5000!

I just wanted to say a big thank-you to every for your continued interest and support. I have officially reached the 5000 views of the website.

I'm just in the midst of packing up to get ready to drive up to Flagstaff tomorrow afternoon. I'm really looking forward to the training camp. I have had great workouts all week and am looking forward to them continuing in Flag. The group that will be up there is out of this world.

I'll make sure to talk more about Flag soon, for now I must go finish packing!

Thanks again everyone, I truly appreciate.

Fight for you Right!

Just a cute little movie that speaks volumes. I'm being slightly hypocritical in that I am not voting in the election since I am out of country. Because of that I need the rest of you to get out there and make up for my lost vote!

The Beastie Boys had to fight for their right to party, others have already fought for yours to vote, so go do it!

Long Overdue.

Well, once again I must apologise to everyone for being so crappy at keeping this updated for the last week or so. The honest truth as to why is because I have met and been hanging out with someone from outside of the training group. I love being down here, and I love how much I can focus on my training, my recovery and every little detail that I need to, however, it can get a little overwhelming sometimes. It's been really refreshing to be able to completely step away from track and feel like a normal human for a few hours a day, as she is not a runner.

Speaking of running, I had my first 1500m of the year this past weekend at ASU once again. It was a really low key meet called the Sun Devil Open. I had looked up some of the guys on the start-list for the race a few days before, I didn't have too look up to many because the majority were all my buddies from the University of Victoria that are down here on a bit of a training camp. There were about 4 of us with PB's all around 3:46, Kyle Smith and Cliff Childs(UVic) being two and one ASU athlete. So on paper it looked like a pretty good opening 1500 that I could just race to win. When I talked to Wynn about the race he pretty well said the exact same thing I was thinking. He did remind me that I am coming at the 1500 with more a strength background right now than speed so I might want to try making a solid move from reasonably far out. Kyle is fit, he just ran 1:48 the other weekend and looked great in all the tune-up workouts the week leading into the 1500 so I knew he'd be right up in the mix and if I wanted to beat him I'd have take the sting out of his legs. We toed line and we were off, Kyle was on the inside position so he went out kind of hard to avoid getting collapsed down on by everyone and found himself in front. I went out fair relaxed in 4th spot but realised within 200m that Kyle was pulling away a bit and the two guys in front of me weren't doing anything. On the home-straight I pulled up onto Kyle's shoulder, then on the back straight I decided I'd take the second lap for him since it was pretty windy and work as a team to get a good time. I was kind of hoping after the 800m he'd retake the lead until 1200 and then we would race but I decided to make a little bit of a move and didn't expect him to both cover the surge and take the lead. With 400m to go I made another move to try and take as much out of Kyle as possible, but alas with 100m to go his stupid 800m speed outdid my 5k grind and he took the win. We ran 3:50 and 3:51. Good times for an opener, although I really did want to squeak under 3:50. Regardless I am happy, I felt REALLY strong the whole way. I never felt like I was losing form or rigging up or anything. There is definitely a lot more in me for the 1500. After these next couple weeks of working a little more on speed and then heading up to Flagstaff and doing it some more, I feel a low 3:4x.

Quickie

So just going out with a few people for the team for our last weekend on Scottsdale. It's hard to believe it's coming to an end.

1500 went well today. 3:51.5. Not quite as fast as I would have liked to open with, but it is my faster opening 1500 ever. I can't complain too much about that.

Again, I apologise for the lack on updates. I'll make sure to get back on it leading into Flagstaff.

Happy Easter!

Alright, I'm sorry for not getting an update up this week. I'm racing my first 1500 of the year tomorrow, I'll get an update up after that.

In the meantime, HAPPY EASTER from some of us here in the training group!

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Mother Nature's Spite

The week leading into the race was one of the hottest ones yet. It was almost unbearable during the daytime, but after the sun set it became absolutely gorgeous. Perfect racing weather. Somewhere along the line we must have done something to annoy Mother Nature. It seemed like she was teasing us, giving us this amazing weather and then seemingly out of spite giving us some of the coldest crappiest weather we have had since we got here in January. After two weeks of temperatures averaging probably around 27C(80f) She throws us one day of cold, wind and rain. It only hit about 10C(50f) and rained periodically throughout the day and wind gusts reaching 40km/h(25mph). It must not have been me that pissed Mother Nature off because she calmed things down quite a bit for my race. It was still pretty cold, and the track was quite wet with a few little puddles, but in comparison to the conditions for some of the other races, it was alright. I wore arm-warmers for the first time, which were a huge help. Ever since Geulph in 2007 where I made the rookie mistake of wearing ONLY shorts and singlet, my extremities are quite sensitive to the cold. I also used a neti-pot before the race for the first time. Not going to lie, I would have no problems being a spokesman for neti-pots, it really made quite the difference.

My race went really well. Wynn and I had planned to try and go with 68s this time instead of the 70s from last time. It just so happened that there was a rabbit in the race that was going 67s, all I had to do was sit in the little pack of 4 or 5 and hang on. Wynn got my splits as the following.

68.8 - 67.8 - 68.9 - 68.5 - 68.9 - 68.9 - 67.9 - 68.0 - 68.3 - 71.8 - 72.0 - 71.0 - 33.1

So I was able to hold on to those 68s pretty well... except for the last mile and finish in 14:24.72. I think it was more mental than it was me rigging up. While I was running I could feel I was slowing down, but just didn't dig and grind it out. Good news is, I know I've got about 10seconds more in me!

I am exhausted from a long night of post-race not sleeping. I must head to bed now.
Goodnight folks.

17s Off.

Boom, 14:24 tonight, 17 seconds faster than last time. Just getting a shower then heading out for grub. I'll update you all tomorrow.

Tonight's the night.

Second ever 5k tonight. I am slightly more nervous for this one as I actually have some expectations for myself. Last time I just went out and ran.

Flotrack is covering the event. I'm not sure how much they will cover, but here is the link anyway. http://www.flotrack.org/coverage/238635-2011-ASU-Sun-Angel-Classic.

I probably won't be getting anything up tonight after the race. So stay tuned and I'll get a race report up as soon as I can/feel like it.

Here We Go Again!

This week has been really good! It was a lot less chaotic than I had imagined it being. We had an Athletics Canada development camp in town. Wynn was making it sound like there was going to be 50 people at the track all doing different workouts and there was just going to be complete anarchy. This was not the case at all. There was certainly a big jump in the number of people at the track, but it was actually quite a bit of fun. Most of them jumped into our workouts so the groups were huge. Some people don't like that, but I really enjoy it, so it was fun for me. We had about 9 guys doing a 5x400 workout. It was a really good workout for me, I just tagged onto the lead guys and pretty ran fast but controlled the whole time. I can't fully remember but I think I went 59, 58, 57, 56, 56. My second workout went also went really well, however it was more on my own. Geoff did the same workout, but he's just on a different level than me right now. We did a 1200m cut-down, 15mins of Steady State, and then another 1200m cut-down. I went 71,68,62 and 73, 70, 62.

This week is another REALLY easy down week. I'm running another 5k this weekend at the ASU Sun Angel Invitational. Now that I have my first one out of the way and have a feel for the race I'm looking to go a lot quicker than my 14:41 from last weekend. Sometimes these race prep weeks kind of seem like a complete waste of a week, but I know Wynn knows what he's doing and there is purpose behind it all. All I have is a race prep workout tomorrow. 2x200, then 400, 800, 400 at 5k pace. Other than that it's either OFF or RACE PREP, which can mean whatever I want it to.

The group from Halifax is coming in to town tomorrow. It will be nice to get some fresh faces in town. Spice things up a little.

I have to go educate myself on the shambles of Canadian government and make up my mind who I'm going to vote for.