I left off in my last post mentioning a journey home to Ontario. This was a great week, spent partially in Guelph with Jacquelyn, and also in Penetang with my parents. Being my first time in Guelph, I didn't really know my way around anywhere, which made all of my running workouts a new adventure every time. After doing some intervals in the Guelph Arboretum, and a couple easy runs through the streets of Guelph, I got to know the area around the University pretty well. Living with Jacquelyn in her residence just for those few days was also an interesting experience in and of itself. I had never really thought about what it would be like to be living on my own and going to University, and what that life would be like. So it was cool to see how everything works on campus. In these few days I also managed to meet up with a few of my friends from back home who are currently studying there. Having used to jam with these guys all the time in high school back in my drumming days, it was more fun than I could possibly have imagined to get together again in their basement and play some old tunes. My stay in Penetang was just as fun, the highlight being getting to see my parents again after six months, but also getting to do some workouts with some old teammates, as well as meet up with some old friends.
I returned to Canmore on Oct. 27th I believe, and got right back into my normal Canmore routine. A few days after I returned, the Academy and I did our Fall uphill running time trial, which starts near the bridge in town, and follows the road all the way up to the top of Spray Lakes Road. Having been sick the two previous times that the team did this test this year, I was unable to participate. This meant that this was only my second time doing this test, the first being last Fall. I was expecting good things from myself in this test, since I had been feeling pretty good, and I felt that my time from last year would be pretty easy to beat (34 minutes, 58 seconds). So I was hoping to get under 34 minutes, which would break what was the current Junior Men's course record. And after a very hard effort, I managed to finish with a time of 33 minutes, 13 seconds. This was enough to beat the old Junior Men's record by 1.5 minutes, so I was quite happy with it.
Since then I have just been doing my normal training/working when I can routine, preparing myself for the upcoming race season. For the past week Canmore has played host to some very frigid temperatures, this morning being the worst of it at -30. While this makes training slightly more difficult and perhaps uncomfortable, it also means that the Nordic Centre has been making snow 24/7, so the trails are looking great. They are a little limited at the moment, but there is definitely enough snow now, so they should be extending their trails any day now.
The forcast is saying only one or two more days of these temperatures, and then it should be back to nice winter conditions, which should be just in time for our pre-season time trials. I'll be doing a short hill-climb prologue time trial on Friday, and then another short TT on Sunday. After that I'll be preparing for my first races which will be the following weekend, Dec. 4th and 5th, here in Canmore. Those are the first Alberta Cup races of the year, which we will be using as tune up races before heading to Silver Star and Rossland for the next two weekends of NorAm racing. Once the season starts you can expect more posts on here, as I will try to do some race reports and maybe reflections after each race.
Until then, cheers!
