The Start

I was looking thru some race photos from last year and came upon a number of start photos. As you step up to the line to start a race so many things are rushing thru your head: start fast, stay relaxed, find the right feet, good T1, the list goes on. Then there seems to be a lull in those thoughts and all of your senses become heightened. The adrenaline is kicking in! The moments between "athletes take your mark" and the horn either happen so fast, or so slow, but when the horn goes everything goes out the window for about 20s. It is fight or flight mode until some clean water where you can then begin to think again and settle into the race.

The start is different to ever race. Each venue has a different beach run in, different chop, and different field size. The long run-ins offer a 4th discipline to the triathlon. A lot of time can be lost or gained here. I personally like the short entries, get it over with and swim. If it is a shallow entry then its gonna be a long exit for lap1 and lap2. Running in knee deep water is so painfully slow.

The start, so important yet so minute in terms of the race as a whole.

ho Ho HO!

Word on the street is that Santa is planning an early visit to Beaver Lake this Sunday.

Mincemeat and Egg Nog

The best selfish aspect of christmas I find is not the gifts, but the food associated with tis the season. December brings all sorts of seasonal foods out to eat and two of my favourites are egg nog and mincemeat. I think this is because both have quite a heavy hand of cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

I've taken the endulgence of these two favourites to a new level this year with two improvisations to my regular gourmet diet. Try substituting egg nog for milk in your morning riser oatmeal, delicious. If your more of a pancake person than toss some mincemeat into the recipe. I tried these yesterday and I ate the whole 4 person serving with syrup. Mincemeat can get tossed into muffins or cookies as well and is the bomb warmed up and then put on top of vanilla ice cream....speaking of which it is about desert time.

I bid you adieu.

Bode

This is unbeliveable. He is racing Super-G probably at about 110km/hr when this happens.

Balance is the essence of Beauty

Cinquanto

Five workouts tuesday makes a cinquanto, which is half french half spanish for "Five Workouts". Sorta like El Nino, spanish for "The Nino!"

I don't think i've had a day like this before your all three sports are worked plus a couple others to balance everything out.

5.5km in the pool with a sneaky set Neil made up that logged some decent kick but it went relatively unnoticed:

4X (3x100kk on 2:00, then 1x100 dr/swim on 2:00, 400fr on 6:00 dec1-4)

400's went 5:13, 5:08, 5:03, 4:56

After the swim Stevo and I finally reunited for a cross ride. We rode 2.5hrs in the parks of victoria, with a great tough loop in Mt.Doug. We talked about how the cross seems to really improve your pedal stroke and balance on the bike, it's true!

Back home for lunch and some errands to do, then out to UVic for the group run. 1hr30 with a long 40min effort at steady state. Running thru the uvic trails at dusk was great but near the end i was dying and Kirsty was turning up the heat. A couple times i felt like just bee-lineing it back to the stadium so i could pass out.

The other two workouts tuesday were core and strength. Along with the yoga we are doing I have noticed my balance, strength and core recruitment have steadily been improving. This is a more versatile approach to becoming the best athlete you can and tudos to Patrick for adding these disciplines to the program.

This week i've also noticed that I seem to have made it thru the first stages of feeling tired with the increased training load. This takes a little while but once you get thru it by having your body adapt you feel much much better.

The 4 hour swim

Yesterday I had the intention of swimming just 5k but it ended up being much more than that.

After swimming I set out on a CX ride thru the elk lake trails, up to ross-durance road where I plunged down the Gowland-Tod Provincial Park McKenzie Bight trail. This trail leads down to a small scale delta that looks across finlayson arm. Once you get down there it almost looks like a fjord. On a side note, this past weekend victoria had a storm pass thru like most of western canada. As a result this trail was litter with leftover snow, windfall and a network of overflowing creeks cris-crossing the trail.

Once down at the bight I had a plan to look at a loop which I thought would be a serious work out with some huge climbing. Well once into the loop I began hiking my bike more than i was riding it. I was getting frustrated with the tough conditions and the pelting rain and wind. When i finally got to the top of the hike and got back on and began riding when i reached a "lake" on the trail. I was fed up with walking it so i gunned it not realizing how deep this sucker was. The water kept rising as i mashed thru it. Then i must of hit a submerge boulder or something cause next thing i knew I was sent ass over tea kettle into "the lake". I remember looking back at my bike and only seeing a handlebar poking up out of the water.

At this point I had had enough I was entirely soaked head to toe. Now I'm not easily flustered and don't usually make it verbal but at that point i let loose the biggest bellow curse of my life.

I finished the ride and actually some taunting sun come out as i neared the parking lot.

yup, thats how she goes.