2008 Crit Season

For the last few years, I have been lucky enough to race in some of the local criteriums. The races are awesome for a few things, firstly they are always a good workout. If you need to work harder just go up front and take a longer pull. They are also really good for bike handling and good conering practice. Lastly you always can get a wicked hill workout out of them cause there is always a decent hil in it. Here is some photos from this year.

Quick Thought, and Random Pen Pictures

What is the first thought that enters your head in the morning? Have you ever took the time to listen to it? Does it bring you joy, or stress you out. I awoke this morning to a thought of Prince George and Kelowna last year. I was forunate enogh to coach a small kids of steel camp in Prince George before Kelowna Triathlon last year. Just being around younger people learning about triathlons and sharing my stories remeinded me of how lucky I really was and still am. Kelowna was also my first race after my "short retirement" from the sport. I was so happy to be back racing everything about triathlon was getting me fired up even the silly little things like the race breifing or trying to eat food early race morning (everything always tastes a little different race morning for some reason)! I had not felt this happy about triathlon to many times this year. I have worried too much about this and that, and now I am ready to enjoy it! Take advantage of the fact that I am able to do something like this. No more worrying and more enjoying. Looking forward to the SRI this weekend. The summer is almost over and summer being my favourite season of the year I am not going to waste it. Time to take advantage of summer and racing!


On a lighter note some random pictures from my travels to Penticton that I have not posted yet.

I've got an idea lets stop and take a swim in the river to cool off.

Its too cold stevo, you will never

get me to put my legs in that water.

Home sweet home. (well at least for the weekend)

P.S. You may have noticed on our trips shirts are always optional. haha

The Pen,

So Last weekend Stevo and I were lucky enough to travel up to Penticton for the peach classic triathlon. We decided that we would be going on Friday morning after the swim at about 10:00 went home packed and was in the ferry lineup at 12:35 waiting to get on the 1:00 ferry boat. We new the trip was off to a good start when we got on to the ferry after showing up only 10 minutes before it starts to load. The trip up was awesome! We took the scenic way, on the old highway which took about the same amount of time as the kokahala. When we arrived there We were both stoked to be back in pen where we had enjoyed watching the Ironman last year. We stayed with the Symmonds which was awesome. Thanks to them for there awesome hospitality. We had all day Saturday to swim in the lake and hit the bike barn where we had an experience with mounting tubular tires. A solid Pre-race day nice and laid back and finished it up with a nice little hair buzzing. Yes I did buzz my hair, it is... different not good not bad just different. The race was early Sunday morning where is was hoping to beat the heat, but no such like. The race itself was a little bit ruff and a pretty stressful morning overall between forgetting my goggles, my race suit would not do up, and did not get to warm up for even 30 seconds in the swim. So shoes off 1500m a hard bike that I did not drink enough or eat on and then a run that started uphill for 4km and was on the hot pavement. O did I mention it was about 30 degrees at 8:00 in the morning. It seems like it has been a while since I have been able to say that is was a good race, but what can you do. The good news is that we learned a few new tricks to stay cool in the heat. After Kelowna which are nationals I will be able to say that I had a great race though. haha. Being that we were in Penticton I was not ready for this to bug me, at least not till I got back to Vic. So I enjoyed being in Penticton for the 24 hours even though we did not do much because we were so drained. Then time to head back.

Awesome trip back too! We saw coyotes, swam in the river to cool off, and showed up at the ferry at 6:54 and made it on the 7:00 ferry. Overall a really fun trip! Thanks to Stevo my partner in crime for driving up and making it fun.

It's always good to be back home and get back into training hard though, which is exactly what this week was. Stevo and I have figured we have raced 4 time now in the last 3 weeks so we are starting to get a little tired. That ok The Sri Triathlon next weekend and then two more weeks before having a great race at nationals in Kelowna!

Lastly a solid swim this morning at the HTO open water swim at Thetis. The goal time was just to be under 36:00 for the 3km as I went into it pretty soar from a wicked bike workout yesterday. Crushed a 35:59, good enough, especially considering that I probably did an extra 150m by picking poor lines to the buoys. Congratulations to that fundraiser for raising over $40,000 to the MS Society. I was taking some serious notes for the Run/Walk this year! It will be soon time to start organizing again.

P.S Props to the younger Dagnall who won the 800m in age 16-18 nationals in Calgary with a gutsy swim just off his 8:33 PB.


Quote for the Day:

Nobody who ever gave his best regretted it.
- George Halas

"A lot of people run a race to see who's the fastest. I run to see who has the most guts." - Steve Prefontaine

Wow, Leading from start to finish and opening in a 59 and closing in a 53!! I think That shows alot of guts, leading to big glory. Possibly the new prefontane???

If bad luck is luck, I have been super lucky lately.

After the last few races I have been thinking about the idea of "luck". I figure, is it really just bad luck that I have had to make my bike fall apart in Mazatlan, Missing the lead pack in a local race and just not overall been happy with a race performance in quite some time? I don't think that you can have all that happen plus some, and beleive that it is just bad luck. After a while you realize that the phrase "bad luck" is just a scapegoat for poor performance. A roman Philosopher once said that "Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity." I have been fortunate enough to have theses amazing opportunities such as travelling to Mexico and training in Arizona, but has the preparation been enough? The true question, "What is preparation??" Is it what you eat for breakfast the morning of a race? Is it your level of excitement when you enter a race, or is it just the state of mind that you are in? It could be as easy as you knowing that all is good before you take that first stroke in the water. Your bike is race ready,or your body is ready for anything that can be thrown your way. What I have really noticed lately, are you mentally ready to race? I have realized that all of my little peices of bad fortune may just be me not being fully prepared. Maybe all I needed was a little more TLC (Tender Love and Care) with Crush (my bike) the night before a race, or maybe even the week leading up. Maybe a little more work on taking of my wetsuit after practice or learning a little more about nutrition. I was asked the other day what I do as a job. My response was, "Well I am training to be a triathlete,"(followed by some cheesy pick up line, after all she was cute). That lead me to think if this is my job then I need to start doing my homework. Homework being the things that you do between the workouts to make you that much better then the rest.

For now I go back to sleep and try to fight of whatever it is my body is fighting. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz


Scotty

Home For A Little While...

Wow another post that starts with, "So it has been a while." Well it has and as I sit here at work I am realizing that in that little time alot has gone on. I have settled back in at home, got back into the swing of things, we even have been swimming in thtis lake! Yeah that is correct swimming at Thetis Lake. It was currently 13 degrees as we put our triple layered sock covered feet into the almost icy lake. Insane! Other then that training has been going well. Slowly getting over a small quad injury which has held my run back a little, but at the same time I am really fired up to run hard asap. I am very happily settled back in at home. The feeling of being back home again is amazing, the small things that you forget about are key. However just as I am happy to be back home again, it seems that I am leaving again. A quick training camp over in UBC for this long weekend. Then we are going to finish off the weekend with the local, North Shore Triathlon. It is just a small and fun triathlon, but still one ofmy favourite races. It may be because I have done it for what seems to be forever, or that there is a little price purse which I ussually get to dip my finbngers into. Maybe a little of everything, but either way it should be lots of fun. Overal it should be a awsome and solid weekend of training and I am looking forward to it.

"You let your body realize that is was in pain."

Quote of the day, brought to you by coach Neil Harvey after a rough swim workout that did not go as planned. (May not be the exact words but along the same lines)

O and Good Luck to the training brothers, Stevo and A-russ In Ixtapa who are going to kill it the weekend In the Ixtapa Continental Cup.

the first race report of the year.

It's a shame that the first race report of the year couldn't be a bit better, but it all works out as the next one will be great. This was my first pan amaericain championships not as a junior. Boy is it a different ball game, not only was I racing against some of the top u 23 athletes there were also some big names in the elite category which we raced against. One including the like of a soon to be olympian, Jarrod Shoemaker, who did not even win the whole thing. It was deffinetley a pretty cool expereince to be in the same bike pack as some of these guys. Before the race even started I was probably the most nervous I have ever been. There were a few things helping with this, one of the biggest factors was probably the fact that I was hoping to get my U23 worlds spot at this race. Which meant I was suppose to be top 10 against all these big names. On top of this I was looking at the waves which had scared me a little the day before. The waves were probably about 7 feet above the water and crashing down hard, and they expected us to swim past these waves and then continue with the swim. I have never in my whole triathlon career been nervouse about a swim. I knew that for me to have any hope at getting my spot I would need to be in the first pack out of the water. I had joked around that I would be first out of the water, which would be a tough feet, but maybe not impossible. As we were marched down by ranking I started looking around at the guys, they are soo much older and more experienced and..no time to syke yourself out, "number 52, Scott Dagnall," Ok so you probably couldnt tell that he was talking about me as it was one of the funniest pronunciations of my last name I have ever heard, Standing on the line as far right as possible I looked to my left and saw over 70 standing beside me getting ready to attack these 7 foot waves. I turned around to spit one last time before we strated. "Takeyourmarksgo" they slured the words together and before I could even turn back around the race was started. I managed to rush the water and get ahead of a lot of people by the time we hit the First wave.Kaaaaboooom!! The first wave came crashing down right on top of me, time to hold my breath until it passes then pop up. Nope that didnt work, I am now about 15 meters closer to the shore then when that wave hit. I had a rough time with a few more huge waves and managed to get past where the waves were breaking. I hit the first boy the furthest back I have ever been before in triathlon swim. O well now it was go time. I had a really solid swim from there out and managed to swim through most of the pack and all the way up to 4th and still making up ime on the leaders. I finished the swim in 4th place right behind the first 3. sprinted up to transition and a quick transition to catch the lead pack. As I jumped on my bike I felt my seatpost slide right down. I looked down to see that I was basically riding on my frame. As I pedalled away I was careful not to hit my elbows with my knees. Not a good situation to be In. I kept pedaling away and managed to stay with the leaders for the first 3 laps. "Hey I might actually be able to stay in this lead pack this whole thing even with my seat like this," I said to myself. Maybe not, As I came out of the u-turn on the 3rd lap I stood up to accelerate and pop up came my back wheel and I came to a holt, I sat back down and did my best to push the pedals, tried standing again and same thing. As I slowly started loosing thepack I noticed my quick release on my back wheel had come undone. My heart sank as I knew I had to stop to fix this. Before the next turn around I stope and tried to tighten it up which seemed to take forever and I tried to adjust the seat. One swift hit to the seat and yank it up. I hoped back on and the seat slid back down. Eff it, I wanted to try and catch back up to this lead pack, but one vs. 10 not going to happen. O well next pack, I could still run fast off the bike and have a decent race. Nope, my quick release came undone 2 more times and I had to stop both times, my back wheel also eventually started rubbing and everything fell apart. I ended up pullingout of the race at lap 6 after doing everything I could to try to get to the run. Positives, Top 4 out of the water even after getting crushed by the waves, Staying in the lead pack even with my seat being messed and having no power. Also lasty I am very fired up for my next race, and I am ready to kill it. For now I am going back home and giving crush (The specialized) a bunch of tlc.

Coming back into shore..

Heading out past the break..