February training

Hey,

quite a bit to catch up on. Last weekend I was in Victoria celebrating an early Valentines day, was nice to get away but come Monday we were back in trianing mode. Tuesday morning was interesting...

0450 I set out, goggles in hand, for my 1km trudge to the swimming pool. It was frosty and about -5 but I didn't really notice it as I was wrapped up.

HOWEVER once I got on pooldeck at 0515 (we train outside on Tuesdays) it started to feel a bit colder ... then I took my kit off so was standing there in just my trunks. New meaning to the word shrinkage. Oh but it got colder, literally just as I was about to dive in on came the snow, lots of it. The entire pooldeck was covered in about 4 inches of snow within the hour, so by the time 90minutes came around and it was time for me to dash back inside in my trunks I was pretty chilly!

Unfortunately once I had gotten back to my room, had eaten and fully warmed up, I had to don all my winter cycling gear and head out for 2 hours in the chilliness. Was all good fun though and was a nice thought knowing no one else would be riding outside that day :)

The week then went past pretty quickly, my sister Britney and her boyfriend Euan arrived on Wednesday and Denise's mum arrived on Thursday along with a few midterm exams to make it all interesting. We then headed up to Whistler yesterday for a few days, before me and Gordon head down to Oregon for a training camp come Tuesday.

Looking forward to getting in some solid training over the next week or so without the distraction of school and homework (even though some people would say I do without the homework most weeks anyway! :D )

On another note, watched Lance ride in the first TT of the Tour of California today. He looked pretty good finishing 9th, lets see how the week goes and maybe I'll increase his tour chances (currently at 40% to win).

Have a good spring break

Mike

It's been a while but I've been fully immersed in training for the last three weeks and have had to abuse my blogging. Been heading up to Whistler each weekend and have been having a great time in the snow taking advantage of the mountains and the training they give way for.

Cycling in Pemberton on Saturday

January went VERY quickly and I am scared to think that it is now February. In 22 days I'll be turning 20 which is both exciting and terrifying at the same time, I have vivid memories of being a 14 year old swimmer training my heart out 4 mornings a week in Kincorth pool, Aberdeen, struggling to write my log book on the way home in the car, never drinking out of my water bottle during sessions, struggling to stay awake in class...

Well I still struggle to stay awake during class but at least I drink a lot more now. Back in the day (like 5 years ago not 50 :-) ) I was in the pool 20 hours a week with 2 hours of land work, this was the most I ever trained while I was a swimmer and I loved it. I always thought I trained really hard and got some good results from it...that said I had my fair share of bad results too. I was in the pool doing the work, doing the main sets right, the warm ups, swim downs etc...but there was always a little bit I held back. Plus the fact that I wasn't drinking, sleeping, stretching or eating right...but you can't blame a 14 year old kid for that :)

My point is it takes a lot of work, outside of training, in order to get the most from your sport. You don't realise that when you are 13/14 or even 16/17 but there comes a point when you have to decide why you're in your sport and whether it's for the long run...then you have to start drinking from your water bottle!

Bringing me on nicely to a mixture of my two favourite athletes Mr Phelps and Mr Armstrong.

Phelps is the best swimmer and Olympian ever, he trains just as much as the other guys, does the same pool workouts, the same number of hours but where he wins is out of the pool. Sleeping, eating, drinking, flexibility etc coupled with the fact he takes the tiny things in the pool (turn technique, push offs) more seriously than anyone else. So I will completely overlook the fact that he smoked pot ... he is a normal guy after all ...

Lance is the best cyclist, comeback athlete and one of the best endurance athletes ever. REGARDLESS of how he races this summer in the Tour he has that title...but somehow I don't think he'll even be racing unless he has a pretty good outside chance ... we'll see.

That's my little defensive rant over.

Some more pictures to even out my post!

PICTURES

Denise showing me how to ride on snow ...


XC Skiing, Day 2. Callaghan Valley

5 hour training day refueling food...SUPER BOWL NACHOS :)

Train hard!

Mike

Keeping it interesting

Ask any athlete who trains, as I do, 14-16 sessions a week, 24 hours, 5am mornings ... the whole 9 yards, if they sometimes get bored and they will either answer;

"yes, 12 sessions in the pool each week is mind numbing/yes, we always do the same stuff/same sh*t different day" ... 

or

"well you would think I would but I do my best to mix it up ... I love doing all this stuff every day". 

The first response is much more common (especially in the swimming world) but I am glad to say I could reply with the second. If you want to enjoy the same old sports and training day in day out there needs to be some effort on the part of the athlete/coach to make sure the training is fun, different and downright crazy a lot of the time ... it's where the fun lies. 

Well I do like to throw in the crazy stuff every week, be it throwing rocks around on the beach for an hour (replaces standard medicine ball work), running up a mountain (15km on a flat road gets boring) or today, just for fun, going for a swim in the pacific in the heavy fog, 5 degree air temp, 4 degree water temp ... or according to the weather office 4.11 degrees C

haha

:)

keeps it interesting

Mike

Running

Running is hard. It's not easy, if it was easy then it was jogging. So I don't feel bad in saying that I find running pretty tough every once and a while... ESPECIALLY today :-) 

(smiley face as I was loving it)

There is a ski hill in Vancouver called Cypress Mountain, I climbed it regularly September - November on my bike as it was great hill work, 15km at about 8% and reading back through some of my blog posts from around then I found it pretty tough a few times. Has some beautiful views from up top as it is at about 3000feet rising from sea level so you can see all the way to Mount Baker in the US. 

Sooo today I thought it would be a good idea to run up it ... if cycling up it hadn't been hard enough. Well there isn't really much to say about the run apart from it was HARD at the start, HARD in the middle and pretty much really hard until the very end! Good things were that at one point we overtook a cyclist ... and the RedBull girls from the ski hill honked their horn at us when they drove past! :) (hence the smiles!) 

Great day though, spent 2 hours on the bike in the afternoon so now it's time to rest up for tomorrow. BEST of luck to Fraser Cartmell who's racing the South Africa 70.3 tomorrow in East London, SA. Have a good race. 

Here at the pictures from today...

The blanket of cloud covering Vancouver

Views out to Vancouver Island

Mount Baker, Washington State - US

Me looking a little more tired than usual :)

Snows gone but bring on the London fog.

So, luckily for all the cyclists out here in Vancouver the snow melted away on Tuesday buuuut as of yesterday afternoon the entire city has become encased in some serious fog. 

Not 21 century fog, more like 1800's, dark alleyway, werewolf of London stuff. So once again I was cooped up inside on my trainer for another 2 hours this morning even though I was kind of glad to be safe inside watching a movie in the saddle than outside where visibility crept down to around 30m for most of the afternoon.  

After class etc which ended at 1530 I headed down to the beach for a fun session. Gordon and I, all decked out in full thermals (still cold) and backpacks, proceeded to find the biggest rocks around and stack them neatly inside our packs. Then with about 20kg of stones we trudged the 5km along the rocky beach fighting with logs and rocks before hiking the 2km hill back up to the main road and the 2km back onto campus. Always fun to find new ways to make your legs hurt the next morning! 

In general training is strong, getting back into the full swing of things after christmas but I definitely want to start racing soon. In my opinion this is the hardest time of year the time when you have to keep the miles up, keep putting in the really hard work, all the while getting restless and wanting to race. Just going to keep my head down as no doubt the races will come around much sooner than I imagine ...

...and I can't wait

Mike

2009

Apologies on my blogging tardiness, but happy new year and I hope everyone had great holidays. 

I spent a week back home in Scotland for Christmas with the family before heading back to Canada for new year and the start of the new school semester. After exams finished in December I had just finished up a 4 month block of heavy winter training which started in early September while the sun was still out and the days were long. Back in September I had just moved to Canada, been racing for 4 straight weekends and trying to get to grips with new surroundings, new people and new classes. Part of the way I managed to stay sane through all that upheaval was by throwing myself 100% into training, something I enjoy doing! 

Me and Blair worked up a great way of getting in my work around class etc and we built up through the months until the end of December where it got very hard both in distance but also in training around the snow/rain and daylight issues. 

I then enjoyed 2 weeks of down time around Christmas so I could rest up while visiting family and remember what it was like not to train 24/7 again. I enjoyed my time back in Scotland but by the time I was sitting at the family dinner table after christmas dinner I was ready to get going again, we arrived in Canada 2 days later and training started. 

XC skiing, 4 hours on the hill downhill skiing a day + core work and regular running made the week around new years tiring but fun. Great snow in BC made the conditions amazing for all winter sports but sadly we lost 4 skiers in Whistler Blackcomb alone in the 6 days around new year. Reminds you how dangerous the sports we all love to do can be. 

After last weekend I travelled back home to Vancouver to start the new school year. Straight back into classes + training, definitely a strict routine but we are creatures of habit and to be honest a little bit of routine never hurt anyone! The new schedule will work very well around training and I am looking forward to getting back off the trainer once the roads become a little less ice covered. 

Also congratulations to Miss Denise Ramsden my cycling partner, girlfriend and general bike handling coach who won Pedal magazines "Best overall junior female cyclist" award of 2008. We have now deduced she can beat me at cycling, ice skating, hiking and xc skiing ... my goal for 2009? Stop being beaten by girls!

Looking forward to the new year (and race season - 8 weeks out),

All the best,

Mike