Because maybe I should?

This week I was at the U of W for a high school enrichment program. I know, not the best timing considering how busy I am. But I hardly go to school anymore anyways, so why start now? It was a pretty interesting experience. I took a psychology course about the brain and mind, which is cool becase I've never had the chance to take something like that in high school, and it also helped me figure out more things I'm interested in. Somehow between that and practices I was still super tired so as well as trying to catch up oh homework I had to keep up with new stuff... which didn't really happen. So this week is pretty much going to suck, and it's kind of my fault for turning into a procrastinator. And for just taking on crazy amounts of things I guess. But it might also be partly because I don't get enough iron. I know that sound like a weird and lame excuse, but I'm trying to figure out if there's anything to that. Because this weekend I had two 10hour nights of sleep as well as a nap and I'm still exhausted. And my last few days of practices were awful. I get it that everyone is tired after some hard weeks of training, but I really, really sucked recently.  So I will try to see if I can make some changes.

The good news about my training this week is that I got in three decent swims. I alternated days to give my shoulders enough recovery and I hope for the same next week. Also starting this Tuesday are the duathlons. I'm kind of excited actually. I feel like they are a good chance to get some solid race prep in. I will be writing again after each of them probably so it's a good guess to check back around Wednesdays for the next month. Well there's the update of my week again. Laura told me I should write today. So I did. Now I'm going to get some sleep!

Crazy life

It's been another crazy week. It seems like it always is. I was super exciting about swimming at the beginning of the week. I went both Monday and Tuesday and did almost-real sets. As in I took pieces of mini-sets I did in Tucson and stuck together some decent swim practices for myself. I was pretty happy. Except unlike in Tucson I don't have a designated injury lane and I feel like I'm always in the way. Anyways, I was feeling pretty good until after those two practices my shoulders hurt like crazy. I haven't been able to get in another swim for the rest of the week. This is frustrating. Next week my goal is to do three swim practices, except I will be alternating days.

I also went and got another MRI last Saturday. I still don't know why we didn't do this before. At least this time I wasn't nervous about it; I walked in knowing I was just going to be completely bored for about half an hour as I lay there inside that super loud machine. This time there were actually pieces that went over my shoulders, which felt like a good sign. We'll see what the results from this one bring.

This past week was DNTT, definitely not the tour week. So while half the school was off in New York playing their band instruments or singing, the non-musically talented half of us did random fun activities all over the city. Stuff like scuba diving, bowling, hot yoga, car maintenance, rock climbing and go-karting. I felt like I did so much driving whenever it worked out to have the car. Good thing that while I am not musically talented, I am directionally competent. Unlike many people out there. I should add that to my list of talents. It's not a huge list. One time my mom asked my if I was doing anything in the school talent show. Of course I wasn't, I asked her what talent I could possibly show off. She didn't know but said I was very talented. I asked her to name one of my talents and she asked for some time to think about it. A day later she still didn't know what to tell me. True story.

I will admit triathlon does take some talent. But it's mostly being mentally tough enough to give it everything you've got and more. But this week while we practiced some transitions and mounts on the outdoor track some random kids commented that it took talent. I'll agree with that. This time of year we're practicing lots of the small technical things which can be kind of fun. Even though I don't think it was supposed to be a super hard week it felt like we still put in some solid work. Tuesday night only three of us showed up to the garbage hill and it was pretty miserable because the weather just kept getting worse. But I still felt good about my run that day. I descended my splits for the loop we do: 5:35, 5:30, 5:23. We returned to the hill today and did some bricks. Three times biking up the hill (easy, mod, hard) followed by transition and the same run as before. Comparing my run splits to Tuesday's practice I felt like I put in another solid practice: 5:29, 5:27, 5:40. I guess I was tired by that last one. Anyways, it felt like some good practice for the Duathlon series coming up. The week after next is the first race and I'm kind of excited. For five weeks in a row we'll head out to Bird's Hill for what I think is a great way to get prepped for the season. I wouldn't feel ready heading into Junior racing without having done the duathlons.

I think that's about it from my crazy life at the moment. I know it's basically just more random updates but I hope it's still appreciated. I also am going to start working a bit less which should be good. Now I'm going to be doing only 5 to 6 hour shifts, starting after 4pm and never working past 10pm on Sundays. Probably to most people this seems like a no-brainer based on the amount of other stuff I do. But I'm not most people. What do you mean it's not normal to work 15 hours each weekend on top of training, coaching, church, homework, and sleeping? So yeah, I'm cutting back just a bit, at least until summer. Apparently soon race season will finally start and I will finally be done high school. Sweet. Ok sorry I kept rambling. That's it for now, really. Thanks for continuing to read.

Updates a week later

It's been a week now back in Winnipeg! A bit of a crazy week trying to catch up with school and life in general, but surprisingly I didn't actually miss that much in school. One teacher even decided not to teach stuff until another kid and I got back which was pretty sweet. I am for sure missing the heat in Arizona! Send me back and I'll train super hard everyday. Haha but I will admit it's been a much needed recovery week. I have actually taken the entire week off from swimming. Every day I've thought 'hmm maybe I'll go tomorrow...' but no luck. I guess it's probably better to give my shoulders an actual recovery; I put them through a lot in Tucson. I also went for a much needed massage today. My tennis ball can only do so much. Otherwise, I find the OYO or 'on your own' workouts to be kind of boring but at least I've been able to get together with friends some days to do them. I also have another MRI tomorrow morning. At least this time I'm not really nervous about it, just kind of annoyed that I have to do it a second time. I guess last time they got lower down but not actually the rotator cuffs? Or something like that. I'm just thinking that getting another MRI will still show nothing really wrong that we didn't already know about. Oh well.

Tonight I spent my time watching the first big race of the year live from Sydney on Triathlon TV Live (thanks Omi and Opa, awesome gift!). Both the women's and men's raced were quite exciting to watch. I know all of us were cheering for Sarah but unfortunately the race didn't go as planned for her. Kathy Trembly had a great race coming 8th; Lauren Campbell was 24th. In the men's race we had Kyle Jones in 13th, Simon Whitfield in 18th, and Brent McMahon in 20th. There were lots of mini races going on between athletes from the same countries because of Olympic qualifying spots, which really added to the excitement!

I don't think too much else is new. Today I ran in the rain. Snow might make me cry but I actually like rain. At least I tell myself I do and it usually works. I even have a song I listen to called "Happy when it Rains." I've also been continuing work on taking the rabbit apart so if that is of interest to you check out the other blog. I need to update it a bit more though I guess, that will be coming soon. Also, it seems like while I was away everyone has seen the movie The Hunger Games at least once. I feel like I should see it now, but I usually get around to seeing movies at my own pace. Apparently the amount of people that do archery is quickly increasing because of this movie. Imagine if there was a super popular movie that happened to be about triathlon... ok sorry now I'm just being a tri-geek. As usual I guess. Anyways, that's it for now. I'll probably still update about once a week so don't forget to check back once in a while.

Tucson- Day 10 and travel day

Mount Lemmon, take 2. After my frustrating experience last week on Lemmon, Angie told me I would have a great day the next time I did it. I had my doubts, considering how tired everyone would be by the last day of the camp. But I still really hoped she was right. We started out the day with a last swim. It was pretty much exactly the same for me as the day before. Oh well, once I get home and stop biking so many hours a day my shoulders should calm down a bit. While the guys started from the house, the girls drove about 20km to the base of the mountain to even things up a bit. As I was still getting my bike ready and making sure my dad was good to go too, the other two girls decided to take off. Thanks. Yes, this bothered me at first but maybe it was good for each of us to get in our own zones. With a combination of frustration and determination I set off at a pretty hard pace for the first few miles. My dad decided to just hang onto my wheel and let me do my thing. Even though it was probably windier than last time, and my legs were completely dead going into this climb, I maintained the aggressive pace. I was focused on getting to the top and having a solid ride. I stopped for a Gatorade refill at the lookout point at mile 14. I also grabbed a bottle from Eleanor out of the car while riding, but I for sure drank less than usual. When I reached the little stretch that practically brought me to tears last time I did this climb, I knew the mountain would not beat me this time. After all, I know I can for sure get to the top; I had done it 4 times before.

I kept at it and planned to take another quick break at the visitor centre parking lot around mile 20. This would mentally break up the last 12 miles and allow for one more chance to really stretch out my shoulders and back. A couple miles later the downhills start. At some point I estimated it would take about another 40 minutes to reach the top. I looked at my watch and it had already been 2 and a half hours. Even though I just wanted to get to the top and knew I shouldn’t expect too much, it was one of those days where I guess I subconsciously had a goal. That goal was under 3 hours. Last year my best time was 2:59. I knew it was time to either go for it or not, but it would be close.  So I took the downhills more aggressively than usual and once I got to that final brutal climb I was still going for it. I kept looking at my watch nervously. I had 20 minutes to go, 15 minutes, then 10. I still didn’t want to admit this goal to myself but I’m pretty sure I would have been disappointed if I got to the top in 3:01 or something. Sub-3-hour club. Obviously that final mile or two can never actually be easy; I think I was going the hardest I’ve ever rode it. I was racing the clock and redlining it the whole time. It was crazy. At some point I dropped my dad. I really wasn’t trying to race anyone but myself. I hate that last part where around every corner you hope to see the end. Finally I did. I let myself look at my watch. 2:56. Made it sub-3 as well as a new PB. I was just relieved. When my dad rolled in a minute later we high-fived and tried to breathe before beginning the descent to the town where the Cookie Cabin was waiting. Some people were already there and everyone met us after reaching the top. It was time for some giant cookies, other snacks and treats, and buying stickers. I think we were all relieved to be done the hard work.

We loaded up in the van and dropped the guys partway down, and then a little further we got out and enjoyed the descent. Actually, as far as descents go it kind of sucked. It was really windy and at that point I really didn’t want to pedal anymore. There was also no way I was going to go all aero after putting my shoulders through those hours of climbing. So I kept stretching out even though that slowed me even more and enjoyed the views on the way down. Since I do not really know what will happen for training camp once a bunch of us are in university  there’s no guarantee of coming back to this place next year. It really is amazing. Looking off the side of the mountain it’s beautiful. Even though I kind of hate Mount Lemmon for all the pain that goes on during those rides, it’s familiar and it feels so good to accomplish it. So maybe I love it while hating it? Anyways, I was done the work for the day which may have influenced how I felt. I was also really happy when we were able to load up the van for the last time instead of riding home!

Once at home we packed up the bikes in the boxes and I did my usually 5-minute-throw-everything-in-the-suitcase packing job. For dinner we headed to the famous Mama’s pizza; the place with the giant pizza, where records are made. I ordered a yummy calzone while the others shared the big pizzas. With the group we had, no records fell this year. We had some interesting times while taking pictures, getting free cheesecake, and watching Eleanor chat with some cops. We returned home super full and enjoyed the rest of the evening hanging out by the pool. Actually, Ashlyn went for a night-time swim.  It was the first and only time any of us used the pool, other than stepping into the cold hot tub in while the girls washed off their wounds that one day. We had our computers out there and took pictures and watched videos, had a little “picnic” on the ground and had some good laughs. There was a full moon and surprisingly you can see a lot of stars out there. It was beautiful. We headed in at some point after midnight; none of us were in a rush to get to bed since it was the last day.

The next day, everything went pretty smoothly while leaving the house. We were pretty much packed and ready to go, so we had the van all loaded by the time Gary arrived with the other car. We had some breakfast of whatever food was left in the house, and packed some up as snacks. With a final scan of the house to make sure nothing was left behind, Ashlyn found a stack of towels in our closet that we could have used. Fail. Oh well, we survived in this house for 10 days, and were maybe starting to get used to it. Hopefully we won’t end up with something like that again, but at least we made the best of it. I’m already missing Tucson. Another long travel day of the two hour drive to Phoenix airport, getting everyone checked in, narrowly avoiding tickets, getting the rental cars returned, and getting through the super intense security. At least this time our stop in Vancouver allowed us enough time to collect all our stuff and clear customs and security, as well as grab some food. And Starbucks. Mmm chai lattes are the best. Another long flight and it will be great to finally get home. 

I finish writing this on the plane, somewhere over Alberta. I will post it to the internet later. Thanks again for all the support and encouragement while on this trip. I can’t believe the number of views I’ve had in the last 10 days. I know that has something to do with posting the link on Facebook, but still. You wouldn’t click unless you wanted to. I’ll continue to blog, though not as frequently of course. So keep checking back once and a while if you’re interested. Wow, this was a long post. But I guess a lot of things happened on this trip. That’s all for now.

Tucson- Day 9

It’s hard to believe training camp is almost over. Except judging by how tired I am maybe it’s a good thing. This year’s camp has been lots of work in a condensed amount of time. Today was another swim where my shoulders didn’t especially love me. So I did 600m. Or yards. Again, the metric system makes so much more sense. Anyways, after my little swim it was showering up then stretching and tennis ball massage. I didn’t have tons of time to kill though; it wasn’t a super long swim for the others. We headed back to the house and once again split into two groups. The guys went for a longer ride and a run from our area. The girls went for just an hour ride again, and then we went to Sabino Canyon for the waterfall run. Even though it took a long time, I’m really glad we didn’t miss this run this year. It’s one of my favourites. It’s quite the rocky trail and it is so hot, with no water until you get to the falls. Good thing I love trails and heat. It is also so beautiful there. We took a ton of photos, which are now on facebook.  It was so worth running to the falls. It’s always cool to climb around and explore, as well as splash around in the cold water. We were so tired and hot when we finally got back to the car, so we stopped by Sonic for some amazing milkshakes. And we brought some home for the guys, of course. Well, one day left of training and it’s going to be a hard one. As difficult as Lemmon is, I can’t wait to tackle the mountain one last time and have a better ride than I did last week.

Side note: Gary told me that yesterday the guys completed their “century,” 100 miles or about 162 km! The girls also did 120km!

Also, I wasn’t sure at first whether to share this blog as much as I did, but with people asking me about the trip and stuff it was probably a good choice to put it out there. Because you wouldn’t be reading this unless you wanted to. So thanks! Really, with every view I feel the support from back home and all over the place. I would write this anyways for myself because I have always kept a travel journal to organize my thoughts from the day, but sharing it with family and friends makes it even better.

Tucson- Day 8 (Mammoth)

Today all of us went to the pool except Darian. The girls really didn’t want to get into the water which was understandable. But they sucked it up for warm up and actually both swam longer than me. My shoulders suck. I don’t even want to count how many times I’ve said that. But it’s true. I guess it’s partly also because of all the cycling. I think I swam about 300m (or I guess yards) before realizing it was just stupid to swim. All three guys started the bike from the pool and us girls planned to get dropped off at the usual Subway. With the chaperones in front, all five of us kept our eyes peeled for it. We were really confused when we couldn’t find it and more Subway’s kept coming up on the GPS. We kept driving, thinking it must be ahead. Big fail when we were at mile 90 on the highway and called Gary. He told us we had passed it at mile 79, and to get out to start riding at mile 95. So we unloaded and got going. We realized with the amount we had missed, it was not far until the start of the descent. Mammoth is a town that we get to after a 12 mile descent. We stop at the circle K gas station at the bottom before beginning the climb on the way back. When we stopped this time, we really hadn’t worked too hard yet. So we got the news that Gary now wanted us to bike all the way back to the house. By now we were frustrated with how the day at turned out and not very excited for what was sure to be a long hard ride. It ended up being not as bad as I thought. I felt pretty good during the climb after having our easier day. We kept looking carefully for the Subway on the way back, as we still needed a bit of a break. We needed to use their washroom as well as grab some food. With our bars and stuff in the other vehicle, it had been several hours since we’d eaten. We recognized other things around it we had seen, but there was no way it would have been visible to us coming from the other side without actually knowing where it was. We really weren’t looking forward to the ride back home, so we were pretty excited when we found out it was only another 20km. Not miles, as we’d thought. Pretty sure we’ve never loved metric more. The guys finally passed us on the way. They did such a long ride today! We spent about 4 hours and 15 minutes on our bikes; they did even more because of starting earlier. Despite confusion throughout the day, everything worked out alright and it was a long day for us all. Oh, and I ate a bug. Surprisingly it was the first one that flew into my mouth while riding this trip. More training to come, more blogging to come. Thanks for reading.

Tucson- Day 7

After such a crazy day, half the team really wasn’t up to doing much and the rest of us were quite tired and ready for a bit of an easier day. After some chocolate chip pancakes, me and the two uninjured guys headed off to the pool. The lifeguards must have wondered what happened to our huge group. I did a fairly short swim while the others did some long aerobic set Gary came up with.  With the remaining time till they were done I took a nice long shower and then stretched and massaged my shoulders with my tennis ball. We met the crashed group at the bike shop where they each had to get some work down, but nothing too major. Then we all headed to the university bookstore for some U of A clothing. It makes me compare it to U of M. The blue and red looks so much sweeter than the brown and gold unfortunately.

Then for the bike we just left from the house.  The two guys headed out first for a three hour ride I think. Way to go for sticking it out. Darian wasn’t able to ride yet, but had a positive attitude about getting back at it the next day and followed us in the car with Eleanor and Mikailey. I went with the girls for an hour. I was glad it was short because I’m really tired by now and there’s still some hard rides coming up. We stuck together and the girls were pretty nervous at first, which made sense. I was super proud that they both got back on their bikes a day after the crash, even though it was hard. We went for a run also from the house and since they weren’t up for much I went a bit longer. The guys got back from their training for the day and we had some time to relax before chicken tacos for dinner. In the evening we went to the outlet mall for the usual Nike store. I think most of us were pretty disappointed with it this year but picked up some deals at PacSun. On the way home we tried out a different frozen yogurt place. Yum. Another day of training camp done, ready for Mammoth.

Tucson- Day 6

What an eventful day. I was too tired to write about it yesterday but now I’ll try my best to accurately say what happened. And don’t freak out because everyone is alive and there are no broken bones or concussions, or anything too bad.

The plan had been to do Lemmon one more time but that will have to wait; because of the wind we went to do Gate’s Pass instead. So we didn’t swim, and we went for a run this morning on the trail along a wash. The three Manitoba girls stuck together for about a 45 minute run. We all met up at the van and on the way to our drop-off point we ate some packed lunches. It probably wasn’t a good idea to try starting out as one huge group. Some of us dropped off a bit when we did the climb that is the reverse of Gates Pass. A few miles from the bottom our guys went off for a longer ride while we stuck with Alberta. The first incident of the day happened when Darian lost control and hit a hole on a downhill, wiping out. When most of us caught up to him we were concerned, but hadn’t actually seen what happened. We were told he was alright, but his road rash was pretty bad, so Eleanor took him to the hospital to get cleaned up better.

So we kept riding and took some wrong turns but realized outr mistakes and got back on the right route. We also rode some awful roads but eventually got to our turn around point, 50km out. On the way back we were on the smoothest road of the day when things went wrong. We think some wheels rubbed farther up in our large pack and everyone started to go down. Claire seemed relatively unhurt but had some bike damage, including derailleur and hangar. Ashlyn and Maddy got the worst of the crash. Maddy went flying, leaving her bike behind mostly undamaged. She however was splayed out on the highway for quite some time. Her arms were up awkwardly and we were quite worried that something was broken. But once we got her up she was mostly alright, but very sore and battered. Ashlyn took the road with her face. We worried about lost teeth or a broken nose, but there were some just scrapes, a lost bracket, and a bloody nose. She bled all over her face, the sidewalk, and me and Mackenzie. He also went down and had a sore wrist and some bent wheels, but seemed to get away pretty lucky. Joel was the first to manage to stop but as he fishtailed to avoid the bodies and bikes, he and I almost went down too. It could have been a lot worse. I for sure thought I was going down also; I hate that that feeling right before a crash when you know it’s going to be bad but can’t do anything about it. It sucks that it’s familiar by now.

Anyways, it was really scary to see everyone go down but I tried to help everyone as soon as I could. Mack, Joel, and I went out into the road to direct people around the crash. We also tried to piece together what had happened. A woman stopped her car to help and called 911. The first response was the police, followed by paramedics. It was quite the crew that showed up to help, and very quickly. The girls were in shock but luckily as they were checked out there didn’t seem to be symptoms of concussions. Both looked pretty bad, but didn’t actually have to go to the hospital. It was also good that we had several adults to help deal with it and a phone to call for help.

Once everyone was off the road and being taken care of we had some logistics to take care of. Gary was still out in the van and Tyler and Ben were riding. Angie sent out Alberta minus Claire and Mack, and me as the token Manitoban with Trevor to get the Alberta van. We rode about 17km back to the parking lot, very carefully. I was really not excited to get back on the bike, as I was still shaking and didn’t feel like riding in a pack anymore. But once we got riding it was better. We regrouped with everyone at the parking lot with the two vans, and then went off to find Tyler and Ben. It was really too bad that everyone’s ride had been cut short, but the two guys had been waiting quite a bit because we had no way of telling them about the crash. No one ended up actually doing Gate’s pass. It’s a short section, but very steep and quite the challenge. Most of Alberta and I ended up doing about 67km, and the other two guys did more.

Once back at the house we couldn’t get inside, and had to wait for Eleanor and Darian to come back from the hospital with the keys. The girls started washing out their wounds in our cold hot tub. Finally everyone was accounted for and we made a quite transition back to Alberta’s house. We brought the food we needed to have a burgers and dogs pool party for their last night. I think everyone still had a good time together. We hung out and it was great to spend one more evening with the Alberta team. As we were trying to leave Darian was still quite loopy from the meds they gave him at the hospital, but couldn’t find one of his shoes. We all searched the yard, house and pool; no one could find it. Finally Tyler opened up the filter thing and there is was, underneath a mole. The guys got the creepy little rodent out and chased it away. It was the weirdest thing. Anyways, it will be a few months till we see most of those friends again, so it was hugs all around and we headed home, exhausted after our crazy day. I’m glad we got to spend so much time with Alberta; they really are a great group. Another few days of training are left for us. I’m hoping everyone can keep their spirits up and wishing for speedy healing to our athletes that went down.