Day 4 - Lemmon

           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

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

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!!

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!!!

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!

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