Recent Thoughts

I promise I have some updates, but first I want to share something with you:

“The men’s side is a little more bleak to be honest with you”

"There's only going to be one Simon Whitfield ever for the sport of triathlon in this country and we have him "

If you didn't know already, us Canadians had a rough go in the triathlon events in London. It started with Kathy Tremblay crashing out and Paula's sub-par race that became a national catastrophe. It's a really touchy subject so I don't want to get too involved, but here are my brief thoughts. I do not know if Paula was still injured, how her rehab was going, or what was going on with her coaches. I do know that Simon Whitfield, who was admittedly far more personally involved in her result that I, dealt with the situation very poorly by immediately turning to Twitter to place the blame - regardless of how Paula's recovery went. Then TriCan embarrassed themselves in front of the world by calling out Paula as a "terrible patient" in her recovery process.

I also know that Paula forgot to put her helmet on in T1. Like the rest of Canada I felt awful for her as she was crying crossing the finish line. But she was not prepared to race. Whether it was physical or mental, and whatever the underlying reasons may be, she simply did not have the fitness or the mental resolve to get herself together after she missed lead pack. I know how hard it is to know you are racing for 20th place in a draft-legal race, and unfortunately she has never had that feeling before until the Olympics, and she couldn't handle it.

And man, it was tough to see Simon crash. There's no question he is one of my role models in the sport, and to see someone you look up to so much look as stunned as I would watching my bike bounce down the road...knowing exactly what's going through is mind: "there goes my Olympics." That hurts. And then everyone has forgotten that Brent and Kyle were racing too, but were on the wrong end of the split and ran like hell for 25th and 27th place finishes.

But more importantly than all of that, I am sick to my stomach reading Alan Trivett's media comments following both of their races. As the president of Triathlon Canada and essentially Canada's spokesperson for Canadian triathlon at the Olympics, I am insulted that he would put something like that out there. No, I am not on the radar screen for national team talent scouting and I'm not even racing ITU. Hell, I can barely even finish a race this year. But as a Canadian elite athlete it bothers me that they would rather make excuses for their utter lack of talent identification since Simon won in Sydney 12 years ago, than tell us what they are going to do about it. It took this "crisis" for them to realize how focused they have been on one or two athletes, and their response is "you're welcome for Simon, but don't get your hopes up any time soon." How about looking at all the young kids in this country who have been inspired by such a champion? Thanks for the vote of confidence.

Now that I have said enough to possibly be denied my International Competition Card next season...I'll tell you how things have been going for me!

I have been really bad with updating this thing so far this summer. I think part of it has been from my lack of racing and struggle to find consistency in training before trying to consistenly post about my training. But it has been a few weeks since my last post and over a month since my last race so I figured it was time to say something.

The past month has been a struggle in just about every way. I was forced to miss racing in Gravenhurst and essentially let go of any thoughts on winning prize money this year, and since then I have had to do a lot of soul searching to regain any motivation to train or race again this year. I was back to training pretty soon after my spill, but probably a little too soon. Huronia was only two weeks after the Welland half, a race that I put a ton of stock in physically and emotionally. I planned on jumping in Huronia just for the hell of it to try and pick up some series points. Then I desperately wanted to feel good enough to race the next weekend. After that I tried desperately to get "fast" after a few months of gearing up for long course.

That leads to about two weeks ago, when I found myself with absolutely no motivation to get my ass off the couch and train. And when I did force myself out the door, my body would give out 20 minutes into a workout. I was pretty close to packing it in for the season, buying a mountain bike and not looking at pavement for a few months.

Fortunately with some good coaches and support from athletes I took the better part of a week off training and hit the reset button on my attitude. And finally, after a month of contemplation and scattered workouts (and some really good sessions) I am racing this weekend!

(yay!)

Sure it hasn't been the greatest block of training, then again it hasn't been the greatest year of results thus far. But I'm not letting myself fall into the trap of only racing when I think I'm fast enough. Maybe I won't have the best race of my life...but maybe I will. And I'm racing next weekend too. My hip still hasn't healed and the swelling on my elbow still doesn't feel very good on my aerobar pads. But racing is fun, and I do triathlons because they are fun. So I will actually update more than once this month and let everyone know how things are going as I get back on the horse (White Stallion is P3's name actually) and find some more positives in this season. Talk soon!