August

It’s been a while since I posted last so I think it is safe to say an update is far overdue. A lot has happened over the past two months, so as Wayne Campbell would say “Let me bring you up to Speed”. The Cagary 70.3 was a tough race for me. The swim did not go as planned and I came out with the chase group about 90 seconds down on the leaders. I was able to bike my way back into contention, but unfortunately flatted about 70k into the bike. I had already gone over the two main climbs and was feeling pretty good with a solid net downhill for the last 25k. I changed the flat and got back at it. I made a huge mistake in trying to make up the lost time in the remainder of the Bike and the first 5k of the run. Not a solid plan as it left me blown apart both mentally and physically. I walked jogged it in for a less than stellar finish.

I decided to change things up for my next race and chose to race the ITU short course nationals in Kelowna. I was determined to make up for my poor performance in Calgary and started hammering workouts a lot sooner than I usually do after a half ironman. This worked great for about a week and a half but then something had to give. I should have listened to my coach and rested more as I caught a wicked cold the Sunday before the race. Despite my best efforts I just could not get healthy. I woke up feeling like trash and when somewhere between pounding back the buckleys and having my head over a bowl of vick’s vapor rub I realized it probably wasn’t going to be a race. I was right, it was awful. However it was a great open water experience as where else can you get an open water swim with 60 good swimmers.

The week after was Ironman week in Penticton. Always an awesome time. There were so many good performances out there by training partners and friends. It was definitely inspiring to see Justin Birks throw down a huge PB, Anthony Toth go sub 8:50 and see Steve Kilshaw get the monkey off his back. I was also stoked to see the "bearded competition". I was unaware that this was a category but Shaw TV ran a great segement informing everyone that it was. I had to put quite a few more hours than usual at the Bike Barn. The store is just madness during Ironman time so the days leaved you bagged. This was probably a blessing in disguise as it allowed me to take back my training and recover the sickness. Once the IMC circus left town I got back into training with the motto of making each workout a deposit not a withdrawal leading into the Muskoka 70.3. Apparently it is better to be 10% undertrained than 1% over trained and I felt like I was going in feeling 20% percent undertrained.