Blogs
Follow along with the adventures, races and events that a group of our physiotherapists participate in with their blogs below.
James Dean – Ride with James… Fitness, Competition and Helping Others.
Latest Blog Post:
Stage Race Season Opener
May 5-6 marked the first official stage of my race season, the Velocity Stage Race. I typically use this race as a good ol’ fashioned butt whippin’ for myself. To make it even tougher on myself, I jammed my weekend with activities in addition to my three races. The night before I was up until 1:30am, in my backyard, trying to build a cottage as it was Zach’s 3rd birthday on Saturday. I wasn’t too quick with the head lamp.
I got up at 7am to switch my race wheels over, but I struggled to get my free hub off. Training wheels it was for the 10km trial. I started at 9:20pm. I thought I was moving well. HR was up to 175 and clocked in at 13:53. Good enough for 10th out of 50 CAT 4 riders. According to my HR and my coach, I should have been 10bpm higher and was dogging it. The first kick in the pants.
I rushed home for a family BBQ at our place for Zach’s birthday. It was a great party. I stuck around until 1:30pm, then back to Josephburgh for the 90km road race.
Our team coach wanted us to work as a team and attack on the final lap. We were working for Clinton, 3rd in the GC after the TT. 68km into the race I sprinted off the front. I managed to stay away for 9km. As soon as I was caught, Tanner, my teammate, sprinted off the front. 3 minutes of reeling in and then I attacked again. We did this a few more times a few more times, until 3km to go – moved towards the front with Clinton on my wheel. With 1000m to go I started an all out sprint. I was DONE with 300m to the finish and moved aside for Clinton to work his magic. That he did, with a solid 2nd place finish and I rolled in 5th.
Sunday at 7am, I was helping Celine get out the door so she wouldn’t miss her race start. I got the kids going, dressed, and fed and then headed down to see Mom finish her half marathon around 9:15am. Then, packed everyone up and headed to the south side for Stage 3, the criterium.
30 minutes plus 3 laps with a 3, 2 and 1 second premium halfway through. Our plan was the same. Attack. Tanner exploded out the gate. More than a few riders were upset with this abrupt start before they could even warm their legs up! It took the peleton a good lap to catch Tanner, then I attacked. We did this each again to finish up lap two, then the first, second and fourth GC riders set out and no one tried to close down the gap for a half lap. Then I went. It took me a half lap to bridge the gap and one full lap to catch my breath before they started demanding I take a pill. I did 20 seconds on the front. HR at 183. No doggin’ it this time. I was able to recover down to 174 while the other 3 pulled. We were making some decent time on the peleton. We put 1:20 into the main pack by race finish. I mustered a 3rd place finish and ended rising up to 4th overall in the GC.
I’m hooked! Now, May long weekend, stage race #2. Bikes on Broadway in Saskatoon.
For previous blog posts, click here.
Graham Glennie – onthetrails
Latest Blog Post:
10 Miler
Ran not raced the 10miler this past weekend. with the ankle not 100%, and my inability to push the intensity of my workouts this past month and a half, I thought it would be a wise decision to just make the 10miler a hard workout.
Race morning was chilling about 3 degrees and snowy. The plan was to run between 70-75min, holding that pace through the course. I started the run with my friend Tania, who was looking for the type of run. The first few miles went well, I felt comfortable and the ankle was feeling okay. at the 5 mile mark we clocked in at 34:30. It was a little above what I was looking to run, but it felt okay. After the 5 mile mark there is an extended downhill, and the point where I could feel my ankle. my pace slowed through the downhill moreso due to the discomfort in the ankle than conditioning, I could feel Tania slowly push ahead, I let her go and maintained my pace.
I finished strong, pushing the last uphill at mile eight and through to the finish on a long downhill. My time was just over 69 minutes.
I am happy with how things went and the ankle is feeling decent today, (even with a skate sunday night). So I feel that I am on the road to recovery, and have the ability to start training hard again, two months till GWN and 3 till death race!
For previous blog posts, click here.
Arri McWatt – The uphill battle has begun!
Latest Blog Post:
I think I may have overdone it…
Alright everyone, so I was away for a month on vacation and apart from hikes and kayaks and snorkeling, lets face it, I was a lazy beach bum for 4 weeks. Don’t get me wrong, it was fantastic and South East Asia is a place everyone should try to visit if they get the chance. This issue is that I’m not the type that is comfortable sitting on my ass for weeks at a time so the last week I was chomping at the bit to get back to some fitness upon my return to Canada.
Arrived home Tuesday evening after 25 hours of traveling and Wednesday afternoon I strolled into CrossFit to get my butt kicked! The coach was reminding me to take it easy but I felt good and was happy to be sweating again from something other than just being on a 40 degree beach in Thailand.
Thursday I went for an 8 km run and with Miley Cyrus blasting in the iPod, again I felt good to be back jogging although tiring. Then, Friday I was back to CrossFit for a workout full of push-ups, kettle bell swings and rowing… a lot of all of them!
Sunday morning rolled around and I could barely get out of bed. Although I anticipated a decent degree of pain, this was different. This pain was worse and as the day rolled on I had cold sweats, a brutal cough, no appetite and at this point getting off the couch seemed a comparable task to conquering Everest.
Now to get a bit graphic on ya: I went to pee around 11 pm. If you ever have insane muscle pain and notice that your pee is the color of your Grandpa’s rum and coke, it is time to head to emerg. So that’s what I did.
I was diagnosed with rhabdomyolysis and on top of that septic pneumonia. Not sure where the pneumonia came from, but rhabdo occurs when you have an extremely high amount of breakdown of skeletal muscle into an enzyme called creatine kinase (CK) which does not filter well in your kidneys and in high enough amounts can cause kidney failure. The doctors words “What the heck did you do? You’re very sick!” Shit…
So 3 days in the hospital, a few morphine trips (accompanied by messed up dreams) and a pallet of 1 liter saline bags and they let me out with some antibiotics and stern warnings to take it easy. So now, I’m starting from scratch… and I mean scratch. I did a few flights of stairs and a few sets of squats the other day… ugh… Its going to be an interesting journey to the K-100 at the end of June and Death Race at the start of August, but I’m optimistic and hopefully I don’t hurt myself and really hope I don’t let the teams down during these races.
Physio tip for the day: Ease yourself back into sport and exercise after a month’s hiatus. Not only to prevent musculoskeletal injuries (like I preach on a daily basis), but also the more serious problems that can arise from over-doing things!
Happy training!
For previous blog posts, click here.
Kendra Wilson – The Wilsons Adventure (Kendra and her family headed off to Ecuador for a six month sabbatical). Their blog follows their adventures during that time. Click here to read the article recently compiled by the Edmonton Journal about their trip.
Latest Blog Post:
Buses and Backpacking
Well we are on the move again, and have headed inland to a cool town called Mindo. We visited the Los Tsachillas tribe in Santo Domingo which was also very interesting, complete with Shaman (medicine man) treatment for NIcks ailing muscles!! The Buses have been a fun experience, as vendors jump on and off the buses whenever it stops (and occasionally when it is still moving!) to sell anything from coco milk in plastic bags,fried bananas, empanadas and ice cream. The kids want to try everything and it is usually about 25-50cents for anything you want. You will definitely not starve on a bus in Ecuador. With backpacks full of dirty, damp clothes we will be heading back into the city of Quito in a few days, and then off on a short trip into the Amazon jungle before our return to Canada……
For previous blog posts, click here.