Happy Holidays!

It's official. I have achieved my goal as a professional triathlete.



I have a coffee sponsor.

I'm really happy to announce my newest sponsor for the 2012 season, The Koffee House!

They are an independent local cafe (Wellington & Southdale, London) with by far the best coffee in town...all fair trade organic. Definitely the place to go for us snobby coffee drinker triathletes, and only the cleanest healthiest stuff. Big thanks to Alex (whose brother is local competitive athlete and my occasional training buddy Chris Pickering) for supporting the local athletic scene. Now stop drinking crappy Starbucks!

Beyond that. Well I'm still insanely busy with store opening at MEC London but at least I'm finally paying the training bills! I'm managing to squeeze in training and I'm putting a much bigger focus on winter training on the bike than in previous years. I've developed my strength on the bike by riding a few hours a week through the winter, so we'll see what happens when I more than double that.

Things are rolling along really well for mid-December and I'm looking forward to building on everything in the new year. I've made a ton of changes to my training, racing plans and my philosophy on it all over the last few months and I've never been more excited to start a race season. Just chipping away one day at a time.

And with it being the Holday Season, I figured I would leave you with some Chrismas ACMFRP!

Oopsies!

I said I was going to try harder to update more frequently and I've decidedly failed at that so far.

So what's been going on with me...

The first thing I have to mention is my amazing new sponsor for next season. Jake Campbell of C&C Insurance is providing me with a ton of support for my 2012 travel plans and I can't thank him and C&C enough. I feel awful for not recognizing their support sooner, but I have been crazy busy! I also have to mention Jake just finished his first Ironman at IM Florida in 11:05!! It was amazing to see his dedication and improvements throughout the year.

Besides that news, I've officially given up on living the dream and I'm now working full time at the new Mountain Equipment Co-op coming to London. The hours have been crazy with store set-up, but it's a very cool place to work and my boss is talented local cyclist Marten Mann. It has been a huge challenge to fit training in around 50+ hour work weeks lately but it will all be worth it when the store opens up next week! I'm excited to be a part of such a forward thinking company, and show off "my" bike department :)

As for training, well nothing is particularly interesting this time of year. Back to the basics for a while before ramping training back up for the new year. The interesting part has been trying to fit in a modest 14-16 hours of training in with my busy work schedule. I guess it's a little taste of what most age group athletes deal with on a daily basis...it's not the first time I've been training while working full time, and some of those around me have basically said "welcome to the real world"...but it is the first time I've been working so much while trying to train at an elite level. It's really not easy, and the biggest part is trying not to get stressed out over how busy things are or wishing I had more time to train. All of my workouts are done at 6-7:30am, 7-10pm, or sacrificing my lunch break if I have 3 workouts in a day. It has forced me to really keep my recovery and nutrition and dedication in check. So not necessarily a bad thing.

Gabbi Whitlock and the Balance Point Training group have also been a big part of maintaining my consistency, and swimming with the group is already bringing me some great improvements in the water. It's a great group and Gabbi is a fantastic and underrated swim coach. It feels so good to get faster and more efficient in the pool...especially with a slightly lighter focus on my swim training with my racing plans next year.

My bike and run training is pretty low key right now, with it being November and given my work schedule. I wish I could say I was banking 5 rides a week right now but it's just not feasible or realistic this time of year if I want to stay consistent all winter. I'm looking forward to finding the time to fit more training in soon and I'm really motivated to get fit on the bike for the early season and keep building all the way through the summer. I'm really looking forward to giving long course racing a go next year and I know that my bike training will be key.

So that's all for now, hopefully soon I can talk more about training and less about how busy I am. But that's life!

Like a Kid's First Allowance

This weekend I took part in one of the most fun events on the calendar...and it happens to be about a 3 minute drive from my house (and the same course that I did my first bike race on earlier this year, and my first ever run race in 2006).

On Sunday I joined in on the festivities with Balance Point Training for the Halloween Haunting 5k in London. It's a small event where the costumes are more important than your time...the way it should be. There were some pretty ridiculous costumes out there, mostly from the BPT crew. They are so much fun to train and race with!!

In an attempt to find something moderately humorous yet still capable of running in, I decided to be Dave Scott (its really a shame you can't see the surprisingly ok stache from this not-purchased photo). Unfortunately since runners and especially triathletes are pretty much geeks to begin with I more or less just fit in with the crowd. At least a couple triathletes there got what I was going for.

I'm proud to say that not only was I the fastest person who dressed up, but I picked up some prize money in the process! Not bad for a Sunday morning after being sick for three weeks. And believe it or not its the first time I've ever won prize money! But before even trying to calculate what percentage $50 is towards my flight to Rev3 Costa Rica, I put it straight in the piggy bank (ie. my Visa bill) and chalked it up as the first race I've officially covered all my expenses in :) Gotta start somewhere, right?

My girlfriend Amanda also won $50 as 2nd overall female (behind a very strong Speed River runner)!! And after the race BPT went out for an awesome year end/Amanda's home for the weekend/ excuse to eat glutinously - brunch. And its a good thing we did, because a few hours later we were all back for a swim TT. And just like the race in the morning, just about everyone but me posted a PB. But I'm happy with where I'm at for this time of year - not fast, not slow, but very hungry for more. This week is my last of kinda-offseason-ish training before getting right back at it, and with my plan for an early season race there's no time to waste!

I just want to take this opportunity to thank everyone again for all the support, encouragement and kind words while I take on this journey I call being a professional triathlete. I'm going to try to update this thing a little more often through my weekly training, I know there are some people actually look forward to my ramblings so the least I can do in return is show my appreciation!

Fall Training

I haven't done any training updates in a while! And since I'm hanging out in my new triathlon brainstorming headquarters, and since I'm finally starting to get things rolling after fighting a cold off and on for the better part of a month it seems like a good time to update.

I must admit its a little daunting to have full responsibility of my training and programming. I love the freedom and sense of control, knowing that its up to me to reach my goals. But it can be a little disconcerting wondering if I'm doing things right or missing anything. The only security I have is knowing that there are no secrets to training, even at the highest level. Stay consistent, enjoy what you're doing and the rest takes care of itself.

It seems rare that I've had both those elemets coexist over the past couple seasons, but I'm finally starting to figure it out. Right now I'm in a run focus gearing up for a couple fun fall run races...nothing crazy but I'm running almost every day and I'm starting to feel fast. First up is the Halloween Haunting 5k in London this weekend...the first run race I ever did 5 years ago. Having been sick lately I have no idea what kind of 5k shape I'm in but I'm looking forward to finding out...and looking forward to the costume I've got planned.

After that I'll likely do the 10k at Hamilton Road2Hope and give the distance a real go for the first time in a long while. Then I'll finally start to get back into full tri training. Just like last fall my big focus in the pool is working on form and efficiency, and despite not being in the water much lately I'm swimming well. The bike is another story...I feel pretty pathetic on my P3 right now but with my planned training that will change quickly.

I've already put together my basic training program for next season and its got me really excited for racing already! So I've decided to go out on a limb and post my planned 2012 race schedule for those who care :)

Rev3 Costa Rica
Rev3 Knoxville
Binbrook Tri
Welland Half Iron
5150 Toronto (not yet confirmed)
Bracebridge Tri
Ironman 70.3 Steelhead
Wasaga Beach Tri

So some of this is still tentative (Toronto is still only a rumor at this point, but sounds really promising) but I'm looking forward to committing to my season much sooner and with more concrete goals than in previous years - one of my problems this past year, and the reason why I feel the need to post this.

All non-drafting, I really want to see what I can do when I focus on my strengths in training and racing. And Steelhead will be my big goal for the season. I love long course training and I really want to gain some experience to see where I can take it. I've always known in the back of my mind that long course would be my direction in triathlon, and next season will be my first big step in that direction.

But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves. Back to training!