The Journey of a Lifetime...

New Job!!

2011-08-25T11:31:00.000-07:00

MOVING TO EDMONTON! Yes, that's right.. -40 degree winters here I come! Oh crap.. not sure what I've got myself in to haha :) But aside from the cold winters, I am really excited about joining a research team at the University of Alberta in the field of Nutritional Epidemiology. While volunteering in Africa I did 2 weeks research with two Nutritional Epidemiologists from Edmonton (total coincidence). Gita and Nonsi were hired as part of a diet study to do a dietary analysis in the rural Zulu communities surrounding the charity I was volunteering for. Gita, my new boss, is an Endowed Chair in Aboriginal Health, and Professor of Aboriginal and Global Health Research at the University of Alberta, Department of Medicine. Their main focus is studying and analyzing the diets in aboriginal communities (they have done a lot of work with the Inuit in Alaska and the Arctic) and developing countries, and connecting them to chronic disease prevalence. I am very interested and passionate about both nutrition and health care, so to get this job offer was a dream come true! I will be moving/starting work in mid-September.

Gita in South Africa

Gita, Nonsi and I on a hippo cruise.

So what am I doing in the mean time?

Well.. today I woke up after 10.5 hours sleep and moved to the couch to watch some FOOD channel. My 3 weeks summer holiday has officially begun.

Last Saturday I finished the biochem course I was taking at UBC. Thank goodness it's over.. I swear it was making me stupider. Some days after studying all day I would say the dumbest things.. and I started giggling a lot at things that weren't funny (kinda like I used to do everyday). I think it must be a side-effect of doing a 6-credit (full-year) course in 6 weeks.

I spent my first day of summer at Brohm Lake in Squamish with some friends... beer and burger and bbq equipped! I'll be sticking around BC until after the Gran Fondo on September 10th. The Gran Fondo is a 130km road ride from Vancouver to Whistler. 2 weeks "crash training" started on Monday... so far so good!

Oh and I'm in Victoria for 5 days.. so if you'd like to go for coffee, or a bike ride, or a run, or a beer? I have copious amounts of free time and would probably love to see you... shoot me an email!

Victoria!

2011-08-14T08:17:00.000-07:00

I am currently in Victoria for the weekend, and it's been so far so good!! It's so great that summer has finally arrived, and although I am studying every day, at least I get out for a couple hours and get to enjoy it! I only have one more week left of biochemistry 300 at UBC. So far it's gone really well - I've had 2 of 3 exams, and the final one is next Saturday evening!!

On Friday my dad met me at the ferry to pick up my backpack, and I rode the coastal route (2.5 hours) back to his house. It was so nice to ride on the the island again, and the evenings with the sun going down is one of my favorite times to ride! Yesterday I took a pretty chill day and just studied and went to the moss street market! We picked up these lamb shanks which we cooked in my dad's SUN OVEN all afternoon (see above)!! How cool is that?? Just with solar energy we were able to maintain a temperature of 300 degrees for about 4 hours!! The meat was fall-off-the-bone delicious!

I then headed over to the track to see Marilyn run a 3km TT at a local track event. The sun went down and it got SO cold that my friend Jess and I had watch the race from the car. We just pulled up next to the track and rolled down our windows every lap to cheer!! I also got to see a bunch of great tri friends last night at Sharpe's bbq! I got there just as people were starting to head out which was too bad, but at least I got to see everyone and catch up a little bit. I'll have to be more organized the next time I come and actually plan to see people a bit better!

... just getting ready for bed and bringing my water with me (I think I have a drinking problem!)

some days don't go as planned..

2011-07-28T15:28:00.000-07:00

I feel like I need to write a post because my day is feeling a little heck-tick. I was trying to get home from class quickly today on my bike because there was a lot I wanted to get done this afternoon. I was halfway home when my crank arm almost completely fell of my bike (cross bike).

Seriously?

Thank god there was a bike shop at the bottom of the hill that I jet into. Unfortunately the crank arm is worn out and I have to order another one, which potentially means having to take the bus to school tomorrow.. or potentially means riding my bike equipped with tools to fix it if it comes loose again.

I'm feeling a little tired because I ran 60km in 4 days, including a 20km workout with Shauna in the park. We ran 12km as 6* 1km 3:45 pace, 1km 4.15 pace. Well that was the goal anyways, but of course we did our first km in 3.33 and then our first recovery km in 4minutes and after km 3 I was pretty much spent. That was my second run workout since the Sun Run! The first was last week - 6x1km with 2 min rest. That one went a little bit better. I averaged 3.30's and didn't blow up. Not bad for my first workout I'd say.

So anyways yesterday I decided would be a recovery day. I hadn't been out on my road bike in a while so I text my friend Steve to see if he wanted to go for a spin. Of course he suggested we ride out to Horseshoe Bay and back, so my recovery spin turned into a 2hr hilly ride! The whole time I was thinking why am I doing this? haha but it was super fun.

africa, and since..

2011-07-22T22:01:00.000-07:00

I realize I never gave a final update on my last few weeks in Africa, and this will be a short recap. I spent my last two weeks helping with a research project for a diet study on colorectal cancer prevalence in African American vs. African populations. I was helping out with the dietary analysis side of the study, and working with two amazing Nutritional Epidemiologists currently basing their research out of the University of Alberta Department of Medicine in Edmonton. Here I am with Gita and Nonsi on "Hippopotamus Cruise!!"

We worked really hard to get all the data input and ready for analysis, and then took a little vacation back to the game reserve! The best part about the trip this time round was sitting on the porch at night with a glass of wine and seeing hyena's walking literally right past us (like 2 meters away!). It was SO scary, but also really cool because we lived to tell the tale. (This is the best shot I got because I was fumbling with my camera making sure I wasn't going to die in the process of taking a picture).

Since getting home I spent 10 days in Whistler putting in medical school applications, and am still only half way through! They are so much work, but hopefully it will all pay off in the end :)

For the past two weeks I have been living in Vancouver with my friend Chessa and her husband Matt. I am right on Pacific and Burrard downtown and am LOVING it. I am taking a biochemistry course at UBC which is currently creating turmoil in my life, but it's only 6 weeks long so I'm already 1/3 done!! I have my first exam on Monday worth 37% and I have to memorize the structures of all 20 amino acids, and be able to draw out every reaction in glucose metabolism (there are about 20!), including structures, names, enzymes, etc etc. It's seriously insane. What a fun week I have ahead of me:) Overall though I'd rather be here than in Whistler because I have friends to run with every morning in Stanley Park! Wow have I ever missed my running partners!

I have also been biking quite a bit because I'm doing the Gran Fondo in September. On the weekend I rode 110 km from Whistler to Squamish and back. It was fun, but seriously put my back in a world of pain for 3 days. I guess I should have built up to that a little better!

Okay that's all for now.. I need my beauty sleep for a 6:30am run/weights so I can be in the library by 9:30!!

Africa Update!

2011-06-18T03:47:00.000-07:00

It's definitely time for an update, but I have a good reason for the delay. Unfortunately I caught I stomach flu last weekend and was vomiting, nauseous, and lay in bed for about 2 days with no energy. I went to the doctor though and got some meds and I have made a full recovery. It was so bad the day I went to the doctor I had to sit down and rest during the 100m walk from the doctor's office to the pharmacy to pick up my presciption! Anyways.. I am alive and well.

So lots has been going on with the diet study and I have been jumping in and helping out as much as possible. The picture below is me in the field collecting stool samples (not me) of the subject and doing breath tests, questionnaires etc etc.

Above is a picture of the 3 subjects (sitting on the ground) and two of the people helping me collect data.

This picture below is a different day out in the field doing HIV, BP and diabetes screening. We went to the most amazing community way out in the countryside. I got to drive the 4x4 out here and there were a few hills I wasn't sure if I would get up! It was so beautiful with a mountain right behind all the huts that I decided to hike up!! Two ladies joined me but they only made it half way and then I ran the rest of the way and took pictures from the top. It took 40 minutes to get to the top and the view was amazing!! This picture below is one of the ladies who lives in the community we were doing the screening at. She really wanted her picture taken. All of the community members love it when you ask for their picture so I don't feel shy about bringing out my camera anymore. Lots of the women put clay on their faces to protect them from the sun.

The picture below is some of the community members whom we screened.

It still fascinates me how all the women carry things on their heads so easily. This is three community members arriving at the screening site.

This picture below is me half way up the mountain. The two ladies I was with stopped at this point so we got some great photos. The view was incredible.

Here are the two women who came with me. I was so impressed they made it this far, and also so impressed they expressed interest in coming!!

The view from the top!

This is just a pretty picture of the road out of the community from the back of the 4x4 on our way home.

Last weekend we went to the Umpholozi Game Reserve. This was my first safari so despite vomiting a few times it was incredible. I went with Kate and 2 girls from England who run a charity and raise money for Kate to give out food every month. They were incredible women and young (28 and 30) so we had a great time. This is a picture of me leaning out the window of Kate's car at the end of our game drive the first night. We saw so many animals - giraffes, wild dog (very rare), vultures, white rhino, warthog, zebras, lots of elephants, crocodiles, turtles, buck, and baboons.

We were in and amongst about 10 elephants, including babies! Kate had her foot on the gas ready to accelerate out of there if any of them showed interest in flipping our cars! We were trying to be still and be "one with the car," but that's always difficult with a 2 year old and 5 year old in the car haha!!

This giraffe was so close I thought he was going to put his head in my window!

Since the weekend I have been very involved with the diet study. A team has arrived from Edmonton (small world) for the diet study. Gita is the lead lady and has a PhD in nutritional epidemiology. They have been out in the field collecting 24 hour recall data on 80 community members. They ask them to recall everything they ate the day before. I have inputed all the data into an excel spreadsheet for them and will be doing as much as I can to help with their research during my time left here. I find it fascinating and am excited to learn more about what they do. I may even have my name published on a few papers by the time I leave here!!

My battery is dying so I am going to end this here. I hope it makes sense I was typing fast!!

South Africa Week 2: Volunteering with Izulu Orphan Projects

2011-06-05T14:45:00.000-07:00

I just had the most incredible "holiday" weekend in Umhlanga, a northern suburb of Durban, South Africa. I spent the weekend at Rick and Anita's (the doctors who work with IOP) house. They had organized a weekend away for a friend's birthday party, and their son's (14 and 17) were busy studying for exams, so I was on my own but I had no problem entertaining myself in this ritzy little resort town. I ran lots (36km to be exact), lay on the beach, boogie boarded in massive waves, went to the cinema, went out for dinner, went shopping, and watched both the men's and women's WCS triathlon races live online from Madrid. Woo go Paula (she won)!!

This weekend was a little escape from reality for me. I saw and experienced so much working in the communities around Kate's farm last week that really shocked me. Some of the living conditions and poverty I experienced were nothing I'd ever seen before. It leaves this empty feeling inside you knowing that there are people living like this...

At this particular hut (above) there was one "gogo" (zulu for grandmother) and 5 kids. None of the kids had shoes, or pants that weren't ripped to shreds, the dogs were so skinny you could see their skeleton, and there was no chicken coop to separate where the chicken's lived from where the human's lived. So yes.. there was chicken shit everywhere - even inside the huts. Imagine if this is all you had.

This adorable girl's grandmother was very sick. We were walking from hut to hut doing HIV, blood glucose, and blood pressure testing when we came upon her. She was in bed and not looking good. The family couldn't afford to get her to a clinic so we organized to pick her up the next day. She ended up getting safely to and from hospital courtesy of an IOP worker. If we hadn't stopped by she wouldn't have got any help and the family wouldn't have known to call anyone.

This was quite interesting for me to witness. The health workers and CWP (community works program) workers I was spending my day with on Thursday decided they wanted to eat some meat. So they started building this little fire right in the field we were in and brought out this bag of frozen meat to cook. It doesn't look like the most appetizing or hygienic meal, but curiosity got the better of me and I have to admit I did try some.

This (above) was on Tuesday last week. I had to finish one of these health worker's diabetes training (sign off that she had watched all the videos and passed a written test). This picture was taken after the training was over and we were walking to another hut to set up health screening for the rest of the afternoon. These girls are so enthusiastic about their jobs as health workers. It's great to know there are people who care that live in these communities and are doing their best to help others.

This is one of the health workers all set up do screening. Rick and Anita have set all these girls up with collapsible tents and chairs so testing can be done in comfort and privacy.

This is how we get around! Riding the back of the 4x4 on these dirt roads is so much fun! I always get offered the front seat, but riding in the back is so much more adventurous!!

This is a really neat project put on the by the CWP workers. They have planted community gardens in all of the various communities so people can have access to fresh grown veggies. This is Kitiwe and I in the garden. Kitiwe works for IOP and was a great help organizing my week last week. I wouldn't have been able to do it alone because I don't speak Zulu (I know 3 words)!

An Incredible Week with Izulu Orphan Projects (edited with pictures)

2011-05-29T09:28:00.000-07:00

I don't even know where to begin. There are so many incredible things going on here with IOP that I have had the opportunity to get involved with. Kate has been an incredible host so far, and what she has going on with IOP and the direction it is headed is so exciting!

Kate and I in Durban.

I'll start with last weekend. Kate took me to Durban to her parents house for her mom's birthday party. I saw the big soccer stadium built for the World Cup, and we spent Sunday morning lying on the beach!! I just kept thinking about how cold Whistler was before I left and was grateful for that!!

Jedd (Kate's oldest son) and me on the beach.

Sunday evening was my first experience seeing the huts that the blacks here live in in the area surrounding Kate's farm. At first I was shocked, it was just so different from anything I have ever seen before. Since then I have driven through many of the orphan villages and I'm starting to get used to it. It was definitely eye opening for me.

These are the huts from a distance.

On Monday I helped put together 210 food packages for the category 1 (lowest income) families that are supported by IOP. A food package included soup bases, canned fish, canned vegetable curry, peanut butter, cooking oil, vaseline, shoe polish, toothpaste, soap, brown sugar, tea, uncooked beans and a large bag of maize meal. We had women visiting the house all day picking up their food packages and I helped hand them out. Some of these women would have walked over an hour to Kate's farm and would then have walked the same distance back home, all the while balancing a large 25kg bag of maize meal on their heads and carrying their other groceries. I wish I was that talented!!

Kate also showed me current database being used by IOP and the new improved one she is working on. It was all so impressive and very extensive! Hopefully in the near future IOP will have Ipads for all the health workers and doctors to make collecting health data so much easier for all. The ideas bouncing around this place just make me realize how different and innovative this project is from anything else in the world.

Food Packages for the IOP members

IOP members lining up for their food packages.

I spent the rest of the week working with doctors, Rick and Anita. Rick and Anita are training 4 or 5 "health workers" in all the different orphan communities that IOP is supporting. The health workers are females ranging from late teens to early thirties that are interesting in making a difference in their communities. Rick and Anita have trained them to do HIV testing, blood glucose testing, and blood pressure testing. They have set them all up with their personal testing kits and the health workers go out into their communities and test anyone and everyone who wants it. Anita taught me to do the tests as well, so over the next few weeks I will be going out with the health workers and making sure the testing is going okay.

As well as the HIV, blood glucose and blood pressure screening, Rick and Anita were looking to expand their screening to include BMI testing and also educating the communities about obesity, diabetes, and healthy eating. They had made some starts with it and we actually spent two mornings last week in the communities educating the health workers. After many exciting discussions with Anita I took on the role of coming up with a training plan for the health workers. I just finished it this evening. Soon the health workers will be going out into their communities and measuring BMI, educating on obesity and diabetes, and analyzing people's diets and giving suggestions for healthier eating plans.

In one of the community gardens where these women are growing sunflowers for sunflower oil production.

This week another doctor has arrived for a diet study. I will be going out to the hospital with him tomorrow for the colonoscopies (I hope I don't have to watch!). I looks like an interesting study but I'll write more about it when I know more about it. It will be going on for the next month so I'm sure I will be busy helping out with that. On Tuesday this week I am meeting one of the health workers on my own to finish her diabetes and blood sugar testing training. I will then be joining her in the communities doing HIV and blood glucose screening. Needless to say I have been busy, but it's all very exciting. I have tons of pictures, but it's dinner time.. so another time!

Day 1 with Izulu Orphan Projects

2011-05-20T11:19:00.000-07:00

It's been a long journey but here I am, in Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa. The trip went well - as good as a 55 hour trip can possibly be and better. I had 21 hours of flight time to catch up on some relaxation, good movies, and reading, split up with a 24-hour tour of Amsterdam and a 5-hour sleep in Johannesburg.

After a 90-minute drive from Durban this morning I arrived at Kate's farm, my home for the next 6 weeks. Kate's land contains both her house as well as the offices for Izulu Orphan Projects. I spent the day with the crew that work here and it was a super-fun-filled day of African adventures:) The guys piled into the back of a 4x4 and we took off (thank god I love driving fast) into town to pick up about $7000 worth of groceries for the orphans. After loading it all into the back of two massive trucks the guys climbed up on top of all the food and we took off again back to Kate's. At the farm we all worked together to unload the food. Next week about 550 orphan families will come pick up a food package that will hopefully last them most of the month. This a monthly project with Izulu Orphan Projects, so I was lucky to arrive today and be able to be some help on my first day!

SOUTH AFRICA!

2011-05-10T16:40:00.000-07:00

In 7 days I will be on a flight to Kwa-Zulu Natal province in South Africa. My plans to travel to Uganda changed abruptly last week, but I will be still be sending 2 boxes of sporting equipment and children's books to the school I had organized to volunteer at. I held a fundraiser on May 1st to raise some funds and collect material items I could take with me to the school in Uganda. It was a very successful evening and I am excited to load 2 boxes of goodies into a container that will be leaving for Uganda on Saturday. Special thanks to Pat and Brenda Montani for helping me organize my trip and the fundraiser, and to chef James Buchanan for volunteering to cater the evening and keeping everyone happy with delicious food!! And of course thanks to everyone who attended the evening and showed their support!

I will now be traveling to South Africa to live on a farm owned by an amazing women called Kate. Kate and her husband founded Izulu Orphan Projects (IOP) in 2006 and it has evolved into something extraordinary. I still don't know a lot about it, but I guess I will be finding out soon on a first-hand basis. I will be living on Kate's farm for 6 weeks. Izulu Orphan Projects currently has 330 orphaned villages on file and this year are schooling and providing uniforms for 850 orphans. IOP also supports the villages with basic food and clothing. With never having been to Africa, this is going to be a crazy experience!

SUN RUN FUN!

2011-04-19T15:26:00.000-07:00

On Sunday I ran in the Vancouver Sun Run. I've only ran the Sun Run once before, but it's always a great event with so much energy. Over 50,000 people ran!! Initially I wasn't going to race because up until 10 days before I hadn't ran faster than 5min per km pace since October!! But then I thought who cares! I wasn't about to pass up the opportunity to run in such a great event just because my preparation wasn't as thorough as I'm used to! I had fun doing some cram training sessions in the 10 days before the race. In the end I ran as I expected I would - 38.22.

Race morning: killing time with my roomie Melissa Ross.

Catching up with my red head triathlete friends at the post race brunch! Unfortunately Lucy wasn't allowed in the picture because her hair was not red.

Ice cream sundae making station = best post-race elite brunch EVER. Too bad I can't eat ice cream!

Brent and I pigging out.

My brain hurts

2011-03-30T19:43:00.000-07:00

You know you've been studying too long when you can't remember your password to access your blog!! Wow.

I'm sitting in Blenz trying to study, clearly unsuccessfully. I wrote a 5.5 practice MCAT this morning though so maybe thinking I could study a few more hours today was a bit too optimistic. The good news is that I did pretty well on the exam. Actually I pretty much aced one section (biological sciences), but am still having difficulty finishing the physical sciences and verbal reasoning sections. I keep running out of time and it's killing me! I only have 10 days until the exam so I am starting to freak out a little bit! I'll only do 2 more full length tests before the actual test day so I'm starting to feel the pressure. It certainly didn't help when I checked my phone messages today and there was a message notifying me that my scheduled test date had been canceled!! Talk about stress! It all got sorted out though, they just moved my location from UVic to Camosun College.

So yes that means a visit to Victoria in the near future!

p.s. Blenz has the best hot chocolate EVER: melted belgian dark chocolate in steamed almond milk!! Best 5 bucks ever spent!

Stand Tall Education

2011-03-09T13:41:00.000-08:00

Nicole, who set up the Stand Tall Education School in Uganda just sent me the school newsletter. There are so many great things happening and positive additions being made to the school. I am so excited to be going to be a part of it. The link to the newsletter is below (I'm in it!)

http://standtalleducation.com/2011/03/06/march-comes-in-like-a-lion/

One Month Tomorrow..

2011-03-08T23:11:00.000-08:00

I write the biggest exam of my life!

I have now been studying for 5 months, have done numerous practice tests, have read 5 textbooks (300+ pages each) from cover to cover, and somehow, somehow, this test could still kick my ass. Oh dear. But actually I am feeling fairly confident because I have now got through all the material and I still have a month to go to do practice tests. It feels so good to see the finish line, no matter how scary it may seem!!

In other good news my achilles is finally better so I have started running again. My back is not such a happy story, but I guess that's old news. My sciatica has been flared up recently and my heel was numb for about 5 days straight. I have been on prescription antibiotics to try to settle it down and they seem to be working. I can't swim or bike until it settles down so cross country skiing is honestly saving my life right now.

On Friday I am going back to Van for 3 days and I am so excited because I can finally run with the girls again and Vancouver is so beautiful at 6am along the seawall!! I am staying at my mom's new apartment in Yaletown (which is unfurnished so I will be on a foamy on the floor). Soon it will be rented so this might be the only time I actually get to sleep in it! I am also picking up 7 pieces of luggage from the airport that have been shipped from Ireland, including my cross bike!! I can't even remember what are in the other bags.. I packed them in September in a hurry!

I am also currently planning a fundraiser for my volunteer trip to Africa.. but more news on that later!

A New Face.

2011-02-10T21:55:00.000-08:00

I realize I haven't been updating my blog very much recently. I've always thought of this as a training blog, and since my energy is being focused elsewhere at the moment, I haven't haven't had much to write about training.

My number one priority right now is studying for the MCAT. I've been studying for 4 months, and have 2 more to go. Man oh man I can't wait for this test to be over. I do love studying.. but not this much!! The only good thing about studying in Whistler is that my study breaks consist of snow running (well.. until I hurt my achilles) or cross country skiing. The bad thing about studying in Whistler is how much fun goes on around me that I can't participate in because I'm chained to my desk (not literally). Once this test is done I just have one more course to take this summer at UBC to complete my medical school prereq's. Then I'll have a year of fun next year :)

My original plan was to race 70.3 this summer, and I thought I could do some racing in May and June, between the MCAT and my course at UBC in July. However, I quickly learned that studying full time, working, and volunteering, does not leave enough hours in the day for full time triathlon training. So 70.3 will have to be put on hold until the fall. That's okay though - I think I need a mental and physical break from full time training, and I am so excited to be pursuing some of my other goals in life.

For instance, I just booked a flight to Uganda, Africa today. I am going to volunteer for 5 weeks at a school called Stand Tall (http://standtalleducation.com/). I have been asked to start a phys ed program with the kids and will also be helping out where I can in the classrooms. What a cool experience!!

Well that's long enough for a first blog post in a while. But I'm going to try to update more often because so many cool and exciting things are going on and I want to share them :) Hopefully someone will be interested enough to read haha!

Fun Fun and more Fun!!

2010-12-22T21:33:00.000-08:00

I haven't been updating my life story recently.. I guess I've been really busy and having too much fun!!

Above are my tracks down Lakeside Bowl on 7th Heaven a couple days ago with a friend. We traversed for about 10 minutes for these fresh tracks.. but it was so worth it - what a great powder day! We're having tons of snow in Whistler right now, and lots more to come in the next few days which will make for a super duper day of skiing on Christmas day :)

Today I skiied with a girl who is totally blind in one eye and partially blind in the other. She was amazing.. great attitude and amazing skiier. It was pretty neat to see.

I wasn't sure how much fitness I would be able to maintain this winter.. so far it's been no problem at all! The pool is always empty, I can xc ski outside my doorstep, AND I just discovered YakTrax and am so enjoying snow running right now!!

Ooo and "Locke" from Lost was dining in the restaurant where I work last night! That was pretty cool!

Happy Holidays :)

SNOW!!

2010-11-17T16:25:00.000-08:00

This morning was like Christmas come early: it was DUMPING snow outside my window!! I tried to get a picture but snow flakes don't really show up that well on camera! Anyways Whistler mountain officially opens on Friday (2 days!!) so I am very excited to get up on the hill VERY SOON!

I guess my outdoor running will be decreasing substantially over the next few months to be replaced by cross country skiing and the treadmill (which, thankfully, I love).

I applied and got accepted as a volunteer with the Adaptive Ski Program this winter. It's a learn to ski program for disabled skiiers. I will be a volunteer instructor and as a result get a free season pass up the mountain.

I also was nominated into the Golden Key International Honour Society for academic excellence (graduating in the top 15% of my Kinesiology class) at UVic, which is pretty cool and sounds fancy!

2010: A Year to Remember.

2010-11-01T20:56:00.000-07:00

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 ☺

Vegan Spelt Nut Bread, Kale Almond Pesto, and the Terry Fox Run!

2010-09-23T15:01:00.000-07:00

Alex introduced me to Elana's Pantry online recipe site last weekend. Today I made the Kale Almond Pesto. It was SO easy and so delicious. On the weekend Alex and I attempted to make grain-free carrot cake cupcakes for Brent's 30th birthday party, and lets just say they didn't exactly cook all the way through (but we left them in 20 minutes extra!) Not to blame Elana though, we didn't exactly follow the recipe to a T and I think my flax eggs were flawed! The icing was also a bit of a disaster but we managed to fix it with copious amounts of icing sugar and almond flour haha. The good thing was after a couple glasses of wine they tasted absolutely delicious so nobody really noticed the raw center or overly sweet icing :)

I also made Vegan Spelt Nut Bread today and it was delicious too!! Recipe HERE.

FIREMEN? Helllllo.

The most impressive part about the Terry Fox run in Whistler last weekend were the firemen who ran the entire 7.2km in their fire-kit!! Good thing it wasn't a hot day! The run was on trails around lost lake. I ran it hard just because I am incapable of not trying. I think I was the only person actually "racing" it though which was funny. Then we went to the Sunday market and got some vegan pumpkin bread and fresh veggies :) hmm I love Whistler :)

The Chief...

2010-09-09T20:34:00.001-07:00

haha.. sasquatch!

Home Sweet Home.

2010-09-06T16:22:00.000-07:00

I'm back in my favorite place in the world - WHISTLER!! My last week has been absolutely crazy, but I'm so happy to be here. Last Sunday I raced in Holland at the Almere European Cup. It was another race in torrential rain and severe wind and I was happy when it was over. I had a great time though, despite the poor race, and Bryan was a great roomie :)
On Monday I flew to Zurich and took the train back into the Swiss Alps to Pontresina, where some of the irish team was still training. I had left most of my stuff there so I had to go back, but I made the decision I was not going to stay and on Tuesday flew back to Belfast. I spent most of my day on Wednesday packing my things and at 4:20PM called Air Canada to ask if I could get on a plane to Vancouver on Thursday (the next day). The lady I talked to was extremely helpful but there was no flight to Heathrow early enough for me to make the 11am flight to Vancouver. "Can you get on a flight tonight at 7?" "Um it's 4:20 now.. sure why not!" SO I spent 5 consecutive nights in 5 different countries and arrived in Vancouver on Thursday smiling from ear to ear. Al picked me up from the airport and we drove to Squamish to meet my mom when she got off work.
Man I love this place. I had planned to take some time off, but have already been out for 2 rides, a couple trail runs, and even competed in my first XTerra relay (swim and run) since I arrived!! It's so nice to get back to exercising for the enjoyment of it. It can be easy to get caught up in what your trying to accomplish and forget the reasons why you started the sport in the first place.Mel McQuaid was in Whistler for the Canadian XTerra Championships this weekend. Apparently as far as XTerra goes it was a pretty knarly course, but I guess being in Whistler that's to be expected. On Saturday morning she asked me if I wanted to do a relay with her partner, Ross. He would do the mountain biking if I swam and ran. I signed up right away - I LOVE trail running!! It was so much fun and I had a big smile on my face the whole way. It was an 11km run on some pretty sketchy mountain bike trails. I took the downhills pretty conservative as I didn't want to break an ankle, and just made sure not to walk on any of the uphills (although it was pretty tempting!!).

I'll definitely have to do more of these!

Mel and I at the finish (she won).

My good friend Shauna came up to Whistler last night for a visit. We went out for an hour hilly trail run this morning around Lost Lake. It was so much fun, but after the 11km race yesterday I am SO sore now I can barely walk!! Ah the price you have to pay for adventure :)

This is a pretty sweet picture I took at the top of a climb in the Swiss Alps. It was a tough climb but so worth the view at the top!

Gavin Noble with coach Chris and support team Martina and Ricky.

A beautiful lake in St. Moritz, Switzerland. It reminded me of Whistler.

This was in Almere the night before the race.

exciting developments in the life of kerry spearing...

2010-09-02T01:39:00.000-07:00

to be continued...

A few relevant notes:
1) I have been in 4 different countries in the past 4 days
2) I am about to enter my 5th in a few hours.
3) This is day 4 of airports and flights.
4) I am way to excited to be bored of flying by this point!
5) I couldn't sleep last night - too excited.

Adventures in Switzerland

2010-08-17T10:53:00.000-07:00

Okay this place is amazing... first day in Pontresina. Apart from feeling a little bit dizzy I'm so happy to be here. We ran 14km uphill this morning, from 1800 meters elevation to 3300 meters!! That would be 1.5km of elevation gain... maybe that's why I felt dizzy ha! Then we swam in the lake which I'm pretty sure just melted buurrrrr.

Here's my Geneva race report.. written yesterday on the train...

I am currently sitting on the train from Geneva to Pontresina, a town in the swiss Alps. I will be based in Pontresina for 3 weeks to do some altitude training. I will be joined by teammate Aileen Morrison, coach Chris Jones, physiologists Ricky and Declan, physiotherapist Dierdre, Gavin Noble, Conor Murphy and Martina. I am really looking forward to spending time with all these wonderful people and it’s sure to be an excellent camp! It will also be my first time training at altitude so I’ll definitely learn a lot about myself!

I have been in Swizterland for a few days now as I raced the Geneva European Cup yesterday. I finished 8th, not a bad result, and my first top-10 of the season. Maybe I’m being hard on myself, but I have to admit that I am more disappointed than I am excited about my race. Things seemed to go either horribly badly, or very good. I can’t help but think where I might have finished if I had done everything that went horribly badly to my potential, or at least a little bit better than I did them!

I guess it was the first 30 minutes of my race that went horribly badly. It was absolutely pouring down before the start. I got in for a 5 minute swim warm up but we all got called out of the water 5 minutes before the men’s start, and the women started 5 minutes after that. So needless to say I was pretty cold by the time we actually got going. I had an okay start but got sandwiched between 2 people for a few hundred meters and kind of panicked a bit. I know it’s part of the race to have people around and I should be used to it by now, but I just couldn’t get clear water or a clean breath of air and I let it get to me. Next thing I knew the pack had got away and I was on my own in no-mans-land. I tried to relax and find a rhythm for the rest of the swim but I lost a lot of time and exited the water well back of where I wanted to be (or should have been). My first transition was so bad it was almost embarrassing. I couldn’t get my wetsuit off (again) and lost another 20 seconds. Onto the bike things seemed to improve a bit, and the only thing that saved my race was a massive hill (about 2 minutes) that we had to go up 6 times. I haven’t done any hill-specific training on the bike this year, so I was a little nervous as to how I would do on the climb. To my pleasant surprise I ended up looking forward to the hill every lap. It was my favorite part of the race and I passed SO many people on that hill it was crazy!! I ended up soloing the entire 40km because every time I caught anyone and tried to form a pack the next time we got to the hill I would drop them. I biked in no-mans-land between the first and second chase packs. The second chase pack caught me at the beginning of the last lap so I thought that since I had rode about 35km on my own by that point I would sit in the group for the last lap. When we got to the hill I decided not to hammer it but just ride it steady so I could stay with the pack, but I looked behind me when I got to the top and there were no girls in sight! (I don’t mean to brag but it was kinda cool.. and I think I have to thank Michael my strength trainer for that!!). So I had to make the decision – do I wait for the pack and ride with them into T2? Or do I solo the last 3km and try to beat them into T2. I chose to ride solo because I didn’t like the thought of easing up and letting people catch me. Unfortunately the pack caught me a few hundred meters before transition.

At this point Jodie Swallow was way out in front, followed by a chase pack of maybe 10-15, and then my pack of about 7. I had another slow transition because my feet were totally numb, and exited onto the run well back probably in about 20th position at best. The first few hundred meters of run felt horrible, but then I started to feel pretty good and just starting passing girls one after the other. I ran my way into 6th position and realized I was running pretty well when I passed Jodie coming the other direction in the exact same spot 2 laps in a row! Two girls came by me in the last 200 meters and I couldn’t respond, which I guess could be seen as a good thing because it means I ran hard. I was happy to cross the line in 8th after such a horrible start to the race.

A day like yesterday really tests your mental strength and perseverance when things aren’t going well. It was pouring rain and freezing cold and it would have been so easy not to finish, especially after exiting the water so far back. I guess I could have used a bit more positive self-talk during the swim, but I was pleased with myself for turning things around for the better and not giving up.

Thanks for reading! Next update from the Alps!!!

p.s. my train just arrived in Lausanne!

p.p.s. Congrats to Aileen for finishing 16th in Kitzbuhel WCS yesterday, and Laura Casey for finishing 9th at the Youth Olympics (GO TEAM IRELAND!), and Paula for her amazing back-to-back WCS wins.

Chillin in Tizzy

2010-08-10T11:55:00.000-07:00

Things since the race have been... quiet. It's strange to experience Tiszuajvaros without the crazy loud parties right outside my hotel room window every night. Every year for the weekend of the Tizzy World Cup the entire town comes out to party and show their support. This really is a "triathlon town." So being here after all the loud speakers and live music and massive stage in the center of town has been taking down is a little different. I have spent my last few days recovering and training with some of the other athletes. Unfortunately my new found friends are leaving tomorrow for Kitzbuhel so I will be on my own for a few days before I leave on Friday for Geneva. I knew it was going to be a quiet week, but that's exactly why I planned it this way! Life can get busy and stressful at times, so maybe being stuck in a small town with not much to do but relax and recover and eat and train and watch movies and read is not such a bad thing every once in a while :)

Tiszuajvaros World Cup

2010-08-09T01:38:00.000-07:00

A good starting point. I am counting todays race as the start of my 2010 season. For the first time this season I stood on the start line knowing I deserved to be here. I was ready to be here. I was ready for my season to start. There is definitely a lot more work to do, in fact a lot is an understatement, but I’m happy with the start. I introduced intensity into my bike and run training for the first time this season only 3 weeks ago after Hamburg. Up until then I had only done base training during the winter followed by a slow increase in volume back to normal after my long recoup from injury. So for my first complete race effort of the season, and my first 10km run effort of the season, I am happy with how I raced.

I got off to a slow start. In fact the first 400 meters of the swim were so bad I knew I was near the back when I reached the first buoy. I just didn’t have any zing and almost felt lethargic. I’m not really sure why, maybe I didn’t warm up properly in the swim, but I tried to stay positive and started to feel much better as we headed back to the pontoon on the first lap. I slowly started making up places and felt better and better as the swim progressed. It was weird diving in for the second lap and actually passing people!! Normally I die a slow death in the second half of the swim so it’s great to see that all the endurance sets I do are finally paying off!! Maybe 6km swim practices aren’t a waste of time after all ☺

I exited the water and sprinted through T1 as fast as possible. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake I made in Athlone and get dropped in transition! Immediately on to the bike I felt really strong. I was in a small group of 5 athletes and we could see a very large pack of girls maybe 200 meters up the road. I rode really well, FINALLY! I just felt really strong the whole way and did tons of work to help pull my pack up to the leaders. I have felt so flat on the bike all season, so obviously adding the intensity into my training 3 weeks ago made a big big difference to how I can ride. Once we caught the lead pack just before the halfway point in the ride I just stayed out of trouble and hovered near the front (but not at the front) for the rest of the ride. I really biked hard to catch the pack so I needed to let my legs recover a bit.

I had a slow start to the run but was able to build as I went and passed a few girls in the last 5km. I have lots of work to do to get my run where it needs to be but I’ve started the process now and will look to build on that as the season progresses.

5 more races to go.

Now it’s time to recover and then get some sessions in this week before heading to Geneva for my next race next weekend. I’ll be here in Tizzy until Friday, and I’m sure I’ll be really bored by then, but at least I can relax. I brought lots of DVD’s and books to keep me occupied!

So I’ll either be writing lots more posts this week for something to do, or I’ll have nothing interesting to say because I’m on my own in the middle of nowhere.. in which case I might not write anything ☺

Pre-Race

2010-08-07T01:28:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is the Tiszuajvaros World Cup. I'm feeling pretty good so we'll see how it all pans out of the day.

So far my time in Hungary has been fun. I arrived at the airport on Thursday evening at 7:40 and after a very long shuttle wait I didn't get to my bed until 2am!!! oh dear. Anyways I did all my training yesterday and fit in a 2 hour nap. I caught up with Bryan at the race meeting so it's good to see he's doing well and enjoying his new training group in Davos. I also caught up with some friends from Canada which was fun. My coach from 2007, Craig Taylor, is here and he's one of my favorite people in triathlon so it was great to catch up. I also went for a ride with AMac, and Jeff Phillips and Andrew Yorke are here too. Andrew just got his first World Cup start tomorrow so all in all everyone is happy and feeling good!

Oh and AMac brought me a big tub of almond butter from Vic!! Thank you Andrew!!!! Seriously saved my breakfast this morning :)

Today is a movie day.. I'm just about finished Casino Royale but had to turn it off last night when I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer.. time to go finish!

Until after the race...

The Plan..

2010-08-03T12:40:00.000-07:00

Six races to go. My season is only just beginning. It's kind of strange to think it's already August and my season is just starting, but that's the way things seemed to work out this year. I don't think I have raced past August before, and usually at this stage in the year I am struggling to keep going and hold form through my last few races. Luckily for me I'll be able to race right into mid-October this year and I feel that I am only just getting into form and ready to go after a major (3 month) injury setback from mid-April to mid-July. The number of people who have supported me and helped me get through the last 3 months has been incredible so THANK YOU!! It sure wasn't easy being away from friends and family in Canada and being injured and not knowing how long things would take to settle down. I swear I thought I was going to have a numb heel for the rest of my life!!

This weekend I'll be racing the Tiszuajvaros World Cup in Hungary. I've had 2.5 weeks of solid training since my start at the Hamburg World Series race (which I really wasn't prepared for). After racing Tizzy I'll be going on to the Geneva European Cup in Switzerland the following weekend. From Geneva I will take the train to Pontresina for a 3 week training camp in the Swiss Alps. I will also be racing the Almere European Cup in the Netherlands during that time. So I have a busy 5 weeks of racing and training and traveling ahead of me, but I'm really looking forward to standing on some start lines with confidence in 2010!

Next post from Hungary....

Picture time!

2010-07-31T09:44:00.000-07:00

I realized I have not posted a picture in a very long time.. so I'm catching up all at once. Here a bunch of pics I just downloaded from my camera. In no particular order...

Me in Hamburg.

Hamburg Swim.

Taking in the gel. Chocolate Gu is best :)

This is in Athlone before Europeans.

My pretty bike in Hamburg.

Conor and Aileen post-race in Athlone.

My mom and Aileen outside the best Thai restaurant ever! (In Athlone).

Hamburg.

Men's Start.

Pre-race dinner in Hamburg. Emma, Aileen and I.

Ewww. The inside of my race suit after the swim!

Dierdre and Aileen celebrating 3rd place in Hamburg!

The view from Aileen's holiday home in Malin Head last weekend.

We picked mussels and oysters at the beach!

Aileen cleaning our picks in a puddle.

We did a tour of the Doagh Famine Village. Learning a little bit more about irish history!

I found a trap door!

Loving the thatched roofs!

How cute is that.

Aileen and I made dessert!!

Yes yes still doing my back stretch :)

Out on a 3.5 hour ride in Malin Head. What a beautiful place to live!

An amazing beach we passed on our ride in Malin Head.

Aileen and I in Athlone.

Malin Head

2010-07-22T12:49:00.000-07:00

That's where I'm off to tomorrow afternoon. Aileen has a holiday home in this mysterious place so we are going to spend the weekend. I am looking forward to it especially because of its apparent remoteness... no tv, no internet. It will be nice to escape the world of technology for a few days. Aileen has a day off on Saturday and I only have an easy 75min run so she says we can find something fun to do that day. I suggested we go see Sex and the City 2 because we both haven't seen it. Her reply was "Kerry, you clearly DON'T GET Malin Head do you." Obviously there is no cinema in Malin Head. Apparently there' just one bar. I guess that's all you really need.

My training partner is a SUPERSTAR!!!!

2010-07-18T10:11:00.000-07:00

Holy Crap. Before I get to my race today, congratulations to my training partner Aileen Morrison for finishing 3rd in Hamburg World Championship Series race. I have spent almost every day training with Aileen since December and she is such a great athlete and deserves this more than anyone. I can honestly say I have never been so emotional at a sporting event as I was watching her cross the line in 3rd today and watching the medal ceremony. No one deserves this more than she and she was in a state of complete shock and disbelief. She actually asked me if she was dreaming and I thought she might pass out before the interview crew could get to her!!! It definitely made up for my lack of a race, although I told myself going in that no matter what happened I was not going to get upset or disappointed as a long as I knew I went as hard as I could.

That's exactly what I did.. and it resulted in me going so lactic and getting so dizzy that I biked into the curb and fell over half way through the first lap of the bike and lay on the sidewalk for about 10 minutes. I tried not to be over-dramatic about it because I knew why it happened, so I told the 4 firemen that were surrounding me that I was fine and I would walk back to transition. But I guess they didn't trust me not to pass out so they insisted on driving me back with their lights flashing the whole way. HAHA!!

I wasn't going to mention this on my blog because I hate to make excuses but I guess it's relevant here... I had a virus a little while ago that has left me very anemic (low hemoglobin, not iron), and I am in the process of getting that all sorted out. That's why I knew I was fine (normally dizziness and biking into curbs doesn't mean fine)... I have been dizzy after every workout for the past 2 weeks so this was nothing new.

To be totally honest I was absolutely terrified about the swim before the race. My coach Chris Jones (amazing guy) really helped me get my head around being positive going into the swim today, but as positive as I was trying to be I was still terrified of coming out last!! My race plan for the swim was to treat it like it was only a 1000m swim, and just hold on for dear life in the last 500m. I executed the first 1000m to plan, having an amazing opening 500 meters, and an alright second 500m. Unfortunately I lost 25 seconds to the girls I was with at 1000m in the last 500m, but it certainly wasn't due to lack of effort. So I guess it's 2/3 there, but I'm confident my swim has improved so much from last year and once I get my bloods sorted out and my fitness back up things will be much better. I guess there's not much else to report since I didn't really get to bike or run.

Next up is Tizzy in 3 weeks. I am sooooo excited to get back to training now and get a good block of training in. Okay gotta go for dins! I'm sure I'll think of more to write soon and will post some pictures!!!

Hamburg

2010-07-17T07:15:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow will probably be the most competitive race I have ever done in my life. This is my first time to Hamburg and my first shot at a World Series race. I just watched some of the guys race which was quite exciting!! Lots of breakaways on the bike and an exciting run with Frodeno and Gomez battling for the win. Unfortunately I didn't see the finish but there's only so far I could walk with my own race to think about tomorrow. So now it's just sit, wait, relax, eat, and sleep, until it's the girls turn. I'm a little nervous and excited for tomorrow at the same time. I figure the best way to learn is to throw myself in the mix and to persevere. A lot can happen in 2 hours so we'll see how it all pans out tomorrow I guess. Okay now I'm just blabbering.. gonna go read my book (Serena Williams biography).

Until post-race...

Athlone European Championships

2010-07-05T08:13:00.001-07:00

Saturday’s race was about the process, not the outcome. Yes, obviously a good outcome would have preferred, but it didn’t happen that way. I finished 31st at the European Championships. I have never been so excited to get on a start line and race. Although it might not look like it, there were so many positives from the day. I have now “brushed out the cobwebs, and I will learn so much from this that I can take with me into my next race in 2 weeks time.

To give a short background into my preparation for the Championships, my last 2 months of training were no doubt less than ideal. For 4 weeks I only was able to swim 1km a day on my own, I didn’t bike for 2.5 weeks during that time period, and although I was running every day I had no intensity in my program what-so-ever. Although I probably lost some fitness during this time, I did have the quiet confidence that I had a great winter’s training behind me and that I would be able to bounce back fairly quickly once things with my back settled down a bit. Two weeks ago I started biking again, re-introduced intensity into my program, and was back swimming with the club. So as I said, Saturday was about the process of racing again, pain-free, and going hard from start to finish with a positive attitude, more than trying to place well at the European Championships (as nice as that might have been racing in my home country).

My swim was good. I paced myself well and kept calm. Starting the second lap I was leading the chase group. I did fade a little bit on the second lap but stuck to the feet of some girls and exited the water with the pack. My biggest mistake of the entire race happened in T1, as I spent too much time fumbling with my wetsuit trying to find the string on the zipper as I ran up the ramp, instead of sprinting my ass off to make sure I was going to make the pack. I got on the bike and saw the pack form about 50 meters in front of me. The first 1km of the race was a technical section through the city center and I never did catch the pack!!! I looked behind me to see 2 girls closing in so I waited for them. We formed a pack of 3 and worked as hard as we could but the lead pack of 17 and chase pack of 10 were working too well for us to make any gains. On lap 3 I rode over a pothole and my seat post slid down 3 centimeters. I still had 5 laps to go and for a minute didn’t know how I was going to manage to bike in such a bunched, uncomfortable position. Then I decided I was finishing the damn race no matter what so I put my head down and did the best I could. I had lost my pack of 2 as I couldn’t generate much power, and was just determined to finish the bike as fast as I could without hurting my back, which is very sensitive to any change in position. I got off the bike and seriously don’t know if I would have bothered finishing if it wasn’t for the amazing support from the crowd. They cheered so loud for me the whole way. I didn’t run fast, but I didn’t really push myself either. I just focused on holding form and running efficiently.

I was so happy afterwards that I finished. I needed to finish in order to learn from this and move forward. Now I know where I’m at and what I need to do. The seat post needs to be sorted (I got a new bike frame last week that doesn’t seem to like my old seat post), and I need to practice swimming hard and then running hard as my race was lost in T1.
Overall it was a fun weekend and the support was incredible. My back held up and I swam with some decent swimmers. Although I made some stupid mistakes and had a little bit of back luck I am confident that I will take these lessons with me into the rest of the season.

YAY GREAT NEWS!!!

2010-07-02T06:11:00.000-07:00

I just found out I'm on the start list for Hamburg. I needed to get in by today in order to pull out of Holten World Cup in time. This allows me an extra week to recover from Athlone before racing again.
Also I have to thank Argon 18 for sending me out a new bike frame after mine got cracked on a flight, and for Blue Seventy who are sending me a race suit :)

Happy times.

A Quick Hello from Athlone

2010-07-01T13:55:00.001-07:00

It's two days until the European Championships in Athlone and I'm feeling good. It's so weird having such a big race so close to home. Aileen and I drove to Athlone yesterday in just over 3 hours and the whole team is now here and feeling good. We have 3 elite women, 3 elite men, and 3 juniors on the start list which is very exciting for such a small country. We also have the biggest support crew I have ever seen which is pretty neat and motivating that so many people want to be a part of the event this weekend and cheer us on. Today I had a good look at the course and LOVE the bike route. It will suit me well I think, and I'm just so excited to actually be racing again after 6 weeks of rehab for my back. Well that's it for now it's bed time here! Rest day tomorrow and then RACE DAY :)

Numbers

2010-06-20T06:49:00.000-07:00

7- days until my mom arrives!
13 - number of days she will be here for :)
13 - days until I race!
60 - number of kilometers I ran this week.
1 - day until the start of Wimbledon
28 - number of kilometers I swam this week
10.5 - number of hours I slept last night
3 - average number of "core activation" sessions I do in one day
15 - number of Cosmic Power Cookies (Planet Organic) I baked on Friday night
3 - number of Cosmic Power Cookies I ate within 30 minutes of them coming out of the oven.
3 - number of mornings I got up at 4:40am to swim this week
8 - number of 75's I did from a dive all out yesterday morning ("lactate tolerance")
0 - number of flip turns I did in 28 kilometers of swimming this week.
50782984 - number of touch turns I did
700 - number of dollars I was short to pay off my visa :(
700 - number of dollars my mom gave me :)
7 - number of races I am currently on waitlists for!
2 - number of massages planned for this week.

Great Support

2010-06-15T11:33:00.000-07:00

It always takes a while when you move somewhere new to build up a support network that makes training and staying healthy as easy as possible. There were so many unknowns when I moved across the world with what kind of environment I was entering into but the support has been nothing but fabulous. I have had a great team of people around me right from the start that have made the move to Ireland so so so much easier than it could have been. This past week things got even better as I got news that I have now officially been accepted into the Sporting Institute of Northern Ireland (SINI). (I needed to actually start a race for Ireland before being accepted). I will now be doing sessions on the SRM with the physiologists twice a week and will continue to work with strength trainer Michael Johnson. I also have access to a number of other resources including doctor, physio, sports psyc, lifestyle management and nutrition if I want.

My training is back on track largely with thanks to Dierdre, or "magic hands" as Bryan likes to call her. Dierdre is a physiotherapist with a very holistic approach to treatment that I find absolutely fascinating. Some traditional physios thinks she's all hocus pocus but all of us athletes go to see her time after time as what she does really works!! I have 2 weeks to bounce my fitness back now before the European Championships which I will be racing in Athlone on July 4th.

In other VERY exciting news (to me at least)...my mom is coming to visit me in less than 2 weeks!! Dr. Ruth will be here for just under 2 weeks. She will be off to watch some Wimbledon in London for the few days before the European Championships but will get down to Athlone in time to see me race.

I ate too much icing today and had a major sugar high all afternoon. It was Aileen's birthday so I made her carrot cake cupcakes (yes they were the wheat free, egg free, dairy free ones with goat cream cheese icing that sharpie LOVES :) mmmm mmmm mmmm

Oo and I almost forgot to mention how exciting it was to watch the Des Moines World Cup on the weekend. It's so much fun watching races now as I have 2 nations to support. With so many Canadian friends on the start line and 2 Irish teammates racing I think I had 9 people to cheer for! Overall some very solid results. Bryan finished 20th and Aileen 27th (although she is capable of much more I know). And of course Paula and Kyle were amazing and I was so proud of Kyla in her first Olympic distance race EVER! Very impressive.

Patience

2010-06-06T06:11:00.000-07:00

Patience has been the name of the game for the past few weeks. My back seems to have decided to recover at its own pace and there's no fighting it. However I can't really complain as I've been able to see small improvements from day to day which has kept me in good spirits. I literally hung up the bike for 2.5 weeks as I knew that just the position I sit in on the bike would only slow down the healing process. I would have been as happy as Larry just swimming and running anyways, but the swim progress was the most frustrating of all. I was only allowed to swim until my heel went numb, and then I had to call it a day. Some days I only got to swim 400 meters, better days 1500m. My biggest improvements happened after seeing Dierdre (physio) last Thursday, as I went from swimming 2km Thursday morning, to 3.5km Friday morning, to 5km on Saturday!! The good thing is running seemed to cause me no problems at all so I have been on a "run as I feel" easy aerobic run program and have been doing lots of double run days.

The positives from this is I have really got my mid-season break that I was looking at having this year so I could make into the fall still racing strong. It might not be ideal for it to come through injury but I am feeling fresh now and looking forward to racing hard the rest of the summer. I will likely not race now until the European Championships which are July 4th in Athlone, Ireland. This gives me a few weeks to get my fitness back up. Also my mom will be here from the 27th of June so she will be able to come watch me race!

I have started painting in my spare time and am really enjoying it. I have only finished one painting so far but I have 2 more on the go. Here is the first one...

Dublin Zoo

2010-06-01T08:22:00.000-07:00

Rehab Retreat to Dublin

2010-05-27T02:55:00.000-07:00

Those are never words I want to have to start a blog post with. But I guess I should give an update after Slovakia. To cut a long story short (and because I don't really feel like talking about it) my back had been giving me some problems before I left for Slovakia. My bulging discs were being compressed enough to cause my heel to go numb for 48 hours at one stage which is never a good sign. I had some good treatment and was symptom free for 48 hours before I got on the plane. In hindsight maybe it wasn't enough to just be symptom free.. I hadn't been able to test myself to see if I could go hard symptom free, and I hadn't been on a bike in 6 days until the day before the race. In the end I did the swim and 20km of the bike before pulling over. I know I could have pushed through it and finished if I had really tried, but I have learned from mistakes in the past. I knew that would only set me back more and in the end it wasn't worth it. After returning to Belfast my heel has gone numb again so I haven't been able to do much. I made a trip to Dublin 2 days ago for treatment and have been staying in a hotel here trying to get back on track. I will likely drive back to Belfast this evening after another session with the physio this afternoon.
Yesterday I went to the Dublin Zoo to put in some time between my morning run and evening run/swim. It was a lot of fun my favorite were the giraffes and elephants!! Now I'm going to go paint.. my new hobby :)

En Route to Slovakia

2010-05-19T22:17:00.001-07:00

The only good thing about getting up at 4:30 to get to the airport is being able to sit in the star alliance lounge with a coffee and my laptop! I didn't realize until yesterday just how excited I am to actually be heading off to a race! It's definitely time to get the season underway. My approach to training this winter was very different from how I've ever trained before. More hours logged, less intensity, (an understanding for the reasoning to training this way) and no school! The understanding part is important to me. Even though I trust my coach I like to understand why I do one workout over another and why we might choose to do this workout over that workout. I find it very interesting, but that's why I have a degree in Kinesiology! So enough blabbering time to go get on a flight to Slovakia!

Two Obstacles Hurdled

2010-05-18T12:56:00.000-07:00

Well things are looking good at the moment for me getting to Slovakia to race the Senec ITU European Cup this Saturday. Earlier this week there were two obstacles I needed to clear in order for me to go:

1) The ash could had to clear Belfast and London airspace, and
2) I had to get confirmation from Dierdre (my new physio) that my back was healthy enough to race on without putting me back for the rest of the season.

Luckily it looks like most of the flight restrictions were lifted today and it should hopefully stay that way for the rest of the week (fingers crossed!)

As far as my back - I had been running with hamstring pain for a few months now which was sciatica coming from the bulging discs in my back. For those that don't know I came very close to having to quit this sport back in 2005 after training and racing in pain for 18 months before finding out I had 3 bulging discs in my lumbar spine. Over the past 5 years it has become very manageable and I have learned what I need to do to keep it under control. In fact I have done very well to train symptom-free 95% of the time. Every once in a while however, it flares up, as is expected from any chronic injury. Luckily for me in Victoria I always had the security of knowing I could go see Paul McIntyre at Broadmead Orthopaedic Physiotherapy Clinic for treatment. I could always trust Paul to put me back together and get me going again.
I knew when I moved to Ireland I was going to have to let other people treat me. This is something which I was very nervous about because without knowing my history or seeing my MRI any physio could easily make me worse and potentially cause more damage to my discs. When my sciatica got really bad about a week ago I needed to get something done about it. I met Dierdre in February at our Triathlon Ireland training camp in Portugal. I am SO happy to have access to such a brilliant physiotherapist who I can trust. Dierdre is a 2 hour drive away but is totally worth the trip. When I saw her last week there was little hope I would be racing this weekend, but after a single 3 hour treatment things improved so much I have been almost symptom-free for a couple of days now. I made another trip to see her today and am now confident I am good to go! Yay!
Paul was also a great help this past week as he received numerous phone calls/emails from me with questions about what to do next. I tell you if he thought he was getting off the hook from treating me when I moved away he was greatly mistaken:) Thanks Paul!

So off to Slovakia it is!! Time to GIV'R.

Dear Ash Cloud,

2010-05-17T14:05:00.000-07:00

Will you please move away so I can get to my race this weekend?

I am supposed to be flying to Slovakia for my first European Cup race (ever). I will be flying through London so if you could vacate the airspace over Belfast AND London that would be greatly appreciated. Oh and Aileen is flying out of Dublin so if you could stay away from there too that would be great. Thanks for your consideration and for thinking about me in your travel plans.

Kerry

Post-Race FAIR, and mobility!!!!!!

2010-05-06T12:49:00.000-07:00

This was the best post-race "party" ever!! Conor and I saw this fair by the side of the motorway during our 5 hour car ride home the evening after the race. We HAD to stop. I can't remember the last time I laughed this hard. It was just ridiculous all together but totally worth it even though we both felt so sick afterward. Let's just say it was a good thing we hadn't had dinner yet or that dinner would probably still be in the fairgrounds.

I might look like I was at peace here enjoying the chair ride.. but really I was feeling so sick I just wanted to hurl.

The Joey Hannon Triathlon is the name of the race I took part in over the weekend. It is a national series event in Ireland so it was great to get out and meet some people involved with the sport in other parts of the country. It was also nice win my first race. I swam an extra 100m in the pool so losing that 80 seconds or so really made me have to focus more on the bike as I knew my leading margin over Elena Maslova (see picture in previous post) was not as large as it should have been. I had never race Elena before but I had heard about how strong as rider she is so I was excited to have someone chasing me down after the swim. Elena still rode faster than me but I was happy to only give 45 seconds or so back to her over a 40km cycle. Again on the run I saw her chasing me down at 2.5km at a turnaround point and it definitely made me give a little extra. I felt very comfortable on the run and ran much better than I did at the 10km in Dublin the weekend before. Running off the bike is definitely better suited for me as it stops me going out too hard!

Today was Christmas.. and my birthday... all in one day :)

Now that I finally have a car I won't feel so stranded in Lisburn anymore. Although to be honest I was quite enjoying the train. At least now I have the option, and will not have to run to the pool at 5am anymore, as fun as that was ;)

Joey Hannon Tri Pictures

2010-05-04T13:09:00.000-07:00

I raced the Joey Hannon Triathlon in Limerick this past weekend. It was my first race of the season, my first race ever in Ireland, and my first time to Limerick. All in all it was a very successful weekend and I have so many people to thank that I actually made it there in first place, got to my B&B, and made it home the night after the race (I was not very organized)!! Also a huge thanks to the race directors and event organizers who probably thought I was a complete bimbo as I didn't realize there was an olympic distance event until the night before the race and they were so nice and accommodating at getting me a start even though it was full! Here are some photos from the race, and a more extensive recap of the race will have to follow shortly.

Warming up before the race

I was looking behind me with a great worry that I would see a tank in red catching me at the end of the ride.... thank goodness I made it into T2 out of sight. It's not usual that I worry about someone catching me on the bike, but you can see why...

Yes, we do have new suits on order :)

FINALLY going to race.

2010-04-23T12:29:00.000-07:00

Ooooops! Over a week since my last update.. not sure where to start. Well after not getting to Turkey last week I ended up pretty much taking most of the week off. I really needed the break and the time to let my body regenerate after a really good training camp in Aguilas. So I just let my body take the time it needed and tried not to get frustrated with how long that seemed to take.

I headed down to Dublin last weekend to run the Great Ireland Run - a 10km road race through Phoenix Park. All in all it was a solid training day and a much needed reminder to my body about what it feels like to run hard for 10km again! I know I ran the first 5km really well, so it's just a matter of keeping that going over the last half. This course was especially difficult with 3 hills in the last 5km to run over.

After the race I got the first train back to Lisburn so I could spend my birthday evening with Aileen. We went out for Indian food which was A-mazing :) I'm so lucky to have such a good friend here in Lisburn! Thanks Aileen :)

I am now just sorting out another trip to the south of Ireland as I'll be racing a sprint triathlon in Limerick next week. It will be a fun training race and I'm excited to finally do the swim-bike-run thing all in a row after 8 months of no racing! This time there will be no flights involved so no volcano will be messing up my plans this time!

The next European Cup race I'll do is May 22nd in Slovakia.

Volcanic eruption turns travel day into cooking day.

2010-04-15T11:31:00.000-07:00

Volcanic ash from an eruption in Iceland has blown across the UK skies leaving hundreds of people with canceled flights... I happen to be one of them. I woke up this morning with the hopes of being in Turkey by 8:30 this evening for my first race of the season on Sunday. That plan was soon aborted as I arrived at the airport to find all flights canceled. My options were then to

a) not go
b) re-schedule flights for tomorrow out of Dublin that would likely also be canceled because the volcanic ash is showing no signs of moving any time soon, or

c) re-schedule the same flights from Belfast for Saturday and hope to arrive in Turkey at 8:30PM the night before the race (having missed the race meeting and not knowing the course).

I chose option A. I think. For now at least. But I'm open to spontaneity. I actually just distracted myself by cooking for hours. Yes lets talk about that.. much less stressful.

I started by making the most amazing salad for lunch:
First I sauteed a small red onion in EVOO with 2 finely chopped cloves of garlic. I then added halved red and orange baby plum tomatoes to the pan and cooked over medium heat for a couple more minutes before adding 3 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar. I then added handfuls of chopped kale and sauteed for about a minute more. After giving it a quick stir to mix I transferred it to a bowl, added diced avocado, topped with smoked salmon, and seasoned with salt and pepper.

After lunch I started thinking about dinner (typical triathlete). So I made savoury italian tomato muffins and cauliflower soup.

These muffins were really good. I wasn't so sure how they would turn out as I've never made savoury muffins before, but I was pleasantly surprised. They went perfectly with the cauliflower soup too. Here is the recipe:

300g italian plum tomatoes
140g flour (i used spelt)
2 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
200g fine polenta
1 egg, lightly beaten
300ml milk
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 tbsp fresh chopped basil
1.5 tbsp fresh chopped parsley

First peel tomatoes by covering them in boiling water for about 3 minutes to loosen skins:

Then seed tomatoes and chop finely.
In bowl mix flour, baking powder, salt and polenta. In separate bowl whisk together egg and milk, add chopped tomatoes, garlic, basil and parsley and mix together. Add egg and tomato mixture to flour mixture and stir gently until just combined. Divide mixture between paper cases or greased muffin pans (about 2/3 full). Cook for about 20 minutes at 400F.

You might think I got a little carried away but I then made some fruity muffins!!

SO all in all a good day in the kitchen, not so good on the triathlon front. I will have to tackle that one tomorrow. I'll let you know what happens. As I said.. spontaneity is the name of the game. Oh and for those of you that think I'm not very spontaneous.. I'm getting better at it.. no stress is my new name :)

Last day in Spain

2010-04-11T02:05:00.001-07:00

Another successful training camp is coming to a close once again. I have had a solid 2 weeks here with some great sessions to give me confidence heading into my first race of the season next weekend in Turkey (Antalya European Cup).

I had the best swim session of my life on Wednesday (20x100 best average), and did it being very sore after a hard treadmill session and 90 minutes of weights of Tuesday. I also did somewhere between 12 and 13 hours of riding this week with lots of long hilly rides and a great power session over rolling hills.

Yesterday we started the day by going to the Saturday market for coffee and churros. Aileen and I then headed out for a 3 hour cycle (that turned into 4 hours riding time) with our pockets full of dried fruit. We did 3 big mountain climbs including Puerto Lumbreras, Campo Lopez and Big Bertha from the backside (for anyone who been to Aguilas to train).

Today will be our last day in Spain as we fly back to Belfast tomorrow morning. I have a double run today to finish things off. Time to go enjoy the sun while I have it!!

Riding Campo Lopez

2010-04-04T03:39:00.000-07:00

Yesterday's 3 hour 45 minute ride was an adventure for Aileen and I. Being the last big session before rest day we were motivated to push on and up the infamous Campo Lopez climb. Above is a view from the top but it really doesn't do it justice.

Photo op with Chrissie Wellington. From left to right - James, me, Aileen, Chrissie, Conor and coach Chris.Testing out my new Ireland suit and Blue Seventy wetsuit!

Camp Update

2010-04-02T07:32:00.000-07:00

So my recovery days did me a world of good as I have been firing on all cylinders the past few days. On Wednesday we did a 3 hour ride with two mountain climbs that I loved! I much prefer the climbing to the descending and felt really strong the whole way up. I also tried to challenge myself on the descent but I get a little nervous on the narrow windy roads at high speeds so there are definitely some improvements to be made there!! Oh ya and before that we did 15x300 in the pool. Swimming is definitely improving so I was happy with the set.

Yesterday we started the day with a solid sprint set in the pool. It was 5 x (2x75, 2x50, 2x25) all fast. I swam some best times for the 75's and held form the whole set. All good signs. Then I had a REALLY good fartlek run on 2x (6x1' fast with 1' easy). I ran way faster than the target time Chris gave me and was able to hold it the whole set with good form. I had weights to do as well but the weight room closed early for Easter so I did them on the beach instead!! Wow does that ever make weights seem almost enjoyable haha. (I hope my strength trainer Michael doesn't read this hehe). I finished the day with a recovery run along the coast.. my favorite place for a slow jog!

We did intervals on the bike this morning and despite the screaming legs it went alright. We have our first ocean swim tonight so I'm excited about that! Speaking of which.. gotta run!

Hello from AGUILAS!!

2010-03-30T11:45:00.000-07:00

What a way to start the camp haha!! Lovin' it.

This I only posted cause it reminded me of Lauren. Not the octopus.. but taking random pictures of funny looking foods in a grocery store.
Testing out an air mattress in a store.. it didn't work :(
Training camp in Spain has been kick started with 2 complete days off and then 2 very aerobic training days as my fatigue levels were through the roof! So I was happy to spend my rest days in the sun and I actually lay on the beach in a bikini today and read my book! Lovely. I am looking forward to our longer ride tomorrow though through the hills of Spain. I had a really nice run through the cabbage fields today with coach Chris on the bike. An hour has never gone by so fast! I hear it's -5 and snowing in Ireland so we got out just in time!! Yesterday we swam in a lane beside Chrissie Wellington too so that was pretty cool. I promise to report more when I've done more but right now it's been sleep/eat/sleep/eat. Not a bad way to start off a camp. This is the view from our balcony. It's great sitting outside to eat our meals listening to the waves crash in on the beach!

I am reading a great book right now called F**K It. Seriously. It's about the F-it philosophy to life and learning to let go and relax and not stress about all the unimportant things in life that we as people tend to stress about on a daily basis. The author did a great job writing it. So funny to read.

18 degrees and SUNNY in T minus 2 days

2010-03-25T07:01:00.000-07:00

My month back in Ireland has flown by and I'm off to Spain again this weekend for almost 3 weeks in the sun! It will be a smaller group of athletes this time, including Aileen, James, Conor and myself as triathletes. We will be joined by Aileen's boyfriend Davy who is a sprint coach and his athlete Amy, and of course coach Chris and his family.

I have made a slight change to my racing plans as the logistics of travel to and from my first race was turning out to be a nightmare. So I will not be racing the Quarteira European Cup on April 11th, but will still be going to Turkey for the Antalya European Cup race on April 18th (which also happens to be my birthday :). There is also a World Cup the same day in Mexico and friends AP and Austin will be racing there so I wish them the best on their first race of the season (and Austin's first World Cup!).

I just read a good quote on Mark's Daily Apple: Without enough sleep, we all become tall two-year-olds. ~Jojo Jensen

Kinda sums up how I'm feeling about now!

Happy St. Patricks Day (tomorrow)!

2010-03-16T15:13:00.000-07:00

Just a quick one since it's been a week (but I need to go to bed :)

Things are rolling along as usual. Nothing new and exciting to report except that my shins have settled quite nicely and I'm running every other day now. I also got a shipment from BlueSeventy so I'm excited to try out the new wetsuit in Spain in 2 weeks time woo hoo!

Aileen and I have been doing lots of joint cooking which is fun. I made a curry last week which turned out great and last night she earned an A+ for the AWESOME pizza she made us. The dough was made in her bread maker and turned out great. And we did a combination of half seafood/half chicken with veggies and goats cheese mmmm. We also baked cookies today (healthiest cookies ever by the way) to take with us tomorrow as we're going to Dublin tomorrow afternoon and we wanted have something to take with us and give to Bryan for so kindly letting us crash at his place. I'm looking forward to the trip especially cause it's St. Patrick's Day tomorrow and Dublin seems like a fun place to be!! The real reason for the trip though is for some blood work scheduled for Thursday morning and we're going to go see Dierdre (amazing physio) as well!

Blogging Distraction

2010-03-09T12:59:00.000-08:00

It's 8:40pm..

Waiting for my dinner to ripen in the oven. Just got home from swim. 3 minutes ago I was eating peanut butter out of the jar.. thought blogging was a better distraction.

Guest National Team coach from Dublin took tonight's session. "Every set is a main set."

7.3km:
warmup: 20x100 on 1.30 desc 1-5, 5 swim, 5 pull, 5 pull paddles, 5 paddles.
next: 21x200 on 2.50, 2 steady, 1 threshold.
next: 1km pull as 25 cruise, 25 fast, 50 cruise, 50 fast, 75 cruise, 75 fast, 100 cruise, 100 fast x2
last: 100 double arm back

swam 12.1km yesterday
longest session ever today

getting up at 4:40 for some more splashing about.

dinner must be ready.

Training, racing, and random life.

2010-03-07T11:05:00.000-08:00

Bars anyone?
Thanks to my dad I am well stocked up on Vega bars and GU (2 necessary energy sources in my life that I can't get in Northern Ireland!) I also found Clif bars yesterday!!! I had been on a wild search for them around Ireland earlier with no such luck.

So I guess I'll start with a training update before going on to more unnecessary ramblings. I have been back in Ireland a week since the Portugal camp and things are continuing to roll along quite nicely. I had another great week of running and kept the high mileage going that I began in Montegordo. This week coming up I am going to back off a little bit with the running however because my shins started to bother me in the later stages of the week. Swimming is also more consistent than ever and I'm really excited to have a full month of training with the Lisburn swim club before I take off on another training/racing adventure (more about that in a bit). This week I swam 38km in 6 swims!! Next week I'll be adding another 12-14km to that as I'm going to take advantage of being able to swim 8 times in the week with the club. Also since I'm decreasing my running for a few days I should have the energy to do it :) I think it's amazing how much stronger I feel in the water and swimming a 7km practice almost feels normal now! Biking I am not focusing on too much right now, however even though it doesn't feel a priority I am still doing 2 long rides in the week, 1 power session, 1 aerobic strength session, and 2 recovery rides :)

Okay so now on to my next adventure: At the end of the month I'll be heading back to Aguilas (Spain) for another training camp with the Irish squad. I'll be there for almost 2 weeks before heading to Portugal for my first race of the season!!!! WOO HOO! It's the Quarteira European Cup race on April 11th. Then I'll be off to Turkey for another European Cup the following weekend in Antalya.

Okay so enough about training and racing.. let's see what else is happening in my life (don't get too excited). I'll start with the present that Aileen gave me yesterday. I guess it's a belated house-warming present, and it's very cute so I thought I'd share:

A polka-dot tea pot and matching mugs!! I also have a matching bowl :) FUN!

Thanks to my dad for sending me over some Vega protein, oils and electrolytes to keep me going :)

This is me, Amy and Aileen at a University of Ulster basketball game last night. It was quite entertaining. One of the players got the maximum of 5 fouls and wasn't allowed to play anymore so he threw a fit, started swearing at the ref and kicked the bench before storming out of the gym (hmm not very sportsmanlike).

Number 32 on the green team was hilarious. He scored 49 of the teams 120 points but was probably the most unfit guy I have seen on a basketball court. He was about a foot taller than all of the other players so all he did the whole game was shuffle from one side of the gym to the other and cherry pick. He got all the rebounds and sometimes took 5 or 6 shots in a row to get it in the net. As you can see in the picture below he wasn't very into team meetings haha!

More Montegordo Adventures.

2010-03-04T02:02:00.000-08:00

Above are a couple videos from Aileen's and my adventure one day into the Portuguese countryside. We found this awesome little winding road with no traffic that went North along a river and into a little town that I can't remember the name of. Then we climbed out of the town through what seemed like endless hills. We timed it perfectly getting back to the hotel at 2:25 when buffet lunch ended at 2:30!! Overall a solid 3 hour 20 minute ride with some tempo intervals!! We got sunburned too for the first time on the camp.

Martina with some good looking seafood!

James looking good with his bib on!

Lots of steak!

Michael (strength trainer) and Declan (physiologist) enjoying their steaks.

GOLD!

2010-03-01T00:07:00.000-08:00

My mom sent me these pictures this morning - the streets of Whistler following the gold medal hockey game that meant the most to Canada.

I want these pants!

Montegordo

2010-02-24T10:41:00.000-08:00

This is my 8th day on training camp in Montegordo, Portugal. Training is going better than ever and I am happier than ever so things are going great!! Montegordo has the most amazing running trails that I had been missing very much in Ireland so I have been doing lots of running and it's feeling super. The past 4 days (that's as far back as I can remember) have included 1 hour 40 minute long run on Sunday, 1 hour easy run on Monday with drills/strides, double run on Tuesday as 25 easy in the morning and 80 minute fartlek run in the evening, and 30 minutes easy today. My swimming has been coming along nicely as well and today I rode 3 hours 20 minutes with 4x12 minutes tempo in the last hour. I finally feel like I have my biking legs back so that feels great.

With the aid of Chris' (my amazing coach) insight and Declan (the physiologist) and my bike and run testing results from 2 weeks ago we have been able to pinpoint what my athlete profile is and I therefore understand now for the first time in my life how I need to train to reach my potential. It really is quite remarkable to learn that I have been training "wrong" for my particular profile for the past 6 years! Anyways live and learn I guess. There are 8 of us athletes on the camp and not one of us has had the same training schedule one day to the next. Of course there are many sessions that overlap and there is usually someone to join you on a workout but everyone has their individual needs so the schedule is therefore very individualized.

Other positives from the camp include working with strength trainer Michael Johnston for the first time. He works at the Sporting Institute of Northern Ireland so I will be working with him twice a week from now on. He has a lot of experience and a really good understanding now of all my imbalances and compensations that I make so I am confident in the new program and excited to begin working with him.

Okay that will have to be it for now.. dinner time! We are going to a great restaurant tonight where you can get a steak on a stone. They bring out these amazing steaks on a scorching hot stone and you have wear bibs so it doesn't spit on your shirt!!

Today in Point Form.

2010-02-18T13:31:00.000-08:00

6:40 wake

30 min strength activation

25 min jog

sun

buffet breakfast

rain

80 minute fartlek run (good!!)

lunch

6.7km "easy" swim

25 min run (note triple run :)

buffet dinner

the simple life of training camp (in Portugal by the way).

Northern Ireland XC Championships - 6km

2010-02-13T11:23:00.001-08:00

Nula with the hula (or something like that)

Congrats Claire!!

2010-02-12T05:27:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uk9sTzrrlI

Testing Complete

2010-02-11T07:21:00.000-08:00

Well I had the weekend off training and by Monday morning I was bouncing off the walls! Ah the feeling of recovery is so nice when you haven't had it for a while! This worked out perfect because Monday afternoon I had a bike test at the Sporting Institute of Northern Ireland. The test was to determine training HR and wattage zones and get some initial data on me since it was my first time in getting tested. Overall it went very well. It was basically a long ride that started pretty easy and every 6 minutes the wattage was increased by 25 watts. I just had to keep riding until I couldn't go anymore. My blood lactate at the end was 14.3 which is apparently pretty high. Then yesterday I did the treadmill test which was even more fun :) It consisted of 4 minute stages with 1 minute rest. I started at 12kph and every 4 minutes the speed was increased by 1kph. Again I just had to keep going until I couldn't no more. I began my last stage with my blood lactate levels over 11 so I only lasted 1 minute on that one!! You know your almost done when the physiologist is asking you "are you sure you want to start the next stage." Of course I do - I'm not done until I'm DONE.

Apart from that not much else is new. I am running the Northern Ireland Cross Country Champs this weekend so that should be a fun race. Then on Tuesday we take off for training camp #2 in Portugal. Yay finally some warmer weather!!

SNOW STORM!

2010-02-03T13:49:00.000-08:00

Okay maybe I'm exaggerating, there actually isn't any snow on the ground :) But I can say that I biked in a snow storm today. I met the local club for the usual Wednesday group ride at 9:30am and we set out on our usual route, only 30 minutes in it started snowing! It was -2 degrees and kept snowing for a good hour. Luckily I was all bundled up and didn't get cold. Needless to say most of the casual riders turned around once it started snowing and went back to the warmth of their homes, but when it's your job to ride a bike a little snow is no excuse to go home. Wednesday rides are tough because I swim 6:15-8:15 on Tuesday nights (last night 6.3km), and then 5:30-7:30 on Wednesday mornings (this morning 6.4km), and then meet for the ride at 9:30 so it's a lot of workouts in not a lot of time. But hey it's all part of the fun :)

I am getting used to using my feet to get around for the first time in my life. I was always one of those people who drove EVERYWHERE, and my friends would laugh at me because I didn't know how to take the bus. But now that I have no car, and I hate walking, there is only one solution: RUN! I had to make a trip to the video store to rent a movie and then to the grocery store this afternoon and I seriously considered walking (it would take 10 minutes), but that idea passed through my head very quickly before I threw on some jogging pants and my runners and headed out the door. Running is so much more efficient than walking :) Good thing I like to do it!

I am really enjoying living on my own. I was thinking today about how many roommates I have had. Let me see: Anna, Mark, Brent, Kelly, Rebekka, Matt B., Robbie, Matt R., Des, Natalie, Alicia, Shauna, Jen and Krista (+ 2 others that I can't remember their names.. wow that's awful, but I highly doubt that they will be reading this blog so who cares :) = 16 roommates in 6 years!! Yup that's right.. a little too many.. and Matt Rose takes the prize for lasting 3 years with me :)

Off to bed - 2 more days til recovery weekend!

My FLAT.

2010-02-01T07:26:00.000-08:00

Lots of people have been asking to see pics of my place. So I finally got around to wiping the dust off my camera and using it. The pic above is really so you can see my gorgeous new Gallium Pro from Argon 18. This was my setup for watching the Australian Open final yesterday :)

Kitchen.

I bought the purple curtains :) And yes that is snow on the roof outside!!

Truly Remarkable.

2010-01-31T05:19:00.000-08:00

I just finished watching the final match of the Australian Open as Federer and Murray battled it out - Federer playing for his 16th grand slam title, and Murray for his first. I was never a huge Federer fan before, but wow, how can you not respect a guy like that after watching that final. He just made it look so easy and to still be playing at the top of his game after all of his grand slam victories is truly remarkable. I also have to be thankful that Murray made it to the final because I think the only reason the match was actually shown on British TV was because he was in it!!

Another week has come and gone in my new home of Ireland. I am on a 5 week training cycle at the moment - 2 weeks steady loading, 1 lighter, 1 heavy, 1 lighter, repeat. So I have come to the end of week 4, which means that my biggest week in the cycle is now behind me (well after I run hill repeats tonight), and a lighter week is definitely a welcoming thought at this point. I know it will take me a little bit to adapt to my new training program and get settled into a new routine, but I am really enjoying the process and am definitely learning a lot about myself. I had a few big workouts early in the week so it was not surprising that by Thursday I was feeling quite fatigued and therefore "hold form" turned into a very common phrase going through my head during my key sessions on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. I am learning not to panic when my body tells me it needs to back off on the intensity, and to just get through each session the best I can on that day. I guess one of my favorite workouts of the week is turning into my Tuesday treadmill sessions. I love treadmill workouts as you just get on, set the target pace, and have to run the target pace or else you'll fall off the back!! It kind of makes it a no brainer as you don't have a choice but to keep up the intensity. This week was 5x3km to back up the 3x5km I had done the 2 weeks before. Swimming has been going fine and I am enjoying swimming with the club. I could have died when Andy put up a 3km set at the end of practice yesterday morning that read 15x200 as 100kick, 100 fast get your time, 2 free, 1 IM. This seriously turned out to be a "hold form" workout and I swear it took me a couple of minutes to get the energy to pull myself out of the pool at the end of practice. As for riding... well it snowed last night! It was nice earlier in the week and I got out with the club for 3.5 hours on Sunday and 3 hours on Wednesday, but this morning I was actually a little bit thankful for the snow because it meant I could ride the trainer while watching the final of the tennis :) But now that it's over snow please melt so I can ride outside again!

Avatar is a wicked movie. I went last night with Aileen and Davie and really enjoyed it! My brother had raving about it so now I know what he was going on about.

Next weekend I am going to watch the Northern Ireland indoor Track and Field Championships in Belfast. That should be a lot of fun to see and I have the whole weekend off training because I will be at the end of my 5-week cycle!

Okay this is getting long but I realize I have not mentioned anything about my race schedule for this year. I won't give it all away at this point because things are sure to change, but I can tell you that my first 3 races will be April 11th - Quarteira European Cup race in Portugal, April 18- Antalya European Cup race in Turkey, and May 16th - Funchal European Cup race in Madeira!!

Lastly a big thank you to BlueSeventy for their 2010 sponsorship!

Week one.

2010-01-24T12:44:00.000-08:00

My first week in Ireland on a more permanent basis is now complete. It was kind of a roller coaster week with the reality that I just moved to a country where I know about 2 people outside of my family. But I love my new little flat and I am finally feeling pretty settled so things will only get better. I also managed to fry my computer charger but a quick trip to the apple store in Belfast fixed that! Yesterday I spent the afternoon wandering Belfast after a great, much needed, massage. It was pretty neat and I found a great burger joint called "The Gourmet Burger" for lunch. Mmm that definitely fueled me well for my 3.5 hour ride with the local cycling club today. I took my cross bike out for the first time in over a year as I'm determined to keep my new (white) Gallium Pro looking clean and pretty for as long as possible! The cross bike is pretty sweet though and I can keep up with the roadies no problem (it's full carbon - also Argon 18), plus I look tough haha. Then this afternoon I ran 2 sets of 12x20 second hills. That was hard considering that my legs felt like jello and I was kinda dizzy in warmup, but I felt super strong on the hills anyways!
Oh and I am really enjoying irish potato bread. It's my new addiction :)

Leaving on a Jet Plane..

2010-01-17T17:15:00.001-08:00

Wow that title was cliche! Anyways I am sitting in the Vancouver airport waiting to board my plane to London. So I thought what better time is there to update the ol blog. I was home for 2 weeks, and although I'll miss Canada, I have to say I'm kinda glad they are over. I'm all packed up and can't wait to get settled in my new home (Ireland) for the next little while.

My week in Whistler was great with my mom and brother, but I have been extremely tired despite sleeping an average of 10 hours a night - no doubt the stress of packing up and moving and organizing/attending a million appointments and training all at the same time! So it will be nice to relax for a bit and live a simpler life. I don't really have a choice but live a simpler life though since I only know about 4 people in the city I am moving to! I think that will be good for me though. I normally have trouble doing nothing so forced nothingness is welcoming :)

The highlight of the week in Whistler was probably being treated to my 4th Christmas dinner since Christmas! My mom had a dinner for my brother and I and we invited some other friends so it was kinda fun. We even had Christmas crackers!! Nothing like Christmas in January I tell you. I also got out for cross country skiing a few times which was a nice change.

My new Gallium Pro bike from Argon 18 also arrived!! Yippee I love getting my new bike :)

Okay that's about all I can think of right now. I am looking forward to boarding the flight soon because 10 hours in business class with a pod seat is definitely something to look forward to :) Although I'll probably sleep most of the flight away anyways.

Lastly I must give a HUGE thanks to Straight Up Cycles for receiving, building, and packing up my bike into my bike box all within a few hours. And thanks to my brother for picking it up and sending it over to Vancouver on the seaplane (and Al for picking it up off the seaplane) so I could fly out with it today!!

4 more days of Vic life.. for now.

2010-01-05T21:07:00.000-08:00

This will be a short post - I'm exhausted. Things in Vic have been great, but busy! My room is totally bare so it looks quite strange. I took SO many clothes to the salvation army, but still my suitcase seems to be exploding. I came back here with an empty suitcase so I would have room for all my stuff, but apparently I just have too much stuff!

Lets see on top of my training, this week has involved physio (x2), bank appointments, dentist, carpet cleaners, house cleaners, dry cleaners, and dinner/coffee dates pretty much every night so I can catch up with all my peeps. All this while getting over jetlag.. no wonder I'm tired :) Also I am very excited as I should be getting my new Gallium Pro Argon 18 bike this week!! Fingers crossed it arrives before I take off!

Today I had a great swim with Clint's group and the ironman gang! Thanks Mike for a great set. We were rock solid the whole way through 15x200m. This afternoon I ran 3x5km on the treadmill as well followed by weights.. yaiza. Time for bed. Night.

wireless, plans, and coming home (for 10 days)

2009-12-29T15:15:00.000-08:00

I have been in N. Ireland for 6 weeks. I fly home tomorrow morning. And TONIGHT I got the router configured so I can get wireless on my mac! Great timing :)

So yes tomorrow morning I fly home. I can't believe how fast the 6 weeks went. It also couldn't have gone any better. For those who don't know I have officially been signed off by Triathlon Canada and accepted by Triathlon Ireland. I was born in Ireland and lived here until I was 4 years old so I am very excited to race for my birth country in the upcoming years! I came over here 6 weeks ago without knowing anyone in the irish traithlon world and with no idea where I was going to base my training out of this winter. I have now done my exploring and will set up camp here in Lisburn, the city that my Aunt and Uncle live in. It really couldn't be much better, except the weather! I will have Aileen as an awesome training partner, a great swim squad, access to world class facilities and physiologists/physios/strength trainers at the Sporting Institute of Northern Ireland, and a great new coach, Chris Jones.

I had the amazing opportunity to be coached by Lucy Smith since May. Lucy really transformed my mental strength in this sport and brought me to a new level in my training. I really can't thank her enough for what she has done for me as she really picked me up when I wasn't getting any support in Victoria and put so much time and energy into developing me as an athlete. Recently I made the decision to leave LifeSport and be coached by Chris Jones over here in Europe. Chris is an amazing person and I feel extremely lucky that I had the choice between 2 world class coaches and mentors such as Lucy and Chris. For many reasons it makes way more sense for me to be coached by Chris right now with moving to Ireland and training with Aileen (another of Chris' athletes).

So I fly home tomorrow for 10 days in Victoria, 4 days in Whistler, and then back will be back here and will settle into a new apartment on my own! Let the adventure begin (or continue)!!

Yesterday I took the train down to Dublin. It was my first visit to the city and I had a great time. Thanks to Bryan for giving me a city tour!! Also I must mention that I did my first ever 7km swim set last night. I joined the Dublin swim squad for a 2 hour practice and 7km went by surprisingly fast! I had already swum 5km yesterday morning so I reached my new record of 12km in one day :)

Now I really need to get into bed as I am procrastinating (maybe it's a good thing I didn't have wireless before as I may have got less sleep!). I really hope I can use my upgrade certs tomorrow and fly business class - I am counting on the pods so I can sleep the flight away!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

2009-12-24T12:26:00.000-08:00

Christmas Eve. It's so strange not being in Whistler right now. This is the first year in 13 years that I have not been there for Christmas with my brother. I will miss him and the skiing, but this will be a different experience here. Tomorrow we will have 16 people over for Christmas dinner! Wow, that will be interesting! My job is to make a salad for 16 people!

Last night I went over to Aileens for some Christmas baking. We made mince pies and gingerbread men from scratch!! Aileen did an awesome job making mince meat in the morning and we all had a fun time making the pastry and cookies. They turned out pretty well considering we didn't measure a single ingredient! That was part of the fun.

Here we are: Me, Amy, Aileen and Rachel cooking up a storm!

mmmmm raw pastry...

This morning Aileen and I went to a different pool than usual to swim because it was the only one open on Christmas eve. When we got there they were fixing the lightbulbs at one end of the pool so they had tied a rope across the pool 5 meters from the wall and we weren't allowed to cross the rope! It was hilarious - we ended up swimming for an hour but could only swim 20 meter lengths in a 25 meter pool and had to flip turn at one end 5 meters from the wall. I guess it was probably good for us but I'm sure we looked ridiculous. An example of dedication :) And speaking of dedication - I have been running to swim practice all week at 5am in the snow!!

I had a great massage today but I have to say I have not been this sore in a LONG time. On Monday I swam over 1km of fly. I'm not kidding. When I arrived I couldn't make 25 meters! It's amazing how fast you adapt to doing it though and it sure makes you strong. But it also gives you tight shoulders!!! I could have cried during my massage haha.

Anyways I am off to bed really early now. I need to catch up on my sleep so I can enjoy Christmas day tomorrow! I will be going running in the forest in the morning so lets hope it's not -5 outside like it was this morning! Here are a few more pics from the cross country last weekend. The second one is the countryside out the car window as we drove to Derry.

Running in santa hats!!

White Stuff

2009-12-20T10:57:00.001-08:00

Yesterday I raced a 6km cross country race in Derry with Aileen. Derry is Aileen's home town about 90 minutes from here so it was fun to see another place in Ireland. The race was lots of fun despite being so cold it started snowing in the middle of the race! I ran the first 2km with a santa hat on before throwing it away which I seriously regretted later in the race when I was freezing. Aileen ran really well to win the race in 21.08 and I finished second in 21.50. Neither of us have done much race specific training the past month or so it was just fun to go out and run hard with no expectations. It's always fun to strap on some spikes and trudge through ankle deep mud anyways :)

Here is a pic of me racing -

The race start -

Aileen and I pre-race start, getting into the Christmas spirit!

This is me after the 800m on Friday morning. Great to have that one behind me!

Today was supposed to be the annual Christmas ride with the local cycling club here. I got out of bed and ran down to the kitchen to eat breakfast. It wasn't until I was half way through my toast and coffee that I looked outside to see a blanket of white stuff on the ground! There was at least 3 inches of snow. Crap! I couldn't go back to bed as I has already drank my coffee! I ended up doing a 2 hour trainer ride while watching a cheesy chick flick so that was fun. Also today I did a short run off the bike, weights, and a 2km swim! Tomorrow and Tuesday are double swims and then 1 swim on Wednesday before the club takes a 4 day training break.

Swim Meet

2009-12-18T11:29:00.000-08:00

Today was my first swim meet! Woo hoo. I actually had a lot of fun and the race didn't go so bad. I was pretty nervous before the start that I was going to go out too hard and blow up. So I went out pretty conservative and felt good through the 400 meters in 5.06. I even split the whole race and did the back end 400m in 5.08 so I finished in a time of 10.15. I was happy with that. Now I know I can hold that pace comfortably so I know I'll be able to swim faster next time!

Tomorrow I'll be racing a 6km cross country race - ahh back into familiar territory, I can relax about that one. So I am lying here by the fire trying to rest up.

My mom arrived 2 nights ago and brought with her a suitcase of my clothes, my cross bike and my trainer! It's so nice to have the trainer and the option of riding indoors!

Almost ready for Christmas!!

Moving..

2009-12-14T07:55:00.000-08:00

I was holding off this post as I have been trying to get my computer online so I can put up more pictures, but so far that has not been possible so you'll just have to read.

I am back in Ireland now and am very excited about everything. Spain was incredible and I met such a great group of people that I will continue to work with over the next few years. I will be basing myself in Lisburn. It worked out really well as this is where my Aunt and Uncle live and also where Aileen lives so I have someone to train with. The swim club here is great and will be just what I need. Also SINI (Sporting Institute of Northern Ireland) is only 30 minutes away and the facilities are pretty incredible.

So I am back into training this week but will back off the cycling and running a bit so I can focus on swimming. I'll be in the water 7 times this week including racing 800m in a swim meet on Friday. I have never done a swim meet before - oh dear! It should be fun (?). Aileen will be racing too and then we are both going to race a 6km cross country race on Saturday which I am looking forward to.

I am also in search of an apartment right now to move into in the new year. It will be nice to have my own place. My Aunt and Uncle have been very welcoming though and of course I will continue to live with them until I find somewhere. Unfortunately though I am allergic to their cat which is not helping the asthma situation out at all!

So after Christmas I am coming home to Victoria for a couple of weeks to pack up all my stuff. This is a big move but I am feeling really good about it. Our next training camp will be 4+ weeks in Namibia (Africa) starting February 22nd. I am SO excited :)

That's all for now - I have to get home and go to swim numero deux.

UPDATE!!! SPAIN IS GRRRRRRREAT

2009-12-08T11:47:00.000-08:00

I apologize for my lack of blogging recently! I have been in Spain since November 30th on a Triathlon Ireland training camp. It has been simply amazing - great people, great atmosphere, great training (especially the riding) and great support. I came here without having met anyone but Aileen, with whom I trained for 2 weeks in Lisburn (N. Ireland) while staying with my Aunt and Uncle.

My last week in Lisburn I was fully set up with the swim club and swam 36km in 6 days! That was definitely a HUGE volume leap not only from what I have been doing the past few months but also more than I have ever done in my life! It's looking like I will be based in Lisburn for the majority of the winter so that is the club I will be doing most of my swimming with. I also had a tour of the Sporting Institute of Northern Ireland during my 2 weeks in Ireland and was VERY impressed with the facilities there. The resources and support are pretty incredible.

Anyways back to Spain - there are 6 girls including me, and 5 guys on the trip. Four of the girls (Emma Davis, Jodie Swallow, Aileen Morrison, and I) are triathletes, and then Jen is a cyclist for GB and Martina is a runner from Ireland. We all get along really well and everyone is so positive to be around and such a great training partners. We also have a huge support network including Chris Jones, the head coach, another assistant coach/massage therapist, nutritionist, and 2 physiologists.

The technical support has been incredible - lactate sessions, monitoring of caloric outputs (we wore these arm bands for 72 hours straight that measure how many calories we are burning), caloric intakes (food diaries), and lots of mental and physical state feedback through POMS charts that are then graphed on the computer.

As for training, the riding has been amazing. I keep thinking I am in Tucson climbing Mt. Lemmon as there are multiple climbs similar around the area. It is nicer though because there is much more variety in the climbs and the roads are pretty clear of cars. We have been riding almost every day between 2 hours and 3 hours 45 minutes. In every ride we have done at least one mountain climb (or two or three), ranging from 6 to 10km in length. All of the girls are really strong and great riders so we all push each other and can ride as a group. We have done some fun runs too and swam in the ocean today. Open water swimming in December? I can't believe Christmas is only 2 weeks away and I'm riding in shorts and jersey and lying on the beach! Awesome! I have to admit I am starting to feel very much at home.

More frequent updates to come I promise :)

Nothing like a 6.5km recovery swim!

2009-11-27T10:27:00.000-08:00

That's right... that's what I did this morning! I know in the swimming world this might seem quite normal, but I didn't grow up in the swimming world so to me that just sounds silly. But hey if it will make me faster then I'm all for it! The volume actually doesn't seem to bother me and the practices do go by quite fast. I also thought that by not being a swimmer kid and going straight into triathlon I had strategically escaped 5:30 morning practices for life. But that too is no longer the case! I am really enjoying this swim club. We do tons of IM because it is a swim club but there's no doubt I'm getting stronger because of it and might be able to do a 50 fly now! The coach made me do a fly kick set the other day and was laughing at me as I got lapped repeatedly. haha I just suck it up and do it though :)

Last night's practice was the hardest one yet, and a little bit of a shock to my system as I haven't done an anaerobic swim in a while. The main set was 3km of sprinting as 3 sets of (4x25 sprint on 45, 2x100 hard on 1.50, 2x75 hard on 90s, 1x100 hard on 2 min, 2x50 hard on 75s, 150 smooth on 3 minutes).

Tomorrow morning will be my last swim with the club before I go to Spain on Monday for 10 days. I am really looking forward to being in the warmer climate for a while. This weekend I will also do two rides with the local cycling club here. Tomorrow will be 3 hours and Sunday closer to 4. Yesterday Aileen took me to "the forest" to do a long run. It was so nice to run on trails through the trees and reminded me of home!

My Aunt and Uncle get home from Tenerefe tonight where they were on holiday. It will be nice to have people around the house for the weekend. I am also stolked that they will be here to give the cat some attention because I have been ignoring it. I feel really bad about that but I am allergic to it so I just talk to it from a distance but try and not touch it! haha I am a bad person.

I just made a wicked Thai curry so I have to go eat it now!

Today's Adventure

2009-11-22T12:26:00.000-08:00

I went on a 3 hour biking adventure today. I tried to stop for some pictures of the irish countryside. Basically it's very green and there are lots of sheep!!

This is my house (borrowed from my Aunt and Uncle):

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA...

A little town called Moira that I rode through..

And a couple things to remind me of home:

I guess you can't go anywhere these days without some good ol' American Fried Chicken!

Okay this one was just for Andrew...

Rookie Mistake

2009-11-21T11:46:00.000-08:00

I think in my last post I mentioned I was going on a 3 hour ride the next day with a local cycing club in town. WELL - I can talk about it now because I am pretty much healed - but I stupidly wore my new cycling shoes that Noa had fit for me just before I left Victoria. I had ridden in these shoes three or four times but totally forgot that I hadn't since Noa changed the cleat position. Needless to say I got knee pain an hour into the ride (only my right knee) and couldn't turn around because I didn't know where I was!! So I had to keep riding 2 more hours and by the time we got home I was in so much pain I could barely pedal. Anyways the next day it was feeling a bit better so I went for an hour run and made it super sore again. So yesterday I just swam and did weights (no run or bike) and today I rode the trainer with my old shoes and it felt good. PHEW! I would have felt like such an idiot if I had injured myself that way!

The ride was pretty fun though despite the knee pain. Can you imagine a pack of 10-15 riders riding 2 abreast on the narrow roads of Ireland? It was pretty crazy but I found the cars quite tollerating of us. The group is constant laughter and jokes that I really don't understand! I guess I'm going to have to figure out what all the irish sayings mean sooner or later.

Anyways apart from the knee hiccup everything has been going really well. I am getting back into the groove of swimming again and think that this swim club is going to be very good for me. They average between 6-7km a practice!! Aileen has been very helpful and a great training partner. Everyone is worried that I am lonely in this big house on my own so people have been inviting me to dinner almost every night which has been awesome!

Well I guess I need to go put the fenders on my bike that are currently sitting in their packaging on the floor beside my bike :) The weather here is SO unpredictable. Honestly I think every day I've been here so far it has alternated between blue sky with sunshine to torrential downpour. Tomorrow is another day of being careful with my knee so I'll do a little ride in the morning followed by massage/physio. Then Lucy has suggested I go on an adventure and explore!! I'll let you know where I end up!

No food channel?

2009-11-17T12:53:00.000-08:00

I guess it's time for an update eh? Well the only downer to my next 6 weeks is that I will have to survive without my daily fix of the food channel :(

Where will I be for the next 6 weeks you ask? All over the UK!

I arrived in Ireland yesterday and will be staying with my Aunt and Uncle for 2 weeks (although they left on holiday this morning). They have been kind enough to lend their house and car while they are away so I have everything that I need. I will be swimming with a local swim club here and training with a couple of triathletes in town. Then I will be going to Spain for 10 days to train with the irish triathlon team on a training camp they are having there. It will be great to get out of the rain for a little while and to have a group to train with. Everyone I have talked to are really nice and incredibly welcoming. Following Spain (yes there's more) I am going to England for 10 days or so to train with some athletes there before coming back to Ireland for Christmas. Does that sound like a great trip or what?

This will be my first Christmas with all of my extended family so I am really looking forward to it. My great aunt, aunt and uncles, cousins and their spouses and babies will all be here. For the past 20 years my attendance at these Christmas gatherings has been from the other end of a telephone so it will be great to be apart of the action this year. My mom is also flying out for Christmas as well.

Today was a bit of an adventure teaching myself to drive on the left side of the road and around roundabouts. The left side is not the issue but I keep forgetting that there is all this car to my left that I am not used to being there. I nearly hit my left mirror on things more than once today, but I survived and so did the car :) Grocery shopping was also a good time. I spent a looong time in the grocery store just looking at things. It's neat seeing all the different varieties that the UK has compared to Canada. Tomorrow I am joining my new training partner Aileen on a ride with a local club. I think we are going 3 hours (with a coffee stop) so hopefully it will be sunny again like it was today (not counting on it though :).

Another funny thing that happened today was I went to do weights and the gym I went to has a policy that you have to sign up for session to get introduced to the gym before they let you use it. So this guy was supposed to take me around every machine and show me how to use it. He started with the treadmill. I learned how to turn it on, speed it up, incline it, slow it down, and even use different routes to challenge myself. I didn't want to be rude so I didn't tell him that I have a kinesiology degree and am an athlete, but he quickly figured out that he was wasting his time so we went through the rest of the gym in 5 minutes haha!!

thats it for now..

BC Cross

2009-11-01T14:03:00.000-08:00

I had a good race yesterday at the BC Cross Country Champs. I finished 10th overall. This was my first cross country race in a year (and possibly my last until next year) so I was kind of hoping it was going to rain so I could take advantage of getting as muddy as possible. But alas, it was sunny. I really can't complain about that though because as you can see from these photos it was such a beautiful day and the backdrop was amazing. I felt strong the whole race and was really happy with how I executed it. I went out fairly conservative but established myself in a pack of about 5 girls by the end of the first lap (2km) in about 6th position. As I mentioned in my previous post my focus was to work really hard in the middle 2km. I did a good job staying positive and strong through this section which I am happy about. The pack did gap me just before the 3km point when someone surged and I wasn't able to respond, but I kept a clear head and just did the best I could with what I had. Without having raced in a while it was good to remind my body what it feels like to go hard. Now I will be better prepared to run the Fall Classic 10km in 2 weeks!
We came home on the 5pm ferry and then it was time for Halloween fun!! Mags and I had a good time being bratty kids, although we probably could have been more bratty!

The lollipops were good!!

Getting ready to Race!

2009-10-30T16:26:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is the BC Cross Country Championships at Jericho Beach in Vancouver. This will be my first race of the off-season so I am excited to strap on some spikes and run hard! I have been doing a lot of running the past 6 weeks so I know my fitness is high. My goal for the race is really quite simple - to run as hard as I can, keep my speed and cadence up in the middle 2km of the 6km course, and to practice effectively utilizing some positive mental cues when it's starts to get tough. I'll have an update for you once the race is over. I am also racing as part of the senior women Prairie Inn Harrier's team which is a nice privilege as Bob Reid has offered to cover entries and ferry costs! It should be a great team and includes Lucy, Marilyn, Jess and Kirsty as well.

Apart from that I am also excited for Halloween tomorrow as Magali and I have have hilarious costumes! I will have to put up some pictures so you can see.

I'm also feeling much better about the MCAT prep course. Last week I was doing physics (my worst subject) so I was really not enjoying it much. This week however I did chemistry which was much more fun - if you can use fun and chemistry truthfully in the same sentence?

Okay off for some din dins - Sushi!!
Updates of race and Halloween shenanigans to come!

Silly Me

2009-10-25T16:19:00.000-07:00

I have to keep reminding myself that stress lowers life expectancy. This is funny because I think I thrive on it. I get stressed out when my life is too "relaxed" and stress-free, so then I somehow make it stressful and then stress that I'm stressed. Make any sense? Not really. I know.

Anyways sometime in my future I have always had the goal of going to medical school. Now that I'm finished my degree I'm not planning on applying until after I finish racing tri's, but everyone has been advising me to get the MCAT exam over with before I forget all my basic science info. The test stays valid for many years so if I write it now it doesn't mean I have to apply for med school now. So I decided the off-season would be a good time to study to write the exam and would give me something to do while I'm not training. Plus I like school so I don't really mind the studying. So I'm taking an online MCAT prep course. There are no official marks or tests or anything, it just provides you with all the tools one might need to learn the material, and lots of practice tests as well as online lectures. The whole course is taken online and I can do it at my own pace. So if I don't finish it in the time allotted it really doesn't matter - there are no marks! So why was I stressing all week about getting my physics finished? Silly me. My mom thinks I should have taken a relaxation course instead, and Brent suggested I take a tai chi class and bring my flashcards along so I can study while relaxing! hahaha maybe these are good suggestions :)

So my new approach to this course will be: training comes first, do it when I have time, NO STRESS! Sounds good to me.

The Epic Tales of Mystery Rider X

2009-10-18T22:33:00.000-07:00

I feel compelled to write an update because I had such a fun week :) I have been doing lots of training with Magali as she prepares for the 70.3 World Champs in Clearwater so it's been fun to do some no-pressure off-season miles! I had a lighter running week (only 3 runs) this week as I'd been getting really tight calfs (maybe due to all the pavement running I did in Hawaii), but backing off the running for a week seems to have done the trick. So to substitute I did 8.5 hours of riding!!

Mags and I rode 3 hours up the Malahat to Shawnigan lake and back on Wednesday, then I had my first trainer ride of the fall on Friday (watched the food channel for 90 minutes in my living room :), and then today Mags, Mystery Rider X, and I rode 4 hours up the Malahat again and this time went around Shawnigan lake. I am calling him Mystery Rider X because I have to tell you all the funny things that happened and maybe he would be embarrassed? (maybe not?). Okay so Mystery Rider X doesn't carry any extra tubes, or a pump, or tire levers, OR a cell phone on this 4 (oh ya he and Mags were riding 5) hour adventure up the Malahat (apparently he doesn't get flats....riiight). So I had use my only spare tube at hour 2 which left us with one tube between the 3 of us for the last 2-3 hours. Just as we were approaching Langford on the way back into town from the base of the Malahat, it sounded like a gun went off and what do you know? Mystery Rider X had a flat! Not only a flat - he had managed to completely slit his tire and tear a hole in it! Uh Oh. So we (actually I did it because he didn't know how to change a flat because he doesn't get flats remember?) proceed to put Magali's tube (our last one!) into his destroyed tire and after pumping it up the tube was literally bulging out of the tire! Amazingly luck was on our side and he was able to ride the 30 minutes home to change wheels. Meanwhile Mags and I rode scared back to her place to pick up some more tubes so we could finish the ride in the comfort of knowing that we wouldn't be stranded by the side of the road waiting for a cab if we flatted again. To add some more comedy to this adventure - Mystery Rider X manages to make it almost the entire ride on only 2 gels!! I was quite impressed at the time but then was later informed that he did bonk in the last hour after chasing cars for 20 minutes along the waterfront. HAHA! I wish I had been there for that.

So lesson of the day for me? - bring more than one tube on a 4 hour ride.

Lesson's (hopefully) learned by Mystery Rider X? - learn how to change a flat, carry a cell phone, carry a pump or CO2, carry extra tubes, and eat more than 2 gels! (I can laugh now but one day he will be an amazing cyclist and I will have to remind him about this :)

Also this week I had the pleasure of meeting a new run partner! Jess Sedlock is also coached by Lucy and LOVES to run, so I had a great time doing intervals with her in the pouring rain on Saturday morning :) She is an Olympic level biathlete, newly turned runner! Pretty cool!

Life on the Big Island.

2009-10-08T23:21:00.000-07:00

Is Great :)
First time in Kona and I can't wait to come back again. I'm sure it's pretty different when it's not ironman weekend but it's really cool to see so many fit people gearing up for such an cool event. Well more like a hot event - I can barely spend 30 minutes out in the sun in the middle of the day so I can't imagine racing an ironman in that heat! I have been getting up at 6am every morning to run before the sun comes up. This morning I swam at 7am on the ironman course which was pretty amazing. The water is crystal clear and you can see all the way to the bottom when your swimming in the bay. There have been tons of dolphins around and today when I was swimming there was a pack of about 50 less than 100 meters away from me!! Three of them swam directly underneath me too. I also saw a manta ray gliding along the bottom. So that was my swim this morning.. not something you get to experience everyday.

Apart from that I have just been hanging out having a good time. I rode the last 18 miles of the bike course out and back the other day, did the annual pre-ironman underwear run, visited my sponsors at Argon 18, worked in the LifeSport lounge a bit, and of course did some shopping.

Oh Maui was also amazing. One of my favorite new destinations for sure. Here are a few pictures of how gorgeous it is!

Hawaii :)

2009-09-28T07:23:00.000-07:00

I am currently on my way to Maui with my mom. We will be there for 5 days and then heading to Kona for the week to watch ironman! We are also volunteering with medical in T2 for a few hours during the race which should be neat.

Training has been going as it should. I had a few weeks off/very light do-whatever-you-want- training, and now I am 2 weeks into a 6 week run build. So far things are going well. Yesterday was my longest run so far at 1 hour 40 minutes. I have been lucky the weather in Victoria is still so nice and warm, but I am looking forward to being in Hawaii for 2 weeks and away from home for a while.

birthdays, puzzles and the beautiful west coast!

2009-09-17T22:04:00.000-07:00

Today was Brent's 29th birthday. I legitimately forgot, but still managed to throw together a good looking present (although the contents of the box were worth less than what it cost to wrap it :)

This evening I finished my puzzle.. finally!

Did you know that you can take a sea plane from Green Lake in Whistler to downtown Victoria for $150 and it only takes an hour!!! Incredible. It couldn't have been a nicer day to take in the views of the beautiful west coast!

in this (above) you can see the Olympic luge for 2010.

Whistler Mountain sans snow.

Black Tusk up close! Incredible!

Vancouver.
The Gulf Islands. We even went low enough to see orcas jumping!

Wooo Hooooo!!

2009-09-10T20:17:00.000-07:00

Firstly, congrats to Paula on her bronze medal finish at the U23 World Triathlon Champs in Oz!!

I am eagerly watching the men's race right now which is very exciting with McCartney in the lead pack!!

I realize I have been updating my blog quite frequently since I got some time off. Maybe it's because I am doing things other than swimming, biking and running for a change!

I have had a good couple days here in Whistler. I have been doing ALOT of sleeping. I can't quite figure out why I'm so tired but my last 3 nights have consisted of 12 hours, 10 hours and 11 hours of sleep respectively. I have also been watching ALOT of tennis. This is the first year in 3 that I haven't gone to New York to see some of the US Open but I am taking it all in on TV instead! I'm rooting for Nadal of course ;)

Yesterday my mom and I were going to hike the Squamish Chief but it was pouring rain so we chose a hike closer to home called Flank Trail. It took 2.5 hours (which is a lot of walking for me!) and we climbed from Function Junction up above Whistler Creek. It was all in the forest and was really pretty and very hilly. I have to admit I was hurting by the end!

Today was also a bit of an adventure. I went for a 50 minute run (my 3rd run in 3 days!) and ended at Lost Lake for a swim (I wore my suit under my run clothes and carried my cap and goggles)! I then spent 15 minutes staring at the lake trying to decide if this was a stupid idea, but decided I had to jump in to find out. The water was bright green.. glacial colour!! I swam a perimeter of the lake which took 15 minutes and I wasn't too too cold (just a little) so I decided I would attempt a second loop. This was probably not a good decision as I made it half way around when the cold hit me. At first I tried to take the direct route back to shore (about 400 meters) but then panicked because I knew I was on the verge of getting hypothermia and honestly wasn't sure if I could make it. So I changed path and aimed for the closest dock (200 meters) and focused on making it there! I sat on the dock for a couple minutes and then commited to swimming as hard as I could to the next dock (about 100 meters) and sat there for a minute before making the final swim to shore. Wow, that was a relief to get out of the water! I quickly put my run stuff back on and ran home for some warm tea and a hot shower!

Okay this post is getting too long. To finish I will include these pictures of the all you can eat BBQ I went to tonight with my mom! It was SOOO good. Chicken, Salmon, Lamb x2, Steak, Ribs, Potatoes, Corn, Grilled Zucchini, Salad, and the world's biggest Crumble!!!!

Stand up Paddleboarding.

2009-09-08T11:53:00.000-07:00

Well my mom has been talking about this all summer but had never actually done it so we decided to give it a try yesterday on Nitta Lake here in Whistler. You basically stand on a surf board and paddle around. It's the kind of thing I thought I would get bored of after 10 minutes but it was actually quite fun and our guide kept teaching us new ways of paddling and turning. After about an hour my mom was getting quite confident and tried to adjust her feet on the board and fell in the lake! That was pretty funny, but she also has a concussion from a bike accident 10 days ago so I guess she can blame that for her balance problem!

As for me, I'm still enjoying a bit of a break until next week. I did go and swim 4km yesterday because the pool closed today for a month! When I get back to Vic there will be more places to swim but the rest of this week I will have to check out if the lakes up here are warm enough to swim with no wetsuit. Tomorrow we will hike the Squamish Chief!! Hopefully it will be sunny so I can get some good pictures from the top!

Just heading out for a run now.. lets hope I don't run into a bear!!

Kerry and Jessica do Nanaimo, Parksville and Coombs!

2009-09-05T14:36:00.000-07:00

Pictures from Vacation #1...
Vacation #2 starts tomorrow: Whistler!

Nectarine Pie!!

Baking our first pie from scratch!! We were pros!

Climbing fake trees in Coombs.

mmm Frozen Yog.

Parksville Beach.

Riding Mack and Addy in Nanoose Bay.

Tucker loved me.

What a good looking pie! Craig do you want to challenge me to another baking contest?

Fresh out of the oven.

In Parrot-ville.

This was when we were still friends (before he tried to eat my watch and steal my purse!)

Jess had better luck with the parrots.

Goat on the roof in Coombs!

Love my new car :)

Lucky hole #6!

Walking Crystal!

2009-09-02T14:43:00.000-07:00

I wrote this post a couple days ago... but first here are some pictures of my accommodation!

view from living room
my bedroom.

Justin and I post race.

I am writing this from the back corner of a plane as I fly home from Chicago. I will never forget to check in online again as now I am stuck for 4 hours in the back row by the window! The worst part about it is that I can't put my seat back and the person in front of me just put his back so that divides my space in 2, and now the lady sitting next to me has fallen asleep and is teetering towards me. AHH! Anyways I guess I should just be happy to be on this plane as getting here was a bit of an adventure this morning - I took a taxi to the train station with Cam and then realized we were not going to the same airport so I was at the wrong station! I had to drag my bike box up 3 flights of stairs, then take a train 2 stops, then transfer to another train, ride that one for 40 minutes, and then trek 10 minutes through terminal 2 wheeling my bike box only to be told United Air had moved to terminal 1.

Chicago was a great city and I'm glad I went, but I'm excited to be going home for some down time now. As for the race, it was a lot of effort for not going all that fast. I finished 7th so it wasn't all bad. The swim was VERY choppy and probably the longest 1500m of my life. Seriously I looked up at one point thinking I must be nearing the end of it and realized I was only half way! I had a pretty horrible swim but I went into this race prepared to push through any obstacles and put in a good effort from start to finish. There was an 800 meter run from the swim exit to transition which was pretty crazy! Next came 2 very rookie mistakes that I'm embarrassed to admit I made. Firstly I was running out of T1 with my bike and it literally blew right out of my hands. It fell on the ground and my bottles went flying! Then starting the ride I reached down to put my right shoe on and I somehow unclipped it and dropped it on the freeway! It almost bounced right into the lane beside with cars moving really fast! I have never dropped my shoe before and it was funny because when you drop a gel the thought goes through your head - 'do I need that gel? Should I go back and get it or just keep going?' Well for a second I said to myself 'do I need my shoe? Do I have to go back and get it? OF COURSE YOU DO YOU IDIOT!' So I stop, turn around and go back for it. By this point I think I was in last place. Figuring the race couldn't really get any worse at this point, I put my head down and rode as hard as I could. I caught quite a few girls in the first 20km and then maintained my position during the last 20km as my back started to get sore and I was losing power on the pedals. I came into T2 in 7th position and ran as hard as I could. The sad thing is how slow I ran for running as hard as I could. But the effort was there and now I'm taking a week or 2 off so 7th is not such a horrible finish given the circumstance at this point!

I'm taking off to Nanaimo this afternoon with a friend to chill at her cabin for a few days. Excited to get away with no swim suit but a bikini and no bike!

Livin Like a Pro :)

2009-08-28T19:21:00.000-07:00

Here I am in Chicago for the last race of my 2009 season, the Chicago Tri - a non-drafting pro race in the Lifetime Fitness Series. After a disappointing Nationals I am going into this race with NO pressure and really just enjoying myself and remembering how lucky I am to be able to do this sport and travel to such amazing cities and to meet such amazing people. I am actually excited to race (after last weekend I didn't think I would be) and seem to do well when I take a no-pressure attitude so I'm looking forward to racing well.

Speaking of amazing people - David Carlins. David is the president of Magellan Development and has been generous enough to lend out his condo on the 37th floor in a high rise building in the heart of Chicago. I wish I had brought my camera cord to download pictures because this place is AMAZING. Lets just say that my bed is wider than it is long. Kind of confusing when trying to decide which way to sleep :) Thanks David for your support and generosity!

My new roommates, Cameron, Kristen, Jimmy (also racing pro on Sunday) and I joined a group from Magellan Development for a swim at a nearby outdoor pool at noon today. We were then invited to join them for lunch in their "party room" afterward. And these guys are supposed to be at work? haha I guess it helps when your boss is an avid triathlete!

Nationals

2009-08-24T10:56:00.000-07:00

I had a tough day yesterday, and although I'm obviously disappointed with the result, I'm choosing not to be down over it because I'd rather be happy than sad, and I think I can learn a lot from this experience.

I had a great start and a pretty solid first 750 meters of the swim. I actually felt really good swimming and at the half way point I was only about 10 meters off the back of the lead pack. Unfortunately swimming solo on the second lap allowed the leaders to put some serious time into me and I exited the water 45 seconds down from the lead pack of 6. This was where the race got really tough. A lead pack of six strong women were working in a paceline 45 seconds up the road, then there was me riding solo, and then there was a chase pack of about 8-10 riders over a minute behind me. I was in no mans land! I had no choice but to be tough, put my head down, and try to minimize time lost to the leaders. I really struggled on the bike, was barely able to stand on the climbs, and my power output felt really low. I don't really know why this was, it's the second race I have felt like that this year (first one was Minneapolis). Anyways I rode as hard as I could despite, losing about 30 seconds a lap to the leaders, and was caught by the chase pack half way through lap 6 (of 6)! (That sucked!) At this point the last thing I wanted to do was run 10km. I had seen myself running in the mix yesterday and really showing what I can do, so it was tough to keep my head in the game when I knew I was no longer in the mix. I finished 8th in the end, 7th Canadian.

So the biggest thing I learned from this race: Learn to swim 30 seconds faster!

I think my body is also getting to the point where a break is welcome. I've had some solid races this season, and had stayed strong and healthy until 2 weeks ago when I got the flu and have been struggling with fatigue ever since. I have one more week to get through and I'm going to go to Chicago feeling positive and ready to put in one last big effort. Then I can take a break and plan my off-season. Next year I'll be in that lead pack!!

Time Flys.

2009-08-18T11:37:00.000-07:00

In 3 days I will be flying to Kelowna for our National Champs, then back to Victoria for 2 days, then back on a plane to Chicago for my final race of the season. What's even more strange than my season being over in less than 2 weeks is that I won't be coming home to another semester of school. This fall will the first of my life that I haven't been in school. I'm looking forward to lots of running and swimming, I'll probably do a lot of road racing and cross country running and will finally do that 10km standard. No problemo. I'm also going to Hawaii (Maui and Kona) for 10 days with my mom to volunteer at Ironman and do some training and of course cheer! Maybe I'll also spend some time in Whistler!

Things are right on track as far as training leading into these next 2 races so I'm very excited. Plus, I love Kelowna and that course is fun!! Finally a bike course with a hill :)

Watching Mar and Lucy run 16.30ish on the track on Friday night was also very cool. Congrats to both of you for that!

Lessons Learned.

2009-08-14T12:09:00.000-07:00

We'll I'm feeling healthy again and am glad to have my life back (puzzle progress has slowed considerably haha!). My first workout back was tough, but as Lucy pointed out, it was only tough because I made it that way. I ran 5x1km on the track with Lauren and Mags. I was feeling great and was just so happy to be out there running again that I let myself get a little bit carried away on #2 and ran a 3.13. So that made the last 3 a little tough, but I learned my lesson. I was mad at myself after because I could have done them all at 3.18 to 3.20 and had a solid workout, but instead I got caught up in thinking it would only be a good workout if I could stay with these girls. As Lucy said, running with Lauren and Mags is a gift. I'm so lucky to have such great girls to workout with and if I'm not with them on every workout there's no need to panic, but I can challenge myself to be a few steps closer each workout. So I remembered this going into swim this morning and I stayed focused and had a solid swim, challenging myself to stay on feet a little bit longer each interval.

Massage now, then watching Mar and Lucy run 5km at the track tonight! Should be fun :)

The reason why I haven't updated my blog in a few days...

2009-08-11T20:36:00.000-07:00

Need I say anymore?

Okay so it has become apparent to me since going to physio this evening that I should be embarrassed about the fact that I am doing a puzzle! Paul thought that I was at confession this evening after I told him. I also heard something along the lines of "my 90-year old grandma does puzzles," and "my one-year old is doing a puzzle right now."

hahahaha

But the truth is that I love puzzles. I can't deny it. I actually find them quite addicting and the night I started I almost forgot to eat dinner. I actually haven't done a puzzle in quite a few years, however after swimming on Friday I had a fever and spent the weekend on my couch with a flu-type virus. After 17 episodes of Grey's Anatomy (also not a joke :) I thought I needed something else to do so that is when I decided to go get myself a puzzle!

So this is after I finished the border (as you can see no one will be eating at the dinner table for a while!)

This is what it will look like when I'm done. Yes.. I did pick one where EVERY piece is blue or white.. hmmm.. obviously my sickness was clouding my judgment at the time.

And this is my progress so far!

So even though the 3-day training break was very much needed, apparently I have turned into either a toddler or an elderly women that does puzzles. So I am happy to be off the couch and back training again! My energy levels are still not 100% but every day I get a little bit better and can train a little bit harder! Unfortunately my 35 minute jog today made my legs feel like I ran a marathon, so I think I'll be bringing out the epsom salts tonight!

Recipe(s)!!

2009-08-06T18:00:00.000-07:00

Okay so the good news is if I have the energy to make my favorite salad dressing then I must be coming around! Feeling a bit better.. couch time really works. I also made a soup that I have had the recipe for for a long time but have never got round to making it. It looks good but is still chilling in the fridge so I can't tell you for sure. Okay so here are the recipes...

Best Salad Dressing in the World (aka Papaya Avacado Salad Dressing):

- 1/4 - 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 tsp dry mustard
- 2 tsp salt
- papaya seeds of 1 papaya
- 1/2 cup white wine or tarragon vinegar
- 1/2 cup salad oil
- 1 bunch chopped green onions

Combine all ingredients in a blender and voila.. you have made the best salad dressing in the world. It's made to go with a salad of mixed greens, diced papaya, avocado and chopped red onion.

Chilled Mango Soup with Crab:

- 2 medium ripe mangoes, peeled and cut into chunks (I used papaya cause the mango's weren't ripe)
- 14 oz. can of coconut milk
- 1 tsp curry powder (or more)
- 2 tbsp freshly squeezed lime juice
- salt and white pepper to taste
- crab meat
- cilantro for garnish

Place mango, coconut milk, curry powder, lime juice, salt and pepper in a food processor and pulse until smooth. Chill soup in fridge for 2 hours. Pour into bowl with crab meat and garnish with cilantro.

from my couch...

2009-08-06T15:23:00.001-07:00

Some people might be jealous about the fact that part of my job is lying on a couch... but really when you feel too exhausted to do anything else it's not a great feeling. Unfortunately this is how I have felt for the past 4 days. Actually, this morning was the first morning I woke up feeling alive, but then I went to swim practice and ran 5x1km and now it's back to the couch! woo hoo.
How the body responds to training and racing can be very unpredictable sometimes. That's why training programs are made to be flexible. However, even though I know this, I can't help getting frustrated when recovery takes longer than I feel it should. I really wanted to do a good job at my km repeats this morning and I had been expecting to feel fresh for this session. However when the time came I knew I was still carrying some fatigue. In this kind of situation the most important thing for me to do is to stay relaxed and do the best job I can with what I have on the day. Sometimes accepting fatigue and staying positive even when you don't feel 100% is a tougher mental game than when you go in feeling great and can strive for a PB. I did the best I could with what I had today. What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger right?
Now it's back to grey's anatomy.. anyone know any good movies I can rent?

Sri Pics

2009-08-04T18:45:00.001-07:00

Ben and I, Winners!

I redeemed myself...

2009-08-02T21:56:00.000-07:00

Last year at the Sri Chinmoy triathlon I had an awful race and it's funny how you can get good or bad memories about a race that seem to last to the next year you do it. Well, I finally had a great race at the Sri so now I have some great memories!

I had SO much fun out there today. I had a decent swim and an awesome ride, feeling strong the whole way. I pushed as hard as I could, averaging 37km/hr over rolling hills and I LOVED my new race wheels :). Apart from nearly getting run over by an out of control and very spooked horse in the middle of the road, the rest of the ride was pretty uneventful. Only one guy passed me on the bike so I was second overall going into the run and maintained my position to the finish. I ran 37.00 which is 2.5 minutes faster than last year on that course and a solid performance after a hard ride.

It was a great training day and I'm feeling really confident about my fitness now as I head into my last three weeks preparation for Nationals!

This is where I live! WICKED =)

2009-08-01T18:43:00.000-07:00

An evening atop Mt. Doug!On Saltspring Island with Jess.

Heat wave rolling in!! View from Mt. Tolmie.

Well I guess it's time for another update. The last week or so has been wicked hot here in Vic after a short lightning storm last weekend. I would have appreciated the heat more if I hadn't had to spend hours outside under the blistering sun at my friend's wedding, but I survived so no complaints!

The LifeSport Camp ended last weekend with a final go at 10x1km repeats at the lakes and a 2 hour ride on Saturday, and an open water 1500m swim race and a 90 minute run on Sunday. It was a fun end to a great camp!

Since then I have had an easier week of training as I will race the Sri Chinmoy Triathlon tomorrow at Elk Lake! Low key races like this one are lots of fun as it's a great opportunity to race hard with nothing on the line. It's kind of like getting a great workout in with hundreds of spectators! I also get to try out my new Zipp 808 and 404 wheel set!

On Tuesday and Wednesday this week I was over on Saltspring Island for my friend's wedding. It was really fun and the heat was tolerated with the help of little european fans made by the groom's mom. I took my bike over and went for a ride on Wednesday morning before the luncheon at Rebekka's (the bride) house. The only word to describe that ride is HILLY! It was fun though to switch up the scenery a little bit.

On the way to Saltspring with Jess.

Rebekka looking beautiful!

Rebekka and Anna post ceremony.

Cutting the cake!

Also earlier this week I had a visit from a great friend JONNYO! Unfortunately he took off yesterday as his treatment was complete, but I think the real reason he left was because he was scared I was going to beat him in the water fight we had planned. That's okay I won't forget and next time I see him he better be prepared for battle!

Jonnyo!

View from outside Mel McQuaid's house the night of the lightning storm. The sky was crazy!

Dare to Believe in Yourself.

2009-07-20T20:53:00.000-07:00

This morning I saw a canvas wall hanging with these words written on it and had to buy it for my room. I have had so many workouts in the past month where I have looked at my splits in disbelief and have left thinking "I don't know how I just did that." It's like I believed it wasn't me doing the swimming or the running and it was just a fluke or a one-time occurrence. When these moments keep happening though, it's time to start believing.

I have had the best training week of my life this past week in terms of enjoyment as well as performance with the LifeSport Pro team. I have had the opportunity to experience training at the highest level, and have seen first hand some unbelievable mileage logged, as well as courage, dedication and determination. It has been inspiring to watch everyone show up to workout smiling, excited to be there, and ready to work hard even when deep down they are completely exhausted. When you know everyone is hurting just as bad as you are yet wants to work even harder and do just a little more despite, it is a special feeling.

Half the group is sticking around for training week #2 of the camp. I can't wait to see what I can do this week :) Here are a few more pictures of the week past. Thanks Travis for a great dinner on Saturday night! Maybe that steak will help with my biceps :)

I swear I lift weights! (Apparently not heavy enough).

Recovering from suffer saturday.

Fatty on the end made our log sink.. haha =)

And some photos from "suffer saturday's" mile repeats...

Super Saturday!!

2009-07-18T16:58:00.000-07:00

Or Suffer Saturday might be a better description! But it was super either way. I probably had one of the biggest training days of my life today (well it would have been for sure if I hadn't broken my seat on the ride.. but more on that later). I'll start with a quick recap of the week because my day today was made even better by the fact that I had no expectations for today since I was glued to my couch yesterday too tired to move.

This week I've had a huge training group since a LifeSport Pro Camp is in town. It's been awesome training with some extremely talented and fast girls who have chosen sport as a career.

Monday - a recovery day with a swim at Elk and a hot/cold session at PISE. Most of the girls raced the Vancouver 70.3 on Sunday and I was coming off Lifetime on Saturday plus travel on Sunday.

Tuesday - 1 hour recovery run, 2 hour base ride, 5km swim with 3x600 steady aerobic and 20x100 pull desc. 1-5 on 1.40 LC. I have to say that I had an awesome swim here! My previous PB for 100 pull/paddles was 1.18, but I swam numerous 1.12's, 1.10's and finished the set with a 1.08 using finger paddles!!! whoa talk about getting faster :)

Wednesday - 2.5 hour hilly strength ride with big gear seated hill repeats. Open water swim at Durrance with 2x300 hard, 600 mid-race pace, 3x300 desc. 1-3. I had a good swim trying to hang on to Poulsen's and Amanda Steven's feet! Wow she is fast. Then a 30 min run with some accels. Oh and can't forget the salmon dinner at Bruce and Marsha's house!!

Thursday - HARD swim in the morning with a total of 24x50 best average plus MRP 100's. I was tired for this but still had a solid swim. Then the group headed out for a 5 hour ride which I'm sure was pretty epic but I went out on my own for some 4x10 min intervals on the Waddling Dog loop followed by a 30 min. run off the bike with 10 min. hard. Not gonna lie this felt like survival. I barely made it through the last 5 min of my run and drove straight to Fujiya for some sushi and then drove home at 30km/hr because I was too tired to push my foot down any harder.

Friday - in need of a day off... feeling totally pooched. Could be due to a number of things... training obviously, maybe dropping iron levels (just started getting iron shots yesterday), also on antibiotics this week which can do funny things to you.

SUPER SATURDAY - okay we're here. Considering that I couldn't get off my couch yesterday, I was pretty happy just to make it through my workouts today, let alone actually perform well! It started with a run of 6x1 mile on 7.15. I'm not gonna lie I felt pretty shitty warming up, but never read into warmup right? The first 2 intervals were surprising pretty fast (5.23) considering that I felt that I weighed 500 pounds. Mile #3 was the only "bad" inteval I had, as I really started to feel bad let myself make excuses. After that though I HTFU and sucked it up. It was great to have so many strong girls to run with and get positive support from and they really helped me pull it back together. I finished the workout with a 5.16 mile :) It was also great to see Simon, Adam and McCartney join us for the run. We really did have a solid group!
The bike workout this afternoon was 3 hours with a 26km TT followed by 5x observatory best average. I, however, broke the screw on my seat post by over-tightening it after making a minor adjustment after warmup. At first I was just going to ride back to my car, but considering that I broke it standing at the bottom of observatory hill, Lance suggested doing some standing hill repeats. What a great idea! Actually. So I rode 5x observatory to the buildings, big chain ring, standing only, descending effort, even split. It was actually a really great workout for me because I like to work on my standing strength as much as I can when I ride hills. There's no better way to do it than when you have no option but to stand because your seat is broken!!
I finished the day with a 20 minute jog off the bike. Super excited about my day I took my bike to the shop for a seat repair, and now I'm going to end this post so I can go for dinner!

LifeSport Pro Camp Salmon Dinner

2009-07-16T20:36:00.001-07:00

Amanda, Carolyn and Bree being silly as usual.

The competitive croquet game.

Magali trying not to get "disconcentrated"

Just chillen.

Silly girls.

Look at those pipes Bree! haha

Magali, Dan, Rachel and I.

More chillen.

Bruce's catch!! It was GOOD!