MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

With Christmas just two days away (yikes!), I figured it was about time for me to update my blog. I'm sad to see 2013 come to an end as it was a better year for me than I could ever have hoped for - a faster recovery than I had anticipated from my two hip surgeries, an amazing summer training in Boulder, and a race season highlighted by 2nd and 3rd place finishes at Leadman Bend and Leadman Tempe. Now that I've had a little off season break, (from training and, umm, blogging too), it's back to work to get ready for an early start to the 2014 season.....more exciting news on that to come later!:) To my family, friends and all of my sponsors who supported me this year, a very very Merry Christmas and a Happy 2014!

LEADMAN BEND EPIC 125

I've just returned from Leadman Bend, without a doubt the coldest race I've ever done, but also one of the most challenging and spectacular courses I've raced on. As I've been getting back into race shape over the last 6 months, the Leadman series has been a great distance for me - 2.5km swim, 106km bike and 16.5km run (shortened to 12km this past weekend).

I guess I could chalk it up to ignorance as a Canadian for not being aware of the fall temps in Oregon, but it was a bit of a shock to wake up to 38 degree air temp and 56 degree water temp race morning! I spent the early part of the bike blowing on my hands to bring them back to life, and wondering how I would overcome the challenge of opening my gels and gripping my water bottle with frozen fingers (note to self : full fingered gloves next time!). Somewhere around the last 30km of the ride, we started our decent back down into lower altitudes and thankfully I started to thaw out and the shivering came down a few notches.

The run was a beautiful undulating 12km loop around a golf course on the north west side of Bend. Although much warmer than earlier in the day, I was still feeling the effects of the cold when with 3km left to go, I mistakenly took a slight detour when I saw an arrow for golf course parking. I was thankful to the car coming towards me who woke me from my stupor and told me that I was going the wrong way!

I finished the race as 2nd place female and 8th overall - very happy to have another race under my belt for this season, and happy to survive the adverse conditions. An added bonus was finishing under 5hrs (4:37) and claiming a belt buckle. Thanks Leadman for putting on such a great race!

Last Days in Boulder. Yup, Still Here!

Well, here it is the last day of August and I'm squeezing in a blog post so I can say I didn't skip the month of August. Actually, I can NOT believe how fast the summer here in Boulder has gone. I came here the beginning of May planning to stay a few weeks, changed my ticket to stay until Muncie 70.3 mid July, then decided it would be great to have another month of training at altitude, and just last week changed my ticket to stay until September 12th. What can I say except that it's been an amazing summer training in Boulder!:)

The main reason I decided to stay in Boulder after my last race in mid July was to put in a bigger block of training, and then back load the rest of my season. The riding here is the best of anywhere that I've ever trained. It's amazing to be able to head out in the mountains for a long day of riding, knowing that I'll likely encounter only one, at most two traffic lights. And I've never been a trail runner, but Boulder has so many trails to choose from, that it's hard not to become a trail runner, even for someone with flipper feet like myself. But now after the last 6 weeks of hard training, I'm looking forward to and even starting to dream about tapering for my next race. I'll head back to San Diego on Sept 12th, and then head to Bend, Oregon for Leadman Bend on Sept 21st. Can't wait!:)

This month also marks a year since my second hip surgery last August. I've had a few people reach out to me in the last month either with the same injury or recovering from the same surgery. Looking back over the last year, I have absolutely no regrets and I'm so thankful that I made the decisions that I made. I look back to a year ago when I couldn't sit without pain and couldn't ride in my aerobars. And then I look ahead to this year when I'm training and racing full time with no hip pain, and I couldn't be happier. One chapter closes and another one opens. Onwards and upwards!

Muncie 70.3

Yesterday marked my return to Half Ironman racing with Muncie 70.3. After putting in a solid block of training in Boulder for the last two months, I had mixed expectations. I knew I was in good swim shape from the hard swim workouts at altitude, I had worked harder on the bike than I've ever worked before, and my run training was improving week by week - although I hadn't yet started doing any speed work, my volume was where it needed to be to run a half. Since it's been over two years since my last 1/2 Ironman, this race was sort of a test to clear out the cobwebs, see where my race fitness was, and to use it as a stepping stone to gain fitness for my next half Ironman, followed by my return to Ironman racing.

The main lesson I learned this weekend is that training fitness unfortunately does not always equal race fitness. Although I finished in a respectable time of 4:40, it was a much harder fought race simply because racing hard for over 4 hours, and running a 1/2 marathon off a 90km time trial and a 1.8km swim is not an easy thing to replicate in training -  especially after a two year race sabatical.;-) So now that I've put in a good training base, I'm looking forward to the fun part of racing more and giving my all at something that I love.

Onwards and Upwards!

Myself and Monica, one of the athletes I coach who qualified for 70.3 Worlds in her second ever half Ironman.

Boulder Training 2013

Ever since I started doing triathlons, I've always wanted to train in Boulder. Everything I heard about Boulder made it seem like a triathlete's dream place to train - great roads for riding, lots of running trails, training at altitude, hot in the summer, and great coffee shops! So this year, I decided to come to Boulder for a few weeks in May/early June to do a block of training before my summer race schedule started.

The training here has been A-MAZING the last few weeks. So much so that I decided to postpone my next race by a few weeks and stay here until early July to get a longer block of training in. There's a song on my ipod of running songs, "I'm In a Hurry to Get Things Done" by Alabama, and it sums up my personality 99.9% of the time.;-) As one of my old coaches used to often tell me, I have to learn to "Hurry Slowly". And so I've decided it's best to put the training miles in the bank now and insure a better July to November race season. I'm still itching to get to my next race, but in the meantime I'll enjoy the next month of hard training in Boulder, and continue to store away the training miles. Onwards and upwards!

LIFETIME FITNESS LEADMAN EPIC 125

Yesterday marked my return to racing after almost two years off. As I've been in Phoenix for the last three months transitioning from rehab to training, it made sense for me to pick the Leadman 125 in Tempe as my first race back - 2.5km swim, 109.5km bike, 13km run. Perfect distance and perfect location. I have to admit, I had some doubts about whether I was ready to race again and whether or not I had done enough preparation. That would be the perfectionist in me waiting until everything feels perfect, and until I had a million miles of training under my belt! But in reality, my build up over the last few months had gone smoothly, and although not yet at 100% race shape, more than anything, I really really wanted to get back on the start line.

I came out of the 2.5km swim in third place in 38min, biked 3:13 for the 109km bike, and finished the hard and hilly 13km run in 1 hour, to place third in 4:54 behind Hillary Biscay in second and Christine Jackson in first. I had predicted my finish time to be about 15 minutes slower, so I was ecstatic to not only finish third but to go under 5 hours.

There were times during the race as my legs started to fatigue when I wondered if I had enough fitness to get to the finish line. But the great thing about getting over an injury or undergoing surgery is the appreciation of being back on the race course. You wouldn't - or at least I wouldn't - trade it for anything. I was racing with a smile on my face because I wouldn't have wished to be anywhere else.

The biggest of THANK YOU's to my sponsors for their support, to my Physical Therapist Nate Koch at Endurance Rehab in Scottsdale, Paraic McGlynn at Cyclologic for my awesome bike fit, Mark Ryan my rehab therapist in Vail, Uta Pippig my amazing run coach, and to my friends and family for their never ending support. THANK YOU!

Desert Training 2013

I told a friend of mine the other day that my excuse for not writing a blog since January (yikes!) is that I've been busier and more tired than I've been in a long time. But being busy and tired is a good thing because it means that I'm back training and doing what I love to do!

I came out to Phoenix in early January with the intent of staying until I was back in shape and ready to race again. It's been an amazing few months - finishing off my rehab at Endurance Rehab and making the transition back to full time training with some awesome training partners. Not to mention training in the heat which I love! I still have some work to do to get back to where I want to be, but as long as each week is better than the previous week, I'll take it. On my long run today, I realized that this was my biggest run week since August of 2011. So yes, I'll take it. :)

My first race of the season will be the Leadman Tri in Tempe on April 14th - 2.5km swim, 111.5km bike, 11km run - and then I'll head back to San Diego. More to come in the next few weeks. Onwards and upwards 'til then!

New Bike Fit!

At the start of the New Year, as the weather turned cold in San Diego, I headed to my third home, Phoenix, AZ in search of warmer training temps and sunnier skies. Last week, my saddle sponsor, John Cobb of Cobb Saddles, was also in Phoenix, and I had the great fortune of meeting up with him for a bike fit at Cyclogenic bike studio. John happens to be one of the best known bike fitters in the world, and made some pretty impressive changes to my bike fit!

In the past, my hip impingement issues restricted my aero position so that I appeared more like I was riding a beach cruiser as opposed to a TT bike. I am very happy to say that I am now in a proper timetrial position when I'm riding my Trek Speed Concept TT bike!

Thanks John for the awesome bike fit, and thanks also Paraic McGlynn from Cyclogenic for your input as well!