Perogies and Turkey burgers!

As I write this I am enjoying a post swim workout perogies and homemade turkey burger off the BBQ. You may ask, "perogies for a second breakfast?" I ask, "why not?" It was really good and chances are I'll do it again at some point in the near future.

So this past weekend I raced in Kelowna at the National age group champs, and here is my race report.

The day started off like any other, I woke up earlier than I wanted and then managed to fall back to sleep. Fortunately, my age category had a gentlemanly start time of 9:30am. I got to the race at around 8am and proceeded to set up my transition, bike, helmet, and some running shoes. It was pretty chill. At about 9am I got my wetsuit on to go get a good warm up in, I find I always swim better the longer the warm up I have. After some little bursts I was ready, we lined up at the start and I had a great position to the right, straight in front of the first buoy!! The gun went off and I had a clean start and some open water. I was thinking, this is how it's supposed to go! Until about 20 seconds later about 20 guys swam over me. I think this is how Kramer felt when his karate class ganged up on him in the back alley. I got punched and kicked and got a good one in my left eye. I had to stop up for a second because my goggles got kicked into my eye. After that I tried to calm myself down and focus on my turnover. I made some progress up to a group and then on the second lap I went for the few guys a head of me. I came out in great position in 19:24 and then had a very quick transition. Out on to the bike I got up to speed and then got my shoes on, I felt really good and just tried my best to keep my watts as high as possible. I rode 1:02:01, I think it was the wheels!!



Out on to the run I focused on my cadence and relaxing my upper body. I thought I was running faster than I was, (obviously) but it was a 40 min flat 10km, not too bad but I was hoping for a couple minutes faster. (This gives me a great goal for nest year as I want to run as fast as the elite women - I know I know) All in all I was really happy with my race, I managed to hold off the charge from behind and win my age group and place 10th overall!!

There are a lot of people to thank that helped me have such a great race/season, first and foremost my girlfriend Katie for being so understanding, my parents, my training partners Tom, Dave and Olly, the man with the magic hands Mr. Giggles himself (Mark Kildaw), Mark and marcia for putting us up for the race and Will for always setting my bike up damn fast! Finally, a thank you Paul Rahula who tweaked my orthodics allowing me to run.

Thanks for reading,

Now it's off to the Barn!

GW

Throwing it down, the happenings

Well the end of the summer is upon us, the weather has taken a turn as a low pressure system has made the lake a touch cold. I think it will get hot again though because we usually get a cool spell right before Ironman but I think it is a week early!!

The past few weeks have been pretty busy, Katie and I moved in to the new Palace, and I've been working as a protege to Mike Holmes. Measure twice, cut once. I've been pulling up carpet and underlay and we are almost finished putting down the laminate! It looks fantastic! My knees hurt but when you walk in it is totally worth it.

Training was going pretty well up until this past Wednesday (I caught a cold, actually it caught me I was trying to get away from it but I was too slow) and am now coming around just in time for Nationals. Fortunately, I could only really get over trained so maybe its a blessing in disguise! I'm really looking forward to racing nationals, and then Cultus Lake. I think it's good to have a goal after a big race so that you don't lose perspective in that there will be another race and you can always prepare a little better. I love learning.
Finally we were watching "performance" and stumbled upon "Pop that Collar" This could be an anthem for the summer. When in doubt pop that bad boy.



GW