Feel Better Soon Babe

It's been a rough week for Amber, she's been very, very sick and has had to soldier on and complete her tough three days of classes; Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Fortunately she found an alternative for her class Thursday night and cancelled another class but I have never seen her this sick before. I wish there was something I could do to make her feel better but unfortunately sometimes the body just has to work through it.

I've had a fairly good week of training, just a couple swims and a couple runs but I feel fairly good and I'm looking forward to keeping it up when I hit the road next week. I'm completing my Peace River- High Level trip next Tuesday to Friday and I'm hoping it will work out well. I need to get back on my bike, I haven't been on it since bike class on Sunday and I'm itching to ride again. I've seen a lot of local triathletes at the pool and it's obvious everyone is still focused on training, even though it's January! It's brutally cold out there and I really don't enjoy running outside but I keep telling Amber it's supposed to make us tougher. I have to remind myself of that whenever I'm out there; it never seems to bother Harley!

Being at Home with Family

I haven't been doing much travelling with my job lately and it's been sooo nice to be able to spend a little more time with Amber and Harley. I've tried to make the last week and first week of the month my "travel weeks" and then I'm able to be home during the middle weeks every month. It's been very nice and allows me a chance to recharge from being on the road.

I'm also able to get in some pretty good training, I did two swims last week and that's a major accomplishment for me. I'd like to get in the pool at least three times a week but if I can't get in there on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday it's probably not going to happen. I made it this morning and it's great to see the tri gang at the pool bright an early but it's usually really, really busy. Trying to get a lane becomes a serious challenge.

Sunday was a tough, tough "have mercy" workout with our little group and I managed to make out much better than I thought I would. My legs were really tired from running and working on our basement but I suffered through it and lost about two liters of sweat in the process. Had a great time hammering away with five other people, it always keeps me going.

Getting Up Early Is Really Tough!

Its been an interesting week for me, I finally finished my big project at work yesterday, something I should have been working on months ago but it's finished now so I'll never have to think about it again!! Yeah. I had to transition over 600 investment accounts over to my rep code one at a time. I literally spent hours going through file after file in a never ending tedious process. Sometimes I think the compliance part of this job is WAY overblown but it's done now so I'll never have to worry about it again.

In the midst of all that I managed to get in some pretty good training. This was the first week I was at home while Amber ran her 6am bootcamp in our basement on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. I tried to use it as motivation to get up early and go to the pool. It worked well on Tuesday and Wednesday but by Thursday I had zero fuel left in the tank. I could not drag my body out of bed no matter what, someone tied a piano to my butt. It didn't help that I also completed 30kms of running and 93km of biking so far this week. I plan to do another 40km ride tonight and a 17km run on Saturday with the Harley dog so I bailed on my swim today too.

Harley seems to be getting braver when we're running together (which isn't a good thing) he is cutting me off and taking my legs out from under me. He's going psycho everytime we run by other dogs and the other dog owners are looking at me like, "what the hell is up with your crazy dog?" Amber and I need to socialize him a bit more so we have plans to take him to the dog park this Saturday and let him play nicely with friends. Hopefully that will help. We both love him so much that we want to do what's best for him but sometimes the additional energy to take him out to the dog park just doesn't exist (for him or us).

Our little spin class seems to be getting bigger. This week we should have 8 people including Amber and myself which is pretty close to capacity in our basement. It's a lot of fun riding with other athletes and it gives you the motivation to push yourself harder. I look forward to Sundays with everyone even though we're usually pushing too hard to talk. I can't wait to see how strong everyone is going to be come spring, especially AD she's been doing a lot of good training.

Post Dog Park; Harley had a great time but was a little too rough. Amber and I have decided he needs to get his butt kicked a little bit to calm him down and we need to learn to let go a little.


and he really needed to rest after having so much fun with other dogs.

Thanks GP Athletes!!!

Had a great weekend at home with AD and Harley, Friday was just a light spin in the basement. Amber had a very tough week of training as well as training her clients so she sat it out but I was eager to do something because I was travelling all week and didn't get a chance to train much. I did something to my neck and I've been trying to get over a pinched nerve for almost a week now.

Saturday we skipped the group run and did a run on our own a little later in the day. It was really nice out (-1) so it felt like I could run forever and Harley was having a ball being outside for a 90 minute run. He did his usual little freak-out whenever we came across other dogs but if I keep running he's usually very, very good. I'd like to take him to the dog park a little more on the weekend but the weekend usually goes very quickly and it's hard to do much of anything other than what we have planned.

Sunday we had the GP group come over to our place for our weekly group spin and it was tough but nice to suffer with other people. There are some very good athletes in this town and I'm looking forward to seeing how everyone's racing season is going to play out, including mine and Amber's. Amber told me she has no expectations for this upcoming season and I think that is a good way to approach an upcoming race. I am going to go into every race giving my best effort but whatever the results are, I'll be satisfied. I've been training very hard and I'm going to keep it up throughout the year so everything else is out of my control. Thanks to everyone we train with for keeping me motivated to push myself beyond what I thought I could achieve and a special thanks to my favorite training partner (and toughest), my wife Amber.

2009 Training has begun!

Well it's already the new year and I've been doing pretty well with the training so far. I keep telling myself that my results during this year's season depend on the effort I put in now, not in the summer. It's definitely been hard trying to stay motivated in what seems like 4ft of snow but I'm doing my best, despite a very painful neck injury. I slept funny and now I can't move my neck or back without a lot of shooting/stabbling neck pain. I'll get over it, it's just going to take a little time.

I've set a lot of great new year goals (much more effective than resolutions) and I'm committed to getting to the pool more often. I've swam a few times already this year and fortunately my body has retained some of the muscle memory and things have been going well. I've also been training fairly consistently on the bike, even though it's just trainer riding Amber and I have still managed to keep things fresh and not get too board spinning in our basement. The only exception was a two hour power outage last Sunday when we were in the middle of a tough Coach Troy session. 40 minutes into it we ended up spinning in the dark, no power, no entertainment but still made it the 90 minutes. Running is a lot more fun when it's a little warmer out, I haven't had much of a chance to use our treadmill except for last Saturday when it was -40 degrees!! I notice that I can breathe a lot easier when the temperature is above -15, anything below that my muscles are just completely starved of O2 and I have to stop or collapse. Amber bought me some Newtons for Christmas (thanks babe) and they are awesome! I feel so much faster and lighter and I can give Harley a good, fast run, enough to wear him out for a while anyway.

There has been some good progress in organizing a Tri club for GP. Even though my suggestions were not really embraced I still feel that we can have a very competitive group and a lot of fun training together. It's nice to hear that a race is coming back to GP and I definitely want to be in it. I'll support the kids in their race the day before but if there is a race here in town, I'm racing!! It'll be the first tri of the year for me so it's a nice way to shake the rust off and not have to drive 4.5hrs to Edmonton to do it.

Our spin sessions with the group start up again this Sunday and I'm looking forward to seeing everyone again. It's a lot easier suffering when you know you are not the only one going through it.