AV Clytoneus

Today (the 20th) Mark and I leave for the Netherlands.  We will be on our flight at 6:45pm and arriving in Holland around 2pm on the 21st.  Training has been going very well, we are both injury free and the tapering has us both in form for personal bests regardless of how late we are into the season.  The startlist is out and there will be 33 men lining up to start the decathlon come next saturday. This is very exciting news for us, as it is the largest competition we have ever been in with athletes coming from all over Europe to compete.

Here is a link to view the startlist "http://woerden.dichtbij.nl/sport/startveld-bijna-bekend-woerden-athletics-2526-augustus-2012

Chen and I have new running shoes, so we have that going for us...and it's nice!  Being two relatively heavier guys and putting the amount of time we do on the track, we tend to demolish our flatts quicker than the average 150 pound track athlete.  While were on the note of packing lets show you how decathletes pack and what we go through having to compete in 10 events, from the shoes to the clothing we go through. #packinglikeadecathlete

Other than that not much has changed as we head overseas for 20 days, the competition will be followed by a nice visit to Ireland.  Chen's big sister lives there, so we will check out the sites and see how we can leave a little bit of Canadian flair on the country side!

As we head off for our last Decathlon of the year, we would like to thank the Coaches who helped us along the way to some great performances (James, Ryan, Lou, Jeff) and all our therapists your help has kept us able to compete this long!  Lets finish this season off on a strong note, got nothing to lose.

Olympic Fever

It seems the Olympics have come and gone.  There have been so many ups and downs for not just the athletes, but what seemed to be an entire nation. From the womens soccer to the mens 4x100. World records fell, and Olympic records were eclipsed.  The average age for the Canadian athletics team was 24.5 years, a young team that still managed to "inspire a generation".  Hats off to all athletes and friends.  Derek Drouin won our only medal with his 2.29m high jump, placing him 3rd.  But what would this be if we didn't single out fellow decathlete Damian Warner on his 2nd best all time Canadian performance with 6 individual personal bests and a massive 300+ point overall best.  Mark and I feel as motivated as ever to continue training and get to the next level for Rio 2016.

As the Olympics captivated and consumed all of our free time we managed to squeeze in our own training. As we prepare to leave to Holland in 8 days our workouts have taken on a higher intensity with lower volume overall. We are in our final week of workouts, lots of technical and short sprints with a one or two humdred meter that should get a bit of a lactic burn in there....yay!

Tonight the Olympics came to a close, very bitter sweet. As the torch is passed on so is the dream. The games may be done but the spirit is very much alive and well. Congradulations again to all the athletes in all sports for Canada. Congrats also to the new world records set by the Jamaican mens 4x100, American womens 4x100, Rudisha of Kenya in the 800m, and finally Elena Lashmanova of Russia in the womens 20km race walk. Mark and I sat here and watched you all compete whether that be live on tv, or streaming on our computers.  At times we had 3 sources going.

This is some serious dedication.  Not to mention every time we saw someone we knew we had to shout out their name, as if the other didnt already know who it was. It's just part of the Olympic spirit if you ask me.

Go Canada. You have represented us well.

Yours truly, Ottawa's Decathletes.

Move in Complete

After that long week of painting and renovating, Pat and I are finally all moved in to our new place.  Even begun to make it feel a little bit more "homey"with a few trips to Ikea.  Pat wasn't thrilled with that as he hates going to the Ikea store in Ottawa (Largest one in North America I hear).  Although he had a good laugh when as we were walking in he saw the kids play area and noticed they are all numbered and kept saying "I'll take a number 12 please".

Here's a cool photo from the Men's 100m final at the finish line (Medal winners: Bolt 9.63s, Blake 9.75s, Gatlin 9.79s)

The only down side is that during the transition to the new house we have been left without cable and internet.  This makes watching the olympics very difficult, although we still managed to see Usain repeat his gold medal in the 100m in a new Olympic Record.  We've also been trying to keep track of all our Canadian Athletes and friends competing at the games.  Shout out to, Inaki Gomez on a new Canadian Record and 13th place finish in the Men's 20Km race walk, and Ryan Cochrane on his Silver medal in the Men's 1500m Freestyle.  Congrats to all others competing at the games, you are all champs!

As for our training, we're really gearing up for Woerden putting in a few more miles than in the past couple weeks attempting to work on our sprints and 1500m pace (which I've come to learn I have terrible pacing, Pat can attest to that).  On Saturday we had Pat's boss from Canadian Strength Sean Young hop in our workout (300m, 600m, 300m 90s rest, then 8 mins 500m), which was great as he helped keep us on a consistent pace and even pushed us huge in the last few runs..Thanks for the push!  We end this cycle with a twilight meet competition on Wednesday, our last chance to compete before we leave.  It looks like we're both tackling hurdles, pole vault and a potential 300m.  TBD.

Thanks!