Concluding the XC Season

Saturday saw the conclusion of cross country season with the Canadian Cross Country Championships held in London, Ontario. Two weeks earlier the Warriors competed at the Ontario Championships in rainy, cold weather on an extremely muddy course. We had some fantastic performances and the women managed to come into 7^th place as a team- to my knowledge, better than we have done in the past five years at least. I’m am extremely proud of them and it breaks my heart that I couldn’t be out there racing with them, however I know I made the best decision not to race. It was hard to put my short term desires aside and look at the bigger picture, and I know that several people would have liked me to race. But despite wanting to race, I do not have any regrets about not racing. Hopefully I will be back on the running scene in the near future, uninjured and ready to train.

The Canadian Cross Country Championships (CIS) are always spectacular to watch. The best runners in the country all toe the line together and give it their best shot. Caught up in the energy and vibe of the day, I decided that I should test out the leg (it’s been 7 weeks so not an entirely unreasonable thing to do). I did the 15 minute warm up with the team and ran around to cheer my teammates on during the race. This added up to probably around 25 minutes. NOT GOOD. My leg is still sore 3 days later. I was hoping for better results than this but as there is nothing I can do I will move on and continue to spend my time in the pool and on the bike.

The men’s race was extremely exciting with the winner, Kelly Weibe, crushing the course record and winning by 40 seconds!!!

On the triathlon scene, I am currently in communication with Barrie Shepley. I applied to the Triathlon Canada Tri-This program but currently am a) not good enough and b) not looking like a great candidate given my injury history. However, I do have the motivation and desire to become better, and have proven that I have potential, so Barrie Shepley is considering me for his C3 High Performance team. This would be amazing and I will do everything I can to make it onto this team. I attended a swim assessment on Sunday evening with the team, and Andrew Cole (Olympic swim coach) videotaped our swimming (with a swanky ipad) and gave us things to work on (I have a lot to work on- so much that he didn’t even bother to tell me everything). It’s fantastic to finally have some direction as to what I can do to become better and hopefully in due course I will see these improvements translated into faster swim times!