I would like to express a huge monster thanks to the many supporters and sponsors who have provided incredible support in sponsoring the Loaring Triathlon. We have currently raised almost One Hundred Thousand Dollars for the Elena Loaring Memorial Fund for breast cancer research! The Provincial Government will match dollar for dollar all monies received!
Loaring Physio will be on hand to support the Amherstburg Kids Cancer Ride. For those roadies and tri-geeks in Essex County--consider incoporating your long ride in with this event.
This is a collage of pics from Spinergize 2008. It was a fantastic event that I was proud to be a part of.
A big congrats goes out to my big sis Char for successfully tackling the Beast and having a blast at the 70.3 St. Croix. Perhaps when she finds time--she can have another guest appearance and submit a race report (she is a MUCH better writer than I am). LPC athletes Jane MacLeod and Ralph Iannitelli also conquered the Beast and qualified for the 70.3 World Triathlon Championships! Champions!
Lisa Cheney and Kathy Henry did in fact fly across the finish line at this past Sunday's Flying Pigs Marathon in Cincinnati. Lisa had all the stars align for her while setting a new PB and obliterating her MRP (goal marathon race pace), crossing the line in 3h42min. This time qualified Chainz for the 2009 Boston marathon. In looking at her GPS data--Lisa actually covered 26.2miles in 3h39. The race was delayed due to a fire and had to be rerouted. The last second change to the course added 500m to the marathon!
Kathy Henry came oh so close to qualifying for Boston. It was her second fastest marathon ever, (in a total of 10 marathons) and Kathy will get another crack at the Boston standard in the fall. Champions!
Rob Tranter continued to impress by taking the win at the Path to a Better Heart 5k.
This Sunday will have LPC athletes tackle the Mississauga Marathon and the Forest City Half Marathon.
Happy Training,
Coach James
April showers are behind us and May flowers greet us. Hmmmm-it certainly did not work out that way as the month of April brought us some beautiful (and much anticipated) weather for outdoor riding and running. The month of May, however, initially greets us with rain, rain, and more rain...
LPC at the Races
A big congrats goes out to all who participated in the 2008 Boston Marathon on April 21st. LPC's John Savoni toughed out a sub 3h15min performance--a time worthy of automatic qualification for the 2009 Boston Marathon in the men's 40-44 age category. What was most impressive about John's performance is that he had to endure severe leg cramps in the final miles of the race. John will be participating in his first triathlon this summer. We sat down months ago to plan a proper plan of attack that would get him a good result at Boston, while simultaneously developing his swimming and cycling skill set. With a full time job and three children to help care for, John never ran more than 3 times per week for this marathon. But every run had a purpose and John trained very well and supplemented this marathon training with swim/bike conditioning. A jog well done, and next time he will follow his race-day nutrition plan to avoid (or minimize) the leg cramping!
A must see video of the finish of the 1982 Boston Marathon--the epic "Duel in the Sun"
The Wojtowicz mother/son combo pounded out big runs at the St John Waterloo Half Marathon this past Sunday. Both set PB's for the half marathon distance. In fact, Margaret's time was a whopping 15minutes faster than her previous best. Margaret will be representing Canada at the upcoming ITU World Triathlon Champs in Vancouver. Rob will direct his attention towards prepping for Ironman Lousiville at the end of August.
Weekend at the Races
Path to a Better Heart 5k Run/Walk & Kids' Dash takes place this Sunday at 9am at Malden Park in Windsor
LPC's Ralph Iannitelli, Jane MacLeod, and Charlotte Loaring will be tackling 'The Beast' this Sunday at the prestigious and awesomely challenging St. Croix 70.3 Triathlon. Track their progress live at http://www.ironmanlive.com/
LPC's Kathy Henry and Lisa Cheney have set their sights on flying through Sunday's Flying Pig Marathon in Cincinnati. They have worked hard for several months and hope to fly across the finish in a time that will earn a place on the start line of the 2009 Boston Marathon.
The US Women's Triathlon Olympic Trials will be aired on NBC this Sunday from noon-1pm
The Richards Bay ITU World Cup is this Sunday
You can always follow the action live at http://www.triathlon.org/
For some world cups--there is even live audio and video feed.
This race will be quite exciting as the Battle for Beijing heats up
All systems go for the upcoming July 19 Loaring Triathlon
A monster thanks goes out to the community for their volunteer and sponsorship support! Online registration is available here
Get a jump on the triathlon season and participate in the upcoming May 31st Belle River Du/Tri
Do a rain dance this weekend to scare away the rain. If it does rain--then don't spend all your time looking at these links. If however, you successfully breeze through this post and still have a couple of hours to invest in some excellent reading--then I direct your attention over to the most excellent Science of Sport blog.
Happy Training,
CJ
It has been an eventful three weeks since I last posted. Friday marked the end of a solid three weeks of training. We had on the menu another 1500m TT. It seems to be a PTC ritual to swim a hard 1500m or 2000m at the end of our 3 week mesocycle when fatigue levels are at their highest point--an event that I will now refer so as "Friday Morning Lights"--a time when you have to HTFU despite wanting to sit in the jacuzzi. Coach CT is a wise grasshopper and there is in fact method to his madness. I toughed out a 17:31 (new practice PB) despite being quite tired. Add in 3x300 in 3:27 on 4:15 after the 1500, and you have a solid 2400m main set and a quality 4500m swim workout. Done and done and in the bank. I am really pleased with my swimming at this point in the year. Each month seems to get faster and the 'harder yards' have yet to begin.
A monster thanks to all who joined for a part of this wonderful weekend. Stay tuned for my next post that will be introduce the key members of my Band of Brothers--the Groomsmen.
This is a busy time for me--every hour of every day is full speed ahead--I have A LOT on my plate these days and I am enjoying every minute of the organized chaos. I am home from a great week in Florida. It is nice to come home to wonderful weather. It was nice to get some sun--I no longer look like Casper the friendly ghost--mission accomplished. It was a great feeling to once again ride outdoors. The new Cannondale SystemSix Steed is very fast and responsive. It is the best road bike that I have every ridden. Now only if I can get my hands on their new time trial bike :-)
The week of training in Florida was all nice and ez Z1/Z2 effort:
Swim=5500m (3 short open water swims and 1 short pool swim at the NTC).
Allow me to digress: This week of ez swimming was a big contrast from the previous big week of swimming which culminated with a 5000m practice of suffering that included 3600m of quality, including a 17:37 'tempo' 1500m followed by 5x300m on 4:00 holding sub 3:30's. If you can recall the previous post where I mentioned that we have implemented a challenge theme in swim prac. Well I thought the challenge was to swim a solid 1500m time for practice at the end of a week of training (Saturday's are our day off so fatigue is usually pretty high come Friday). But CoachCT was sneaky and set a goal for us to swim 5x300 at under our 1500 pace. (I thought we would be warming down after the 1500m tempo). It was no easy task and I realized after the first 100m of the first 300m that I had no arms (I never have any legs when swimming) and would have to dig deep. HTFU James! I did, and made the challenge. Chocolate earned :-)
Bike=320k (5 rides mostly all ez with a few k of pace--over the rolling terrain of Clermont). I rode with my GPS and mapped out some excellent routes for next year's LPC Triathlon Camp.
Run= 68k (5 runs including 1 run over the beautiful 10mile Orange Grove Loop (my favourite run loop on Earth) and a couple golf course runs around the beautiful Orange Lake Country Club Resort.
I had the chance to train with several friends and LPC athletes. The camaraderie was excellent and everyone was in high spirits all week long.
I also used the week to firm up a hundred details regarding next year's LPC camp. The camp will likely take place March 15-22 of 2009. More about this in another post and stay tuned for some pics.
In others news--the racing season is underway and so is the nicer weather. LPC athletes performed very well at the Around the Bay 30k Run and the Running Factory 10mile and 5k Runs. John, Dawn, Lisa, Jim, Rob, Kathy, Ralph, and Jane, all ran very well. Champions.
Despite a hard week of base training, LPC's Keith Henry took part in the Clermont Triathlon at the end of the camp. This was going to be Keith's first ever Olympic Distance Triathlon. His first triathlon was the super-sprint at the 2006 Loaring Triathlon. In the last year, Keith has been able progressively build up his swim mileage from 700m to consistently swimming 2500m+ 3 times per week. Much of this mileage has been working on his technique and performing video analysis. It has been just awesome to observe how much his swim stroke (and times) have improved over the past year. Keith had his best ever swim and bike performance in this race. Champion.
Rob 'Base' Tranter took 4th in the 800m at the US Master Track and Field Indoor Champs. The Tranterminator has a bit of speed in him! Champion.
And in late breaking news--my soon to be bro-in-law has once again made history. David 'Pre' Sharratt has just been awarded Male Athlete of the Year at Conestoga College. Dave won the OCAA Provincial Cross Country Champs back in November. That is an incredible accomplishment for a tri-geek and has only be done once before (by a Mr. Simon Whitfield). Dave's Gold Medal marked the first time that Conestoga College won an OCAA championship in any sport (male and female). Champion.
As for myself and others--this is a time for training consistently well, and we are all enjoying the process to properly prep for the upcoming races. Over the next 2 month's, LPC athletes will assemble at the Boston Marathon, Flying Pigs Marathon, Mississauga Marathon, St Croix 70.3 Triathlon, and the ITU World Triathlon Championships, and several other local and regional events. We are all Champions :-)
Above is footage of a skinny bearded scrub who has bad fashion sense and needs to get some sunshine. Coach CT often takes video of us while swimming at the PTC. My swimming has been feeling pretty good and I swam a 23:32 for 2000m 'hard tempo' in practice a few days after this video was taken. Maybe I would be faster if I shaved and wore a Speedo LZR swimsuit?
I'm looking forward to tomorrow's PTC swim practice. Coach CT came down to 'the lab' (my basement where the indoor riding and geeking on the CompuTrainer Lab takes place) to look at my positioning on my new road bike and old time trial bike. We made some big changes to the time trial bike and some tweaks to the new road bike. I tried to pawn off some of the giant chocolate egg, but Coach CT surprisingly refused to eat some despite loving dark choco. Bre dislikes dark choco as well, so I am still sitting on the largest chocolate egg in the history of this world (see below post). Who wants chocolate? Please take it from me.I will finally get a chance to ride outside on the new steed. The last time I road outside (other than a couple of MTB treks, was at the San Francisco Triathlon in mid-November. It has been a long winter and I am itching to have an enjoyable week of base training in more ideal temperatures.
I will be staying at the luxurious Orange Lake Resort. This will be the home of an annual LPC Triathlon Camp beginning March of 2009. I will be firming up the details for next year's camp and also mapping out all of the routes. I already know the area well--as Clermont has been my base training camp for the past five years.
I will be accompanied by my pop, and LPC athlete's Dennis Masse, Keith Henry, and Shelley McKee. Good friends Bill Davies and Doug Crowe will also be in town for a big week of training in paradise. I will be joining in on some of the sessions of an excellent triathlon camp put on by London's Coach Sheri Fraser.
Bre received a phone call from our local bakery that we had one a prize. To our delight--we discovered that we had won the largest chocolate egg in the history of this world. We had secured our Easter dinner and I am not going to sleep for a month--the entire egg is 70% dark chocolate and contains 400 million calories and I will be bouncing off of walls like a Tazmanian Devil (which will help burn off all the calories).
We actually did have a wonderful well-balanced meal before we brought out the chainsaw on the mother of all eggs. A big thanks to Brian and Janet for once again putting together a fantastic Easter dinner.
Thanks ABIKES for your incredible support! The weather continues to be terrible so I have yet to hit the hills. I can't wait--bring on Rattlesnake...
