Friday, August 22, 2008
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.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
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.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
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?
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!
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!
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