Hello August!

I can't quite believe that August is just around the corner, literally one day away! Thinking back to a year ago I was relaxing in Rosebery and heading to Kaslo for the amazing Jazz festival. Sitting on the beach listening to great music played off of a floating stage- life can't get much better. Well that's not exactly the case for me this year, but luckily I get one little tidbit of nice for my weekend here on the coast- the weather has finally decided to cooperate and the sun is shining! It's nice not to wear jeans and a hoodie everyday, shorts are a nice change!

School is slowly winding down, only 5 days of classes left and then finals galore! I am trying to be good and balance my studying, but I have found that the best place to hit the books is at the school- and far away from my room. Stress is not something I deal with very well... actually I create it and sometimes thrive on it, but after a certain point it just makes me sick. I burnt myself out earlier this week as several things all crashed down on me at once. I literally made myself sick. So doing the right thing, I took the next day off of school and training and lied in bed all day. I woke up at 5pm and was asleep again by 9pm... I need to learn how to de-stress myself and put my mind into a relaxed state. Yoga, reading and deep breathing only seem to be temporary fixes, so this is something that I really need to focus on to ensure that I stay healthy and happy. I am just about better, only a scratchy throat and stuffed nose now- hopefully by monday I will be in the clear!

On to more positive things: this coming race I am heading over to Victoria to race the Sooke Olympic distance triathlon. The Subaru tri series does a great job of putting on these events, and I am really looking forward to being a participant! The bike course is slightly longer than a standard olympic distance, it being 46km instead of 40km... so I am going into this race not with a time goal, but with an overall placing goal. I'd like to see myself in the top 20 women, with a time that is not any more than 20min off of the winning time.

This trip looks like a fun one, especially because I will be checking out my future victoria home for the upcoming school year!

A shout-out to Ironman triathlete Dallas Cain, who has been crushing it at both the Osoyoos and Sylvan Lake half ironman events. (My Grandma doesn't keep tabs on just my racing- she save the news paper articles of other HATC athletes and phones to tell me these things!) Anyone racing IMC at the end of August better watch out!

It's back to the books for me... have to get in 3hrs of organic chemistry before I am allowed to have some more fun and hit the Spani outdoor pool. First time in an outdoor pool this summer!

I'll post again with a recap of the Sooke Tri.