Saturday, July 29, 2006

Holly cheese

If your reading this you might be surprised because this is the first new blog in about 3 weeks. A lot has happened to me in three weeks but i wont go into the details too much...well maybe

I raced squamish and then the peach classic back to back after nationals and squamish was awesome, peach alright. In squamish i pushed the swim and then drilled the bike knowing that ben H would be coming to get me. Rode well and run well too. I really like trail running and i think it suits to my strength. Constant changes in direction and choosing the best line is what pays the bills in trails. Was shocking to hear near the end of the race that one lady had been chased off the course by a momma black bear and her two cubs! Triathlon is like a box of chocolates...never know whattya gonna geet. One other highlight of that weekend was driving back over the duffy lake road home. Lillooet has the best radio station ever! No commercials just 70's and 80's rock. we are talking stones,doors,police,beatles,Zeplin oh and it goes on..its like a station where some dude has hooked up his i-pod on shuffle for the weekend and left the station!

Peach went alright. I wanted to beat Matt Seeley (grandmaster of the Montana tri club) but it wasn't to be. Swim was out and back and out went well, i stayed on Travis chater's feet and we were on our own to the turn around. Then we turned and "I was blinded by the light" the sun that is, couldn't see travis or the lead kyak. so on my own i screwed up the back leg royally offcourse and come out in anger. Seeley came by me about 5k into the bike and that was the last i saw of him. I needed a good 2 and a half minutes from the swim to have a chance but had less than one. Ben then caught me 30k in. I picked up my tempo, making sure to ride with him to transition. On the run we were even steven until the climb where i put on maybe 20 seconds. That turned out to be the tsn turning point as that is about what i would come in ahead of him at. Made sure to gorge on the fresh local fruit post race and then uneventfully drove home thinking why on earth some german engineer hasn't invented oscilating air vents in cars, like regular house fans have.

From the peach i've stepped it down a notch or two here in revelstoke. I did find out i've qualified for the world university championships in lausanne, switzerland. That should be an amazing once in a lifetime experience and has got me stoked here in the stoke. So i've been organinzing some fundraising for that trip as Triathlon Canada isn't giving a penny.


that brings me to now...today nothing more than a 3hr ride to blanket creek down to the campground and then back to Clough road where we drilled out 3 hill repeats. That is a good hill to prepare for the Lausanne course (which you can all view if you go to www.triathlon.org link in on the bottom of page) which has has steep nasty hills in it.

oh i hear the bbq calling my name, it saying "gimme something to grill ba-bee"

keep on enjoying the summer

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

Nationals

well i;m sitting in the winnipeg airport and thought i'd blog up the race in brampton this past weekend

Conditions were not the greatest not only was it hot and humid it was also very windy. I think the temp was 31 with close to 100% humidity. Although it wasn't raining so i don't know if it is correct to say 100% is it Nolan? Winds were gusting up to 50k.

The swim was nuts. that's how i can sum it up, just nuts. Picture 60 guys on a beach lined up and then with the shot of a gun sprinting into the lake. I got punched in the mouth right away and then half way to the first bouy someone elbowed me in the eye and busted off my googles. With all the wind it made the lake very choppy. Literally i felt like i was a prisoner trying to escape from alcatraz.

Anyways, i was able to not get too far behind and had a fast transition out on to the bike. Caught up with a some group including mike simpson (probably the best cyclist at the race) and we quickly caught more guys and then closed in on the second chase group. I barely hung on until we reached that second chase group. Once there thought the pace eased up. We rolled into T2 in a group probably areound 15 or 20.

Out on to the run i set off with the front of the group. The run was good but i died around 8k getting a stich and then pain in my chest. I was done when i crossed the liine and quickly headed to the med tent where i got ice and could lay down.

I didn't get lapped by simon whitfield which was awesome and i finished 22nd out of 55 (`15th canadian). Overall very happy with the result. have to wait to see if i got one of the two university worlds spots, not likely but maybe....

We went to the party dinner afterwards and gorged out on chocolate fondue mmmmmmmmmm

spent yesterday relaxing and zzzzzzzzzzzz in caledon and then today made my homeward bound.

I will see most of you soon

next up is squamish and then peach classic.

all for now.