No School = Train More!

It's been a few weeks since our last post, figured it was time for another! Sorry for all those adoring fans waiting anxiously by your computers...HA!

We've made the big move indoors now, and it's fantastic.  This feeling will most likely change come February, but for now indoors is heaven.  Mostly because it's dry and warm!  This will be a huge benefit as apparently (according to my mum) Hurricane Sandy is supposed to come-a-knockin' in the next few days.  Bringing some serious wind and rain.  Dry sounds real good now..  

This past week was reading week (only for uOttawa and one other school though) so sorry to all other uni goers, but it was awesome.  All we did was train, eat, sleep and train again.  I love that life.  But tomorrow we get back to school again; although, practices will keep rolling on as usual just with less sleeping in the middle of the day.  Not too happy about that, but what can you do..Will weights and all that good stuff getting serious here's a funny picture I found floating around the internet.  Zachy and Lou this is for you! haha

The combined events group has been and continues to work hard this fall and with the increased volume of this season building on last years workload, Pat and a few others have been suffering some lovely runner pains known as shin splints.  A combination of transitioning onto a harder surface and more mileage can sometimes have that affect on an athlete.  The minor aches can sometimes turn into major pains when not treating them proactively. There are also a few more hands in the cookie jar helping out with the group, making it ever more important that communication between athletes and coaches be a regular occurence.  On that note we are all very excited for this season both indoors, and outdoors.  Just in case you're suffering as well here's a few random stretches that may help.  

Lastly, Pat and I received a nice surprise the other morning getting mentioned in a video hyping the past 2012 Woerden Athletics Invitational that we went to in August.  Here's the video compliments of Henk Bakker and all the Woerden Athletics organizers:  https://vimeo.com/52226580

..Thanks for the mention Rachael!  

Well this was just a brief post, getting our feet moving again.  Stay tuned!

Welcome to fall training.

Fall has arrived, this means a few things for Mark and I;
1) Hills
2) Soreness
3) Weight circuits
4) Repeat 400's 600's and 800's
5)...more hills
6) Ice baths
7) Compression socks

So far we have been back at training for one week and are in our 2nd week back now. We have been rather sore and feeling mildly out of shape. I would like to follow this past comment with a direct quote from coach himself; "As I have mentioned, we are tweaking things fairly significantly in regards to volume. You will pretty much feel that right away."However, Coach James ensures us that we will be back to our normal fitness levels in no time and be further building upon the ups and downs from the 2012 season. Every season should be building upon the last, this is how we will make the gains required from us both.  Here's a video showing perfect example of how our group looks like right now. Minus the whole work part and substitute it for "have been training for 3 weeks, and first week back."  You get the picture, it's been a rough one.

Training aside, Mark and I both have big plans this summer with the hopes and training ethic to qualify for the World University games in Russia, as well as Francaphone games in the south of France. Furthermore, we have plans on opening at Jim Click in Tuson, AZ. Assuming there is another PanAm Cup team we are also hoping to compete there. That being said, these things continue to be funded from our own pockets (aside from Francaphone) and we have both deisgned a collaberative race resume in hopes of picking up sponsors for the 2012-2013 season.  Here's hoping!

As the fall colours begin to show and mother nature changes so does our training group. We have already welcomed a few new athletes to our group and we will be welcoming another to the heptathlon group shortly, she is from Mexico and was in Ottawa for the PanAm Cup this past summer.  Her name is Karla :)

As we sign off, I would like to leave you with this picture featured in the Fall edition for Intersport's catalogue.  Whose that good looking' dude on the right? (Colour commentary via Mark)