THANK YOU!!!!

Three medals made for quite a successful week for the Manitoba triathlon team; this was almost half of the seven medals that Manitoba had won in week 1, and the overall ranking of Manitoba in triathlon was 2nd for the girls and 3rd for the guys.

The races were very well run and we are all very appreciative of the hard work the volunteers, officials, race directors and host society put in to make the whole week such an enjoyable and memorable experience for everyone.

Thank you to all our parents who made the trip out to PEI to cheer us on! We definitely had the loudest fans out there.

As well we owe Jeanne Kaye a huge thank you for all the hard work she put in as our Mission Staff. You were a essential part of our team and thank you for all the kindness and generosity you showed to all of us!

Another important thank-you to Kari Schneider who was our team manager for the week in PEI, she has also been our strength coach for the many years and she has done an excellent job with our team and wish her all the best with her future endeavors.

Also thanks to the Canadian Sport Centre – Manitoba for all of the services then give to all of us, especially the expertise of Daryl Hurrie our sports Physiologist and Adrienne Leslie-Toogood our sports psychologist.

As well thanks to our swim coach Craig McCormick who does a great job in getting the best out of all of us and making sure we do all the hard work to get ready!

And of course Thank-you to Gary Pallett our head coach for Team Manitoba Triathlon as well as the MNTC. He has worked hard with all of us to bring us to this point and we continue to look to him to bring us to the next level!

This is the end of the Season for all of us with the exception of Rachael who is heading off to Worlds on the Gold Coast in Australia. We also say good luck to her as she will be leaving Winnipeg to begin training with the NTC in Victoria!

2009 Canada Games PEI - Team Relay

We had 2 days completely off between our two races. On the Wednesday we went to watch some beach volleyball where we saw Manitoba lose a tough one in 3 sets to Quebec. Thursday we went to the race course to practice tag offs and running and diving in of the pontoon which is really different then anything else that we were used to so it was good to practice.

Friday was the day for the team relay, which is a really fun event. For anybody who doesn’t know it is a relay where each team member completes a mini triathlon of 300m swim, 6.67 km bike, and 2km run and then tags off to the next member of there team. The weather was once again very hot for the race and there was some wind but not enough to have any major effect on the race.

In the girls relay Sarah went first followed by Stevie then Rachael. Sarah stayed on the lead swimmers and made the lead pack. Sarah then had a seven second lead out of T2 on B.C. She then ran strong to have a five second lead into the tag off. Stevie started running in the tag off zone to early and they touched out of the zone so they had to come back into the zone to tag off. This made B.C’s Christine Ridenour and Stevie swim together till the final buoy then Stevie slipped on the ramp coming out of the water and missed getting on Christine’s wheel on the bike, so they both time trialed where Stevie made up a little bit of time. Stevie ran well only letting the gap grow to 30 seconds into the last tag off. Rachael raced hard and held on strong to keep Team Manitoba girls second place all the way to the finish. Third was Ontario.

In the guys relay Josh went first to give Manitoba a strong start by swimming in the lead pack and working hard on the bike and running strong to keep us in 5th place right behind Team Saskatchewan. Mark swam fast and quickly got rid of Team Saskatchewan, leaving B.C., Ontario, and Nova Scotia ahead of us. Mark worked hard on the bike and run to close down the gap on Nova Scotia before handing off to Riley for the final leg. The final Ontario and Nova Scotia athlete collided as they were getting on their bikes causing the Nova Scotia athlete’s chain to fall off. This mishap allowed Manitoba to move into 3rd place. Once into 3rd place Riley held on strong to ensure another Medal for Manitoba.

Here are some pictures from the relay:

2009 Canada Games PEI - Individual Race

A little late, but we just got back last night from Canada Games in Summerside, PEI.

We flew into Summerside Friday night where the team was welcomed by many volunteers into the athletes’ village where there was an orientation slideshow and H1N1 screening. The athletes’ village was located in an old air force base in Slemon Park just north of Summerside. The accommodations were quite cozy with 8 athletes to small sized hotel room. The boys room didn’t have air conditioning for the first couple of nights which made for warm, uncomfortable sleeping with the very hot weather. Fortunately they worked that out and gave us air conditioners making sleeping more bearable. The food was pretty good with 3 meals a day and food available all the time.

Saturday was the opening ceremonies but before we went to them we went for a swim in the morning at a beach nearby the racecourse. We rode down to the beach, then swam around for a while but had trouble finding water deep enough to swim in. Then we went back to the village where we got ready and met up with the rest of Team Manitoba to take the bus to the opening ceremonies. The opening ceremonies took place at Credit Union Place, which was a big venue for the games with beach volleyball, soccer, and basketball taking place there. We were the 4th province to enter the arena and since Sarah was our flag bearer we got to go right at the front of Team Manitoba. The Governor General, Prime Minister, Premier and many other honorary guests were in attendance and took time to address the athletes. Following this there were many performances by PEI performers. Then we went back to the village and went for a short run.

Tuesday was the day of the individual race, and it would turn out to be a very hot day. It was pretty windy so the water was quite rough for the girls race at 10 but it calmed down a bit for the guys race at noon. The water temperature was 23 degrees so no wetsuits allowed. Both races had pretty small fields with under 30 competitors each.

In the girls race Sarah swam on Stevie’s feet to get into the lead pack on the bike, but Rachael didn’t quite make lead pack and got caught by the chase pack at the start of the bike. In this situation we decided to use team tactics to ensure the best possible results for Team Manitoba. Rachael helped the team immensely by sacrificing her own race to help out her teammates. Sarah and Stevie were in the lead pack and came off the bike 2.5 mins ahead of the chase pack. Sarah then ran strongly ended up 2nd to Alison Hooper of team B.C. Stevie finished 7th and Rachael 10th.

So after all of the excitement of Sarah’s silver medal it was the guys turn to race. Josh just missed the lead pack and ended up biking with Mark and one other guy, well Riley was in the next pack behind them. The strong lead group of 7 or 8 rode strong and worked well together to put time on both of the chasing groups by the end of the bike. Josh and Mark both ran fairly well ending up in 7th and 8th. Riley had an ok run ending up in 16th place.

Here are some pictures from Tuesday:

Team Manitoba Flag Bearer - Sarah-Anne Brault

Triathlete thrilled about Canada Games Carrying flag for Manitoba

By: On The Home Front / Ashley Prest

Sarah-Anne Brault's athletic resume includes two junior triathlon championships. She competes in cross-country and 5,000-metre races at West Virginia University.

Sarah-Anne Brault loves blazing a trail and the 19-year-old triathlon athlete from Winnipeg will do just that for Team Manitoba at the 2009 Canada Games.

Brault will be Manitoba's flag-bearer and lead the parade of about 400 athletes, coaches and managers during the opening ceremonies of the multi-sport games for youth athletes, which will unfold in Summerside, P.E.I., from Aug. 15-29.

"It's such an honour to be chosen and I'm really excited to go," said Brault, who competed in athletics at the 2005 Canada Summer Games in Regina and won a silver medal in the 5,000-metre race.

"When I went in 2005, I remember it as one of the best experiences of my life. That race was amazing. I wasn't expecting anything out of it and it just shows that anything can happen.

"I've never been anywhere with the same spirit and the same atmosphere. I don't know really what it is, but it's really something special to experience."

Brault, a bilingual graduate of College Louis Riel, is a student athlete at West Virginia University, where she is a varsity athlete in cross country and the 5,000 metres.

Though she competed in athletics four years ago, this time she will compete in triathlon, where she has already had considerable international success.

Brault has been a member of Canada's national junior triathlon team for the past three years, she was the 2007 national junior champion and won the 2008 Pan American Continental Junior Triathlon Championship in Mexico.

Triathlon is a new sport at the 2009 Canada Games.

"To be competing in triathlon, it's special because it's the first time," said Brault, now in her first year in triathlon's under-23 age category. "Representing Manitoba, it might be a bit more pressure, but at the same time, it's really cool to have a team like this. Triathlon is really individual, usually. You race against your teammates that you train with, but this time there will be points (in the overall team category), so we'll all be part of Team Manitoba."

The Canada Games, held every two years and alternating summer and winter, are designed to assist the development of amateur athletes across the country. About 4,400 athletes from the 10 provinces, Northwest Territories, Yukon and Nunavut will compete in these games in18 sports during the two-week event.

Team Manitoba's honorary captains are two athletes who competed for Team Manitoba at previous Canada Games and went on to represent Canada at the Olympics. Michelle Sawatzky-Koop competed in the 1989 Canada Games in volleyball and went on to compete for Canada in the 1996 Olympics. Jay Lyon competed in the 2003 Canada Games in archery and just last year placed 10th at the 2008 Olympics, Canada's best-ever Olympic result in archery.

Man-Sask Youth Regional Championships

The 2009 Manitoba / Saskatchewan Region Youth Championship was held in Duck Mountain Provincial Park at Madge Lake in Saskatchewan on Sunday July 26th. Two MNTC team members, Shayna and Roseria, took part in this event. Congratulations to Shayna who was 1st place in the 12-13 year old girls race, and to Roseria who was 2nd place in the 14-15 girls race. Also congraulations to all of Team Manitoba for winning the Man-Sask Challange!

Victoria Training Camp!

It has been a long time since our last post, but we have been very busy training hard, so now that we are bringing it down we will tell you what we’ve been up to. After

Nationals we started our last hard block of training heading into Canada Summer Games, which consisted of two solid weeks of training at home including a weekend training camp at Riley's cottage, then off to Victoria for a training camp with the NTC.

We got there on Saturday July 25th and got straight to work with a hilly bike ride that afternoon with some 10 minute intervals.
Sunday we did an open water swim race for MS at Thetis Lake. We all did the 1.5 km distance, and did well considering the travel day before. Results can be found here. After the swim we did a track workout in the afternoon with a mix of

200s and 800s. Monday we did a swim workout at the Commonwealth Pool followed by good-bye breakfast for Kirsten Sweetland, as she was heading back to Australia.
Tuesday, we had a hard swim in the morning with fast 100s on 1:30, base run, and then a hard bike with 4 x the Waddling Dog loop, which is about 9 km. The last one we did as an individual time trial.
On Wednesday we did an open water swim at Thetis Lake in the morning where Gary tipped over the kayak in the lake and lost his Oakleys, and then in the afternoon we did a very very hot track workout with 6x 1km on 5 minutes and then a 90 minute bike ride with 3x up Mt. Tolmie.
Thursday was a recovery day with just a technical swim and easy bike or run.
Friday we went to Elk Lake and did 3 mini tris, with the third one was a relay. Also on Friday we had a 90 min base ride on our own.Saturday was the day before the race so we just had race prep at Elk Lake.
Sunday was the Self Transcendence Triathlon at Elk Lake; it was the first year that they hosted a sprint distance race for the youth athletes. This race was non-drafting and the bike was very hilly so it made for a tough race. We all raced well to finish off our hard block of training. You can find the results here. Sunday night, Alison Hooper had a BBQ at her house for the Manitoba and the B.C athletes. We would like to thank her family for hosting it. We had lots of fun!
Monday was a recovery day with just swimming in the morning. Gary went salmon fishing and caught a big fish. Tuesday was a travel day as we returned to Winnipeg.

Thank you to all of the parents and athletes in Victoria that provided us a place to stay and took such good care of us. We all had a great time and really appreciate your kindness.

Now only 7 more days till we leave for Canada Games in PEI. Everyone is looking forward to the games and is ready for some fast racing!