Manitoba National Triathlon Centre

The Adventures of Sarah in South America

2012-01-29T12:00:00.000-06:00

It all started with a flight, then another ( longer) flight followed by a short taxi ride to another airport to catch another flight before we finally got settled into the sketchy van for a never ending 3 hour ride. That’s when we saw the “Welcome to La Paz” arch, and knew we had arrived. I was racing the next Sunday (all the travel was on Tuesday/Wednesday) so we had a few days to relax, let the training sink in and see the sights! Well, there aren’t very many sights to see in La Paz, Argentina so we mostly relaxed and trained a bit. The whole town seemed to come alive for the triathlon weekend, which is definitely a once in a lifetime experience. I’d never been to South America before but I adapted rather quickly. Don’t look for stop signs on the roads, you won’t find them. Two o’clock to four o’clock is siesta time, so better make sure you’re not hungry or out of bottled water because no one else is out to help you out! But it’s a great time to ride around the empty streets, if you can withstand the heat. We made friends with the waiters at the hotel restaurant where we ate breakfast and dinner every day, as much friends as you can be without speaking the same language. Luckily, Kathy’s Spanish was good enough to get us through, and we always got the taxi to come back and pick us up at the pool when we were done swimming. Gold star for Kathy! On Friday night we got treated to a wonderful concert complete with singing and multiple drums…at 11:30, right under our hotel window. Luckily, most age groupers were racing the next day so it didn’t last too long and we got some sleep as well.

The race ended up creeping up on us and it was go time. Few highlights: the crazy current in the river that pretty much made you swim on the spot if you didn’t put some effort into it, and quickly go backwards if you ever felt like stopping. The pontoon that wasn’t really facing the race course (dive-in followed by a 90 degree turn). The bumpy roads with the kids standing in the middle to hand out water bottles to the riders. The unforgiving, blazing sun on the run course that made us all glad to be done. The manzana flavored Powerade (really, Argentina? Let’s just stick with the “red” flavor). The rows of fans cheering us on all throughout the race, usually from shady spots on the course (smart people). The massive confetti gun during the awards ceremony while they played “We are the champions”. The random people on the streets wanting pictures, even though they don’t speak a word of English. Here's a link to some results if you don't like my ramblings and would like some hard data.

After a burger and some Dulce de Leche ice cream (Kelowna memories anyone?), it was time to pack up again and get started on the 2nd leg of our journey. Chantelle and I parted ways with some of our Canada and USA-bound friends as we boarded a plane for Chile. It was a late night but we settle into a very nice hotel on the beach in a town that is recognized as the vacation spot for wealthy Chileans and Argentineans. Of course, we picked the high-season to visit, just to make sure we were truly immersed in the culture...and the sea of people. Luckily, we met some friends on the shuttle and became quite inseparable for rest of the week of training. Carlos, Barbara and Martin joined us for training and meals, as we learned some basic Spanish and Martin improved his English. And we both improved our sign language. Training was a bit of a challenge, but since no one else really got up before noon, the streets were ours to play in for a few hours every morning. We practiced the waves a little bit since the race was going to be in the cold ocean, went for rides along the beautiful coast (not very long since we were getting ready for a race) and did a little shopping.

Race day went by much faster this time around; since the race was at 8 AM, I didn’t have all morning to agonize it. The field was similar to La Paz but the race played out a bit differently. Two girls got away on the swim, increased their lead on the bike, and were just too far up the road to be caught on the run. Still a great race and a good learning experience for me. Chile knows how to put on a professional race and Canada just missed out on having 2 on the girls podium (although the time gap was still rather substantial). More results here. We finished the day with a bit of touring, South America style, too much walking and a nice dinner and wine at the ever fancy race hotel with all our new friends (minus Ben who had to run across the neighborhood to make his bus because we got off at the wrong metro station. We all hope you made it back to Colorado Ben). A long airport day on Monday finished off the trip nicely and now it’s back to Barbados for some more training before the adventures begin again!

Here are some pictures from La Paz:

Happy training friends!

Buses, Planking, Crunchy Pillows....Oh and a Race

2011-07-31T20:33:00.005-05:00

This past weekend part of the team went to Ottawa to race the Junior Series race #3/Elite/U15 Ontario Provincials. The group stayed in the Carleton University residence which was one the street from the race course. Madison and Darian were on their first Big Trip Draft Legal Race Triathlon and Ben and Charles were racing the Junior Series Race. Stevie and Sarah got to join the fun and join the juniors as part of Ontario Provincials.

After a few unexpected travelling delays, the team made it to Carleton on Wednesday but waited for Sarah on Thursday to go explore the university grounds (AKA go planking).

This one got an A+ grade.

Our new friend. He informed us Carleton is a No Planking Zone. Especially for people wearing too much spandex.

After a full day of pre-race training which included a trip to the pool to avoid the ecoli infestation in the lake and some confusion trying to follow course maps we bused our way to the pre-race meeting. Darian’s dad gave us step by step instruction which didn’t seem to be enough since we had to ask every 2^nd person we saw for extra help. And we still missed our transfer. Luckily, we forgot all our troubles when the bus had an accordion centre we could play on. East Side Mario’s provided us with a lovely dinner after the short and sweet meeting. We splurged on the way back home and taxied back to Carleton. We informed our driver that a triathlon consist of swim-bike-run and NOT Swim-bike-run-swim. The pillows created quite a conundrum with the Team. Some of them were crunchier than others

Charles with the “pillows” to the front desk lady: Can I exchange these for pillows?

Front Last Lady: These are pillows.

Race morning came too quickly. A 7AM start for the boys meant 4:50 wake up time. Ben’s mother donated a toaster for our pre-race breakfast which greatly improved its quality. We biked our way to the course and everyone warmed up together. Before we knew it, the boys were herded into the water with no respect for pre-race rankings for their deep water start. The girls followed 3 whole minutes later and the Minis went at 7:30 and 7:33 respectively.

The deep water start on the boy’s side was really rough and everyone was fighting for positions even before the horn went off. With all the U23 athletes in the race, the field was big. Charles and Ben were in the middle but eventually kept getting pushed back. With about 20 seconds until the start Charles decided to move all the way to the end to have a clear start which really helped. Our turn around was a kayak which was…different. Coming out of the water Charles just missed the lead pack and ended up in a group of five that were very close to lead pack and chased hard. Ben had a strong swim and came out a bit further back than Charles. The bike went without any trouble and with all the U23s pulling hard in lead no one caught them and Charles’s pack got caught by a bigger pack. All the other packs stayed fairly stable throughout the 20km. Charles and Ben had a strong run on a rather hot course with no water being given out and finished 8^th and 23^rd junior respectively.

The swim start was the same for the girls. There were only five Elites entered in the Junior race, but it still increased the quality and depth of race. Sarah and Stevie came out of the water together just a few seconds behind the lead group of swimmers. They also caught a few of the Junior guys at the end of the swim. The bike was very challenging with all the guys on the course. Sarah nearly crashed going around the first 180 turn because of a huge pack of boys that we going around the cone at the same time. Sarah, Stevie and four other girls formed the lead pack and all worked strong together and battled with the other gender to keep there own lines. The run course was hot and was very challenging, but in the end Sarah ended up with the win for the day and Stevie ended up third.

In the U15 race Darian and Madison represented very well! Darian missed out on the lead pack because of a sighting error that made him swim wide. He soloed the bike and ran himself in to 2^nd place! Madison had a swim that was expected for only starting swimming four months ago. She biked strong with one other girl and they ended up with a pack of four after catching two other girls. Coming in to T2 she had trouble locating her spot, which resulted in a slower transition. Fierce competitor that she is, she chased down the girls ahead of her and placed 2^nd!

The team is now very split up across the country. Good luck to our WCG teams heading out to Kamloops next week. The athletes racing are Riley, Unger and Tyler for the guys; Ashlyn, Janessa and Jane on the girls’ side. We’re sure they’ll do a great job! Ben is at his Grandma’s cottage in the middle of nowhere with no running water. Hope you catch lots of fish Ben! The Brault’s are heading to their home province and decided to bring Stevie along for a solid week of training with the Quebec team. Hopefully her french will improve a bit... Darian and Madison are back home for a solid block of training before Kelowna. Enjoy everyone!

here is a link to Bramwell's photos
https://picasaweb.google.com/102356770393916246846/TeckJuniorNationalSeries3OttawaON?authuser=0&feat=directlink

Sorry Forgot to mention Ben was at Folk Fest last weekend!

2011-07-15T20:40:00.000-05:00

Hope he had a good time!

According to worldweb.com it is one of the top 10 festivals in Canada!

Last weekend's racing and on to this week!

2011-07-15T14:29:00.000-05:00

Last weekend athletes from MNTC were racing all over the place. We had Tyler, Unger, Charles, Riley M and Janessa racing in PATCO. Stevie and Sarah racing down in San Francisco and a few of the younger athletes (Darian, Ashlyn, & Madison) made there way down to Minneapolis, Minnesota for the youth event at the Lifetime Fitness triathlon. Here is a link to some results from the weekend.

Most of MNTC met up in Kamloops, BC in between the races last weekend and the race in Penticton this weekend. We picked Kamloops because it will be the site of the Western Canada Summer Games triathlon in a few weeks. It was a very beautiful place to spend a few days and do some training. We were staying at Thompson Rivers University and have been swimming at a very nice pool near by. We checked out the site for the races at WCSG and it looks like it will be a interesting and challenging race.

Now we have moved down to Penticton which is the site of the race this weekend. There are 2 girls and 5 guys taking part. The race has a chilly swim in Lake Okanagan, a 8-loop 20km bike along the lake and a 5-loop 5km run. Briefing and relaxing is on the schedule for the rest of the day and then tomorrow the girls race at 10 and the guys at 11:15.

Cable Cars and Buses and Bikes OH MY!!!

2011-07-08T00:03:00.001-05:00

The MNTC had to split up this weekend to attend various races (PATCO, Minneapolis race, folk fest) and Stevie and I got the best part of this deal as we’re chilling in San Francisco for a few days before we race a Pan-American Cup on Treasure Island on Saturday. We made it to our hotel with all our belongings yesterday. We took the BART train from the airport to the heart of San Francisco where our hotel was. We had to be quick to get all our luggage and bikes out before the doors closed, but we made it!
We’re quite impressed with the biking skills of the many commuters zooming through the downtown streets here. Although it’s hard to really pay attention with all the cars, other bikers, buses, streetcars, cable cars, taxis, pedestrians moving about.

We found food – (Whole foods store!) and we made it out to the course today. We had to take the transit bus across the bridge to get to the Island. We got to rack our bikes to the front of the bus and hope that they would be safe will we drove out. We sat in the front of the bus (where handicapped and/or elderly people are supposed to have priority seating) to make sure nothing would happen to them. We did realize that there wasn’t much we could do if indeed something horrible happened, but it still made us feel better to be able to see them.

The bike course is rather twisty but our superior map-reading skills allowed us to successfully navigate the old naval base. It’s quite the location for a triathlon. All military buildings are shut down so our half of the Island is very much empty (which made it great to bike around, especially after the crowds of downtown San Fran).

Our next challenge was finding a pool to get some swimming in. We decided the best way to get there would be, again, public transit! We got on the bus with about 1000 short Asian people. After driving throughout Chinatown (who needs to fly to China when you can go to San Francisco and get the same experience), and little Italy, missing our stop and going around the building twice to find the pool door we got in and were told it was closed for another hour. But we were ready! We went for a run instead, and we made the decision to go one after the other so that one could watch the bags while the other ran. We both ended up going approximately in the same direction, by the fisherman’s wharf (which we plan on exploring Sunday after the race). Sadly, I decided to rely my sense of direction to get me back to the pool instead of following the logic that would say “take the same route out and back since you are all by yourself with no phone/money in a big, foreign city”. But no. I ended finding a cliff where the street I was following should have gone and had to go around the mountain. Stevie didn’t worry too much but it cut our time in the pool a little bit. The pool was quite crowded but we managed not to hit anyone and get most of our workout in, after being told to take a shower and to NOT jump in the shallow end (that was Stevie, she's a rebel). We also made a few new friends.

To get back to the hotel, we decided to go the scenic route and take the Cable Car. The terminal is right below the window of our hotel so it was perfect! Except for the long lines and the rather relaxed drivers who took quite the eternity to get everyone loaded, payed and ready to roll. We got a great “driver” who made everyone on the trolley aware that Stevie was Stevie. She got applause after NOT falling off the wagon during a particularly sharp turn and got a nice goodbye from everyone once we got to the terminal. Great experience.

Also, there are enough weird people in San Francisco that walking around in the summer wearing a tuque and drinking tea out of biking water bottles (to warm up from the cold ocean breeze on the cable car) will never get a second look. That’s not surprising when we have to compete with bongo playing bike riders (playing and riding at the SAME time!)

Pictures and results to follow…

St. Malo - Race 1

2011-06-27T17:36:00.002-05:00

Just yesterday all junior elite athletes competed in the first of four Junior Teck National Series races. It was slightly cloudy, although humid and warm. Luckily, the water was warm enough that wet suits weren't an option. After a successful start the men were off, quickly followed by the women. It was obvious from the start that the swim would not break into that many small groups. Onto the bike it turned out to be one lead pack containing fifteen athletes, some stragglers, then another chase pack a couple minutes behind containing seven athletes. On the female side it looked like a lead group of three or four girls, followed by some stragglers, then another small pack or two. The run was fast in both races. It tough to say how things played out there. It was a hot and long run though.
Congrats to Tristan Woodfine and Ellen Pennock for clinching their first victories in the junior series. Also congrats to Francis Lefebvre, and Marc Christin for second and third place finishes. And also Christine Ridenour, and Gabrielle Edwards for second and third as well.
It was a great effort by all the athletes competing.
Congratulations are also in order for all the MNTC athletes. Tyler leading the men in seventh place, followed by Riley Mac in tenth, Charles in thirteenth, Unger in fourteenth, and Ben in nineteenth. On the female side we had Janessa finishing with a strong twentieth place finish. Also a congrats to Patrick Naylor for placing twenty-sixth, and Kevin Macduff of Manitoba for thirty-third place, and Kaitlyn Weins for a solid twenty-sixth performance considering it was their first draft legal race ever.
Age groupers are never to old to be forgotten.... Sarah-Anne Brault. Congrats for the easy victory in the age-group sprint distance. We promise not to judge you to harshly...
Let us not forget the KOS athletes of MNTC that competed on the Saturday. Congratulations to Ashlyn and Madison for finishing first and third, respectively. Our best wishes go out to Darian for a speedy recovery after a bike crash on race day, we wish you all the best.
That's all for the race report! I hope I didn't forget anybody. Check back in a week or two for the Penticton race report!

Yay Sarah!

2010-11-27T21:20:00.000-06:00

Recently there was NCAA and Canadian Nationals. First was NCAA's where sarah placed an astounding 71st, unfortunately her team did not qualify so she ran individually. Shortly after Sarah hopped on the plane and headed to Canadian Cross Country Nationals in Guelph. She placed 8th in the senior women category.

Here's a picture from NCAAs:

and a video of the senior women's race at Nationals:

Basics

2010-11-15T05:48:00.002-06:00

Here's a link to an very good blog post by RTC Guelph coach Craig Taylor about some basic principles towards training.

Riley Unger's Blog

2010-11-14T22:30:00.014-06:00

Our program this fall includes some "team bonding" led by our new student sport psych person Christine. Every three weeks one person will be writing an update about training and such. Our very first one this week comes from Riley Unger.

Here it is:
The team has just lately got back into the full time training together. Due to cross country season just finishing there has been a lot of focus on running. So we were having morning swimming/strength and after school it was on your own training with our school cross country team and some biking in there too. The last 3 weeks have been fun and also some hard work in there too. We are just focusing on getting back into shape right now and back up to speed in our other two sports.

This week was an easy week following the last two weeks of hard training. In the first week of hard training, daryl came out with some heart rate monitors and gave me and a few others a wake up call about how hard the different zones are. Now we are required to train with heart rate monitors on the bike. It really helped with familiarizing us with the different zones.

Just recently we have started doing some outside of training team bonding. On October 29th we had a halloween party. After training that night we went out to six pines and got a little scared. We all dressed up in our halloween costumes. Riley M went out as a disco man, Janessa was road kill, Ashlyn went out as dorothy, Stevie went out as hannah montana/ lady gaga/ ....... she wore a blonde wig and everyone got something different out of it i guess. Charles went out as a great clown, the costume fit him perfectly! Tyler went out as a lion, rawr! Ben couldn’t make it unfortunately, he was in ottawa at the time, Darian was some beastly looking creature, and i went out as a christmas present. Everyone got some great and also not so great comments about our costumes. The lines weren’t the greatest but at the end of it all, it was a great experience and found out that tyler has a bit of a sensitivity to scary things(He came up to me and hugged me, i think he was just a little scared). The barn of doom was great and the best of them all. There was also the train of terror and a magic show! There was this one person on the train of terror that was just hilarious. Once we were finished all the activities there, we went back to Riley M’s place and got some halloween treats.

Saturday the team did their first 400m swim time trial of the year, and it was a solid effort all around, especially for this time of year!

Kelowna Race Report - By Nancy Drad

2010-08-25T12:46:00.001-05:00

I have had the privilege to travel with the MNTC for the past several years to various junior elite races across Canada as either a parent or in some cases the team chaperone. First, I want to express to each athlete how proud I always am of them and that I am in constant awe of the commitment each one of them has to this sport.

The National Race at Kelowna was extremely special for me as it marked the end of an era in our family. It was Joshua’s last race as a Junior Elite Triathlete as he has now aged out. I know that I will always look back in time at these years as some of the best years of our lives. It was a time when we got to travel around the continent and make friends with athletes from across Canada. Many special memories and funny (and sometimes not so funny) stories will be told and retold around our dinner table for years to come. This is just some of the many benefits that this sport has brought to not just our son but our entire family.

To the athletes of MNTC your races may not always be what you want or anticipate them to be but to me they are something that I always admire and look forward to watching with such anticipation.

Going to Kelowna was hard for me because I knew it would be my last time watching all of you. Saturday morning was a beautiful day where the sky was filled with sunshine and the temperature was perfect. As 9:40 am approached and the junior elite girls were announced I stood at the swim exit to secure my perfect spot so that I would be able to cheer the girls on. Janessa was the only MNTC athlete racing but there are many other Junior Elites that I have met over the years and I do enjoy cheering for each every one. If you were to ask Janessa about her race she would tell you that she was pleased with her swim and her bike but her run wasn’t what she had wanted. This is Janessa’s first year as a junior and she is up against some of the strongest in the World. Janessa biked really hard and was working in her pack to keep things going smoothly. I had tears of joy in my eyes as I heard her name announced as she crossed the finish line in 19th place.

The Junior Elite boys raced at 10:25 and we had six MNTC boys in the line-up; Joshua, Charles, Riley M., Riley U., Tyler and Ben. They too were racing against the countries’ best junior elites. I remember vividly when I first met some of those contenders and I always enjoy watching the races as anything goes. The first pack out of the water contained Sharpe, Stewart and Quick. Behind them came the chase pack of swimmers with Joshua and Riley Unger. The next group was a longer procession of swimmers coming out of the water in a steady stream. In that pack came Charles, Tyler and Riley M. Within seconds Ben came out of the water eager to get on to the bike.

The problem with being a triathlon spectator is that you can’t see the entire race. I hurried up to the bike course (having missed the transitions) to watch the excitement. I had been told that Kelowna has the best course for spectators. The biking was fast and competitive. Joshua and Riley Unger were in the chase pack but unfortunately Charles and Riley M. were both cycling on their own. Not an easy task and definitely not what they had hoped for. Tyler was cycling with a group and it appeared to me that he was able to stay with them for the entire bike portion. Ben was working well in a pack and later told me that he had so much fun on the bike course. Riley M. eventually caught Charles so for the end of the bike they at least had each other.

I am always most satisfied when everyone gets off the bike safe and sound. I stood close to transition and counted. Joshua and Riley Unger came in and off they went. Riley M. and Charles arrived safely followed by Tyler and then Ben who because he had a stress fracture ended his race after the bike.

The run was fast and Riley Unger held strong finishing 8th. Joshua’s run was not what he had hoped for. He had to stop to throw-up several times, unfortunately for Joel Howlett’s dad, he had to witness this and he later told me it was not a pretty sight. I can only imagine. As Craig said, it takes courage to finish a race when you’re sick and Joshua found the courage to finish in 13th spot. Charles, Riley M. and Tyler found their rhythm on the run and finished 16th, 18th and 22nd.

Earlier in the day two of MNTC’s youth girls raced in the 14 and 15 year old category. I was able to watch them finish their swim, bike and then run. Ashlyn and Hannah both did very well finishing 2nd and 8th. It was difficult to get to see everyone as so much was going on all at once. The atmosphere was exciting with so many spectators out cheering on the athletes. Well done girls.

Sunday’s race had Stevie and Sarah-Anne racing the elite race against Paula Findlay who had just completed two amazing first place finishes on the ITU circuit. After one loop of the swim both Sarah-Anne and Stevie were in the chase pack. They held that position on to the bike course and for the first two laps they biked in the same pack. Unfortunately Stevie got dropped on the big hill and ended up soloing for the majority of the bike. Sarah-Anne remained in an excellent position as she entered transition two. It was exciting to watch the run as they made 4 loops so you got to see the athletes often. Sarah-Anne had an amazing run and finished 6th overall but 3rd in the U23 category. Unfortunately for Stevie the run did not agree with her and she needed to end her race early as she was sick on the run course.

As you can see, races aren’t always what they plan for. No one plans to be sick, no one plans to cycle alone but the amazing thing to watch is the effort that each and every athlete puts into their race. That is what gives me such pride and brings tears of joy to my eyes. To me you are all SUPERSTARS. In the words of Kyla Rollinson, the coach from Quebec who raced in the elite race to show her athletes that we do this sport not JUST to win but because we LOVE it.

I am so proud of each and every one of you. You all remembered Craig’s ABC’s of racing and showed him that you have Attitude, you Busted your Butt and you showed Courage. You are all winners.

2010 Junior Nationals

2010-08-22T01:24:00.001-05:00

Today was the first day of racing in beautiful Kelowna. The Kids of Steel and Junior Elites raced this morning in very nice conditions. A mix of results for MNTC out there today but most importantly a great effort by everyone. Congrats to Matt Sharpe from NTC and Joanna Brown from Bytown Storm for the big wins out there today!

Pictures and more to come.

Elite National and Pan-American Cup for the girls goes tomorrow at 11:30!

Edit:
Results can be found here for all races. (scroll down to the bottom)

Training and the race at Riding Mountain National Park - By Youth Dev. Athlete Darian Hole

2010-08-20T15:30:00.000-05:00

30On Wednesday we did hill training at garbage hill in the hot, humid weather. We biked 6x 1 easy, 1 medium and 1 hard. My mom took pictures during the workout for her photography class and some look really neat! After we ran 4 laps, 1 easy, 1 tempo, 1 threshold and 1 cool down…… then we cooled down with slurpees!

The weekend was the race at Riding Mountain. Sarah and Riley U. raced the Sprint distance on Saturday. It was a cool day with winds gusting up to 35km/h and about 15 degrees outside and it was drizzling. After getting out of the water most athletes looked cold but when they finished they seemed OK. Riley and Sarah had a great race and came in first in their age groups, Riley first overall and Sarah third overall. Sunday was no better, if not worse for the KOS race. There was no rain but it was only 10 degrees outside with winds gusting to 40km/h. We did a duathlon because it was too cold but everyone still did well. Darian and Ashlyn were first in their age groups. Everyone else on the team that went (Riley M., Stevie, Charles, Tyler, Ben and Janessa) volunteered both days, and Sarah helped at the kids race on Sunday with them.

Good luck to everyone racing in Kelowna!

Here are a whole bunch of pictures:

Training pictures:

Saturday Race Pictures:

Sarah Anne happy to be out of the water

Riley U coming out of the water

Janessa, Stevie, and Tyler helping out with the announcing

Sunday Race (KOS) Pictures:

Darian Hole aka Shark Bait finishing strong

Magog Race!

2010-08-01T12:57:00.000-05:00

Junior Series Race #3 in Magog, Quebec has come and gone, Manitoba was once again strongly represented in across the races. Manitoba had athletes taking part in the U15 Elite Girls, Junior Boys and Girls and the Quebec Cup Elite girls races.

Now a little break from racing before Junior and U23 Nationals in Kelowna.

Here are some photos from race day:

Results

U 15s

Juniors

Elites

Magog

2010-07-23T18:58:00.001-05:00

We arrived in Montreal early afternoon on Thursday and after making a few wrong turns trying to get out of Montreal we eventually made it to the motel in Magog. We had time to put our bikes together and head out for a ride on the hilly bike course.

Today we started off with a swim in the lake on the course, then we went out and rode the bike course again, followed by figuring out the challenging run course with a few minutes of intensity. After lunch we all went over to the mini golf course to play a round on the fun course!

Here are a few pictures from the last few days....

Weekend Racing Wrap-up

2010-06-28T18:52:00.002-05:00

Racing both in St. Malo, Manitoba and Coteau, Quebec. Here is a short wrap up about St. Malo from Ashlyn:

This weekend most of the team went to Couteau de Lac to race. The others did the St. Malo triathlon. On the Saturday, Hannah and Darian both raced KOS. They did well each having some extra competition. The following day was the Sprint triathlon. Roseria and Sarah-Anne were both there. Roseria was the first out of the water and Sarah-Anne passed her on the bike finishing the sprint race first overall. They both had a very good run and finished strong. Ashlyn, who was recovering from a broken collar bone, did the run portion on a relay team finishing strong.

As for the Coteau race it was the first race in the Junior Series as well as a Pan Am Continental Cup for the elites.

Results are here:

Junior Men
Junior Women
Elite Men
Elite Women

Pictures from the Junior and Elite Races:

and Junior Series Rankings after one race (some errors need to be corrected)

Coteau du Lac - Junior Race #1

2010-06-24T17:30:00.000-05:00

We are in Coteau for the first Junior National Series race of the year and a Pan American Continental Cup. We arrived yesterday afternoon and today we went down to the race site for a little pre-race workout. Here are some pictures from the trip so far:

Coteau Junior Elite Startlists

2010-06-23T09:28:00.001-05:00

Boys Startlist

1. Ben Kanute
2. Ian Donald
3. Ryan Peterson
4. Matt Sharpe
5. Jordan Heggen
6. Marc-Antoine Christin
7. Grant Rice
8. Alexander Hinton
9. Tristan Woodfine
10. Cole Stewart
11. Joel Howlett
12. Josh Drad
13. Taylor Reid
14. Karsten Madsen
15. Phillippe Deschamps
16. Timothy Maclean
17. Riley MacCharles
18. John Erik Rasmussen
19. Taylor Forbes
20. Jeramie Anderson
21. Charles Khazoom
22. Erik Danielson
23. Austin Forbes
24. David Hopton
25. Derek Quick
26. Charles Brault
27. Phillipe Tremblay
28. Jerome Bergeron
29. Devon LaBuik
30. Brook Powell
31. Ben Ryan
32. Francis Lefebvre
33. Dylan Bates
34. Gabriel Legault
35. Tyler Mislawchuk
36. Adrian Gavrilov
37. Robert Bigsby
38. Phillipe Bedrad
39. Connor Foreman
40. Riley Unger
41. Alexis Lepage
42. Connor Darlington
43. Thomas Poirier
44. Jacob Porier
45. Antoine Jolicoeur Desroches

Girls Startlist

1. Alison Hooper
2. Rachael Edwards
3. Christine Ridenour
4. Gabriel Edwards
5. Dominika Jamnicky
6. Hiliary Willie
7. Joanna Brown
8. Amelie Kretz
9. Alizee Brien
10. Maghalie Rochette
11. Abby Miller
12. Chelsea Mackinnon
13. Jade Gregory
14. Pauline Skowron
15. Elisabet Lapointe
16. Joanne Traves
17. Madi Serpico
18. Janessa Klatt
19. Sasha Boulton
20. Kelsey Saunders
21. Lauren Heinken
22. Sarah Francoeur
23. Isabelle Rouleau
24. Julia Stacey

Big Weekend - By Charles Brault

2010-06-13T17:08:00.002-05:00

On the track:

At the Manitoba High School track and field championships on Saturday Tyler, Riley, Charles and Janessa put in strong performances in the 3000m. Tyler and Janessa ran in junior varsity. Janessa got a big PB and Tyler pushed the pace and alternated the lead but still finished first. Charles and Riley ran in varsity. The pace started really slow so Charles decided to pick it up and managed to finish third. Riley finished 6^th. Charles ran in a fast 800 final and finished 7^th.

At Birds Hill Triathlon:

The same race hosted a freezing Junior National Series race last year, welcomed some much nicer weather for this year. Hannah and Darian raced the KOS on Saturday and both put in strong performances to win their age groups. Everyone else raced on Sunday in the sprint triathlon. The water was around 16 and the weather almost 20. Riley was first overall followed by Josh and Charles. Tyler finished 5^th followed by Ben. Unger did a relay due to injury. Roseria was third girl overall and Janessa had a strong bike. Stevie raced Olympic distance. She was first overall out of the water and finished first female overall. Everyone put in a good effort especially with tired legs from the track races.

Track Provincials

2010-06-11T11:30:00.000-05:00

High school track and field provincials started yesterday. In the 1500 yesterday, Charles ran in varsity boys, Ben and Tyler in jv boys and Janessa in jv girls. It was a perfect evening for fast running with no wind and cool temperatures. Tyler pushed the pace early on in the 1500 but got caught in the last lap and ended up 4th. Janessa and Ben both ran strong and ended up with pbs. Charles sat in with the leaders until the last lap and ended up 4th as well.

Here are some pictures from the race

Ixtapa - Race Tomorrow!

2010-05-21T19:24:00.000-05:00

So this is it, race night! Today was a very light day with a short swim, bike and transition practice in the morning.

Tomorrow we race!!! Everyone from MNTC and Team Canada is ready to go out and represent the country! The Junior Guys go bright and early at 7:30 tomorrow morning followed 5 minutes later by the Junior Girls. The Elite Girls go in the heat of the day at 10:33, which is 3 minutes after the Elite Guys who go at 10:30. It was quite hot and very wavy today! Hopefully mother nature gives the us a little break tomorrow!

Check back to see how it goes! and watch triathlon.org for the results.

As well good luck to everyone back at home racing the Thief River Falls Triathlon, CRUSH IT! (let us know how it goes)

Thats all for today, tomorrow is a big day!

Ixtapa - Day 3

2010-05-20T21:13:00.000-05:00

Today started off with a bike ride nice and early at 7:30 followed by breakfast before heading out to the pool for a swim. We came home to relax for a bit before heading out for a bit of transition work outside the hotel, followed some exits from the ocean. Overall a nice easy day to get ready for the race in beautiful Mexico on Saturday!

Ixtapa - Day 2

2010-05-19T22:03:00.000-05:00

Today's temperature -39 degrees Celsius

Today we swam first thing in the ocean. It started out with warm up to the race site, then practiced some starts and exits. Then a drafting set back to the hotel beach with many jelly fish stings along the way. Later in the morning we did a bike with a few two minute efforts to get familiarized with the course. In the afternoon did a short 20 minute run out to the race course, then some body surfing to practice with the waves.

Tonight we did a team dinner with the whole Canadian team. It was nice to sit down and chat with everyone.

Cheers

Ixtapa - Day 1

2010-05-18T21:30:00.000-05:00

Everyone from MNTC made it down to Ixtapa today! The hotel is beautiful and is right on the ocean, all the rooms in the hotel have a ocean front view :) A super hot little run in the afternoon and then some fun playing in the big waves in the ocean. Dinner with some Saskatchewan athletes and then a Team Canada meeting with the whole group.

Here is a picture from our hotel balcony:

Ixtapa Bound!!

2010-05-16T19:25:00.001-05:00

3 members of the Manitoba National Triathlon Centre are headed off to Ixtapa, Mexico for the 2010 Pan-American Cup and PATCO Junior Championships. Stevie is racing in the Pan-American Cup and Josh and Riley M are racing in the PACTO Junior Championships.

Check back for daily ;) updates during the week!!

YOG Qualifying Race

2010-04-17T12:40:00.000-05:00

So yesterday evening was the individual race to determine which countries would earn spots for the youth olympic games in Singapore. For Canada it was also the qualifying race, the first Canadian to cross the line would be the athlete selected to represent Canada.

The Canadian girls dominated the swim, they were all in the first group out of the water. Christine came off the bike in the lead by herself, followed by the lead pack of girls. This lead pack now contained 3 of the Canadian girls. The first Canadian girl to finish was Christine in 3rd followed by Alison in 4th, Dominika in 5th, Maghalie in 12th, Hillary in 13th, and Amelie in 22nd. Congrats to the girls!!

In the guys race, Brook was the first to exit the water, then Marc, Riley, Charles and then Unger. Brook made the lead pack, Marc was in the second pack, Riley was in the third pack, and Charles and Unger were in the 4th pack. The first pack gained a little bit of time during the race, and the second and third came pretty close together. At the end of the run it was Brook who was the first Canadian in 8th place, Marc was 18, Riley was 21, Charles was 35, and Unger in 36.

The results for the two races can be found here.

An article about the race along with some pictures can be found here.

Here are some pictures of the Canadian girls running into T1, more pictures to come:

Monterrey - Pre-Race

2010-04-15T16:34:00.000-05:00

So just a little over 24 hours till the races start here in Monterrey, Mexico. The weather has continuted to be un-cooperative, with rain on and off over the last couple days and very little sunshine. It has still been very humid and feels quite warm most of the time.

On Wednesday, we started off the day with a hour and a bit ride out on the race course. Then we biked over to the pool for a nice short swim with some activation. In the afternoon we went for a short run around the canal where the swim will take place for our race on Friday. We went out for a team dinner at Chili's and then walked down to the canal to try and figure out how the swim is going to work out.

Today started off with another swim in the pool with 5x100 @ race pace. Then once we got back we went for a quick run with strides and dynamics. In the afternoon, we went for a bike ride to check out the course again. The course is quite technical and with the likely wet conditions, we could be in for an interesting bike ride. At the end of the ride we practiced some fast transitions and headed home. The pre-race briefing takes place at 5pm tonight and then we are having a team dinner.

Race day tomorrow. The girls go at 5 pm and the guys at 6:30 pm.

Here are some pictures:

wet roads

dirty bike

transition area

swim course - canal

bike course

age group transition

Monterrey

2010-04-13T17:19:00.000-05:00

Charles, Riley, Ungie and coach Gary are all down in Monterrey this week for the Youth Olympic Games Trials. They are joining the rest of Team Canada for this event. Firstly the individual race takes place on Friday, with the girls going around 5 in the afternoon, and the guys around 6:30. There is also a relay event which takes place on the Sunday early in the morning before the elite world cup race in the afternoon.

We arrived in Monterrey late on Monday night, and then got settled in to our hotel. On Tuesday morning we took a trip to Walmart for some groceries, followed by a 30ish minute run close by the race course. In the afternoon we went swimming at a pool just a few minutes away from our hotel. The pool was not quite what we are used to but the person running the pool was very nice and let us use the pool at no cost all week. The swim was just a quick 3km with some activation sets. A quick spin on our bikes will finish out the day.

the super tall-steep escalator in Dallas

Tucson: Top 15

2010-04-11T22:43:00.002-05:00

15. Water Balloon fights are failures when no one comes outside to check out the "dead snake"

14. Charles stay away from Tyler on the bike, maybe keep the rubber on the road

13. Zoom Juice mmmmmm maximus cactus

12. Bagel on a Stick (greatest invention ever! Sarah we love you)

11. Stevie beating Charles in the “triathlon”

10. Waterfall run at Bear Canyon and Marita knocking Shaynas camera into the waterfall... it was lost and never to be found

9. Mt. Lemmon is very challenging, especially when you are afraid of heights

8. Emma, Ben now has a girlfriend, he owes Charles, Josh and Tyler.

7. Darian was clean or dirty depending on when Charles told him to shower, he was clean when he wanted to pick up some cute little girls at the movies

6. Gary bought all his clothes for the next year at Nike Outlet, hopefully next year he brings a bigger suitcase

5 . Stevie won the big match in Super Smash Bros, Riley sucks at that game, Charles is alright

4. Stevie found a new inner talent, she cut Charles, Riley, Ben and Gary’s hair. She even gave Ben a mohawk

3. “Where’s Ben?” Well look for Josh and you will find him.

2. The TV show 24 is way better then Yugioh, especially when you watch it in the closet

1. “We had a BIG CAMP!”

Didn't Quite Make The List
-"The Gang" - BJT
-Tyler-"Guys I don`t burn.....well just my calves"

Day 8 - Gates Pass

2010-04-03T10:01:00.005-05:00

The weather was much warmer today! We had our final swim today at the U of A pool, once again the main set was the 15X300 drafting set with Saskatchewan. Since it was the last swim workout we all went off the 10 meter diving board, went in the hot tub, and took some awesome pictures under the water. From the swim we headed out to do a long ride to do Gates Pass (a half mile climb at 14% grade). The ride was off to a good start until Mr. Brault decided his cursed bike would act up again, but no worries he finished the ride on Riley Ungers bike because Riley was having some allergy issues. The road was quite bumpy and rough which resulted with a few flat tires. Overall it was a great ride; there were bike handling learning experiences for some, and the most of the younger ones enjoyed the climb up Gates Pass. The ride was shortened by 30km because he team is feeling a little bit worn out. The ride was still 90 km and a little over 3 hours in length.

In the evening we finished the day off with a short 30 - 60 minute run. After that some of the people walked over to the mall to see a movie called Clash of The Titans. A few other people took a trip over to Target, the few left stayed home and watched a movie.

Here are some pictures from today:

shopping...

Sarah-anne ran a great 5km race last week with a time of 16:27 and moved in to the the MNTC guys top 5 ranking. Way to go Sarah!!!!!! Here is a video from Flotrack of the race:

Track and Field Videos on Flotrack

Here is a video from Flotrack after the race:

Track and Field Videos on Flotrack

Last ride at Lemmon today!

Day 7- Aquathlon

2010-04-02T00:10:00.000-05:00

Today, on the coldest day of the camp with a high of 13, cool winds and occasional rain, we had a aquathlon against team Saskatchewan. The swim was 800 meters long course in the U of A pool. Transition was on the pool deck and the 5km run was a 7 loop course on the U of A campus. Everyone showed great effort, considering it was day 7 of our camp. In the afternoon we completed the triathlon by having a 20km bike time trial out on Old Spanish Trail. Once again everyone worked hard and showed great promise for the upcoming race season.

For any of the parents wondering, the team clothing came today!!!! It looks great and everyone is pleased with the outcome.

On a side note Trevor has now been officially defeated in the Mama's Pizza pizza eating contest. Ungie consumed 8 slices of Mama's Family size pizza. Hope you feel better in the morning Riley U ;)

Day 6 - Kitt's Peak

2010-03-31T22:31:00.000-05:00

Another big day in the desert. Started out with a tough drafting set with the Saskatchewan of 15 x 300 drafting (4 hard 1 easy). Following this we headed out for a ride at Kitt's Peak. We started out at Three Peaks, and set off into a very strong head/side wind. The younger kids got dropped off at the base of the climb. The climb up to the observatory at the top of Kitt's Peak was very gusty and there were some parts where the wind made it very difficult to continue up. Everyone battled hard though and made their way up the 12 mile 7% climb. The wind was so strong that it even blew some people off their bikes. The descent was pretty tricky with the gusty winds but everyone made it down safely. We finished off the ride with a spin back to the starting point at Three Peaks. Charles fell again. He is ok.

Here are some pictures from today:

Aquathon in the morning good luck to everyone! Go Team Manitoba!

Day 5 - Sabino Canyon Run

2010-03-31T09:47:00.001-05:00

Yesterday we had a bit of an easier day in Tucson. We rode to the pool for a short 3km recovery swim, where we met the Saskatchewan Team, and then rode back to our house. In the afternoon we drove over to Sabino Canyon Park and ran down the Bear Canyon trail to Seven Falls where we played and climbed around for a little while before running back. Shayna's camera fell in the waterfall... oops

Then Gary came over for Shayna's birthday dinner. Gary's going after some new ladies with his new haircut compliments of Stevie.

Here are some pictures from the last few days:

Ouch... Ben stepped on a cactus

Tyler checking out the ladies

???

The Big Match

2010-03-30T19:28:00.000-05:00

Forgot to update the results of the Big Match of Super Smash Bros on Wii:

Stevie won the gold medal in the big match!!
Charles fought hard to the end attempting to make a comeback
Josh lost money because Charles lost
Riley is terrible, he only got one kill
There were 3 people playing

Day 4 - Lemmon

2010-03-30T00:16:00.000-05:00

Today was a beautiful, calm and very hot day in the desert; in the morning we had a short tech swim at the beautiful U of A pool. Following a quick stop at home we set out for Mt. Lemmon. The guys and Stevie set out from home, well Darian and the rest of the girls got dropped off a few miles before mile 0. For those who don’t know Mt. Lemmon is a 27 mile climb from mile 0 to the ski hill at the top (yes there is a ski hill in Tucson, and yes it was open today with plenty of snow everywhere). The top of the mountain is just over 9000 ft high. Almost everyone made it up to the top and grabbed some souvenir stickers, giant cookies, pizza or pie. The descent was fast and windless making it safe and super fun! With the ride back to the house it was a total of 120 km and 4.5 hours for the older group and around 85 for the younger group. We followed up the ride with a 15-minute run off the bike. Congratulations to everyone who made it to the top and all the people who didn’t quite make it but gave a good effort.

The events of the evening included ice baths in a garbage can and a trip to Tri Sports for some shopping. Tyler finally got some goggles that work and now he will be able to see the clock so he won’t have to make up times when Craig asks what he went.

Here are some pictures from today: (some of the colours are weird because Tyler's camera is kinda weird)

Tucson Day #3

2010-03-28T22:50:00.000-05:00

Update for today!

1. Big swim at the U of A pool. Descending 400s from the back end, just over 5km total!

2. Brick workout at the base of Mt. Lemmon doing 2 mini races consisting of 8.6km bike followed by a 1.2km run. The first one was draft legal and the second was non drafting. Everyone showed great effort with the heat.

3. Yummy chicken and baked potatoes for dinner then a trip over to TJ max for some shopping.

4. Ben now has a mohawk, Stevie has found her new calling in life ;)

5. Ben now has to go for his hot skype date with Emma

(Cameras in Gary's van, pictures to come)

bonne nuit tout le monde

Tucson Day 1 & 2

2010-03-27T23:02:00.000-05:00

Firstly here are some pictures of the haircuts

The first day in Tucson started with a trip off to the University of Arizona pool for an hour and a half aerobic swim and then jumping off the 10m diving board. Then in the afternoon we went for a 3ish hour (78 km) ride, taking Old Spanish Trail down to Colossal Cave Mountain Park, then back to Saguaro National Park for a couple 8 mile loops around there. We finished the day off with a 30 - 60 min run around the park.

Today, we started off with another swim at the U of A pool with a 4x 4x 200 drafting set. Then we went to performance bike to eat our lunch well Riley Unger went and got some new cycling shorts because he forgot to bring his own. Once we got that all sorted out we went and cycled out to Mammoth, Az. It was a pretty challenging long ride with a 12 mile climb. In total the oldest athletes rode 121 km and the younger athletes around 110km. This was a great job for the younger athletes who have never gone for any sort of long ride before. Charles caught a wheel and took a spill on the way up Mammoth, leaving some beautiful road rash. After the ride we stopped in at the outlet mall for some speedy shopping.

Here are some pictures from the last couple days:

Tomorrow is another swim and then some bricks at the base of Mt. Lemmon.

TUCSON!!

2010-03-25T23:28:00.000-05:00

Just a quick update... We all made it down to Tucson today! We have an awesome house with beds for everyone and lots to do. Highlights of the evening in Tucson after a long day of travel included a short run to loosen up, building bikes, and Charles and Riley getting haircuts from Stevie.

The work starts tomorrow... pictures to come :)

PBs ALL AROUND!!!

2010-01-30T20:54:00.000-06:00

We had a great show of improvement in the pool today! 11 people swimming the 400 time trial and 11 new personal bests! Heat #1 had Josh, Riley U, Stevie and Riley. Josh swam extremely well taking down Blair Peters’ three year old team record in a time of 4:22 taking it out in a fast 2:09 through 200. The other three were very close through out the swim in the end Riley U swam 4:48, Stevie 4:50 and Riley M 4:51. Heat #2 had Charles, Roseria, Tyler and Ben. Charles showed some improvement from the last few months with a 4:58. Roseria swam a PB outkicking Tyler who had a breakthrough 20 second PB jumping down from 5:27 to 5:07. Amazing improvements from Tyler who just started swimming in the program 4 months ago and has taken almost a minute and a half of his time! Ben also swam well with a PB! The third and final heat was made up of Ashlyn, Janessa and Darian who all swam new personal bests! Darian dropped another 26 seconds off for a total of 1:42 dropped since he started the program in October. Ashlyn and Janessa dropped 9 and 19 seconds respectively. With improvements like this in January we’re expecting some strong results when it comes time to race in the summer!

Now everyone’s heading into 2 hard build weeks and only 54 days till Tucson!

3000 on the track!

2010-01-25T15:00:00.001-06:00

On Saturday, several MNTC athletes took part in the 3000 at the Athletics Manitoba Grand Prix Track Meet. There were 5 MNTC guys in the first section. Charles, Riley and Tyler ran close together throughout the whole race holding a good pace through the first 2km and picking it up towards the finish. All three of them set new personal best times Tyler at 9:19, Riley M. at 9:21 and Charles at 9:24. Also in the first heat were Ben and Riley U. Ben got a personal best finishing in 10:19 and Riley Unger ran 10:17. In the second section 12 year old MNTC youth athlete ran a personal best of 11:02. In the girls section 3 MNTC athletes took part. Janessa led the way for our girls in 12:00 followed by youth athlete Ashlyn at 12:15, and then Roseria who was just returning from injury at 12:45.

Coming up this week is some treadmill testing in the Canadian Sport Centre Manitoba Lab. Just over 2 months from today will mark the start of the MNTC Tucson Spring Break Training Camp.

Here are some picture from just before Saturdays race:

hopefully more pics to follow

Day by Day

2010-01-14T20:04:00.006-06:00

Mountaineers Finish Sixth at NCAAs

2009-11-23T18:16:00.002-06:00

By Kelly Tuckwiller for MSNsportsNET.com

November 22, 2009

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Seniors Clara Grandt, Keri Bland and Marie-Louise Asselin raced to All-American honors today as they led the West Virginia University cross country team to a sixth-place finish at the 2009 Division I Championship in Terre Haute, Ind.

"This group came into nationals weaker than we wanted to be, but found a way to return home with great pride in their performance," coach Sean Cleary says. "WVU, the state of West Virginia and all of our fans should be very proud of what these girls have accomplished."

BIG EAST foe Villanova took the title (86), while Florida State took second (133), Washington third (188), Texas Tech fourth (191), Princeton fifth (251) and WVU sixth (259).

Grandt, a West Union, W.Va., native, was the first Mountaineer to cross the line in 13th place (20:19) as she earned her first-ever All-America honors in cross country.

"Clara Grandt after coming so close to All-America status last season saved her best for last," Cleary says. "Words cannot describe how proud I am of her and the team she led today."

Asselin and Bland became WVU’s first-ever three-time All-Americans in cross country, finshing 31st (20:43) and 34th (20:45) respectively.

Sophomores Kaylyn Christopher and Kate Harrison also had excellent races, as Christopher finished 87th (21:21) and Harrison crossed the line in 94th place (21:25).

Sarah-Anne Brault finished 145th (21:54) and Ahna Lewis finished 174th (22:13).

Illinois senior Angela Bizzarri took the top spot, finishing with a time of 19:47, leading her team to the 12th overall team spot.

This year’s finish is the Mountaineers second-highest finish at NCAAs in school history, behind last season’s fourth-place showing.

For complete results, visit NCAA.com

Awesome race Sarah!!

Coaching Manitoba Coach of the Month and other news

2009-10-27T18:00:00.000-05:00

Well its been along time since we updated this but there wasn't very much going on in our Pre-Base period, but now as things are picking up there is more to tell about.

First off congratulations to our head coach Gary Pallett who was named Coaching Manitoba Coach of the Month for September. There is a video about Gary's coaching and our program here.

As well this year has been getting off to a good start for the program. There are a number of new athletes joining our program this year so welcome to Kaitlyn, Janessa, Hannah, Ashlyn, Tyler, Ben, Charles, Riley U., and Darian.

Manitoba High School Cross Country provincials took place last Wednesday and a number of MNTC team members took part. In the Junior Varsity Girls two new athletes took part and Janessa finished in 26th place and Kaitlyn in 38th. In Varsity boys Charles was the first MNTC athlete running into 6th, Riley MacCharles was 7th, Riley Unger around 11th, and Ben 20th. (note: the varsity boys results were messed up so these are what we think is right). New Athlete Tyler Mislawchuk ran a very strong race to win the Junior Varsity boys provincial championships. Tyler ran over 30 second ahead of the 2nd place finisher and ran a time which was very close to the Varsity Boys winner.

This week almost all of MNTC will be doing lab tests on the bike as we start into our base training period. Also some people are running age-class provincials on Saturday the 31st.

Paul Short Run - Sarah-Anne

2009-10-03T09:42:00.007-05:00

Sarah-anne is down in West Virginia running this winter and ran in the Paul Short Run Cross-country meet yesterday. Looks like she is doing great! Congratulations!!!

This is a video of the womens race:

Heres a interview with Flo Track:

Track and Field Videos on Flotrack

THANK YOU!!!!

2009-08-23T20:58:00.000-05:00

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

2009-08-23T15:11:00.007-05:00

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

2009-08-23T14:08:00.007-05:00

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

2009-08-10T11:30:00.004-05:00

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

2009-08-10T11:00:00.006-05:00

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!

2009-08-07T05:30:00.000-05:00

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!

Junior Nationals Race Report

2009-07-16T10:32:00.001-05:00

Last weekend we headed over to Gatineau, Quebec for the 2009 Junior National Championships. The weather was not ideal, the temp. was around 20 degrees with some thunder showers and hard rain. This made for some slippery conditions on the bike and a change in the run course. Early in the day the age group race had about 15 crashes so we knew we had to take the corners carefully. Despite the weather difficulties the races still ran smoothly with only minor delays to the start times.

The junior girls race started at 1:15. BC’s Hillary Wille was first out of the water, followed 18 seconds later by a group of six including Stevie. Then a group of four ten seconds later and a group of 7 including Racheal. Early on in the bike Stevie broke away with Christine from BC and opened up a 40 sec gap between them and the chase pack. Racheals was in the forth pack but worked on the bike to move her and her pack to the chase pack. The run consisted of two 2.5km loops. Racheal caught Stevie shortly after the 1.25km turn around but Stevie stayed with her until the final sprint where Racheal just beat Stevie to the line making them 10^th and 11^th place.

The junior guys race started around 2:00, and just like most races this year a lead group of 4 formed in the water and lead the way on to the bike. Josh and Mark were in 9^th and 10^th place out of the water, and were into a small chase pack behind the leaders. Riley was 2 packs behind that and then Trevor and Charles came out with the pack behind him. Unfortunately early into the first lap Mark got a flat and his day was done, and just a little later going around the turn around by transistion Riley took the corner too fast and crashed, ending his day. The group Josh was in got caught by the large pack behind him and after Cole Stewart crashed in the lead group and got back into the chase pack they closed the gap on the leaders down to 10 seconds on the last lap. So Josh came off the bike just a few seconds behind the leaders and Trevor about 1:30 back with Charles just a little bit further back. After the run Josh ended up in 16^th place overall Trevor 29^th and Charles 35^th.

Congratulations to all the athletes from other provinces who put on strong performances especially Allison Hooper 1^st, Gabrielle Edwards 2^nd and Marianne Hogan 3^rd in the Junior Girls, and Connor Hammond 1^st, Matt Vierula 2^nd and Marc-Antoine Christin 3^rd in the Junior Guys.

The team is now looking forward to there Canada Games training camp in Victoria to train with the BC team starting July 25^th which will lead them into their final race’s of the year which is Canada Games which takes place between August 15^th – 22^nd.

You can see some great pictures of the race here taken by Mark Bates from the BC team.

Quick Junior National Update

2009-07-11T17:31:00.004-05:00

Here's a quick update from today's Junior race. We woke up to dark skys and by 11 o'clock the rain was pouring on and off with some thunder rumbling in the distance. In the Junior girls race Racheal placed 10th and Stevie placed 11th. In the Junior Guy's race Josh placed 16th, Trevor placed 29th and Charles placed 34th in his first ever junior draft legal race. Mark flatted less than a kilometer in to the bike. Riley crashed going into his second lap on the bike. Results are here: guys and girls.

Here is a video of Riley crashing

Past couple of weeks and Canada Games Team announced

2009-07-04T23:00:00.002-05:00

A lot has happened in the last couple weeks since we got back from Montreal. When we returned we got right back into training to get ready for Nationals which is coming up next weekend in Gatineau, Quebec. We returned from Montreal on Monday and some of the highlights of the next week included 6 x 1km around 5km pace, tempo/threshold run workout and swim/bike brick at Bird's Hill, and later on in the week mini tris back at Bird's Hill.

On June 28th Sarah-anne competed at the Hy-Vee ITU Elite Cup in Des Moines, Iowa. She also competed in the Hy-Vee ITU Triathlon Team World Championships, which took place the following day. Both races were very exciting to watch with a incredible sprint finish by Simon Whitfield to take the win, Andrew McCartney from B.C winning the swim prime, Lauren Groves running up from the chase pack to 3rd and the relay team of Lauren Groves, Brent McMahon, Kathy Tremblay, and Simon Whitfield winning the bronze medal. The next week we kept up the training with bike testing including a 16.5 km time trial, 6 x 1km, and mini tris at Bird’s Hill.

So heading into Nationals, Mark is ranked 3rd in the Junior Series, Riley tied for 18th , Trevor and Josh just outside of the top 20. On the girls side Rachael is ranked 6th and Stevie 7th.

Just today Stevie ran a new personal best in the 5km at the Athletics Manitoba Provincial Championships / CSG trials.

The Canada Games selection has finally been made. The games will be held in Summerside Prince Edward Island, with the Individual Sprint Triathlon (750m swim, 20km bike, 5km run) being held on August 18th and the Team Triathlon (300m swim, 7km bike, 2km Run) being held on August 21st. The Manitoba triathlon Roster for the 2009 Canada Games is:
Female
Sarah-anne Brault
Rachael Edwards
Stevie Moore

Male
Joshua Drad
Riley MacCharles
Mark Okany
Alternate - Trevor Penner

Team Manitoba Girls

Sarah-anne Brault

Rachael Edwards

Stevie Moore

Team Manitoba Guys

Joshua Drad

Riley MacCharles

Mark Okany

Alternate - Trevor Penner

Coteau du Lac - Junior Race #2

2009-06-22T11:14:00.004-05:00

The second Junior Series race was this weekend in Coteau du Lac just outside of Montreal. After our plane got delayed for 2 hours we finally arrived in Montreal on Wednesday evening. On Thursday we went out to the race site and checked out the course. Friday we went swimming in the river with team Ontario and B.C. in the morning and then went back for the pre-race meeting in the afternoon. The race was on Saturday, and Roseria started off the day with an impressive first place finish in the U15 category. A little later on the junior guys started at 11:30 and the junior girls an hour later, followed by the elite races in the afternoon. The course was flat for both the bike and run and the swim had a dive start from a pontoon. In the guys race a lead pack of 6 or 7 formed shortly out of transition with a few small groups following them. By the end of the bike a very big chase pack had formed and included all of the Manitoba guys and they came into transition about 45 seconds behind the leaders. None the Manitoba guys had great runs but Mark’s was fairly good and he finished 11^th, Riley ended up in 24^th, with Trevor in 27^th and Josh in 30^th. Not quite the results they had been hoping for but they all gave a great effort! Next up was the junior girls race sort of like the guys race a lead pack of 5 formed at the start of the bike and Stevie was in this pack and a bigger chase pack was behind them and Rachael was in that pack. On the last lap the lead pack shrunk to 3 and coming off the bike they had about 30 seconds on the girls who got dropped from there pack and about a minute on the chase pack. Stevie was the first off the bike but didn’t have the run she was looking for at all and finished 10^th and Rachael ran up from the second pack to end up in 8^th. Sarah raced in the Elite women’s category and after just a few weeks back training for triathlon ended up in 11^th

So at the end of the day not everyone got the results they were looking for but they gave great efforts and are looking forward to Junior Nationals in Gatineau, Quebec on July 11^th. Good Luck to Sarah in Des Moines next weekend for the World Cup and World Team Triathlon Relay Championships.

Congratularions to all the other provinces for a great race! The top 3's ended up like this:

Junior Guys

Connor Hammond (Ontario)
Tristan Woodfine (Ontario)
Marc-Antoine Christian (Quebec)

Results here

Junior Girls

Kyla Coates (British Columbia)
Joanna Brown (Ontario)
Christine Ridenour (British Columbia)

Results here

Training this week...

2009-06-14T18:49:00.007-05:00

After the race Sunday, we had a nice recovery day on Monday. Then right back in to hard training Tuesday with a swim in the morning and a practice at Bird’s Hill with a mini tri. Wednesday we started with a swim and then some of us took an opportunity to improve our 5km run times. Good job to Stevie and Josh for having some pretty big PB’s and thanks to Riley and Mark for a wonderful job pacing. Thursday was a swim in the morning and back at Bird’s Hill where we did a mini tri, and then a cycle workout with the MCA team. Practiced echeloning and learned some great tips on the bike. Friday was a day off the bike with a swim in the morning and a speed run workout in the afternoon. Saturday we were at Bird’s Hill once again and we were joined by the Manitoba youth team for a mini tri and a mini duathlon. It was a great practice with solid efforts all around. Overall it was a great week with some hard training as well as some race specific work. Everyone is feeling ready and is looking forward to the second junior elite race in Montreal next Saturday.

Here is a link to the pictures from the race at Bird’s Hill last weekend.

http://www.ryandavidphotography.com/tttc_juniors/pages/044.htm

As well Mark and Trevor became male swim suit models on Friday and have finally figured out their true calling is

Junior Series Race #1 - Bird's Hill

2009-06-08T15:45:00.005-05:00

Here is a race report for first junior series race which was held yesterday at Bird's Hill Park. The weather was a cold 12°C and a bit of a wind. The water was 13.5°C which made it wetsuit mandatory swim. The guys race started at 8:00 the start was pretty close together which made for a pretty rough start. Mark and Josh were the first ones out of the water. Mark made the first pack but Josh just missed it. Trevor was in the pack just behind Josh and Riley was in the next one. Mark's pack caught the three leaders from the swim and other then that every stayed in their packs and remained about the same time differences. Onto the run Mark had a great run and ran into 3rd place overall (2nd Junior), Josh was 17th Junior, Riley was 18th and Trevor was 21st. The girls race started at 8:05. Sarah-anne and Stevie were out of the water together and managed to catch the lead girls before the end of the first lap on the bike. Racheal came out of the water a little bit further back and was in the chase pack on the bike. Unforunantly, Marita got sick during the swim and was unable to complete the race. Sarah-anne ended up 3rd overall, Stevie was 7th overall (5th junior), and Racheal was 9th overall (6th junior). Congratulations to Mark for breaking up the BC sweep in the medals. Thank-you to Mrs. Okany and the Triple Threat Triathlon Team for putting on a great race! as well as thank-you to all the volunteers and anyone else who helped out in anyway for making this race a success!

The results are found here.

Last little while

2009-06-02T21:00:00.001-05:00

So it has been a while since the last update but there is a lot to catch up on. After coming home from PATCO some athletes became sick from something in the water that they swam in but on Tuesday night there was another duathlon at Bird’s Hill which Trevor, Shayna, Stevie and Riley did. It was pretty windy again but it was still a good race. The rest of the week was fairly good with some solid training and working on getting everyone back to full strength. Early this week all the juniors ran a 5 km and congratulations to Mark, Riley, and Marita who all set new personal bests and many others who were very close to doing so. Stevie, Shayna and Roseria did the final duathlon of the series on Tuesday. Good Job to Stevie and Riley who both won the series overall through the 4 races, as well they both move up to 3rd on Gary’s All Time Top Ten Lists for the duathlon results.

Finally on Thursday Mark, Josh, Riley, Stevie, Shayna, Rachael and Roseria did a criterium bike race at Assiniboine Park. It was the first crit race for almost everyone so we didn’t really know what to expect. Shayna and Roseria raced in Cat 5, while everyone else raced Cat 4. Cat 5 went well and in Cat 4 everyone was doing very well for almost the whole race but on the last lap there were a few crashes, and unfortunately Josh went down in the very last corner, and other athletes were very close but managed to get to the finish safely.

On Saturday and Tuesday we went out to Birds Hill to get in the water and workout on the race course for next Sunday's Junior Series Race. Tuesday was sort of interesting with some crazy thunderstorms interrupting the end of our workout.

Here are some pictures from the crit:

Better late then never!...PATCO Race Review

2009-05-20T13:45:00.000-05:00

We arrived in Oklahoma on Wednesday the 13th for the race which took place on Saturday the 16th. Wednesday night we got a nice Oklahoma welcome as a number of tornados we're near the hotel. The next 2 days we joined the rest of the Canadian Juniors with race prep for the event. Friday evening we had the race meeting. It was better organized than last year in Mexico but race organization standards almost always seem poorer than they are in Canada, but always a great learning experience for the juniors but always stress out the coaches.The junior women's field had 57 entrants from 16 countries, while the men's race had 72 entrants from 19 countries.

Friday evening we had more storms but the rain stopped at 6 AM and fortunately stayed away for the races.Water temperature was just over the wetsuit cutoff so no wetsuits were allowed. The water was filthy although it was entertaining watching all of the athletes leave the water with mud beards from the dirty water. The girls race started at 8:00 AM. Christine Rideneaur from Canada made a solo break in the swim and left the water with a 20 second lead on a large chase pack. As always in international racing with large fields making the lead pack proved to be the most important part of the race. Marita left the water in 7th place (11:53) only a few seconds behind the 2nd place person. Rachael (12:18) and Stevie (12:22) left the water at the back of this group. I knew watching the race it was going to be tough for them to make the lead group. Rachael had a 48 second transition and Stevie 51 seconds leaving them 7 seconds apart. Both had to ride solo for the next mile to try to catch the pack. Rachael barely made it but Stevie didn't quite get there and once the group gets organized a solo rider doesn't have a chance. By the end of the 20 km bike the lead group of 13 had opened up a 90 second lead on the second group.

Rachael(19:45) had a great transition and made it out onto the run with the lead runners, she had a solid run and ended up 4th. Marita (21:32) had a strong run and held off most of the faster runners from the second pack and finished 14th. Stevie (21:12) came into transition first in her pack and took off running strong, beating most of the runners from her pack, finishing in 18th. In the guys race both Mark and Josh left the water about 30 seconds behind the leaders and both made the second pack. Unlike the women's race the 2nd pack had the better cyclists and managed to ride down all of the leaders except for 2 athletes who held the lead for the entire bike. At about 14 km Mark caught wheels with another Canadian rider and went down. Fortunately he wasn't seriously hurt but his day was over. Josh stayed in the group of 20 and then ran pretty well to finish 18th.

The roads were very poor resulting in a number of bike crashes, unfortunately the results didn't give splits for athletes who completed only part of the event so we have no results for Mark and Josh lost his timing chip in the swim so nothing for him as well. Great results from all of the Manitoban's overall as we managed to place everyone in the top third of starters.

The Canadian team had a lot of success with 4 podium finishes. Kyla Coates won the Junior Girls and Marianne Hogan was third, as well as Connor Hammond placed 2nd in the Junior Guys and Andrew McCartney finished 3rd in U23 Guys.

Click Here for the results http://www.fleetfeettiming.com/results.html

Yes, we swam in this!

Duathlon #2 and off to PATCO

2009-05-12T21:29:00.017-05:00

Well today was the 2nd duathlon at Birds Hill Park and only the athletes not going to PATCO this weekend were racing. The weather consisted of on and off rain with temperatures around 10˚ and quite a strong wind. The race went well with once again with great efforts from everyone. Thanks to the Tri-Force triathlon team for putting on this great series. Results can be found here.

Here are some pictures:

Tomorrow it is off to Oklahoma City for 5 MNTC athletes (Mark, Josh, Rachael, Marita and Stevie) who are heading down for the PATCO Continental athletes. Everyone is feeling ready for some fast racing, as well as looking great in their new suits.

Thanks to Olivier Mouyau [kiwamicanada@live.com] for helping set us up with a great suits (more info can be found here)

Also this weekend Riley and Trevor will be going to Thief River Falls for some early season racing, and Shayna and Roseria are doing another bike time trial on Thursday.
As well this over the past weekend we spent some time in the CSCM lab for a bike test and personal bests were had by almost everyone including a new team record for Stevie!

Everyone is looking forward to the upcoming weekend and are definitely ready for some great results.

First Bird's Hill Duathlon

2009-05-05T21:44:00.017-05:00

Tonight was the first duathlon of the year at Bird's Hill. Everyone on the team made it out as it was a very nice evening for a race with the temperature around 15˚ and lighter winds then we have had for the last little while. The race consisted of a fast 2km run around the lake, one loop of the bike course ~13km and one more 2km run around the lake. This race was fairly short but certainly not easy. Everyone seemed to be relaxed and excited to go and it certainly showed on the first run with some fast splits. The bike was tough for most people with the wind playing a big factor and possibly some tired legs from Sundays TT. The hard ride made for some hard seconds runs to follow. In the guys race it was Riley who finished first followed closely by Mark, then Josh and Trevor. In the girls race Stevie took the win followed by Marita, Roseria and then Shayna and Rachael (who was not really racing but just helping Shayna out). After the race everyone seemed to be happy and most importantly more ready for some fast racing in a just over a week at PATCO. Results can be found here

Here are some pictures from today:

Road ITT #1 Birds Hill Park

2009-05-04T17:07:00.012-05:00

This Sunday, most of us went out for the first bike time trial of the year at Bird’s Hill, which consisted of two 11km loops around the park. The day went fairly well considering most of the team have never time trialed before and weren’t sure what to expect. Josh, Marita, Shayna, Riley, Stevie, Trevor and Rachael all showed up and once we all ready to go we headed out to do one warm-up lap on the course with some 15-30 sec sprints. Warm up went well but we discovered the conditions weren’t as ideal as we would have wanted them to be. There was a big head wind on the south side of the loop making it very tough but, no one let that get to them and gave a maximal solid effort just as we intended to do. While it was a tough race, having teammates with us and great support from the parents made the race go by quicker and gave us motivation to go faster. We finished off the day with a 30 minute run off the bike, to complete a solid day of training. Most of us enjoyed our first time trial (especially Josh who got $50) and look forward to more in the future!

Here are a couple pictures:

Not sure who this guys thinks he is but he should definitely work on his TT starts:

Also Congrats to Sarah-Anne on her 16:44 5km over the weekend. WELL DONE!!

Let the blogging begin...

2009-05-01T21:29:00.001-05:00

Since everyone else seems to be blogging these days. We decided that we would also like to keep everyone up to date on training, racing and such.

Last weekend we did our first bike races of the season (while actually ever). Mark, Stevie, Josh and Riley raced in Cat 4 and had a great time. The first race on the Saturday was 68 km and when we showed up we were hit by a suprise snow storm which quickly covered the roads. Fortunatly by the time the race started the roads had cleared off. The winds were quite strong making the day tough for the breakaways and ended up in a bunch sprint. Unfortunatly we had no idea what to expect and ended up going to early and getting passed in the last 75 meters. Lnks to results are found on this page . On Sunday only Riley made it out for the shorter 56 km, but made worth the effort winning the race with a solo break away in the last lap. Results are here.

The rest of the week was fairly solid with lots of tough work in the water and some solid bike intervals followed by a threshold run on Thursday.

Most people will be out at a time trial bike race on Sunday and then the first multisport races of the year with the Tuesday duathlons starting next week.

From your friends in central Canada,

MNTC