Peter's Progress

15,000

2012-02-10T11:24:00.000-08:00

Ooooh dang, my webpage has hit 15,000 views! That's huge and exciting. Just wanted to say a quick thank-you to everyone who follows me and my supporters.

I'm really looking forward to tonight and getting after it in this 5000m. This nice little surprise will definitely help.

Flotrack Husky Classic

2012-02-09T08:12:00.000-08:00

The time has come, my 2012 debut.

I am currently rushing to type out this post as I'm heading to the airport for flight #1 of 2012 to Seattle for race #1 of 2012.

There will be live coverage on Flotrack, which you can find HERE. And the schedule is HERE. Unfortunately my race won't be live. Hopefully they'll have it up shortly afterwards. The 5k's start at 7:30PST, I'm in heat 2, so I'll probably be going around 7:50 or so.

Thanks for reading, remember to subscribe to my blog to be alerted on updates, follow me on twitter, check out my new donations page, share my blog on twitter and facebook and leave any questions or comments. I'd really like to get more involved with the people who visit and read my blog.

My Four Cents.

2012-02-06T15:28:00.000-08:00

After my last post, I started talking with some of my training partners and friends about some of the things I said, as well as some things other athletes have blogged about. Naturally, tons of ideas started flowing. I'm just going to talk about a couple of the ideas we got most in depth about. I'm pretty much going to focus on two things; One, I'm going to throw out a few more ideas of how Track could possibly be bettered marketed/televised. And two, an entirely new way to structure Track and Field to possibly make it something people want to follow and more spectator friendly.

As I said in my previous blog, the marketing of Track could be way better. Some of the things that came up in talking with people were simple things to add that just made watching Track a little more exciting and give more things to the spectators to pay attention to and follow. It would be really cool to get the athletes "mic'ed up" so to speak. Again, it's as simple as looking at sports that are already BIG in the world and taking some things from them. I think throwing some microphones on athletes, like they sometimes do in Hockey or American Football, to actually hear the race would really add a new aspect to viewing track that has never been done before. While we're at it, why not take some notes from Soccer and throw a heart rate monitor on them, or put a chip in their spikes that counts how many steps their taking? Adding these things would add such a neat element.

Little things like that would add huge elements to T.V. viewing. I love to watch Track on T.V. however, to someone who doesn't really know much about the sport, I can see how it would be quite boring. For one, the commentators often don't really know what they are talking about. Giving these stats to the commentators they could easy look at the information and analys the race a little more, without necessarily knowing more about the sport. With the chips in the shoes you could easily give stats like how fast Bolt got from 0-20mph, exactly how many steps he took to cover 100m. With the chips, and probably with the heart rate monitors as well, you could look at each 50m/100m/200m/1000m interval of a 1500m or 5000m race and see the exact spot where the pace slowed down and picked back up, or where the final move was made. Plus, it would give the weekend warrior a chance to compare their information from their beloved Garmin to the stats from the elite athletes.

Truthfully, I don't know much about Soccer. Having a British roommate, I have started to learn a little more. Even with the limited knowledge I do have, watching Soccer is really entertaining because they have all these little gadgets. Hell, even NASCAR hooks the drivers up and gives you their vital stats. It just gives people something to relate and compare to between each athlete and race. Another example of this is the Tour de France, they have those guys linked up to everything!

Speaking of giving spectators something to relate to and compare between athletes and races, Track really isn't making that easy at the moment. Even if a Diamond League event happens to be aired on television, it's impossible to really follow anything because the next time it airs NONE of the same athletes are competing. It makes it really hard for spectators to get involved, follow their favourite athlete, or compare them head to head.

A way we thought to fix this, again kind of stolen from Soccer, is implementing some sort of a league system. The way we imagined it working is splitting athletes up into divisions; div.1, div.2, div.3, and so on. Div.1 would be the best of the best, div.2 and lower would be the up and comers. One of the con's of this system would be that whichever division an athlete is designated to, is the only the division the athlete could race in. To make sure an athlete isn't stuck in a division they are too good for, there would be some sort if point system. In each league race you'd earn certain amount of points for placing and maybe a couple times a year there is an evaluation and the top 3 or 5 athletes in each division get to move up and the bottom 3 or 5 get moved down. That way there are always the incentive to move up into higher divisions and an even bigger one to stay in the top.

Now, I'll admit, there would be some pro's and con's. The biggest being the previously stated fact that athletes are somewhat stuck in a division until an evaluation comes along. However, drastic changes will have to be made if we want our sport the thrive. Even though it might be a slight con for athletes, I think it would be a HUGE pro for spectators. Doing something like this format would really give people something to pay attention to and follow. They'll be able to check in after each race to see the point totals, get excited if their favourite athlete is getting close to being moved up, get nervous if that athlete might get moved down.

There are also some pro's for athletes. It would open up a whole new set of records, like "div.2 record." It would set up some new championship races where athletes can add "Div.2 champion" to their running resume. It would also give the opportunity to have things like dual meets, where the top athletes from Div.2 in North America go up against the top from Europe. Again, some more exciting races for the athletes, as well as giving spectators more races to follow. Everyone likes to see USA beat Canada, or England beat France.

It would also put a whole new spin on the sponsorship side of things. I think in a format such as this it would really make it easy for sponsors to really see who the up and comers are, see who is able to perform under pressure and that sort of thing. Right now it just seems agents approach sponsors with an athlete who has maybe had one really great race or season, saying they have the next best runner and the company, for the most part, just has to believe it and hope for the best. In the league system there would be a lot more racing and sponsors would be able to more easily see who performs consistently.

One last thing that was talked about was making the track more like a horse track. If people were able to put money down on the athletes, I can guarantee they'd want to follow the sport more. Being able to bet on a particular person to win the race, putting money down on the time they'll run, betting on the top three. Really when you think of it, there are endless things people could bet on. Realistically, horse racing isn't all that exciting, but people keep going weekend after weekend to place money on them. Not only would it bring spectators, but a great opportunity for revenue as well.

Getting out there and clocking countless miles with my training partners and having the great chats that come along with it, is one of my most favourite things to do. I will be sure to share any further ideas that come up in our miles.

Thanks for reading, remember to subscribe to my blog to be alerted on updates, follow me on twitter, check out my new donations page, share my blog on twitter and facebook and leave any questions or comments. I'd really like to get more involved with the people who visit and read my blog.

My Two Cents

2012-01-30T14:57:00.000-08:00

I'm just sitting here shortly after reading Scotty Bauh's blog "Why isn't the Track Season more like the Tennis Season" and watching The Winter X-Games. Not only does every athlete in these games have multiple sponsors, but the event itself does! Just on their bibs they have America's Navy, Casio, JEEP (for the 10th year), they also have EA Sports as a main sponsor. Obviously the reason these big sponsor are getting involved is because of the exposure they are getting from the live spectators and even more from the TV spectators. Pretty much every commercial I am seeing is for one of these 4 companies.

As I type this they just switched from being aired on EPSN to having special coverage on ABC. Now, granted this stuff is probably a little more exciting to watch to the general public, regardless the marketing is way better. People in the X-Games are known and they are made known by the advertisements and marketing. Google "Shaun White Commercials" and 6 different commercials for a couple different things pop up right away; HP computers, Target, Oakley, his OWN VIDEOGAME! Another really cool thing I saw they are doing is as they are introducing an athlete on the screen is their Twitter name. Just another easy way to get the athlete's names out there. I also think Redbull is doing a great job in the "extreme sport" world. I'm excited to see what they will do as they are slowly working their way into our sport sponsoring people like Lolo Jones and Trey Hardee among many others.

I like, agree, and have previously thought about what Scotty says in his blog. The big names don't compete enough and there are no REAL rivalries. Whenever track is aired on TV the commentators always talk about some of the rivalries, which in my opinion are more theoretical than anything, like Bolt v. Gay v. Powell. As Scotty says, they never really race each other and in fact seemingly TRY to avoid going head to head. The IAAF did try to promote more head to head competitions with the change over from Golden League to Diamond League. However, even with the inception of the Diamond League some of the bigger names still managed to avoid each other. That is where the IAAF, USATF, Athletics Canada, or who ever needs to get more involved in some of these meets and, in a way, make athletes race each other. I couldn't believe when I saw Defar and Dibaba at the same meet but running different distances that are only 200m apart. In an event like that, someone needs to step in and just say, "No, you two are racing each other, decide if you want the 2mile or the 3000m." Yohan Blake and Usain Bolt should not have been in different races at the Diamond League final in Brussels last year.

Side note, while doing some research and looking on the Diamond League website, they need a new website! I want to go through all the results and see how many times big names actually went head to head last year, but I can't be bothered to spend the amount of time it would take. That must be the slowest website on the Internet.

Long story short, our sport could use some improvement.

Anyway, that's my little rant there. Other than that things are are going good as far as training is concerned. I had a little hiccup over the last couple weeks with my Achilles. It was really weird, I was fine one day, ran like 18miles and then the next day could hardly walk. I took a few days off and tried running again and went straight back to square one. I got in and had some massage from Garfield Crooks and some treatment from Wynn, took another 5 days off and then as quickly as it came on it disappeared. I am back to running full on and doing workouts. I think it was a bit of a blessing in disguise. As annoying as it was to miss out on some workouts and what not, I was starting to feel a little run down and I think the rest was a good thing.

Just heading into an intensity week, which is my last hard week before a nice recovery week and then heading out to Seattle for my first race of the year! WHOO DEBUT! Although it's an indoor 5k, so... maybe just lowercase whoo. I'm just kidding, I'm really excited to get out there and mix it up. I'm most interested in seeing where my fitness is at. I have been having good workouts, I'm hoping the race will go the same way the workouts have.

Thanks for reading, remember to subscribe to my blog to be alerted on updates, follow me on twitter, check out my new donations page, share my blog on twitter and facebook and leave any questions or comments. I'd really like to get more involved with the people who visit and read my blog.

Shiny Side Up!

2012-01-20T22:05:00.000-08:00

Well, here we are months down the road and I've gone against my word yet again!

Christmas was a really fun time. I went to Iowa with Amy to spend Christmas with her family. It was a great time. Her family is a farming family and lives basically in the middle of no-where. When say farming, I mean legit farming. The same farm has been in the family for generations and looks as though it will continue that way. It was really cool to step out of the city and go somewhere much more laid back and my style. Plus got to ride in a tractor to feed cows and cruise around on a 4-wheeler, so how could it be a bad time??

Arriving back in Scottsdale it was go time. Everyone got into town in time for our first workout on Jan 3. It was really great to see everyone again, plus a few new faces as well.

As far as "go time" is concerned, I was having great success until about a week ago. I was very pleased with how my sessions were going. I was/am miles ahead of where I was last year at this time. And then out of no where, my achilles starts acting up. I have never in my time running had a issue with my achilles. I still haven't fully sorted out what the issue is. I'm hoping within a couple days to pin-point it and get it sorted out as I have resgistered for and booked flights to the Husky Invite in Seattle on Feb 10.

Here is to hoping! To quote my good friend Sean Van Der Lee, I just need to keep the shiny side up.

Sounds Off!

2011-12-15T10:32:00.000-08:00

Alright guys and girls. This week I am asking you to give me a topic to write about. I have been thinking about doing this for some time now and I think now is as good of time as any. As I read over my last few posts, other than the one about us getting robbed, I'm realising they aren't the most interesting.

So please help me out. Sound off in the comments below. Ask my any questions you might have, suggests topics, anything at all.

I look forward to seeing what you all have to say.

Thanks in advance!

Terrible Teppanyaki.

2011-12-13T13:51:00.001-08:00

Well, not too much to report from last week. We had a recovery week and so it was fairly uneventful. The week disappeared due to the lack of running, it was needed though. Over the last few days I feel like I'm back in Victoria more than being in Arizona. This has been the longest constant rain I have ever seen. Fortunately it stopped for the exact 2 hours we did our workout in this morning.

Really the only out of the ordinary thing that happened this week was that I had my first teppanyaki experience with Amy. For those of you who don't know what teppanyaki is, click here to find out. I had heard many great things about it and that it was usually a lot of fun, to be honest, I was quite disappointed. Our chef was terrible, trying to do tricks and failing, undercooking some food, overcooking other food. I have decided to erase that experience from my memory and go into my next teppanyaki as though I still had never been.

Usually I like to write about one week at a time and not really mix happenings from one into the next, but this could wait. Today we went to the hill to do surges were we got robbed last time. I'm thinking it might be time to find a new hill, today we saw a guy get arrested for who know what right along our half mile loop.

This is our last week of hard training before getting a little break for the holidays. It's hard to believe that in just over a week I'll be heading to Iowa for christmas. These first 2 months down here have just flown by!

Sorry for the mildly boring blog. I suppose thats the result of a mildly boring week.

WE GOT ROBBED!

2011-12-07T15:12:00.000-08:00

Well, we got robbed mid workout this week. We were out doing 30mins of hill surges. The loop we do the surges is roughly 500m and with the different types of runners all at different levels of fitness this time of the year the 5 of us doing the workout were pretty evenly spread out over the 500m. About 10mins in we saw these two homeless people come near where we had dropped our clothes, one was a guy with a bike and the other a girl on foot. 15mins into the workout Matt kind of slowed down told us that he didn't see our shirts where they used to be, and the homeless couple was walking away. Andrew and I circled back to double check if our stuff was missing, and of course it was. I immediately turned around and run after our lovely homeless couple. I caught up pretty quick as they hadn't made it very far. I may have yelled a few profane words as I came closer to them, as soon as the guy turned and saw me he got on his bike a started to ride away. Since I was in the middle of a surge session I was nicely warmed up and it didn't take me long to catch up to him again. Long story short, Andrew joined me with our culprit soon after and he denied stealing our shirts for a long while until finally admitting to it. We were pretty sure he still had Andrew's keyless entry beeper for his car so we had to go through his entire bag. After searching everything and being careful to not disturb any of his "magical artifacts" we couldn't find it and it is still missing. We're pretty sure he probably had it in his pockets or something in hopes the car will be back one day.

Other than that it was a pretty good week of training. Hard, but good. We were in a volume week so there as lots and lots of running. Everything is going really smoothly so far this year. I've been able to hit the workouts hard each week, and staying injury free. I'm actually looking forward to hitting the track in January.

Outside of track things are great. I'm really enjoying having a girlfriend down here this year and knowing/meeting people outside of the training group. Amy and our friend Brian got out climbing the other week, first time I had gone in a LONG time. It was really good to be on the wall again. We're planning on going again this week since I'm in a recovery week and will probably have a little more energy than any other week. After my solid 14miler on Sunday Amy and I checked out the Tempe Festival of the Arts. It was really cool, they blocked off a good part of Tempe near ASU and had tents set up all over the place. It was actually a little overwhelming how many tents there were. We also checked out a really cool restaurant called Roaring Fork. It's really more of a BBQ place, but I had really been craving a good spinach salad. Turns our Roaring Fork happened to have one and I was able to fulfil my craving. Amy got some fried chicken that was also really good. I plan on going back sometime because I really want to try their Dr. Pepper Baby Back ribs.

As I said I'm in a recovery now, only goal this week is the make the body feel good. More time spent doing self treatment than running this week.

Broken Promise.

2011-11-28T10:30:00.000-08:00

Well, I've gotten really bad at this. I keep promising getting better but never really do. I'd like to say this time will be different, but if history can predict the future, I'm not making any promises, haha.

I've been back in Scottsdale since October 25th. Things have been great since being here. I went to a pretty bad ass block party for Halloween. Some of the best costumes I have ever seen.

Starting October 31st we got back into prescribed training, rather than just doing whatever we felt like. Things have been going smoothly. I took the first 3 week cycle pretty easy. I just kept things under control and didn't really push anything too hard. We just finished the 1st week of a new cycle, an intensity week. I still kept things under control but started to up the milage and intensity of the workouts.

November 24th was round 2 of Thanksgiving. One of the benefits of living in both countries, two Thanksgivings!

Last friday I went to my first NCAA football game and tailgate. Unfortunately ASU isn't known as the biggest football school. It was fun, but slightly disappointed.

That about sums up the last little while. I will try to get back on the weekly update train.

Here's to hoping.

8km XC... Why not?

2011-10-05T00:05:00.000-07:00

Well, it's crazy to think, but the time has almost come! Only 20 more days and I'll be heading back down to Scottsdale. I'm extremely excited as well as a little nervous. I feel like I have so much to do before I head down. I've already started to get a lot of stuff sorted out.

I wanted to give a huge shout out to both The Running Room as well as Hammer Nutrition. As usual, the man, myth, and legend, Matt Norminton and the Running Room have hooked me up big time. It's such a great feeling knowing that I can always rely on them for any of my training gear needs. Matt was also able to swing a little deal with Hammer Nutrition and hook me up with their best product, in my humble opinion, Recoverite. If any of you out there are struggling with properly recovering after your long and/or hard days, go out and get yourself some Recoverite. It's perfectly well rounded with 3:1 carb:protein, glutamine and a whole host of handy little things that help in all aspects of muscle recovery. Plus, they're based out of Whitefish, Montana basically counts as local!

Other than working like a mad-man and running around getting things organised I have been running. Granted, not as much as I would like to, or should be. I randomly hopped into an 8km Cross Country race this past Saturday. It went surprisingly well. I said to myself I was just going to use it as a bit of an up-tempo in the middle of an 11mile run, but as soon as I toed the line and got into that atmosphere my competitive nature kicked in. I still stayed pretty conservative but I did start racing a little more than I had planned. I ended up in 3rd place in a decent time of 26:48. Still ticked off 11miles that day, made for a slow and painful 10miles on Sunday.

Plan for the next few weeks; start making more sacrifices to get my runs in where they fit rather then saying "I'll do it later" and not ever getting around to it. I also want to get all my stuff organised for heading down to Arizona within a week, just to get that stress off my shoulders.

*On a side note. I no longer have my Facebook and Twitter synced. If by chance you blocked it on your newsfeed (I know I have in the past) you no longer have to worry about 1000 updates from twitter on your FB newsfeed. Promise.

Long Story Short

2011-09-10T09:51:00.001-07:00

I suck at running and have been working like a maniac, thus no updates.

Plans for the future. Get better at running and get the heck out of dodge and back down to AZ where the living is easy.

A Year in Review.

2011-08-19T21:51:00.000-07:00

Well, once again I have been a little crappy at updating this. I suppose quite a lot has happened, but I think can summarize all fairly quickly and sufficiently.

After the great event in Moncton we bussed out to Halifax for the 3rd instalment of the NTL. The race wasn't overly exciting. With the top guns like Milne and Brannen not at the race, the possibility of picking up 8 NTL points was realistic and one of my goals. Of course running fast was another. However, I think a few of the other guys also had those 8 NTL points on their mind and even with a pacer we went out fairly slow. I ended up 3rd over all, but first Canadian getting the 8 points.

The next day I flew out to Toronto for the NTL finale. With my 8 points from Halifax and points being doubled in Toronto if I was the first Canadian again I had a real chance of winning the NTL for the 1500. I let the thought of beating certain people and $4000 get in my head too much instead of just going out and racing. I finished as 3rd Canadian, so maybe 5th overall in a decent time of 3:44. I still finished 3rd in the NTL picking up some cash.

After that took the next few weeks pretty easy and ran a completely unmotivated 1500 at Alberta Provincials. I wish could have done better and given a better show at provs, but I was just mentally worn out.

I can look back at each individual race and come up with things I could have done better, which is positive. It just means still have room to improve. But looking at the season as a whole I cannot complain. I only had 2 or 3 races that were under my old PB coming into the season. I took over 5 seconds off my PB.

As of late, I took 2 weeks completely off. If you are a loyal follower, you'll remember my post about my two week break from last year, or you can read it here. This year was nothing like that! This has been my tamest 2 week break in recent memory. In the first week I went down to Phoenix to spend some time with my girlfriend. She then got on a plane with me back up to Canadia, as she calls it. We landed in Calgary and drove up to Edmonton the next day to watch the new Mr and Mrs Norminton get married. The wedding was a ton of fun, it was exactly as a wedding should be. Good friends and good times.

I have been SLOWLY getting back into running. I try to get out the door every second day for 3 or 5 miles. Whether I actually go that often is a different story. If I feel the motivation, I go, if I don't, well then I stay home.

Other than that I have been putting some time in at the stores of the Running Room and making some extra cash that way.

That pretty well sums up the last little bit. If anything exciting happens in the coming weeks and months I'll be sure to write about it. If not, I'll make something up and write about that!

Hub City Track Classic

2011-07-08T21:23:00.000-07:00

Well, tonight I ran at the Hub City Track Classic here in Moncton, NB. For a relatively small meet it was able to pull together really good fields for all the races.

I wasn't quite sure how I was going to approach my race, but once the gun went and I found myself shot right into the lead I decided pretty quick. It happened to be Adam Kellar's birthday and I knew he had been chasing the New Brunswick provincial record, so I decided to help try to give him a nice B-day pressy and run 1200 hard for the boys and then just see what happened from there. I made it to 1200 in about 3:00 and some of the guys had started moving on me. After leading 1200 and taking the wind I was pretty exhausted and didn't have much fight left. I figured I had done a good job of making the race fast for everyone so I decided to just cruise home easy. Maybe not my best performance of the year, but at least I made it a race.

The crowd here was amazing. It was a relatively small meet, yet the meet directors did a fantastic job of advertising to the public and getting the media to cover it. It's a shame the bigger cities can't do the same for significantly larger meets. There were more people in the stands here than there were at the Canadian National Championships in Calgary. As I said the people who put this meet on did a fantastic job and I really hope they get the wish of being added into the National Track League next year, they deserve!

Whirlwind Update.

2011-07-07T18:56:00.000-07:00

First of all, I need to say sorry for the giant cliff hanger only to leave you hanging for such a long time. I'm not going to write as long of a story as originally intended, instead I will try to recap as much as I can of what has happened since my last post. I will try to be much better in the coming weeks and months to get back to more frequent updates.

So, I wrote a little about OXY, but nothing too detailed, let me do that now. OXY was absolutely amazing. The warm-up, the race, the atmosphere, every other race. In 13 years of running have never felt as good as did during that race. I felt stronger, smoother, and more relaxed than ever have before. I ended up running 3:43.76, which was a 3 second PB, but also only .11 seconds off my carding standard. So I had a little bitterness to go along with my joy. Most everyone who ran OXY from my group either PB'ed or had a fantastic race, so the high from that far outweighed the .11 seconds.

After OXY went back to Scottsdale and spent a few days with Amy before heading back up to Canada. Somehow during my stay at Amy's convinced her to book a flight out of Calgary and join me on my journey. Having her with me really made the trip a lot better. It's actually quite a beautiful drive, if you don't get caught in crazy rain/hail/snow storms. It's also a lot more enjoyable when you don't run out of gas somewhere in the middle of Montana and have to pay a guy $5 for a gallon out of the back of his truck just to get you to the next town.

After the long drive I had a few days at home and then went up to Edmonton to run the Northland Park 1 Mile Road Race. As always the event was a lot of fun and helped fill my bank account to get me through the summer. A few days later I flew to Abbotsford for a little 1500 that was mediocre. When returned home after that finally had a few weeks in one place to just chill and get some training in.

After a solid 2 week training block it was time for nationals. They went pretty well. Heats went pretty much exactly as predicted. I made it through on placement which is a huge step forward from not making it at all. Then in the final I kind of got a little anxious and made some rookie mistakes, but I did beat 1 guy! On a whole, for our group, nationals was a huge success. We had 5 of 8 guys in the Men's 800, and got all 3 medals. In the 1500 we had 5 of 12 finalists, and 3 of the top 4. Lemlem got 2nd by a boob in the Women's 8 and Leanna was close behind her for 3rd.

I had a few days to decompress after Nats and then headed back to Vancouver for Harry Jerome and the start of the National Track League (NTL). As always, Jerome treated me well with yet another PB of 3:41.57, well under my carding standard. Two days later I came back and ran the 3rd fastest time o my life in Victoria at NTL #2. I was pretty happy with the way the west coast treated me.

I am currently sitting in a dorm room in Moncton. I am running yet another 1500 here tomorrow. The facility is amazing, the field is good and I'm excited to race. After this I am headed to Halifax for the 3rd stop of the NTL, move on to Toronto after that for the NTL finale, take about 2 weeks recovery and training then run Alberta Provincials. Provincials will mark the end of my 2011 season.

I already have some post-season plans. On the 28th I'm heading down to Scottsdale to visit my beautiful girlfriend Amy. I'll be down there until the 4th of August when we will both board a plane ad she will join me back to Calgary and then on to Edmonton to witness Ms. Jenn Kemp and Mr. Matt Norminton's wedding with me. I then plan to work my little butt off to make some extra billz before hading back down to Scottsdale to start the cycle all over again.

To be continued.

2011-05-30T22:02:00.000-07:00

Sooo, I have a crazy story... Buuuut you will have to wait a day or two because it's going to take my awhile to write about it.

Sooorrrrryyyy

Much Appreciated.

2011-05-23T07:44:00.000-07:00

I would just like to say a quick thank-you to everyone who has sent me congratulations over the last couple days. It is very much appreciated and I never take any of the support you all give me for granted.

I have to send thanks again to Matt Norminton and The Running Room. Wynn Gmitroski for taking me on this year. And most of all to my parents for their endless support and giving me the opprotunity to spend the last 5 months in Arizona training full time.

I am currently back in Phoenix spending a few days with Amy before embarking on the long drive back to Calgary. All you C-dot peeps can expect me home sometime around 30th or so. Looking forward to seeing you all!

Thanks again everyone!

LIVE at OXY!

2011-05-21T09:14:00.000-07:00

Hey guys,

Here is a link to watch the OXY High Performance races tonight LIVE. Coverage starts at 6:45pm PST (9:45pm for all you easterners). My race is at 8:35pm PST, but be sure to tune it from the start. These races are completely stacked, just take a look at the heat sheets for yourself, here.

It's going to be a good one, don't miss out!

Additons.

2011-05-18T15:59:00.000-07:00

Couple additions that I left out of my last post. Flotrack will have coverage of the Oxy meet here.

I also forgot to talk about my culinary adventures this week. On Thursday myself and a few of the guys went to Collin's Pub here in Flagstaff to watch the hockey game. I had already eaten a full dinner before arriving, but decided to take a look at the menu anyhow. The first thing I saw on the menu were the chicken wings, which looked really good. Under the description it said they had a suicide wing challenge. Now, if I had taken some time to think about it, I would have realised that it probably wasn't the best timing to be take on a hot wing challenge. Amy was coming the next day to visit for the weekend, we had out final workout on Saturday, it just wasn't ideal. Needless to say, I didn't take time to think. Before I knew it I was signing a waver saying I wouldn't sue the pub if I hurt myself or died. I then had to anxiously wait about 20 minutes while they prepared my wings. My heart skipped a beat every time the kitchen door opened. Finally they were sitting in front of me and immediately my eyes started watering from the smell. I had 8 minutes to finish 12 hot wings. 7 sweaty, painful, tear and cheer filled minutes and 30 seconds later I devoured the 12th wing. I WAS THE CHAMPION! I was feeling pretty good about myself, I had beaten the challenge and gotten a nice new, way to big, t-shirt. Then the bill came and I found out I still had to pay for them even though I won! I got pretty pissed, but I still had the pride of beating the challenge.

On Sunday Amy and I decided to check out the fine dining of Flagstaff. I went on Yelp.com and searched "Fine Dining" to see what suggestions they had. The first place that came up had a 5-star rating and great reviews. I kept looking and the 4th restaurant on the list was Jack in the Box. We decided to stick with the 5-star rated restaurant called "The Cottage". It was a really nice little place. If you weren't looking for it, you would definitely just pass it without realising it existed. It's just a little house on a residential street with a small sign on the front. We had a really nice evening. When we first got to the restaurant there weren't many people there yet as it was only 5:30. It was actually mildly awkward for the first half of our dinner. We were the youngest in there by probably about 20 or 30 years. Everyone was pretty serious and Amy and I were laughing, having fun and sticking out like a sore thumb. Sitting beside us must have been a world famous food critic or something like that. He had something to say about every item that touched his table. We had a good time silently mocking him. Soon after we sat down it started to fill up and we didn't feel as bad about our topics of discussion or being a little rowdier than most. If you're ever in Flagstaff and want a really nice meal, I suggest The Cottage. The food was out of this world, the setting is really cute, and the service is great.

Responsibilities, what?

2011-05-17T14:44:00.000-07:00

Hard to believe only about a week left until I'm submerged back into the real world and have a job (kind of) and other such responsibilities that normal people have. I'm guessing I'll be back home sometime around May 28th or so. I am only here in flagstaff for another couple days. I'm heading back down to Phoenix on the 19th to fly out to Burbank, California for the Oxy High Performance meet. The startlist just came out today and it looks ridiculous. I could try to explain it for you, but I think you should just take a look for yourself. ~~You can view the startlists~~ ~~here~~. You can view the heat sheets here. In my race alone there is 11 olympians +/-. Needless to say, it's going to be a good one, and I feel a little out of my league!

Along with being overwhelmed with the upcoming meet, I am quite overwhelmed with booking travel plans at the moment. I have put together a tentative race schedule for the summer, which you can check out here. I haven't really had to book all my own flights and hotels. In the past my club has taken care of all that stuff, so it is quite foreign to me.

On a positive note, the bear stayed away this week! I put together a few solid workouts and feel good leading into this weekend.

Da Bear.

2011-05-10T18:49:00.000-07:00

First week in Flagstaff is complete. I think it's safe to say I have done more in this week than I have in all my previous time in Flagstaff combined. Kyla Coates, happened to be in Flagstaff for the first few days I was here. Her and I went out and got some Thai on either Sunday or Monday, neither of us can remember. Either way, it was really nice to spend some time with her and catch up.

I have found the wonders of Macy's Coffee Shop. It's a pretty famous and really popular spot here in Flagstaff. You can drop in at anytime of day and there is always a crowd. I am currently there writing this post, I have been about 4 or 5 times since I got here.

I always forget how hard altitude is, but it is never shy about reminding me when I get up here. No matter how fit, altitude makes you feel like you have never ran a step. Our first workout was 2 sets of 5x300. Usually for our track work we go to Sedona, but we can only go on the weekends this year due to some new rules at the school where the track is, so we had to do it in Flag. The extra 3000ft of altitude really makes workouts a lot harder! All things considered it went alright. On Saturday we drove down to Sedona for arguably the hardest workout of the year, and possibly ever. We did 200,1000,300 then 500,800,200. This is what I'll say about that workout; I ran damn near a PB in the 1000 and then the proverbial bear jumped on my back. Don't get me wrong though, I'm happy with the workout. I've recently just been trying to tag on to the front and hang on for as long. I figure eventually I'll just be able to stay there the entire workout.

This next paragraph was suppose to be about how nice Flagstaff has turned out to be. The first couple days were a bit rough as stated in my last post, then the weather turned for the better. Plus, our balcony over looks a forest and faces west so we get beautiful evening sun. We are also treated to a first class view of the sunset every evening. I have made it a bit of a routine to eat dinner around that time. It's quite a treat to be able to sit on out there and watch the sun go down every evening while enjoying a nice meal. However, I took a break from writing this post to go to weights and during that session it proceeded to snow as well as be pretty darn chilly, windy and just plain miserable. So for that, Flagstaff is back in the bad books.

On a brighter note I was informed this week I will be heading out to Occidental College after our training camp here to race a 1500m. They are putting on a high performance middle distance meet with just 800, 1500, and steeples. I really didn't think I was going to get in because the entry standard was set quite high. But alas, somehow I am in and have a great opportunity to run a great time! Hoping for a PB if nothing else.

Bitter Sweet End

2011-05-01T16:39:00.000-07:00

Well folks, I truly can't believe it but my time in Scottsdale has come to an end. It really is bitter sweet. I am excited to be here in Flagstaff for some awesome training and to go home and see all my long lost friends and start racing. But I have really grown to like Scottsdale. As I said in my last post, I have just met a really cool group of people, and maybe one person in particular, that I am sad to be leaving behind. Right now it seems like forever until I'll be back down in Scottsdale, but the more I think about it, the more I realise it's not all that long. For the first month I am up here in Flag. It does sometimes feel like time comes to a halt and your time here drags on, I have a feeling this year is just going to fly by though. So many people will be here, plus I have a car that grants me some freedom. Then the following 2 months will be filled with travel and racing so that always makes time cruise by. Then I only have really a month or two before I come back down. Not all that bad really.

Not going to lie though, Flagstaff is making it hard for me to be excited to be here like I previously said. Last night it dropped for 1C(33f), this morning on my run with the windchill was like -5C(28f). It's just been cold and windy. Hopefully it remembers soon that it's May and it should be summer time!

Unfortunately I don't have too much to report. I had some solid faster paced workouts last week. My racing so far this year has shown that I am really strong, I just don't quite have the extra gears I normally do. I was happy to get out on the track and cork off some shorter, quicker intervals. I'll be continuing that trend here in Flagstaff. Next time I step on the track for a race I'll be a tuned up racing machine!

Hopefully some good stuff happens this week so my next post can be a little more entertaining.

5000!

2011-04-29T18:02:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to say a big thank-you to every for your continued interest and support. I have officially reached the 5000 views of the website.

I'm just in the midst of packing up to get ready to drive up to Flagstaff tomorrow afternoon. I'm really looking forward to the training camp. I have had great workouts all week and am looking forward to them continuing in Flag. The group that will be up there is out of this world.

I'll make sure to talk more about Flag soon, for now I must go finish packing!

Thanks again everyone, I truly appreciate.

Fight for you Right!

2011-04-26T12:27:00.000-07:00

Just a cute little movie that speaks volumes. I'm being slightly hypocritical in that I am not voting in the election since I am out of country. Because of that I need the rest of you to get out there and make up for my lost vote!

The Beastie Boys had to fight for their right to party, others have already fought for yours to vote, so go do it!

Long Overdue.

2011-04-25T11:10:00.000-07:00

Well, once again I must apologise to everyone for being so crappy at keeping this updated for the last week or so. The honest truth as to why is because I have met and been hanging out with someone from outside of the training group. I love being down here, and I love how much I can focus on my training, my recovery and every little detail that I need to, however, it can get a little overwhelming sometimes. It's been really refreshing to be able to completely step away from track and feel like a normal human for a few hours a day, as she is not a runner.

Speaking of running, I had my first 1500m of the year this past weekend at ASU once again. It was a really low key meet called the Sun Devil Open. I had looked up some of the guys on the start-list for the race a few days before, I didn't have too look up to many because the majority were all my buddies from the University of Victoria that are down here on a bit of a training camp. There were about 4 of us with PB's all around 3:46, Kyle Smith and Cliff Childs(UVic) being two and one ASU athlete. So on paper it looked like a pretty good opening 1500 that I could just race to win. When I talked to Wynn about the race he pretty well said the exact same thing I was thinking. He did remind me that I am coming at the 1500 with more a strength background right now than speed so I might want to try making a solid move from reasonably far out. Kyle is fit, he just ran 1:48 the other weekend and looked great in all the tune-up workouts the week leading into the 1500 so I knew he'd be right up in the mix and if I wanted to beat him I'd have take the sting out of his legs. We toed line and we were off, Kyle was on the inside position so he went out kind of hard to avoid getting collapsed down on by everyone and found himself in front. I went out fair relaxed in 4th spot but realised within 200m that Kyle was pulling away a bit and the two guys in front of me weren't doing anything. On the home-straight I pulled up onto Kyle's shoulder, then on the back straight I decided I'd take the second lap for him since it was pretty windy and work as a team to get a good time. I was kind of hoping after the 800m he'd retake the lead until 1200 and then we would race but I decided to make a little bit of a move and didn't expect him to both cover the surge and take the lead. With 400m to go I made another move to try and take as much out of Kyle as possible, but alas with 100m to go his stupid 800m speed outdid my 5k grind and he took the win. We ran 3:50 and 3:51. Good times for an opener, although I really did want to squeak under 3:50. Regardless I am happy, I felt REALLY strong the whole way. I never felt like I was losing form or rigging up or anything. There is definitely a lot more in me for the 1500. After these next couple weeks of working a little more on speed and then heading up to Flagstaff and doing it some more, I feel a low 3:4x.

Quickie

2011-04-23T19:49:00.000-07:00

So just going out with a few people for the team for our last weekend on Scottsdale. It's hard to believe it's coming to an end.

1500 went well today. 3:51.5. Not quite as fast as I would have liked to open with, but it is my faster opening 1500 ever. I can't complain too much about that.

Again, I apologise for the lack on updates. I'll make sure to get back on it leading into Flagstaff.