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

Christmas trips and falls

What does;

+ 2 Degrees outsie

+ An Ice covered bike trail

+ No Gloves

+ No Winter cycling kit

+ No Puncture repair kit

+ No Helmet

make for? A whole lot of fun and a few cuts and bruises :)

Ok so I decided after 5 days at home and quite a few run and swim sessions I'd head out on my mtb for a few hours in the cold. 

First mistake was leaving all my cycling kit in Vancouver. This left only some (purely summer) Kiwami tri shorts to wear leaving my legs pretty exposed, luckily I had my running stuff so my upper half was relatively warm. 

Second mistake was forgetting my gloves. I had actually looked them out in the house but was about 300m down the road when I realised I had left them in the kitchen... so listening to my man instinct of "never turn back for anything you left behind under any circumstances" I continued into the cold... bare white knuckles. 

Due to the first two mistakes this meant I had to improvise in order to keep warm, so from about km 10 onward I had to ride with one hand on the bars and one hand neatly tucked down the side of my skin tight blue tri shorts ... (this started to get a few stares). 

Now under normal conditions my mtb handling skills are questionable at best but today, in the ice, one hand down my shorts, struggling to maintain core temperature and losing basic motor skills ... they were crap. 

This lead to increased weaving ... more so than usual ... which lead to a high number of violent swerves, usually toward something, like a parked tractor, fence post or cow. After maybe my 10th swerve I ended up aiming straight toward the only hole within 100 miles and ploughing straight into it, PUNCTURE. yay 

Of course I had also left all my puncture repair stuff in Vancouver also. So now I was stuck, 15 km from home, in spandex, no gloves and my face had started to do that thing where your bottom lip and jaw become limp and you look like a fish. Well a sensible person, with a healthy body temperature and feeling in their brain, would have called their sister to come pick them up... but I decided it would be much more fun to ride all the way home on the rim. Well If my handling skills were bad before now they were terrible, the bike had a nice little mind of its own and coupled with my hands - which were now bright red - they started to try and hurl me into bushes and fences etc. 

I guess I got about 5 km from home before I successfully managed to drive into a ditch, fall over sideways and of course hit my head. But to be honest by this time I had given up. I did however, continue to ride home on the rim and stop to take some pictures of the dark Scottish afternoons. I've put them all below...

I forgot how many sheep there were in Scotland...

YAY puncture.

Hand died

The path I was riding along

Pretty dark considering this was mid afternoon!

I still had fun and it's nice to be back riding on some of my old trails,

Have a good christmas,

Mike

Coming home

Time to come home. 

...for a few days at least. 

Will arrive back in Scotland tomorrow, if all goes to plan by around 5pm. Currently it's looking like a delay full travel schedule over the next 30 hours, snowing heavily here in Vancouver - 6 inches since this morning - with most flights cancelled or delayed so far this morning. 

Drove back down from Whistler last night after a few days skiing post exams. Not sure if it's made the news back home but the 4th gondola tower on the main Blackcomb mountain lift snapped in half yesterday around 2.30pm taking the gondola cars down with it. Luckily no one died but the scene was pretty intense, I was in the process of downloading on the Whistler gondola when I saw the lines of fire trucks and ambulances pulling up. I knew something serious was up when I saw the military helicopter arrive! 

Looks like the mountains will be shut for a few days, no doubt every tower on every lift on both mountains will have to be inspected - 38 lifts, maybe 30 towers per lift....could take a while...

Really looking forward to coming home for a few days, seeing everyone I've missed and enjoying christmas at home. Exams finished last Thursday - everything went really well, had studied pretty hard and done some solid revision so was glad they went past smoothly. Training's just been ticking over since the 8th, will get some work in once I'm home but it's been a busy week! 

Hope everyone has a good christmas

Mike

ps. quick action shot of me playing in the snow last weekend...I'm the one on the ground!