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

Mountaineers Finish Sixth at NCAAs

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

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

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!!!!

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!