Reflect

Here we are leaving tucson after beeing here for a month. What I used to see as a small pink house in arizona turned into a place that I have called home for the last month or so. A place that I once was unsure whether or not I would be able to stay turned into a place that I did not want to leave. Looking back now it has been one of the best months of my life. Tuscon was amazing to us, the people are awsome, the weather was great and the memories are priceless. I am Already starting to look forward to the possibility to going back next year. There is no point in me typing forever especially when a picture is worth a thousand words. Here are some of the pictures from our adventures. Special thanks to the partners in crime who made it a trip to remember.(stevo, a-russ,and JP).

The U of A pool that we were fortunite enought to swim at.

The boys in fron of the lemmon tree house.

A little carbo loading, 18 inch pizza with 2 inch deep crust split 2 ways? MMM good

The Boys at our favurite ice cream place!! The cookies and cream was key!!

Tucson!!

So I have not posted in forever so i figure now would be a good time. I have been here in Tucson Arizona for the last month or so. I is probably one of the coolest places that I have ever been. The weather is nice, the riding is amazing and the lemmon house crew is wicked. While we have been down here, my training has certainly stepped up a level. It is awsome to get away from some of the destrations back home and get down to training. We have also stepped up or volume quite alot while we have been down here. We leave here in a couple days and now I am starting to reflect on some of the key workouts for each spect.

Swim:

The swimming down here has been a treat! We have been fortunite enough to be swnimming at the U of A aquatic centre. It has been switching back and forth between short course yards and long course meteres. Short course meters has to be one of my favourite things. One of my favourite workouts for swimming has to be when we do 16by 100 fast 50 ez, the 100;s on 1:10. Being short course yards I was able to crush this set, averaging 56 seconds for the100's.Pretty solid.

Bike:

The biking is one of the things that i have loved down her. We have been without a car, so we have had to bike everywhere while down here. Our bike volume while down here has been huge. My favourite wourkouts while down here was when we rode from the house to mt lemmon crushed the lemmon climb and then rode home. It ussually takes just under an hour to get to lemmon or back and then lemmon is just under 2 hours up and 45 minutes down, you do the math. The best part was that was after a swim in the morning, and we did this more then once.

Running:

our running has been pretty simular to home, excpt it is after all these other huge workouts. My favourie run whiledown here was just the other day when we went to the University track and did our 1km repeats. Not only was the track the nicest i have ever seen, but I also crushed 4 of them averaging 3:02's.

Everthing has been amazing down here, I hope we are lucky enough to come here again. Thanks to the mom and dad for helping me get down here!!! I will post pics soon, but my battery is about to die, but here is one for now.

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The boys at the U of A track

Boooyaaa

We started off the next 2 a half hard weeks with a bang today!! The morning we started our day at 5:45 on deck because of the western champs swim meet going on at the pool. Since it was short course it was optimal time for an eye opener set. 75 smooth on 1:10 followed by 100 on 1:10 and 10 times through that. I don't know if it was the water or the cereal that I ate this morning but something clicked. I crushed the set holding 1:02's and 1:03's for the 100's. I havent swam super fast in a little while and this was a good "eye opener." Had a long warm up and a fun warm down for 5.3 km. Good swim, I followed that up with a bike ride by myself. Bike riding by yourself can always be interesting, you get to listen to how quite it can be when it is just you and the road. Such a kool thing to actually be able to hear your tire rolling along the slightly rough pavment. It sounds as if it is whispering secrets to the damp pavement. SOOO wicked! Follow that with some eating sleeping and then hammer down to oak bay for a track workout. We stepped it up on the track today adding another 1km repeat. The workout, 3by 1km followed by 2 by 300m 2 times through that whole thing. 7.5km of hard work, almost at 10km can't wait! Not going as strong as I normally do on the tracck, but pushed through and got through it. Bike ride tommorow and a swim after. More shortcourse!!! Should be good, but time for bed...

Here is a picture of where we may be staying in tuscons, we call it the lemmon tree house....

Whistler!!

So it has been awhile since the last post, and I have just got in from vancouver and winning my second premiers award. However I am tired and going to bed, so i will post pics for now and do a write up and catching up tommorow. Here are Pictures from our training camp in whistler.


Skiing at lost lake, still standing for now....




Bailing at lost lake....



The team at the olympic course...They said something about us skiing faster then the olympians..well me at least..haha



I guess I tired out the nordic skiiing pro..sorry stevo

Amazing weekend all together!! good work done on the ski corse and loads of fun was had...

Sleeeep!!!

I woke up this morning after going to bed early last night hoping to take advantage of my morning off of swimming. I awoke to see my clock saying 12:30, so much for my morning. I am not ussually a huge fan of sleeping in as I feel like I am sleeping away the best part of the day. However I think I may have been in desperate need of this sleep. I always loved the quote "I will sleep when I'm dead" Warren Zevon. I mean Its obviously a little far fetched, but it is an interesting outlook on life. Something to think about..

Training is going well, Couple more days left in the third build week of three including a TT in the swim tommorow, a bike ride including some hill repeats on the observatory, and the all and mighty track workout in the afternoon. Add a little money making at work to the mix and it should be a good but big day.

Also I have just confirmed that I will be travellling up to Whistler for a training camp this weekend. Some awsome cross country skiing on the olympic course and a nice change of scenery. I have never been to whistler in the winter before but I have heard it is a great atmosphere in the village up there! Pretty Excited. Thanks to the parents who are going to help me out financial wise it should be a great finish to this three weeks of killer training!

A picture from our last team trip up to Mt Washington. The snow is alays fun, especially when your with a good group.

It's Go Time!!

Yesterday marked the start of the year for me, as it was the first race of the season. It was the pioneer 8km at the saanich fair grounds. In my opinion you can train as hard as you want and treat as many training sessions like a race as you would like, however to me it is not the same. There is something about the air on race morning, the food tastes different and your body just is more ready to go. All winter we train and work as hard as we can but sometimes it is easy to forget why we go through all this pain. 6 months without racing it is hard to stay focused! However after just one running race yesterday I am more then ready to go. It puts everything into perspective and to me it means that race season is soon upon us! I am very enthused about this! Quick race report....The rface was alright, we just did a 5km hard to get some early season times and then I just finished off the race just under steady state pace. 5km split 16:44, so nothing crazy solid, however not bad either. I would have been happy with under 16:30 but I will take it considering the time of the year. Props go out to stevo with an insane split of 15:44 at the 5km and a little sprint off with one of the stronger local runners.

Training for the week, is another build week before recovery next week. some good training to come this week! Back on the track on Friday I am excited! Anyways for now I head to work at Romeo's.

Scotty

Fall Down 7 Times, Pick Yourself Up 8 Times.

Yesterday at the bike workout this quote was written up on the board(Fall down 7 times pick yourself up 8 times) which lead me to thinking. I always enjoy thinking about how the quote relates to me and what it makes me think. This particular quote just reminded me that no matter how many times you fall down as long as you pick yourself up you are going to be further ahead than before. Well as long as you figure out why you fell down and then try not to make the same mistake again. This quote came at the right time as we are heading into a few big training blocks. I had been a little nervous about how this year was going to pan out. I have had a couple years in the past that have not been, “up to par.” However I have been able to realise that as long as I finish the year thinking that I have done all I can who cares what the outcome is? I have not had a year when I have been able to say I have given it everything I have had, hopefully this year! I am excited and ready to go as the new race season slowly creeps up on us. The running series starts Sunday and just over 9 weeks until our training camp in Arizona. We are looking into Rv’s To take down with us to keep the cost as low as possible and it is going to be a fun way to travel and live down there!

As for training after our time off during the holidays I am fired up and ready to go again. Heading into the holidays I was having a hard time dealing with the fatigue physically and mentally. A little bit of easy OYO training and I am ready to go again. Since we have been back at it workouts have been great, first Track workout was Tuesday just an intro into track with a few 800’s descending. Other than that it has basically been swim, bike, run and work every day. Swims have been solid and working on some technique and getting closer to that perfect technique. Run’s have been smooth and bikes have been fast. All is good, but now to take advantage of my easy day.