Winter can be a frustrating time for triathletes. We have to do the majority of our training indoors to beat the cold and when training outside are faced with few hours of actual daylight. We have to get up while it is still dark, venture out into the cold, change into a tiny bathing suit and jump into a freezing pool. We have to spend hours on a stationary bike in stuffy rooms. We have to run on treadmills while staring at the same spot on the wall. It can get rough.
Read MoreThe end of triathlon season. The worst part of the year for a triathlete. The time when the air starts to get crisp, darkness sets in before supper time, and the wind becomes frigid. The time when the lakes begin to freeze over, the trails are covered in leaves, and snow begins to dust the highways. The beginnings of the off season. The end of structured, multi daily workouts and the start of way too much free time. Every triathlete knows the struggle of not having a gruelling workout to look forward to during the day.
Read MoreTwenty four years ago two people living in Red Deer Alberta brought home a beautiful baby girl. Their plan? Reinforce the importance of education, the health benefits of sport, and the power of independence and hard work. They registered her in competitive swimming, where she excelled and placed nationally. Her goal was to be an Olympic swimmer in the 100 and 200 butterfly. Unfortunately the universe had other plans. Grade 8 rolled around and while all of the other girls went through massive growth spurts the baby girl who was now an extremely awkward teenager was stuck at a measly five feet. Hours of hard work resulting in a year long plateau devastated our young hero. Coming to terms with the fact that her competitive swimming dream was over, she turned to running. She ran x-country and track and field for her high school and experienced instant success. Little did our ex-swimmer know that despite being able to spend hours in the pool daily, a person shouldn’t spend hours running. Plagued with the beginning of many injuries to come, our hero had to back off from running and try to find something else to fill the empty void. Through the insight of a family friend, the wise parents bought her a road bike for her sweet sixteen and convinced her to try triathlon. They drove her to races across the province, cheering her on as she exited the water first, dropped to last place after the bike and then sprinted her way back up to the podium. Little did they know this was the initial spark of a dream that has only grown with time.
Read MoreI moved up to rural northern Alberta in 2015 after graduating from nursing school. I went to school in Toronto mega-city. I got experience in some of the major teaching hospitals and swam six times a week with an awesome masters group called “Masters of the Universe” - the name says it all.
Read MoreSince an early age I have been involved in endurance sport. I was the completely wacky and abnormal kid who at the age of 15 would get up at 5 am, grab my golf clubs, hop on my bike, ride to the golf course in a tiny town in Southern Alberta, and get a round of golf in before ANYONE showed up. I’d then cycle all the way home, throw on the running shoes and go for a 10K run. Upon returning I’d grab my board shorts, head to the pool, teach some swimming lessons and spend the afternoon honing my lifeguard skills (aka basking in the sun and working on developing skin cancer). I really spent every minute trying to do as many things as I could. I was doing slow-cycling races with my best middle school friend before I even knew it was an actual way of training for killer cycling skills. You know the drill: ride in a straight line from point A to point B as slowly as humanly possible. Much easier now as an adult, but BOY! When you are an awkward 12 year old boy, riding your bike slowly is a recipe for some good comical viewing, BUT also the development of some SWEEEET cycling skills.
Read MoreLast summer, during an ITU race in Edmonton, I experienced triathlon as a team sport.
It was the first time I raced a “draft-legal” event. I had no idea how it would turn out. The main message about drafting I had gotten up to then was “do not draft”: If you are within a certain distance behind another cyclist, you must pass them or slow down until the distance between you increases. If you pass, you only have a few minutes to do so.
Read MoreAs we dive into the new year my academic supervisor has been slowly gathering a pile of kindling under me to get cracking on nailing down my thesis topic. I am an M.Sc candidate in kinesiology, specializing in biomechanics so it’s the perfect opportunity for me to assist in the knowledge acquisition of the sport science field as well as improve my own performances, if possible. My area of focus is osteoarthritis in the knee and I would like to conduct a thesis study pertaining to running or cycling. Funny enough, through my literature review, it appears that the leader in running gait kinematics (and to an extent cycling) is based out of the University of Calgary: Dr. Benno Nigg. Perhaps I will take a trip out to Calgary to collaborate in the near future!
Read MoreFrom spring training camps in beautiful Victoria to hurricane-like conditions in Winnipeg, explore the following images from a year in the life of T1Triathlon.
Read MoreTriathlon is a physical and mental sport. It takes a strong body and an equally strong mind to pull off elite performance. Sometimes our mental focus can suffer during our day to day grind, and we may feel unmotivated to simply get through a simple training session. I've always found that the wisdom of others has been a strength to me during moments of psychological weakness.
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