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.