Movember and the apparent chaos snow brings to Victoria

This month, I'm sure most of you know it's Movember, where men grow mustaches to raise awareness for prostate cancer, I decided to attempt to grow one and so far its starting to look pretty decent. I'm not sure if I'm going to keep it for a little longer or just shave it off. I only problem is my hair is blond so it's not too noticeable so I thinking I'll Just For Men it right before I shave it off.

I know it's almost the end of the month but there is still time to donate: http://ca.movember.com/mospace/785230/

So the past couple of days Victoria has a been getting a fair bit of snow (more than usual) but its funny to see how much chaos it brings. Just the other day there was a 14 car pile up on an off ramp and it seemed there was an accident being reported every 30 minutes to go along with schools, buses and pretty much the whole city being shut down. Its seems funny to me as I grew up in Calgary and spent 4 years in Edmonton although I do have to admit it is different in Victoria as there are a lot more hills and the roads are a lot more narrow.

In other news, I'm in the process of getting a new frame after I crack my old bike last month. Until then I'm still riding my trusty cross bike. As for training, things are going well I'm now on week 4 back to training and I've already posted some PBs in 200m and 400m, obviously it helps to swim fast when you're not running or biking hard yet.

Jeff

Headache free, retiring the old steed and on my way to Mexico

Since my crash things have been going well I’m back to full training, just in time for PATCO in Puerto Vallarta. First couple of days back were fairly interesting as it felt like I had never swam in my life before. My body was still pretty stiff so moving my arms felt like an extra choir but slowing I started to build the volume and effort up and things started to feel more natural. A nice thing was biking never gave me any headaches so I was back on the trainer doing some efforts fairly quickly. Running has been coming along but I’m still feeling pretty off and really sluggish but the head has been cooperating.

On a negative note, I found out my bike had a crack along the top tube which meant I didn’t have a race bike for PATCO or training, so I resorted to my cross bike with road tires for a few days. Luckily, Oak Bay Bikes was able to lend me a 2009 Specialized Tarmac Expert for PATCO. Thanks to Patrick for setting that up and to Oak Bay Bikes for lending me the bike. When I get back it will be frame shopping time so I’ll have something to race on and train on next year.

Well right now, I’m on route to Puerto Vallarta for PATCO Champs. Kirsten, A-Russ, Chantell Widney and Tenille Hoogland are joining along for the ride. I haven’t met Chantell or Tenille before so it will be fun meeting some new people. PATCO should be a fun race I’m pretty excited to race one last time and everything is starting to come together so hopefully I’ll finish on a good note. After the race I’m staying an extra 5 days with Kirsten to relax and enjoy the sun. I’m looking forward to doing really nothing, getting uber-tanned and enjoying my offseason in style.

R.I.P

One of those days....

Over the years talking with friends and cyclists, I come to realize that most crash come close to home (at least mine have). Well Wednesday was no different I was just finishing up my ride with Aaron; I was maybe 5-10mins away, coming up to the intersection of West Saanich and Interurban when I hit rock (I think). Once I regained consciousness I saw the fire dept. and a off-duty paramedic driving by, attending to me while the paramedics were just getting there. Now apparently I was unconscious for only a few seconds when I talked Aaron later but I don't remember anything in between hitting the rock and when the paramedics arrived, turns out that was good 10mins of my life. I ended up with a neck brace and on a spinal board, as I hit my head pretty hard and had some neck soreness. Luckily for me I ended up in blackberry bush which lessened the blow and just left me with lots of scratches on my legs, some road rash on my right knee, a cut across my nose and some bruising under my right eye. I was at the hospital for about 2hrs as they checked out my head and made sure I didn't have anything more severe.

That was probably my first major crash in over 3 years, the last one funny enough was 5mins from my house. This one was probably more serious but had far less road rash which is always nice. I doing well, I just have a minor concussion with some small headaches when I stand up and bend over. Thanks Aaron for calling everything in and helping out. Hopefully I'll back to some light training is next couple of days.

Jeff

Catching up

I thought it would be a good time to write a blog post as I'm sitting in my hotel in Lausanne bored waiting for Sprint Worlds tomorrow. A lot has happened it last week or so, we left Aix-les-Bains yesterday and took a train up to Lausanne, after the Geneva disaster where it seemed like everything went wrong, we weren't looking forward to going thru Geneva. As last weekend we had our home stays fall thru, the train back to Aix being cancelled, taking a 2hrs bus to Grenoble (70km south of Aix) then an hour train ride back up to Aix of course all this the day before the race. As for the race itself, total disaster, I felt flat from the word go, slipped and fell going to transition getting some nice little cuts and bruises, and froze as the bike progressed. All in all it was a very bad day.

Sprint Worlds are tomorrow with Team Relay on Sunday the usual suspects are in the men’s race with Yorkie, A-Mac and I along with Alison Hooper in the women's race, who joined us in Geneva last weekend. Looking forward to racing again and having a much better result then last weekend. Once we got to Lausanne we all got our race suits for sprint/team relay Yorkie and I acted like it was Christmas, both rushing to try them on. Only thing was they were a little small and ordering an XS wasn't going to help. The suits are pretty awesome; the design makes the suit with the maple leaf on it nothing looks better. Today we wore them to help stretch them out and see how feel in the water and well we got a lot of looks, everyone was checking out our suits, I'm thinking that a good sign.

Some photos from Tiszy

Getting busy in Tiszy

So the Tiszaujvaros World Cup has come and gone I was fairly happy with the overall result coming 33rd is a good start but obviously I have still a lot to improve on. I didn’t swim that well I had a bad first lap; rode well helped bridged the gap to the main group and had a terrible first lap on the run but finished really strong with a 10k that was only 40sec off my PB. Like I said good start but needs to get better.

I was amazed with the town of Tiszaujvaros during our stay there, the atmosphere was amazing watching the Jr race people were packing the street but when it came to the World Cup I had never seen anything like it, every inch of the course, especially the run, was covered with people cheering, it definitely made for a great time.

We got in Aix-les-Bains yesterday evening; it’s about 80km south of Geneva, Switzerland. It’s right on Lac du Bourget, which is absolutely beautiful, mountains all around. The pool is really nice; it’s an outdoor 50m with a retractable roof only 200m from the lake. The hotel we are staying at is very nice but what makes it amazing is the fact it’s full board so all meals are included. The breakfast is just continental but the lunch and dinner are amazing. They are both 3-course meals starting with an appetizer, main course and dessert but its all-huge portions. We were all joking thinking that we are all in heaven, as we couldn’t believe how amazing everything is.

Next up is Geneva European Cup.

Boots and Cats (repeat for instant techno beats)

So I’m currently in Tiszaujvaros, Hungary getting ready for the World Cup tomorrow. Here with me is Andrew Yorke and Andrew McCartney for a racing camp where we race Tiszy WC, Geneva Euro Cup and Lausanne Sprint/Team Worlds. Things have been going really well of late, training is getting more consistent which is always a good thing along with that my family got a new puppy, Teagan, unfortunately I only got to see her for one day as we picked her up the day before we left.

Tiszaujvaros is this really interesting little town where everyone works for the gas company. Everything was built in the 1960s so the town is fairly new, but it all looks like classic soviet building plans where it’s all small apartment buildings everywhere. They have been hosting the World Cup here since 1996 and at the same time leading up to the race they have what is called “Triathlon Week” where all sort of different events (cultural and sports) are going on around town. It’s made for a really fun and exciting atmosphere leading up to the race.

Well I’m really looking forward to having some good performances here in Europe along with gaining some great experience. Should make for a fun time.

Captain: Take us to Warp 1.9

Something Aaron and I have been playing since Coteau for our pre-race ritual.

Sky diving into the bay area

So I’m in San Francisco for the ITU Continental Cup held in the middle of the bay at Treasure Island. I raced it last year and actually had a pretty solid swim but after that everything else was just plain horrible so hopefully things go better this year as it seems I’m starting to get the concept of ITU racing with two top 5 finishes at Continental Cups this year where as last year my best finish was 12^th.

The flight down is a just over 2 hours but it's probably one of the nicest with the view of the Gulf islands, Victoria, the Puget Sound, Mt. Baker and Mt. Rainier, it’s pretty neat looking out the window and seeing all these different islands and large mountains. That got me thinking how much fun would sky diving be? Now I’m not a big adventure/adrenaline junky but from hearing stories of jumping out of planes from my dad who was part of the Canadian Airborne Regiment for many years and having done over 300 jumps, I’ve come to the conclusion that before its all said and done I would like to jump out of a plane. I think that would be the coolest thing to experience.

I'm staying at this old style hotel with Aaron right in the middle of downtown San Francisco, it's a small hotel but nice and really close to everything. I would like to thanks Aaron’s parents, Richard and Erica, for really just about everything, finding the hotel, taking my bike down with them as they drove from Victoria, picking me up from the airport, the lists goes on and on, so thank you very much.

JP

PUPPIES!!!!!!!

So its almost been a year since we had to put my dog Jake down, its been weird not having him around the house. Things seem to stay clean longer, there aren't any random toys lying around but that will soon change as we are getting a new puppy at the end of July. This time it's going to be a girl, we've all agreed on the name Teagan. Here are some pictures from the breeder, we don't know which one we are getting but I would take any of them.

Jumping on the blog train

So I decided it was good idea to start up a blog and well here it is!!! I'll try to update it has much as possible, my life isn't too interesting but I'm sure some cool things will pop up here and there.

JP