New year, new goals.

This entry will mark our final post of the 2012 season;

It has been quite the year Mark and I have had. We both experienced ups and downs. However, for the most part our season saw more ups than anything. We saw some national medals both indoors and outdoors, we were both graced with the opportunity of representing our country in our very own city, we traveled Europe...and we had a few personal best's along the way. As we sit back and reflect upon our past 2012 season we begin plotting our assault on the 2013 season. Chen's short term goals remain on getting healthy and back into full training mode. He has had some good news of late, and all things are pointing to a speedier recovery than originally estimated. See, it pays to have a 3rd, 4th, and 5th opinion sometimes! Here is a picture of Chens reward for all his hard work into getting expert opinions and monotonous rehabbing. Enjoy Vic!

The 2013 indoor season is already upon us. I (Pat) just recently competed in my first meet of the season. I don’t expect much from indoors, as it is never a focus. My indoors serves more as a test of fitness and a reminder of what competition feels like. That being said, I had a solid competition at the Louis-Riel super Saturday series. I set a new dome record in the shot put with a throw of 14.67m (Seen below, video analysis!)

I also set a new personal best on my way to winning the hurdles with a time of 8.48 which eclipsed my oldest outstanding personal best of 8.51. Here is a blurry and a cut off video of the race this past weekend >

http://www.runnerspace.com/eprofile.php?event_id=5274&do=videos&video_id=78177.

I have been working a lot on trying to fix my running technique as of late. Always more work ahead, but it is nice to see some results for the countless hours being put into the project. I also competed in some Pole Vault. I opened at 4.16m and this proved to be my only height, I will continue to jump from a short approach runway for the next month or so.

Indoors is heating up! But, we are already planning our spring time openers in Arizona. This time of year has provided Chen and I with a lot to think of in terms of goals and Decathlon opportunities. Just to be clear, there are 4 major competitions which we hope to each make. This list of international events include FISU (Russia), Francophone (South of France), Pan-Am Cup (being held in Ottawa again), and the AV Clytoneus meet (Holland).

Before we sign off, Chen and I would like to acknowledge the retirement of one of our greatest competitors in the sport of Decathlon. This week Jamie Adjetey-Nelson announced his retirement from the Decathlon (nice article about Jamie here>) http://blogs.windsorstar.com/2012/12/18/windsor-decathlete-adjetey-nelson-retires/. Jamie has one national titles, set one of the best scores in the history of Canada, and won Commonwealth just to name a few of his accomplishments. You never competed against Jamie as an athlete, you were always with him. It was an honour to have had the privaledge to compete with a man who was chearing you on the entire way. Chen and I both have memories of Jamie, one of which is his pre-1500m song he once oh so lovely serenaded us with at nationals. You cant ever help finding yourself wanting him to be the best he could at every run, jump and throw he attempted. Best of luck to a legend in the sport in his next chapter of life. If you live half as good as you competed your going to be just fine :)

We end our last blog of the 2012 season by wishing everyone a Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year. Safe travels home for all, and to all a good night.

Yours truly, the Decathlon-Duo.

 

Santa! is quite small these days...

So these past few weeks have been fairly eventful.  To start we finished off Movember, well Pat did..because thanks to a good pal of mine, I've promised to keep it going until our reunion in another 2 weeks...so the teen stash stays! Pat decided to 'style' his mo, creating a very John Waters-esque look if you ask me.  Google him, it's worth it.  Here's the evidence of how our final days turned out (including a few of Pats Canadian Strength co-workers..great look guys!).

Then since it's getting closer to that majestic holiday we call Christmas we decided to go Christmas shopping, which turned into self shopping (and a holiday dinner at the Bay, see below).  But more more importantly we made the decision that this was a great time to go visit Santa for a family household picture!  Somehow I remember Santa being a bit larger when we were younger.  I think Santa needs more milk and cookies (well maybe not cookies).  Not a bad little house I'd say.

Last Saturday was also the Ottawa Lions awards banquet, where Pat and I both picked up awards from the past 2 seasons.  Pat grabbed the Field Athlete of the Year and I won the Combined Events Athlete of the Year.  We were awarded some lovely certificates and those delightful mugs you see in the bottom left corner of the picture above.  For the picture we were just supposed to pretend taking a sip because our tea was extremely hot, but my hand accidentally slipped hence the triangle face I'm making.  Oh well thanks for the mugs either way Lions!

Looking good receiving our awards!  

Last practice Pat and I decided to video some of the pole vault hanging drills we had.  Take a look, if you have any others you think are a good please let us know!

I have been a bit hampered by lower ab pain so my training has been minimized significantly; but Pat however, went into beast mode the other night and had a PB clean, lifting 315lbs.  Not too shabby eh?...here's another quick video showing the magic moment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ugSLmY1XqWE

So while Pat lifts heavy weights, I'll be sticking to my rehab exercises like they were going to win me the lottery.  It gets tedious but it's something that needs to get done.  So what I started doing, and I highly recommend, is writing in a notebook.  In it I write down everything I do (exercise, drills, etc.), if it hurts or not, and how much it hurts.  Then the next day I go back and write whether I was still sore or not.  This has been SO helpful, as now coaches and therapists are able to see what you think rather than try to probe you for info.  And honestly when you have a memory as bad as mine, you can very easily forget the degrees of pain you feel day to day.  Give it a shot if you're battling injuries, or even if you're not it's a great way to keep track of your body.

I'll end this by leaving you with my wonderful drawing showing two of the exercises I've been doing.  Pretty good think..So long!

 (and yes the second one makes you look like a dog at a fire hydrant)

Movember

This blog finds us 2 weeks into Movember, a time where our lip sleeves turn us into real men! Or atleast we like to think. Aside from our fuzzy moustaches trying to push through into the sunlight, training is continuing to grow in volume as well. We have dubbed our Movember as man month. A number of us have taken on the Paleo diet for the month. Essentially this is an emphasis on wild and game meats, lean cuts of beef, eggs, nuts, seeds, vegetables and certain fruits. We have cut out any and all alcohol also. Man month also features a minimum of 5 workouts per-week. Here is a picture of how I kicked off my man month, 225lb plank for 60 seconds.

We continue to try and fit two workouts per day in when we can and when it is called for. Chen has been experiencing that nuissance of a lower abdominal pain again. He is taking the proper precautionary steps to avoid furter aggrivation, which unfortunately sometimes involves missing a workout or two along the way. My shin splints have all but gone away with a few weeks of monotonous exercises and biking. I am now able to spike up and complete a workout without pain.

Chen and I have been doing lots of hurdle work, focusing on cadence and being light on our feet. Especially with hurdles it is important to have a faster turnover rate in-between those 42" barriers. We continue to make small changes to older bad habits on our way to a competitive indoor season, where Mark hopes to improve on his record setting 2011 season. Personally, I have taken it upon myself to stretching for 20-30 minutes every day. I feel like it is a crucial part to my homecare which has taken a back seat in the past. No more, I will lift my knees when I run this year!

Indoors is fast approaching, with the first meet held December 1st at Saint-Lawrence College, NY. Indoors is slightly more competive for Chen as he will represent the varsity team as a Gee-Gee at the OUA and CIS level. I on the other hand use indoors as competitive opportunities to remind myself what it feels like to compete and stay sharp. There will be no peaking for meets in this indoor season from my perspective.

Our training will continue to be strength acquisition for a few more weeks. This cycle fine tunes our joints and tendons to be able to stay in one piece when the loading becomes more intensely focused on accumulation. A fancy way of saying we will be lifting big things this winter :)

Last but not least. I would like to thank Sean Young, owner of Canadian Strength for sponsoring me this past month. Sean has provided me with the essential vitamins and supplements which were missing from my every day routine. I am a proud strength coach at Canadian Strength, come check us out and see how we can help you. Visit us at http://www.canadianstrength.ca/ or check us out on facebook http://www.facebook.com/Canadian.Strength?fref=ts

Just in case you wanted a glimpse of our staches here you go, just remember they are more lush in person. Much. More. Lush!

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)

Dec's and Flights and Cliffs oh my!

Well after a months hiatus and our last decathlon completed we are back from Europe.  Thrown back into "real" life and the start of school for myself and work for Pat.  We are also currently enjoying the last couple weeks of our off-season and time off.  

We arrived in the Netherlands 4 days before the start of competition and spent those days with final training preparations and being complete tourists in the town.  Renting bikes and venturing around the town (Woerden), leaving no statue without a picture.  Here's an example of our fun with our great crew including: Jen, Rachael and Craig. 

We had to re-create the figure skating picture as our coach (James) told us it was a tradition.  Here is his teams attempt.

The actual decathlon was awesome.  Littered with talent and class acts, it's hard not to enjoy yourself.  Day one was a bit more wet than we would have liked and I think it showed in our performances, as all three of us had less than solid starts.  After day one, sitting back of our day one point pb's we knew we needed to step it up and compete.  This showed as our hurdles were near pb's for both Pat and I.  Although there was still a little disappointment as we had terrible starts, getting beaten handily to the first hurdle.  Pat went on to win the discus throw, throwing 45.xxm.  The next event proved to be the highlight for both Pat and I, the pole vault.  In this event I went on to pb and clear 4m for the first time in competition, and a new pb of 4.43m for Pat.  The dec finished off with solid 1500m as well, with both Pat and I getting pb's again.  Pat narrowly missing out (and I mean narrowly) on cracking that sub 5 minute barrier running 5:00.06.  Ouch!  I had a 2.5 second pb running 4:42.xx.  It was a great way to end our last decathlon with Pat finishing 8th with 7057 points, and myself in 9th with 6982 points.  Congrats to Craig on completing his first international meet as well finishing 13th!  All that was left was to round up  the boys for pictures and the closing ceremony, as well as trying to collect some very memorable gear.  Just like in international soccer matches it is common for athletes to exchange uniforms after competing.  

    Here is a shot of the boys (top), and Team Canada sporting a couple newly found singlets along side Sam our British competitor and photographer Bjorn.  (You can't see it on any of us but all three of the Canadians got our Czech singlets signed by previous WR holder in the Decathlon Tomáš Dvořák who was there coaching).  Special thanks to coaches Ingrid and Les for all their help and support over the week we were together.  You exceeded any expectations we already had, and we cannot thank you enough!

After the meet the local club (AV Clytoneus) put on a feast and get together right at the track to share some laughs and say goodbye to the other athletes.  Great hosts, you can always count on them to show you a good time!

Then we were off to Amsterdam with Craig for a couple days before our flights to Ireland to visit my sister. We were even lucky enough to meet up with a few of my old training partners in Amsterdam (Maggie, Claire and Casey), who were in Belgium competing in their final meets.  Great times!  Then we said our goodbyes once again and headed off to the airport with Craig where he was flying back to Calgary and we were off to Ireland..or so we thought!  Turns out leaving plane tickets to the last minute is not a good idea financially or timing wise; although it did give us time to stumble across one of Hollands greatest cities (in our opinion), Zandvoort.  This place was insanely beautiful, it had some of the best beach restaurants around and was only a short train ride from Schipol airport.  After our short-lived stay in Zandvoort, Pat and I trained back to Schipol where we caught our early morning flight to Cork, Ireland.  

Once we arrived in Cork we stayed with my sister who lives in a small town about an hour outside of Cork.  We were only at her house for nights before we went off on a 5 day tour of Ireland and Northern Ireland.  Venturing up to Dublin, Belfast, Portrush, and finally Galway before heading back to the farm.  Along the way we stopped at every scenic or touristy spot as well as checking out some local hotspots.  In Dublin we obviously had to check out the Guinness Storehouse and factory, then just spent the next couple days cruising the Irish pub scene and enjoying the whack of Gaelic Football fans in town for the big match.  After Dublin we went for a quick visit to Belfast then continued on up to Portrush in Northern Ireland.  Stopping along the way at the Carrick-a-Rede, a 100ft high rope bridge over the ocean.  This was absolutely stunning and a little nerve racking as the Irish don't believe in fences or rails preventing you from climbing to the edge of the cliffs.  Not a good idea when Patrick is with you (Sorry Audrey!).  

The next place we visited was the Giant's Causeway.  This is an area of weird looking rocks that were said to be made by a giant connecting steps from Ireland to Scotland.  We just thought they looked like a cool place to run around and do handstands (you tell us which is better, I'm top right and Pat is bottom left).  On our way leaving from Giant's Causeway we stumbled upon this awesome castle (which are everywhere in Ireland), sitting dangerously on the edge of a cliff.  Needless to say, once we saw it we ran out to check it out.  Too bad it was closed; although that didn't stop us from taking a quick look around.    

After Portrush we continued down to Galway, stopping at the Bushmills Irish Whiskey Distillery on the way.  This was a very cool experience and I would have loved to take pics.  Too bad because of the alcohol content in the air we weren't allowed.  Insane!  After a nice early start to our day we road tripped to Galway, which is a cool little port city.  While there we took a ferry ride over to the Aran Islands.  Well just one of the islands, Inis Mor.  Here they had an old barbaric fort situated once again on the edge of a cliff about 100m high.  After Galway we were heading back to my sisters house, but on the way we were going to show Pat the Cliffs of Moher.  These are a small 200m+ set of cliffs with some spectacular views (usually).  Too bad when we got there it looked like this.  Next time I guess.

  Back in Clogheen (my sisters' town) we hung out and got ready for heading home.  All that was left was one last touristy expedition.  We were on our way to Kiss the Blarney Stone.  If you don't know just google it.  This is one of the coolest castles, with all the things you'd ever think were associated with a medieval castle: caves, secret passages, dungeons, witches and mystical forests.  Once again we were like little kids running around having the best time.  

After kissing the Blarney Stone we were back to Clogheen for the last time.  We said our goodbyes once again to my sister and hopped on our flight home.  Making a couple of connections we managed to hit 4 countries on our journey home (pretty cool but took forever!).  Now it's back to reality and back to routine.  The trip was a blast, I'm sad to see it's over.  Again we cannot thank everyone enough for all they did, we would probably be left somewhere in Europe cold and afraid if it were not for your help.  I can't wait for the season to start again and start all new adventures over again.  Until next year!

    

 

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.