Author: Christine Cogger

It’s a good thing I like warm weather, both for training/racing and general hanging out. When I got into my car at 4:30 yesterday, the temperature gauge read “51”… celcius. It cooled down to a balmy 37 by the time I got to my destination.

It’s been a fun week. Wednesday was the annual Pemberton Spud Run, a “7K” fun race. Turns out 7K was actually 10 but hey! Scored a 2lb sac of potatoes for my efforts (as did everyone else who showed up). Ran most of the run with Carlee who is fresh off of a personal best 1/2 marathon 2 days before! Jen and Abs ran with us too.

Dan, Carlee & Jen

Finally climbed back on my bike yesterday and to my glee, my legs felt…great! France may not be a total disaster after all!

Pretty nice place for a swim

This morning was back into the lake, which also means back into the wetsuit. It was suprisingly chilly! Good to get out there though. I have figured out that I am SUCH a lazy lake swimmer, I spend the first half of the swim floating, looking around, blowing bubbles! I need someone to be right on my shoulder to give me that motivation to keep my head down and just swim.

Some people look all cool and badass in swim gear. Evidently, I do not.

As for the rest of it, the week has involved pool time with the kiddos, picking paint colours and watching Jay reno, walking dogs and picking berries. Not such a bad way to spend the summer!

We spent the weekend in Nelson at a wedding. It’s a super little town, complete with lake, good trails and the best coffee shop I’ve seen in a long time osonegrocoffee We stayed at the Hume Hotel (which is haunted, thank you very much) and spent the weekend cruising around and attending wedding-related affairs.

The boys at the park in Nelson. Will stole my smoothie.

On our way we stopped in Armstrong to break up the drive and drop the dogs off at the grandparents. I took the opportunity to head out for a little run in the evening. I usually run the same “square”. I dislike 3/4 of the run, but there’s 1/4 that makes it worth it. It reminds me of running in the East: fields, rolling terrain and a horizon, something I don’t get to see often in the Whistler/Pemberton corridor. My legs were DONE but it was good to get out.

I’m back home how, facing down a training program from Val that ought to get me going again… Next up, Squamish tri relay, Vancouver Sprint and the very competitive SPUD RUN tomorrow morning!

And of course, only 2 weeks till I head to France. Might be time to peel the race numbers of the bike and get on it again!

Ok, so the training wheels kind of make it hard to pedal (he gets high centered, then it’s kind of like riding the rollers…) but it won’t be long till we are riding together!

http://www.youtube.com/get_player

So… Hello! How are you? How’ve you been?
Yes, I’ve been MIA. But I’m back! What can I tell ya, life gets in the way…

Recap since winter: training & life went well. I was pretty diligent in sticking to my program despite kids, work, house reno, travel, social life, etc. Most weeks I’d hit about 85-90% of the volume I’d been assigned, which is good for me.

Swimming came along, slowly slowly slowly. I’ll never be Michael Phelps, let’s face it. But I am comfortable in the water and more importantly, coming out of the water. I’m even considering Alcatraz, something I SWORE I’d never try. Jump off a boat? Into the FREEZING cold ocean? Not a chance… or maybe?

I was a bit worried about my riding, since I’d had less time on the bike than in previous years (2 kids in the winter will do that to a girl…) I did get some rollers and I do think it made a difference in my riding. It was a chilly spring here so there were VERY few rides without tights, jackets, etc. Some very nice rides up to the Callaghan made for some great spring riding. Check it out, http://www.callaghancountry.com/company/olympics.php

My running has been steady. I completed the Vancouver first 1/2 marathon in February (!) and I was pleasantly surprised that I didn’t die. Val kept me pretty steady after that, keeping my running to a very manageable level.
Most importantly I didn’t have any physical problems at all in preparation for Oliver!

So… Oliver!
I was apprehensive about how well my training had prepared me for this race. I knew I was feeling good but my head was a little bit all over the place and I was having a little bit of a hard time focusing on race prep in the week leading up to the event. It took me forever to get my race plan together, eventually completing it at about 4pm on Saturday. Yay for cramming!

Saturday morning was SUPER windy, made for a really fun warm up swim!! Check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/get_player

So race day… up at 5. Had some breaky and coffee and then BAM! Where, oh, where does the time go when it’s race day? 2.5 hours are GONE!
7:30AM start with my 1100 fellow racers. I was happy with my swim (though I am quite certain that if you were to GPS me, I could prove that I swam probably 2.5K instead of 2K 😉
Out of the water, trotting along to the transition far FAR away. Found my bike and off I went. Lap 1 was easy peasy, lap 2 the wind picked up! Really enjoyed the guy on the side of the course who kept cheering for “ya Rocky girl!” My computer crapped out somewhere along the way, so I had no real idea how fast (or not, as the case may be) I was going.
Off the bike, started to “run” out of transition. I won’t lie. It wasn’t pretty. I was getting passed like I was being shot at from behind! High-Five Oakley boys, nice to see you on the course, hope you were enjoying those Coors light.
I wasn’t too concerned, I just kept trotting along, eventually passing most of those jokers who passed me.
Kept it together to eventually finish in 5:20:55. Personal best by 9 minutes! Yay!
As always, a very well run race, put on by some tremendous folks. Here are some photos, courtesy Lena Martin and, well, me.

Oliver Peoples. Can you tell who’s happy about the chop and who’s not?

That’s me, chasing Fred. Sigh… time to retire the silver shorts, I do believe.

Smiling. Must be the last lap. Nice tan, by the way. Or not.

So now what?
Gooooood question.
Had a nice week off, headed to Masters tomorrow morning for a little butt kicking. Not sure what race I’m going to do next, ANY SUGGESTIONS?

In the meantime, I will start to get ready for my “summer job”… http://www.tdf-tours.com/
Gonna go chase Lance around France, I’m sure he won’t mind.

It’s been a busy few days at the housesold… Jay was away Thursday and Friday so the boys and I hung out together a lot!
Thursday was a relatively easy day, only doing a bit of strength training in the evening after the boys went to bed.
Friday was another beautiful sunny day in Whistler so Jen and I loaded up the kidlets in the strollers and we logged a hilly 10K through town. It was made all the more challenging by the fact that I had forgotten my Yak Traks and the trails are still fairly snowy. This is Rory and I before we got suited up to go…

Saturday was long swim day (sorry – no cameras allowed! haha) 3000 meters followed by coffee and toast, the only redeeming part of the morning as far as I am concerned. Saturday afternoon was quiet in the house, perfect for some stretching and yoga time.

Sunday was by far the busiest day! Race to leave the house by 8:30 for Will’s swimming lesson. During that time, Rory hung out on the pool deck in his car seat while I logged some drills in the pool to try to rectify my left side imbalance… Then it was down to the Callaghan at the Whistler Olympic Park to check out the World Cup XC race – very impressive and inspiring. We headed home after the Team Pursuit so that I could head out for my long run (14Kish) and a quick spin.

Over the river at the start of the run. Fog bank!

I remembered them this time!

Self-portait “action shot! Runs go by a lot faster this way

Not a bad place to run…

Nice view

I did as I was told…
Took Monday off to rest and got up dark and early on Tuesday to squeeze in 5K before work. Legs are pretty tired but it was nice to run in Vancouver and change the scenery.
On tap for tonight is some strength work and a bike test – but only after the boys go to bed!

Sunday’s run took a lot of effort just to get out and do… It was grey, a bit drizzly and we were TIRED. If Jen had called to cancel, there would not have been much motivation on my part to get out the door solo.
We were good girls though – we just went out and did it. We slipped and slid and shuffled through 13K in some pretty dirty conditions. Good for us!
I was supposed to ride the trainer for 30mins when I returned home, but as luck would have it, neither boy was asleep so that put an end to those plans!

It’s Monday evening now, I am in a cozy hotel room in Vancouver… alarm set for 6, plan to head out for a 10K before work. It’s fun to run in the dark in the city in the morning!

Today started off with a long swim, 3150 meters. Somewhat tolerable, since we started with the longer sets and worked our way down. The workout was not made much easier by the Sake and Asahi consumed at dinner last night (thanks, Casper!)

Post-swim I had to skip Tea & Toast (the highlight of the swim, unfortunately for me) to join the boys for a snowy ski. Legs are tired after snowplowing through the freshies!

On tap for tomorrow is a long run and 30 min ride. Then perhaps time to finish some work?