Monday, February 18, 2008

Why do i get myself into this



Since the last time I am healing up from my running crash, although the other day I was running across the wash byt the house and did not see the wire across the trail and completly did a face plant after being tripped up. I guess when you are prone to falling you can do it where ever when ever!! I am always finding new ways to go down.


On friday Andrew Yorke, Steve Hewick and Rachel O'Reilly came to Tucson. It was mine and Nats job to make them suffer for the week that they are here. The first day we took them on a 100km ride with the 3 miles up mount lemmon at 80km into the ride. This, in the words of Andrew turned his lights out, it was funny.


Today was a good day as well. It started off with a good swim with the main set being 16x50 2 easy 2 hard then 4x400 on 5 min I went 4:35 for all of them, not killer by pretty strong, followed by another16x50. The bike was where the most fun was, we did 2x20min up mount lemmon we ended up going about 4.5 miles each one and it was a lot of fun going up a mountain hard like that it can really make you strong and efficient. Nat and i were going about the same speed, Andrew did what he does best, that is go strong on the first one but fade on the second one, but he always tries hard. To cap the day off we did a 70min run through the trails.


Tomorrow is going to be probably the biggest day of my life we are starting with a swim at 6:30 then later in the day Nat and I are riding 130km just stready then I am heading out for a 90min run so I think the day might be getting close to 8 hours so hopefully I will be around tomorow night to update on how the day went.


talk to you all later



Friday, February 15, 2008

Epic Run



I will start off with the training yesterday. It was a really long day but went of pretty uneventfull. In the morning we did a 105km bike with the wednesday group that basically does the shootout loop backwards. After the bikeI went right into the 90min run on the trails close by. It was by far the warmest day I have felt here and by the end i was really tired. Then we did the swim (5k) later in the day.


Today though was different there was not as much training just a 90min run and a swim. For the run Nat and I decided to go up this road over Reddington Pass to some 4x4 trails that go up into the mountains. It was an awesome run, it was through the grasslands because we were up at a higher altitude so there were no more cacti. There were times where we were running through herds of cattle and running around mountain lakes. It was very beautyfull.


At one point though I tripped on a rock and went down pretty hard, I ended up cutting up my leg and my hand pretty bad. It looked a lot worse then it was because I did it 45min in about as far away from the car as we could have been so it bled a lot as I was running. The loop ended up being 95min and 20km.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Wow big day


Today was the longest day of the year so far which is awesome, the bad part is that it is not even the longest day of the week!!! oh man.

The day started of at 5:40 when our alarm went off to go to swimming. That plan quickly changed and the new alarm was set for 7 so we could head out riding around 8. It is nice having someone else that hates morning workouts as much as I do, haha!!!!

So we started our ride around 8 and decided to head up mount lemmon. It was a gorgous day and starting early there was hardly any one on the road. We did the intervals that we were supposed to and with my new toy ( a powertap ) i was able to really find the zone I wanted. I think it is going to be a very usefull training tool for the rest of the year. We got to Summerhaven after about 2:45 then started to head down. I have never had as much fun heading down this mountain before, Nat and I did our last interval down the mountain and I could not believe how fast we were taking it. Nat is an amazing decender and I was getting nervous around some of the corners because we were heading into them so fast, but I made it and I feel like I am better having done it. The total ride was 4 hours and 110km.

When we got home it was right into an hour run through the wicked trails right out our doorstep. I felt good during it which is good concidering the length of the ride.

We had a couple of hours off then headed to the pool for the last workout of the day. We did a total of 4500 yards with a main set of 8x(200swim, 200pull hard) . I was surprised at how good I felt swimming as well and it is making me feel a lot better with my fitness because after being sick I was not feeling that great about it.

Well that is about all for now tomorrow is another big day. 100k of riding 90min run with some tempo stuff and a swim later in the day. Should be a lot of fun.

later

Friday, February 8, 2008

The first month in a nutshell


I have been in Tucson Arizona for just over a month training with the Canadian national triathlon team the first month and now with a ex-pro cyclist turned triathlete named Nat Faulkner.
I drove down early January with my girlfriend Krystal Jeffs who decided to come along for the journey because she was leaving for teachers collage in Australia and I would not get to see her for about 6 months. We had a great trip, took the scienic way through Colorado and Utah. There is some awesome country out there, 12000 foot pass where I did not think my car would actually make it over to awesome canyons cut by the mighty Colorado river. It was quite the trip. Eventually the day came and I had to say bye to Krystal then I went to say hi to my Grandparents who spend their winters in Mesa, a suburb of Pheonix. After a day with them it was on to Tucson to meet up with the rest of the triathletes.
The camp was a lot of fun, although I was not in the greatest shape when I got there I slowly get better and better as the camp went on. After 3 weeks the Canadian camp ended and I was left to fend for myself for a couple of days before Nat arrived.
Nat had organized for us to stay at a house in the east end of Tucson close to great riding and running and it seems to be working out really well now.
For the last few days I have been really sick sith some kind of stomach virus and have lost lots of weight so I am already down to my race weight and them some more below it. My coach and I are having a contest as to who can be the lowest come time for my big races so although I did not like being sick if I can keep it off I am sure I will beat him.
Well that is about all, I know it is a lot crammed into a short entury but I did not feel like spending hours writing about my trip so far.
I will try my best to update is as much as possible.
Talk to you later

Thursday, February 7, 2008

Giving In

So I have finally given in to the blog game, I figured it was about time because with spending more and more time away from home there is added pressure to keep in touch. This way I can do it a lot easier. I will try my best to keep it updated and I think once I get into a groove I will be fine. I hope you all like it.
Later