Race Season 2011 in Photos

How is it that it's so easy to just whip up a new blog post, yet so difficult to finish up an essay for school? While sitting at home sick all day and a deadline approaching you would think this is the perfect opportunity to get that assignment out of the way. But I really needed a "homework break" and while doing this I somehow ended up reading some other blogs. As I have mentioned before, many other athletes and friends have blogs and saved in my favourites are over 30 that I occasionally read when I'm bored. I came across one in particular that had a "race season in photos" and thought this was a great idea. I began blogging right after the race season and never mentioned much about it. So here goes...

Started out in March 2011 with a solid 17-day training camp in beautiful Tucson, Arizona. Lot of good times living in a house full of guys and also getting to know the Alberta team. This would be the famous Mount Lemmon, which was one of our many long rides.

High School track season was a lot of fun. I was happy with my improvements and it was great to be able to show this with a bronze medal in the 3000m at Provincials as well as a new PB of 11:30.

The first Jr Series race of the season was held in St. Malo, MB and it was awesome to race with the home support! This wasn't a great race for me, as I fell apart a bit on the bike and run, but a decent start to the season. I finished 20th out of 27, still better than last year.

My next race was a big one, PATCO! It was in Edmonton and it had been a goal of mine to qualify for it at some point, so after only one year of Jr Elite racing it was great to be able to go! I was happy with my race, especially my run. I placed 28th out of 48 girls from North and South America. Made lots of friends too!

Next was a mini-training camp in Kamloops to familiarize ourselves before the Games. The hills in theis place were insane! The water was freezing and the weather wasn't great but Emily Unger made the place look beautiful with this photo!

Ok so if you're following this correctly, no we still haven't been home since PATCO and Kamloops... it was quite the adventure. This race the water was choppy and the bike course was interesting with many small loops. I had another great run and ended up finishing 11th Jr (13th overall) out of 22 (24).

After breifly going home it was back to Kamloops for the Western Canada Games. Overall it was a great experience. Lots of fun with new friends as well as really proud of Team Toba for giving it their all. Bringing home some hardware wasn't bad either.

Nationals was in Kelowna again and the race was going great until I almost got hit by a car on the bike course. It sucked to walk away with a DNF and crazy road rash but at least I was able walk away from it (once I got out of the ambulance that is), because it could have been a lot worse. Not an ideal end to the triathlon season but overall it had been good.

This year we continued running through cross country season, and this catches you up to where I started my blog. In zone meets I placed 2nd, 1st, 2nd, 1st and at provincials got a 7th place overall (out of about 250), which was enough for a AAA bronze as well as a team bronze. So much fun!