Arrival in Italy

we arrived in Montichiarri, Italy early this morning. It's cold here. It was a long day of "hurry up and wait". when you are travelling with a large group you always have to be way aheag of schedule. Our day started at 7 am In Sanghallos, Portugal amd ended in Montiachiarri at 1 am with only apporoximately 4 hours of the day actually in the air. Today we will go for a short recovery ride this afternoon and have look around. Hope to have some pics later.

Aveiro, Portugal

The other day we visited the oceanside city of Aveuro.

A Ride in Portugal

Portugal 2011

Well we have been here just ober a week and things are going great. Yhe facilities are new and everything is attached. The residene, the track and the meals, all in one complex. Couldn'r be simpler.Training is going well and Kuc, my pilot, and I are getting along great.I kmow I have the same pic twice bur I don't know how to change it !

Training Camp in Portugal

Finally something in my sporting life worth blogging about. The Canadian National Paracycling Track team is in Sanghallos, Portugal for a 2 week training camp prior to the UCI Paracycling Track World Championships. We are staying at a fabulous new facility here which consists of a 250 meter wooden track and an attached athlete residence. The team currently consists of 13 athletes and a head coach, an assistant coach and a physio. It will grow by 3 when we move to Montichiari, Italy . There will be a doctor , a team manager and a mechanic added. The weather here is not as warm as I had thought it would be. Today is cloudy , threating rain and about 15 degrees celcius. All in all things are going well. Facilities are awesome, food is good and we begin serious training tomorrow. I am here with a replacement pilot, Luc Dionne, from Quebec. My rebular pilot, Devon was unable to attend because of personal reasons at home. Luc is an experienced pilot and a super nice guy but this is our first time riding together. Our first time on the track yesterday went well all be it an easy recovery ride after travel. Tomorrow we will do some serious efforts and we will kmow more then.

Lifesport Coaching

Training for an olympic distance triathlon without proper coaching can be a difficult task even for someone with years of experience in the sport. Training for an Ironman can be that much more daunting. I am quite confident that with 20+ years in the sport I could put together a training program that would get me through an Ironman in a respectable time but Meyrick and I are not looking for omly "respectable". We are hoping to go fast. To that end we will be working with Lifesport Coaching to achieve that goal for 2011. Lifesport is one of the top coaching systems in the sport. Lifesport was the official coaches of Ironman and have names such as Olympic gold medalist Simon Whitfield on their resume. Meyrick and I are really excited and motivated to work with Lifesport.

Train the Trainer

A couple of weeks ago I attended Innovative Fitness-Port Moody's first year anniversary party. It was a great turn out of friends, relatives, clients abd hopefulli future clients. They incorporated a fundraiser called "Train the Trainer". This event allows the clients to get even with those personal trainers who have been working them so hard during the year. For $50 you got 5 minutes to put the trainer of your choice through the activity of your choice. The trainers were asked to do many things from traditional exercises such as push-ups and sit-ups to singing Christmas carols and even a patriotic, resounding version of O Canada. Everyone had a great time and the trainers were great sports. At the ebd of the evenibg two very well deserving charities received a sizable donation. The Eagle Ridge Hospital and the Michael Cuccione Foundation, The Michael Cuccione Foundation helps fund childhood cancer research. Nuch credit to Meyrick and Chris along with the staff at IF-Port Moody for putting on such a fun evening.