So far in 2017 I am halfway to my TOTAL milage in 2014. In the off season (since Sept. 1st) I've run more than I did in TOTAL in 2014. In 2017, I'm already on track to run 150-200% of my total mileage in 2016.
It hasn't just been about the mileage. I've been really making sure I'm training smart this year and not running everything on trails and pavement. I've been spending a lot of time doing laps at a local soccer field and even driving to dirt roads to do my tempo runs so that I stay injury free. It's a bit more work time-wise but well worth it! The weather has been so nice lately that I've been able to get 1-2 quality workouts in per week throughout the whole winter. This hasn't happened in Ontario for me and it NEVER happened when I was living in NB.
I've been seeing some pretty big gains, and in the past 7 days (Thursday to Thursday) I've run the highest mileage week I've ever ran and I'm feeling great! I'm seeing progress in my tempos and I've been feeling very efficient. I want to point out that I'm not neglecting the other two sports, I'm just doing everything I can to see some progress this year in my running.
I plan on starting off my season in Richmond, Virginia again in May at the ITU Sprint CAMTRI American Cup. Then I'll have a little break to really get some training in once school is done to race our National Championships in Ottawa again this year. The format is going to be very interesting and something I've never done. It will be a heats and finals event with a super sprint race for the heats and a finals event as a sprint distance race on the following day. I'm both nervous and excited to try this new format! After that I'll head down to Des Moines again for the ITU CAMTRI American Cup this time for an Olympic distance race. It will be a hot and hard race, and I'm looking forward to it!
This is my concrete list of races that I will be doing. I'm definitely going to try and get into more races and look at racing a fall race but I can't guarantee what/where that will be. I will also be racing the Ontario Draft Legal Series again and maybe another few 5/10k road races to test the fitness.
In 2017, I started training with the Fighting Koala's under Mat Reid. It has been a lot of fun and I'm really looking forward to working with the team for this year and in the future!
I know that a lot of people back home have been wondering what my racing and training have been looking like. I apologize for being off grid for such a long time. I've always found that the better training has been going, the less I tend to be on social media and blogging. So if you see me off social media again for a little while, it probably means I've been training really well!
Thanks to Aberdeen Subaru, Human Performance Centre, Triathlon New Brunswick and Radical Edge for their continued support. I really couldn't be racing at this level anymore without your support!
