Tough Week Ahead

Saturday was a lot of fun with the winter carnival in the morning and early afternoon then Sig came over and brought us our house warming present which is really good. He got us a really nice stereo system and speakers that seems to do almost anything. Then we had a nice supper together and then Lea and I met up with Jesse and Sarah at the movies to watch The International. Not sure what to think of the movie, it was good but there were some twists in the movie that were hard to follow.
Late Saturday night though we got a phone call fro Lea's parents that Lea's cousin had passed away. He had been fighting cancer for quite awhile...he is going to be missed by many and this week Lea's parents will be coming up to stay with us and then we will all go to Blind River on Wednesday and Thursday.
The diet is going good, I'm almost done phase one and am pretty excited to start phase two as it has quite a bit more variety. I'm now down to 148.2lbs today. I don't think I weighed this much since I was 12.
Yesterday the YMCA Youth Triathlon went really good with 9 kids participating. I gave a little presentation afterwards with my bikes and all my other gear.
Training is going really good also...I'm getting in some hard bikes with a lot of 15min. intervals at 90%. The weights and core are really helping also as I feel stronger already. This morning I did a swim with the main set of 8x225m Fr @3:00

Feeling Much Better

Training has been going really good the last couple of days. I feel completely over whatever it was that I had on the weekend and I'm back to 100%. I've been doing lots of core training lately and I don't think there's been a day in the past two weeks where it hasn't hurt to laugh! On the bike I've been doing this set where I go for 15minutes at 90% and then 15minutes at 70% and I do that 3 times. It's a hard hard workout and yesterday I was able to up my watts on the 90% so I know I'm getting stronger. My running has been great also and I just think my overall strength has gone up. I've lost some weight also and it wasn't even on purpose...I'm not 153lbs and I actually start my new diet tomorrow that my coach is putting me on. The first four days are supposed to be a pretty big shock but then after that it's more of cutting out what I don't need to be eating and eating the foods that are going to help maximize my body's performance.
This weekend will be another busy one...Saturday I'm volunteering at a winter carnival with the Fire Department. I have to bring the Aerial truck over and set it up for a few hours. Sunday the YMCA is having a youth indoor triathlon that I'm helping out with and then at the end of it I'm going to be giving a little presentation to the kids. I'm going to be bringing in my bike and some other gear to show to the kids so it should be fun.
Hope everyone is enjoying all this snow we are getting...not exactly the best kind of weather for running outside. Can't complain though because it's really the first snow we've had since also x-mas.

"Thank you to all the people who said I couldn't, you have been what has defined me, never give up, and never back down".

Great Weekend

Back now from Ottawa where Drew and I had a great weekend! I wasn't feeling to good all weekend but being able to just relax and let my body recover was much needed. Here are a couple of pictures I took while at the races this weekend. The one where Drew is standing straight up is before the start of the Classic race on Saturday. The other of Drew is him finishing on Sunday the skate ski. He did awesome in both races! Just the fact that he raced 53km's each day is impressive. The third picture is the winning guys on the podium from the skate ski on Sunday. The winning time for 53km was 2:06! The guy who won is from Germany and right now is ranked 4th in the World...it was pretty cool watching him ski so I figured I might as well get a picture of time to.

Saturday we got to go and visit my grandma who I haven't seen is a long time. She is doing really good for turning 86 pretty soon. She showed us all around her apartment building which is only about 5months old and it is just beautiful! They have everything there, pool, hot tub, workout room, movie theater, games room, huge dining hall...just everything!

We had a really good trip to Ottawa overall but it was also good to get home last night and Lea and Josee had a awesome supper waiting for us when we walked in.

For valentines day for Lea I decided that I was going to completely redo her closet for her. I took out all the old wood and rods and painted the walls and then totally replaced all the wood with new pine. I think it looks really good and she seems to like it.

Today was a 1000m time trial in the pool. Even though I'm feeling better my body is still feeling the effects of being sick but I was still able to fight through it and post an alright time of 11:15 I also have some core work to do today and a easy spin on the bike with a run off of it.

In Ottawa

It was a good drive this afternoon to Ottawa with Drew, it was uneventful which can be a good thing. I've been feeling a little sick the past few days and as soon as I got here I had a nap. Drew went over to the race site tonight while I had my nap to check in and said that course is almost dangerous fast. Should be interesting to watch as I've never been to a ski race with top skiers from around the World. The hotel we are staying at has set aside one of their conference rooms for all the skiers for waxing for the weekend so that's where Drew has been for the past hour. I don't think I would have the patience to put on coat after coat of wax on my ski's...Drew said he's spent like 10 hours in the past two weeks waxing his ski's getting them ready for this race! Crazy!!
Tomorrow we will be up early as his 53km race starts at 9am. In the afternoon I'm going to go and visit my grandma who lives here in Ottawa. It's been awhile since I've seen her and when I called her earlier this week she was so excited that I was coming! Sunday Drew is back at it with another 53km's. Tomorrow's is a classic ski and Sunday is the skate ski. It will be different this weekend because I'm so used to being the one racing and other people watching me and now I'm going to be the one cheering and doing whatever I can to help Drew's races go smooth. I think it will be fun.
Happy Valentines Day tomorrow to everyone and especially to my fiancee Lea who is back home in Sudbury. Love you

And I'm home....

Another swim meet has come and gone. There has been many over the last 16 years but I'm still putting up some good results even though my swimming is only a 1/3 of what it used to be. Tonight I have the 200Free and 2:00.75 and was good enough for 1st place. Ten minutes after that I was up again and swimming the 100Fly. I can see my sprinting skills haven't improved any over the years and was only able to go 1:02.18 and 3rd place. Overall it was a really good weekend though and I'm really happy that I went. I had some very positive swims and even walked away with a 1st in the 200Fr, 400Fr, 1500Fr, 200Fly and a 3rd in the 100Fly.
We made it home safe and sound and tomorrow it's back to work at 8am and back to training! This week will be a busy week...even though every weeks seems like a busy week! I will be getting my new shoes, getting the results of the blood test on Tuesday, meeting with a possible new sponsor, getting ready for this weekend in Ottawa and trying to fit some kind of a valentines in before I leave. Should be lots of fun with all the other usual stuff. That's all for now since I better get my butt in bed and get some rest.

Another Good Day

Today I had the 200Fly and 400Free. This morning in prelims I felt alright, a little tight. This afternoon I just relaxed in the hotel room and had a little nap to get ready for finals. The 200Fly was first and I knew it was going to the race that was closest as there's a couple guys who really wanted to beat me! I was really focused going into the race and I went in with the same game plan as I did in Guelph back in December. I had another good 200Fly with the same time as Guelph, 2:14. The 400Fr I knew there was a pretty big gap between me and the next guy and a 4:17 was alright. So far 3 races down and 3 first places. Tomorrow is more of some sprinting races with the 200Fr and 100Fly. I've never been able to sprint to save my life and there's a couple fast guys so we'll see how it goes. Give me a 1500m any day over a 50 or 100m!

Good Start To Weekend

Tonight I swam my first race of the weekend the 1500m Free. I felt really good and unfortunately I had nobody to push me as the next closest person was 2minutes behind. A 16:30 is a good time and I'm very happy with it for this point in the season with coming off some really hard training. Tomorrow I'm swimming the 200Fly and the 400Free.