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.