Winter RECAP!

        Following a busy summer of competing, Luke and I decided that cross-country running would be a good idea for me this fall, just as training, and for the fun of it:)  I did three local series school races, winning each of those and then going on to win the zone championships, qualifying me for Provincials, hoping to continue my streak.  At the Provincial Championships held at Telemark, I managed to hang on for a bronze, 7 seconds back from the winner. It was a really tough race over grueling climbs and quad crushing downhills!  I wasn't ecstatic but was satisfied with my result considering how I felt that day, and how hard I pushed.
    At the beginning of the fall, I also decided to compete in the local BMO 10km road race in Kelowna. I was a bit disappointed with my result here, finishing in a time of 35 minutes.  My goal had been a couple minutes faster. I was definitely still sore from a hard Friday track and strength session 2 days before and am confident that I will see a huge improvement next time I take on this race.  Even so, I still managed to capture 2nd place in the 19&u category and 4th place overall.  On the positive side, I learned lots about pacing, listening to coach instructions, staying calm and collected, and running my own race.
    In early November, my coaches, Luke and Andrew from Balance point, and the Vernon Tri-Monsters coach, Laura Medcalf, hosted a junior triathlon camp in Vernon.  I was super excited to train and race some other juniors from the Okanagan.  I had a great time, learned about visualization, had a great step test while using the new VO2 Master, and set a couple benchmark times to improve on for the winter.  Fat biking at Silver Star was AWESOME!  Super epic and a bit of a gong show!
    In February, for the third year in a row, our team attended the BPR winter snowshoe camp at Silver Star mountain, consisting of 3 sessions over two days of snowshoeing totaling about 11 hours of structural training. Great workouts!  I also learned more about sports psychology during some psych sessions with Luke.
    Over the winter my training has consisted of: Monday and Wednesday indoor cycling spin and core sessions for 2.5 hours each; Tuesday, Thursday and Friday 1-1.5 hour swim sessions at H20 with Luke, and more on our own; Tuesday, Thursday and Friday morning run and/or strength training with Luke, and more on my own; and finally, once there was enough snow, Saturday 2-4 hour snowshoe adventures with Luke.  I'm looking forward to heading back to long outdoor Saturday rides as as soon as Spring arrives!
    Another exciting event this winter was that my sister and I were both invited to participate in the triathlon eligibility and selection camps for the BC team going to the 2017 Canada Summer Games in July.  I’ve trained hard for this all winter, and was looking forward to the two day camp held in Vancouver in February.  Despite big change in plans due to the weather conditions and the facilities closing, it was great to meet and train alongside many other Junior elites from BC. The camp was cut down to one day, involving info sessions, an epic open water format training swim in the pool, and a video analysis treadmill session!  Due to the cancellation of the time trials, we were informed to take the initiative and do a 1600 m run and 200m swim time trial with our coach and submit the times.  The next camp will be held in Vernon at the end of April which I am looking forward to.
See you at the races,
Cheers, Brock

Below are two links to a race recap and post race interview after the cross-country championships.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qj4svoPLStA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TUbsf9woBQ