Thinking about the future....

As the cross country season comes to an end, its now time to start thinking about what to do to prepare for the 2009 season and the 2009 World Championships. There are a few thoughts rolling through my mind about what to do between now and the hard training season which will commence in the early spring. As most people know, i was diagnosed with a stress fracture in August, and was told not to run for 3 monthes. What i did was swim instead of run to maintain my cardiovascular fitness and hope for the best about maybe running for the cross country team. Two and a half weeks before the Ontario University Champs i started running slowly and ended up racing. I qualified for Nationals and ran that as well. I am still unsure about the condition of my leg, but i do know that it no longer hurts to run or walk. However, it does still swell and is painfull if i accidently hit it with my other foot. So...what to do. to run or not to run. Perhaps it is time for a down time. A time to recover from the long seasons of competition and let my body heal and rest for the next seasons to come. I have never gone more than 5 or so days of inactivity but maybe it will be a good thing!...?

CIS and Quebec

So, Canadian University Cross Country Nationals is over and so is my XC Career. The race conditions could not have been worse but it is what we had to deal with. 50km/hr winds and cold temperatures along with mist pellets. The race did not go as well as i had hoped (a min off what i should have been)but you learn from your mistakes (taking the race out way too hard). It was a challenging race in crazy conditions but in all it was a great experience. My fellow teammates Craig and Ian along with coach and his wife and my mom and dad made the trip out to Quebec City to cheer me on which was awesome! we had a good time and will miss Trent XC.

OUA's

Mother Nature unleashed her fury on Fort Henry hill for the OUA Cross Country Championships on Saturday. Heavy rain, 45km/hr winds and cool temperatures made it the harshest OUAs in years. However, everyone was in the same boat, toughing it out for the 10 muddy km of racing. I placed 30th out of the 98 fastest runners in Ontario. My main rival, well 2 of them, Jonas Holmberg from lakehead U finished just ahead of me by 6 seconds and Tyler Pettes did his usual move and out kicked me for the 4th time. Over all im real happy. This qualified me for the CIS (Nationals) in 2 weeks in Quebec City to go against Canada's best. i have no idea how that will go but i know it will be tough! im excited to finish off my university career by finally making CIS and rest my leg and let it heal 100% so i can start training in the wintertime for World Champs Triathlon in Gold Coast, Australia in September!

OUA's Tomorrow

The big day has arrived and its time for our team (Trent) to show what we've got, up against the best runners in Ontario, some of which are previous ofsaa champions! conditions will be tough, with heavy rain, strong winds and a muddy course! it will be messy but everyone is competing in the same conditions and will feel the same pain. This will be my final time running at OUA's and i have come a long way from my 2nd year as well as my fellow teammates at Trent. GO GREEN!

Cross Country Running and Swimming?

So it has been an interesting few weeks here at school. Classes are well underway and so is running cross country...well sort of. I got my results from my X-Rays and Bone Scan which show a stress fracture. ( a small hair like fracture on my lower left tibia ) It is difficult to walk let alone run but i wanted to do cross country anyways. So i have been attending all workouts but have managed to get in so far 6 workouts in 2.5 months. So how is it going race and leg wise? well, the leg is somewhat ok now, letting me do some workouts more often and it doesent hurt to walk anymore. Running is going great somehow. I have ran at two races thus far and have had personal bests at each. (queens Invitational and the Brock Open). Swimming has helped me enormously with my cardio and has let me run faster than i ever have. Swimming is also going very well. I have OUA's Ontario XC champs) next week in Kingston and then maybe CIS (Canadian XC Champs) in Quebec City at the beginning of November. After which i will rest my leg and let it heal for 2 months before tackling my running. This will give me lots of time to work in the pool and on the bike while keeping fit and healing at the same time. Reading week is comming up and i'm excited to see sydenham again for a bit!

pardon my last post! i posted too late . what i said was i am still having trouble with my lower leg (tibia) wich WONT HEAL!!!!!!!!!) im going for a bond scan on tues. to fugure out what is wrong with it! i am cycling a lot as well as swimming. some workouts are:

Swimming:

1000m wp
3X 400m on 5min, 3x100 on 1:15 and 4x50 on :40 with 100ez

and

1000 wp
30x75 pull on 1:00

good lactate threshold workouts!|

cycling is ok with a few long rides, nothing long yet. its off season and im not sure about my leg yet.

Hope everyone in sydenham is great as well as all of my former swim students STILL swimming!!!!!! haha. keep it up boys and girls if you want to race fast!. good luck and thank you Sydenham!

School

drian etc. i midd it and sydenham. ill be back though before australia to train!!!! yes!

Im in north bay now, with my girlfriend attending a wedding. so far soo good. nice and sunny here. i went for a swim in Trout Lake. a nice small lake that i thought would be nice and warm. not so. freezing.. but i got in a good swim and got my heart rate up nice and high. thats about it. havent heard anything about my leg yet but man i am antsy to run!!!!! ughhh.

Simon is a Robot. And my leg sucks

Simon Whitfield is a robot. He had an amazing comeback and final kick that ive never seen anyone do before. trailing by 50m , e throws down the hat and goes for it with only Frodano responding. Number 1 and 2 ranked Gomez and Docherty had no response to the surge and only the young German could take on the challenge. I lost my voice during the race...i think i helped by yelling. As for me i am till resting. Im swimming and Biking alot now since my leg is still sore. I think i did something to my lower shin during K-town which is now killing me, along with the back of my lower leg. its frustrating when Cross Country is comming up and i havent ran in 3 weeks. Hopefully the biking and swimming workouts will keep up my fittness. I went to get some x-rays today and will hopefully know the results tomorrow. i doubt anything is broken but perhaps a stress fracture..? i hope not. For now the 4000m swims and 70k bikes will continue. I miss running and the challenge of running 1000m intervals trying desperatly to hold 2:50s. it will be a few weeks before im doing that again. O well, somethings gotta happen to make you realize how careful you have to be with your body.

So, K-town tri was awesome. Swim was long, bike was great with a moderate headwind on the way back and the run had perfect conditions. However, i think my run was a bit too rough on my lower left leg and i am now in pain, limping and trying to be positive about a possible stress fracture......which is hard to do. This may affect whether i do cross country this season or not, but i have got to take care of it so i can get back to things quickly and not end up like Kristen Sweetland who has a stress fracture on her heel which she ran through and was out for a bit. I hope things get better quickly. UGHHHH its frustrating when you love a sport soo much and you cant train for it. i guess i better take advantage of resting a bit before training gets underway. However i CAN swim and bike which is fun as well. I am taking advantage of swimming in the lakes before they get too cold and i have to resort to the indoor pools.
I am done school in the wintertime and have an oppertuinity to train for a while in Hawaii. A family friend who lives there has offered me to stay for a while and take advantage of the waters and hills of Oahu in warm weather while it is depressing and cold in Canada during the wintertime. I hope to train there and get a solid base training season in.

My brother Andrew is running now....sometimes...and will be on the trent XC team this year. He's a great runner. if he sticks to it he should be able to run fast within the next year maybe breaking the 16 min 5k barrier. Trent's XC team looks good and i hope all goes well...including my damn lower left shin!!! ughh.

For now its simply swimming, biking and ....water running?

Worlds 2008......worst contitions challenge.

Alright, i guess i will gve this another shot. last time i decided to do this i never got around to postinig anything. My 2008 Triathlon season is officially over. I managed to race 6 times this season with excellent results. 6 for 6 wins. Some races were not as challenging as others but it was great motivation for me to continue in the sport. Worlds was great. This was by far the most exciting race ive ever done. The people and competitors were incredable. Many people ask about how the race went. So here it goes.

530 am: i get up and realize it is race day. my stomach is churning and nurves freyinig. I am very supersticious so i had to go through some of the rituals. This called for me to eat 2hrs pre race to digest the food to avoid any cramps and stomach problems during the race. i always eat one of 2 choices which i never change. either a subway 6" breakfast sub or a bagel with a power bar. In vancouver i decided to go with the subway as i had used it in all XC races and other races in 2007 and they all went well. However in Vancouver they dont open uuntil 7am so i got one the day before and it was a bit soggy with sub sauce.

540am : im out the hotel door and make my way to transition by running, warming up my body was it was about 8 degrees and spitting rain. everything goes smoothly until i finish setting up transition and find out that the shoes i wore over (racing flats which i was to race in) were the only ones i brought and the race start is 1km away. so.....looks like im bare footing it to race start. my feet were killing me as the rain water was freezing and so was the asphalt and grass. I called my mom and girlfriend to bring me a pair of shoes on their way down to the race and that worked out fine. After this time i hung around with Jordan and she calmed me down as my nurves were through the roof.

630am : The women are off and i could tell the water was going to be a challenge. Some girls droped out only a few 100 meters from shore as panic from the cold water set in and became unbarable. Being Canadian/Finnish and used to the cold i felt i had an advantage over the pacific islanders and other southern countries in terms of delaing with the cold water. I remember looking over and seeing a competitor wearing a sleevless wetsuit and wondered how he would fare. He was from South Africa and when i talked to him 3 days prior during the swim familarization, he didnt know if he could do the swim.

7am: 30 min prior im sitting in the athletes lounge prepping for the swim. looking around i saw other athletes doing some things to protect from the cold. One guy from Brazil had vaseline all over his face and hands which looked 5cm thick. although he looked like a fool he was smart for it.

720: 10 min to race start. scared shitless. We are called into the start zone and checked for our correct name attached to our chip. As i approached the start line i looked at my competitors beside me. As usual they are all huge, except for a few slightly taller than me. I knew then i was going to get beaten up at the start unless i hammered the first 100m.

730am : race start. it was HELL. we run into the water and it hits you so hard. Not just the 20km/hr dive in but the ice cold water making the "icecream brain freeze" feeling hard to deal with. Your breathing becomes difficult at the start since the temperature is soo cold. This is all on top of being punched, kicked and dizzy from the chaos of a triathlon start. I fell behind in the swim a bit as the feild strung out, and i was on my own in a group of a few. i could see the leeders ahead and thought that the race was over unless somethig magical happened. i got out of the water after the 1100m swim as it turned out to be and couldent feel anything. The feeling of your feet and hands after being in the water that long is painful, like running on ice. It usually takes me 5 seconds to find and pull down the zipper on a wetsuit while running but this time it took me over a min to find it as i could not feel the zipper or close my hands. I get to transition and try to get my wetsuit off and finally it comes off! i grab my bike and go. On my way out 200m from the rack nearing the mounting line i realize that my water bottle had fallen out somewhere and i would be without gatorade for the 21km of the bike. Too late, so i make my way running to the mount.
The bike was tough. It was cold, hilly and raining. 9 degreese outside, good for a marathon but not in those temps or traveling at 20-60km/hr. I made up alot of time on the bike as i started to catch the big guys on the hills, a benifit of being small. the hill up, a series of 2 hills were about 1.2km long. once you reached the top it was downhill from there hitting speeds nearing 70km/hr. dangerous on wet pavement. There were a few accidents around the sharp corners.

At the end of the 3rd loop i was in 1st place by one second. This would change in transition as i struggled to do anything. Taking of my helmet was nearly impossible with hands already frozen from the water but also from the rain and cold air and wind. it the same as trying to write your name with a pen with frozen hands! i mamaged to unbuckle the helmet and the next challenge were the shoes. Crap! cant feel the feet or the hands. putting on the shoes took over a min. Its like trying to put shoes on a dead corpse with numb hands. I lost almost a min in transition and had to run like hell.

During the first lap i was on fire trying to warm up my body to loosen up. i ran fast and felt great. my arms were frozen from the bike but that did not matter. I ran my hardest and fed off the energy of the croud. its amazing how much extra you get from the croud. i was gaining on the leader, Ian Clark from New Zealand. I was told how much ahead he was a few times and knowing i was gaining helped push harder. Ian is an excellent swimmer i later found out. He is sponsored by blue seventy, a wetsuit company. and im sure he would have beaten me if it were not for the conditions. I ran into the finish, an was exhausted. usually sweating and pouring water over my head after the finish was not the case of the day. we were all given space blankets to keep warm. I was also drinking hot water to warm up. Many people droped out due to the cold and many were hospitalized. it was quite a race and i had the best run of my life. I ran the 5.2km in 16:19. I was told my 5k split was around 15:45. i was soo happy

it was nice to be done and see jordan waiting for me. Later after recovering i went to check the final results and found out i was not on the finish list. What!!!!. turns out that the computer system put my time in some other file or something like that. i was sooo upset becuse we were told if this was the case we had 15 min after the race to tell them about it and it was now 2 hrs. my mom went down to the director as i tried to warm my body back up to normal temperatures. this took a 20 min hot tub soak and another 20 min scorching shower and 2 coffees. Everything went well and was cleared. thank god. time to celebrate!