounds of (2x90 secs w/ 90 secs, 2x60 secs w/ 60 secs, 2x30 secs, w/ 30 secs, 2x15 secs w/ 15 secs) It was a good opportunity to get the leg turnover going, which was really tough as I was feeling leg heavy from the climbing yesterday!! An hour easy spin later in the day brought the day to a close.

Our group here in Tucson....(L to R) Joel, Jordan, Simon, Colin, Sean, Dano, Kathy, Paul, JonnyO, Andrew, Kyle)

The Shootout ....and other fun stuff on Saturday

Today was the shootout ride here in Tucson, which is a big group ride that starts downtown near the university. The group ranges in size depending on the time of the year, with numerous pro cyclists usually around for the ride. A write-up of today's ride can be found here.

Map of the Shootout ride, complete with a course profile.

The group ended up being over 125 riders I'd say. We rolled out of town around 7:35 am, with the mercury hovering right around the freezing mark. It was chilly for the first 30 mins, as the group slowly rolled through town, picking up riders as we went along. Once the sun came fully up, and the pace picked up, we all started to warm up.

The first 30 min or so is the warm-up, and then it is game on. Once the terrain starts to climb, the group starts to fracture. I was able to hang onto the tail end of the lead group until around 30km, at which I fell off the back as did others. Luckily for me, Joel was following behind, and pulled in front of me to give me a draft back up to the group. Thanks to his help, I was able to get back onto the small group of guys just off the back, but as my luck would have it, they had blown up as well...and we weren't able to get back on. Joel tried to give me another draft up to the group...but I was close to red-lining at this point, and ended up missing the pain train at the front. It turns out it was a good ride for our guys who were in the front group (Simon, Kyle, Colin, Paul, Sean, Jordan) with some contested hill sprints by Colin.

I settled into a group of 5 riders, and we started to work efficiently together, trying to limit our losses. We picked up a group of 6 or 7 riders up the road (all while still climbing a false flat) and had a nice group of 11 riders, who were all taking even pulls. We rode together from 30-50km or so, until we got down to Duval Mine Rd, where half our group took the route back into town (60 mile ride), while half went the longer way (100 mile ride) to tack on some more miles. I was on the back trying to eat a Clif Bar while we were flying down the road at 50km/hr. I had no idea which way to go, and made the wrong decision, and ended up on the long route. Another rider and I ended up turning around and getting back onto the course, but the group was gone. Once I got down to a set of lights, I stopped and saw a group coming up from behind. I joined in with them as they went by, and we had a nice group of 10 or so to work together coming back into town.

We ended up catching the front group just as we made it back into town, where I proceeded to blow my front tire about 2km from the end of the ride. Luckily Joel was behind us at this point (he had been following the lead group, and Kyle had just flatted and taken the spare wheel) so I called it a day and jumped into the van.

We covered 96km in 2hr 44 min. It turned out to be a really good ride, save for a few rough patches of road on the way out. Hopefully we'll ride again next weekend.

After a group breakfast/brunch downtown, we headed back to the condos. A quick shower, and Sean and I hit the road again to head back downtown to the University to catch the #4 ranked University of Arizona Women's Swim Team duel against #15 ranked Texas. Arizona really out swam Texas today, taking the top 2 or 3 spots in most events, but they swam a bunch of swimmers as exhibition, so the final score (134-120 Arizona) seemed a lot closer than the meet actually was. The Arizona Men's Team swam today as well, but just against each other. They swam some impressive times coming off Christmas training, and just swimming against each other.



After the meet, as Sean and I were heading back to the car, we wandered into the McKale Center, which is home to the Mens and Womens basketball teams. The women were playing against California, and it was cool to see the gym where so many NBA players played in college. The Men play against #5 Washington St on Thursday night, I'm hoping to get over and watch the game.


Simon, Jordan, Sean, and I ran for 40 min in Sabino Canyon later in the afternoon, the leg felt better today...a lil heat rub on it, then wrap in tensor bandage. Some stretching and ice on it afterwards, and we'll see how it is tomorrow.

Our house headed our for some pizza tonite, as Jasper Blake is in town. It was good to see Jazz again. Jazz got in late last night....but still headed out for a 6.5 hr ride today. He rode all the way to the top of Mt Lemmon today, and has another 5 hrs or so of riding scheduled for tomorrow.

Here's a couple photo's that Joel took from our group ride on Friday.

Thursday and Friday....

Thursday

We headed out to Saguaro National Park for our long base run. We had a planned 95' run. I ended up running 75' (15.5km) as my leg was hurting me, so I cut it short. The trails we ran on in there were pretty awesome....a mixture of single tracks, sand, crossing river beds, and some short hills. Luckily Sean, Kathy and I had a map, our we might have gotten lost.

We finished the day off with a 3000m recovery swim over at Fort Lowell pool.

300 swim, 200 Kick, 300 swim, 200 Kick
400 swim, 4 x 100 (stroke/free)
300 swim, 3 x 100 (stroke/free)
200 swim, 2 x 100 (stroke/free)
200 Kick

Friday

A sleep in day!! We weren't in the pool until 10am, when we headed over to the U of A pool to swim today. And....it was yards again!! I think that pumped me up for the workout more than anything. Yards and I just go well together.

400 swim, 200 Kick, 2 x 100 IM
24 x 100 as 6 x (1:25,1:20,1:15,1:10)
200 ez
3 x 300 Pull (1-3) (3:40, 3:20, 3:07)
100 ez

I ended up getting down to 58-1:00 for the 4th 100 of each set, so the swimming is coming around finally, I think.

We ended the day with a 2hr base ride as a group. We headed out and rode through Bear Canyon, and then down Old Spanish trail. The pace was prolly a lil bit faster than a base ride, but done and done. 67km ride in 2 hrs.

Tomorrow morning is the Famous Tucson Shootout Ride. Should be interesting.

Tour de France...

If you're looking for a team to cheer for this year when the Tour starts, take a look at Team Slipstream/Chipotle, an American team that is trying to change the way cycling is.

When the team was formed, it began participating in the Agency for Cycling Ethics (ACE) program with the aim of helping to eliminate doping in professional cycling. Participants are extensively tested, developing a bio-stable marker profile. Future tests check that these markers have not moved - if they have the rider is either ill or has taken performance enhancing drugs. If any change has been noted, the rider cannot participate in racing until the markers have returned to normal levels.

Click the picture below for an interesting article from ESPN about the team.

Hump Day

Another busy day of training today, which started out like most mornings in the pool.

4200m for me this morning, and I'm happy that I am starting to feel better in the water, and should be back up to my normal self in a few days.

1000 SKIDS (swim, kick, IM, drill, swim)
16 x 50 on 45" (every 4th one fast)
12 x 50 on 50" (every 3rd one fast)
8 x 50 on 55" (every other fast)
4 x 50 on 60" (all fast)

5 x 200 (odds Pull w. paddles, evens 50 stroke/50 free)
200 warm-down


Home for some food, relax for the rest of the morning, and get prepped for a 70' fartlek run to start the afternoon off. We drove down to the dried up river (or wash as it called here). 35' warm-up, some stretching, drills and strides...then into the meat of the workout.

30",60", 2', 4', 4', 2', 60", 30" with half the previous interval rest time in between (ie, 15 " rest after the first 30" interval). My right upper quad was a bit tight today, so I backed off the efforts a bit today, don't want the leg to get out of control.

We finished off the day with an easy 60" group spin. The legs are a bit fatigued right now, but I've got some dinner in me now, and just relaxing and getting ready for tomorrow.

Tomorrow is a bit lighter compared to the last couple days....95' long run in the morning, followed by a 3000m recovery swim in the afternoon.

Monday and Tuesday Training...

Bit slow with the blogging recently...So I've got two days of workouts here.

Monday was a bit of a rest day, as we swam in the morning, 4000m in total, though I can't really remember what we did. From there, we had an easy 90' base ride as a group. We headed out towards Bear Canyon, did a lil loop over there, and headed back. It was really windy out, which made for a fun ride, trying to hide from the wind.

And the best news of the day was the fact that we've now got internet service in our unit. After a couple of phone calls, I had to drive up north a bit to get our modem, which ended up being a 90' trip, but it was worth it!

Tuesday brought a morning group ride in downtown Tucson. The group was not that big (we made up half the group) but it was still a tough ride. 62km in total. It was the first hard effort of the season on the bike for me, and I definitely felt it when the pace picked up! We had a good ride, with everyone regrouping at the top of Gates Pass, which is pictured below.

Colin ended up getting a flat just as the pace picked up this morning, and it was no ordinary flat. Check out the gash in his tire below (he had to put a powergel inside his tire to get back to the van to grab the spare wheel).

I ran for 45 min in Sabino Canyon, and then we swam 4000m to finish off the day. Feeling a bit better in the pool, as the stroke is almost there. 800m warm-up, followed by 3 x 500 Pull, 100 ez, 5 x 300, and 100 ez.

Short Course Yards!!!

The best day of training this week....we got to swim yards today in the pool!!
I'm the only one in the group who prefers to swim yards, everyone else prefers to swim Long Course Meters....so I was in heaven today when we went over to the University of Arizona to swim.

We started off the morning with a 90 min run in Sabino Canyon. We took the roadway all the way to the end, which meant that we ended up crossing the stream that flows through the canyon about 5-6 times. The first time we all took our shoes off, but then we said screw it and decided to just run across. From there we went up a 1 mile trail full of switchbacks up the side of the canyon to the top. We hopped on the Telephone Trail, and ran the last 3.7 miles back down and towards the start. The view from the trail cut into the side of the canyon was amazing!! I wish that I had my camera along with me. Total run was 16.5km, with some good hill running in there.

We then headed over to the university and swam 5000 yards. The Arizona campus is amazing. 20 lane outdoor pool, large tennis facility, the massive football stadium, the school has got it all.

600 swim, 600 pull, 6 x 100 on 1:25
400 swim, 400 pull, 4 x 100 on 1:25
300 swim, 300 pull, 3 x 100 on 1:25
200 swim, 200 pull, 2 x 100 on 1:25
100 swim, 100 pull, 1 x 100 on 1L25
200 easy

We all went out for some mexican food for dinner, where we were able to watch the end of the Giants/Cowboys game. Should be some good football games next week!!

Long ride, and some football

Long group ride this morning. We rolled out of the condo unit at 830, dressed fairly warm as the temp was 38 F or so. Once the sun got higher in the sky, it warmed up. We ended up riding for just under 3 hrs, with a nice rolling ride out towards Colossal Caves, and back home. We were going to climb a bit of Mt Lemmon today, but we decided against it.

2hr 57 min
94.7km
32.1km/hr

After some lunch, it was time for the first football game of the day; on the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field, Seattle Vs. Green Bay. At the half, Simon, Paul, Sean and I headed out for a 40 min easy run up through Sabino Canyon (44 min, 9.1km). Now it's time for some food, and then the game I'm looking forward to, Jacksonville @ New England.

Snap!

We were out for a ride today, rolling along in a group when we came to a red light. As it went green, I got out of the saddle to get up to speed, and next thing I hear is crraacckk. I looked down, and noticed a huge crack in my carbon handlebars. I guess the torque on the handlebars made them snap, as they snapped from the bottom. Good thing I wasn't moving faster, as it could have ended up ugly.
We were only 8km into the ride, so I left the group, and turned around to ride home. I obviously couldn't grasp the right handlebar, so I had to put my right hand on the stem, to ride home.

Simon gave me a ride to Sabino Cycles once he got back from the ride, and my bike is now back up and running. I'll get to test out the new handlebar set-up tomorrow, as we have a 2hr 30 min ride scheduled.

4000m in the pool this morning, some more aerobic stuff, with a little bit of activation at the end of the workout.

400 swim, 200 kick, 200 IM
3 x 800 Pull w. 45" rest in between.
200 ez
4 x 100 on 1:30 steady, 100 on 1:45
300 ez warm-down

Thursday

Today we had the benefit of sleeping in an extra hour or so this morning.
We don't have pool time on Thursday mornings, instead we get it in the afternoon.

We headed out at 8am in the van, destined for Saguaro National Park for our long run. The run was 75 minutes for most of us, with Kyle and Jordan running 90 minutes. We ran in smaller groups, and I ended up running with Bechtel the whole way. We stuck to the paved road that looped through the park. It was a tough loop!! 8 hilly miles, we ran past the van, and went a little bit further to get our 75 minutes in. Some of those hills were pretty steep, it made for a good challenging loop. I think we may ride that loop on our bike a couple times.

75 minutes
15.5km

We finished off the day with a recovery swim at the pool at 3pm.
3000m as: 1000 SKIDS (swim, kick, IM, drill, swim), 2 x (300 pull, 3 x 100 non-free) 8 x 50 (2 breakout, 2 drill) and finished off with 200 kick, and 200 easy.

Some Photo's from Tucson

Here is a link to photo's that Coach Joel took from day 1 of the camp.

Click here to see them.

Jumping Right In

Well,

Day 2 of the camp has come and gone, and today we got right into the swing of things.

We started out in the pool, with another 5000m, highlighted with a main set of (5 x 300 Pull (1-5) followed by 5 x 300 swim (1-3). Back to back 5km days took it's toll on me today, as I was hurting towards the end of the workout. I figure this first week will be enough to get accustomed to the rigors of 5km workouts.

The main workout of the day was a 2hr 35 min ride (73.5km). We rode the 20km over to the base of Mt Lemmon, and it was decided that we would ride to the 11 mile mark of the 25 mile climb.

17.5 km
62 min total time climbing.

I'm sure we'll be venturing the whole way up pretty soon.

Here's a map of the whole climb



A 40 min run with Simon, Kyle and Jordan, finished off the day. For the run, I decided to test out my new Nike + I Pod attachment that I got for Christmas. It was cool to run, and be able to see how far we had gone, just by looking down at the screen of my I Pod.
We ended up running 36 min, and run an easy 7.5km.

I'll get an entry up in the next few days with some pictures, I promise!

Tucson Training Camp 2008

I'm here in sunny Tucson Arizona for our three week base camp. This'll be a short blog entry, as I'm limited with the internet right now.

The whole group was together this morning ready to go on the pool deck. It was a balmy 45 F, as we converted the pool over from a 25 yard set up into a 50 meter setup, and then hopped in.
4800m later, we were finished, picked up some groceries, and headed home. We also got in a 60 min run in the Sabino Canyon on some wicked trails, and a 90 min easy group ride to end the day.

Tomorrow we're back in the pool at 7am, and I think we're riding later in the morning. We'll see what the day brings.

In a couple of days, I will be getting away from weather like this:

and heading down to weather like this:

Monday, I'll be flying out of Buffalo bound for a 3 week training camp in Tucson Arizona. It'll be good to hook up with the group again, as they are all flying in the same day from Victoria and other areas. The camp will be a solid base camp, putting the time in. We'll be swimming most every morning, and riding and running on the numerous roads and trails around us. The picture above is the start of the 40km climb from Tucson up Mt Lemmon. I'm sure we'll be making the trek up once or twice.

The blog will be updated daily again come Monday. Stay tuned.

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!