2010: A Year to Remember

May be this story long time ago at 2010. A season wrap up blog post is well overdue. My year in Ireland was definitely the craziest year of my life to date.

 

In November of 2009 I packed my bags and flew across the world into unknown territory. A new country and a new training environment were inevitable, but what I didn’t know was how truly supportive and amazing Triathlon Ireland would be - the coaches, the athletes, the support network, the “fairness” of their system, and the standards and quality of all the members involved in their successes. For such a small nation I was blown away by the quality of the high performance environment.

Aileen - my best friend for a year :)

Chris on the far left - the best coach I've ever had.

For the first time in my life I was given the opportunity to work with individuals so talented in their fields of coaching (Chris Jones), strength training (Michael Johnson) physiology (Declan Gamble and Ricky Baker) and physiotherapy (Dierdre Burrell and Dave Minion) that I learned more about training in less than a year with these individuals than I had learned in my entire 8 years as a triathlete.

Michael and Declan in Portugal

The 3 Irish Girls!

Dierdre introduced me to a whole new world of physiotherapy... amazing.

I’m not going to talk about my 2010 racing season, I had a lot of bad luck and injury. I went to some amazing places and met some amazing people (see above) and friends. I realize how lucky I was to be able to do what I did and it is definitely an experience I will never forget.

Martina, Me and Conor.

 As for now…

I have been living in Whistler for 2 months now and LOVE it. I mean I already knew it was my favorite place in the world, but to have the opportunity to live here is really incredible. I wake up every morning feeling like the luckiest person alive. My decision to come home to Canada was the easiest decision I’ve ever made. The west coast of Canada is paradise to me.
 

My life has really changed since I got back. I am in school on Sundays in Vancouver – taking an MCAT prep course as I’ve signed up to write the exam on April 9th. So yes I know it’s still 6 months away, but I still study about 3-5 hours a day. I love it. I love school. I will be applying for medical school in the fall so I guess it’s important that I love it! On top of that I am working at the Trattoria di Umberto Italian restaurant. It’s pretty fun and a great way to meet locals. I go running pretty much every day because I love it, not cause I have to. Last week I did my longest run ever of 1 hour 45 minutes and ran a total of 73km (in the week that is). Oh and NOTHING is flat here so I guess I’m getting pretty good at running uphill. The trails are incredible too. What I do not have though is any speed. I ran a 9.5km road race in Vancouver yesterday and wow… that was interesting. After 8 weeks of nothing faster than 12-13km/hr, 3:45min/km pace felt like death. After 2km I slowed it down to 4min/km and decided a “tempo” run was a better idea HAHA.

As for training, it’s off-season so I’m doing what I please. I do have a strength trainer so am lifting weights 2x a week, and obviously running. I am trying to get to the pool as well but my sciatica has been bad so my heel goes numb pretty quick when I swim and I have to get out. I was biking but it’s got really cold now. The snow will be here soon. The mountain should open for skiing in a few weeks time. I am stolked. I will stay fit with lots of cross country skiing this winter. Maybe you’ll see me on the 70.3 scene next year.

Oh and I was a candy cane for Halloween ☺