Month of May - Injury Mode

May has been a bit of a drag for me. I'm back in the injury boat again and none too happy about it. I started out with a strained vmo muscle that backed off the cycling for a bit- but that healed quickly as was expected. Of course, two days after my knee started feeling better, I got a burning pain with numbness in my right foot. It got to the point where weight bearing with full walk through motion wasn't possible. It's been a week with no exact treatment, just prodding, icing, anti-inflammatories, taping and an x-ray. This morning I went back to physio and had ultrasound, massage and stim done... and walked away with a pair of crutches. I hope that more of this style treatment will produce some change by the end of this week, as it got considerably worse with no treatment.
I am staying positive and am taking this time to work on my swimming, cycling and running form (water running does have some benefits!). I hope that I can be pain free by the beginning of june so that I am able to compete at wasa on the 10th. Need to take things one day at a time.

Off to the pool in an hour for a swim and water run session! Happy training everyone!

Artsy Picture Post

I thought that I would post some pictures of what my summer has consisted of so far. Without a job, I have lots of time to goof off and get creative! Another bonus is with my mum working during the day, I am able to play the grand piano. I can't touch it when she's in the house... once a music teacher, always a music teacher (it doesn't matter that the neighbours can hear me across the street- I just can't let her hear my wrong notes!)

Here are some pics of what I've been up to lately:

 Chopin is my favourite composer

 Necklaces made from rags

 Cervelo has hit the roads- 

it's officially summer in my books!!

 Dad has taken my old

 wetsuit for Slocan swimming

 Swimmer or superhero? He thinks the latter...

Melted crayon art- cheap and fun!

That's been my two weeks post exams. Quite the life if you ask me! Now to watch some race recaps from Wildflower and IMSG that took place this past weekend.

Home Again Home Again Jiggity Jig

Sorry for the lack of blog lately! I've been experimenting with a wordpress site and trying to make up my mind on to which blog site I would like to stick with, and it looks like good old simple Blogger has won me back over!

I am back home in Rossland for the summer. Well... technically Warfield (but that's a small detail and one that I am still not a fan of), and I am staying for the full summer! No summer semester like last year, just plain work and training. I am very happy to have my old job with the Rossland Museum and Historical Society back, with an added bit of responsibility! I will still do site tours, but also "run the place" two or three days a week. So if you like gold, mining, history, or all three- come and visit me this summer!

Training has been going smoothly, I've just come off a big block and my recovery week was perfectly timed as a slight VMO strain decided to pop up. Luckily ice and massage have calmed it down and I am now good to go. I am looking forward to my first race of the season- the Subaru race series at Shawnigan Lake on May 27th. Not exactly looking forward to spending my 20th birthday (May 26th) in a van for 10hrs- but you can't always have your cake and eat it too!

I will try and keep up with more regular posting and some pictures once the weather turns around.
Happy training!

February Sunshine

Shorts! 

 10mile point looking to yacht club

Love the sunshine!

These are some pics from my recovery run today. It was great to get out and enjoy the warm sunshine. I am very fortunate to live in such a beautiful place!

Hope everyone played in the sun on this awesome february day!

Simple Sunday

Thought that I would switch the blog up a bit and add a post about food! When I cook I go for simple, nutritious and most importantly gluten free. This sunday I don't have much time between midterm cramming and heading out to tutor- so I went for a quick throw-together that I can assemble at any time in the day, and cook up quickly.

You could call this fried rice. I prepped the brown rice and veggies before hand, and threw it in the pan just before I was ready to eat. (Eating it now as I am typing!)

Method:

Cook brown rice- (I used 1/2 cup dry as it was all I had left)

1/2 cup raisins

1/2 cup shredded rapini

crimini mushrooms (about 5 or 6) coarsely chopped

1 cup frozen lima beans

1/2 a yam grated

1 tbsp GF tamari sauce

1 tbsp coconut oil

2 cloves garlic

2'' ginger, minced (lots of ginger!)

3 eggs

Heat the coconut oil in a large frying pan. Once hot add the garlic and ginger. Saute. Add the yam, mushrooms, rapini, lima beans and raisins. Saute in frying pan for about 10min. Push veggies to one side and add the eggs. Next add the cooked rice and mix in, distributing the eggs. Cook until eggs are no longer runny. Put on plate, then eat!

This made enough food for about 4 or 5 servings! So for me that equates to lots of leftovers for the coming week!

Happy Sunday!

Saturdays

The weekend. I'm not 100% sure how I feel about weekends... usually I am on the fence when it comes to Saturdays and Sundays. Yes, come Friday afternoon I look forward to a break, but then I realize that my weekends are often more productive than my weeks!

Saturday is the BIG day. A long ride and usually followed by a swim. I love my long rides, there is something about exploring the area and seeing new sights that always makes me happy. Unfortunately, I don't always love the process of getting my butt in gear to get out the door. If it's a down pour, snowing, or freezing I tend to be a wimp and set up my trusty trainer. But yesterday was a pretty big (and well worth it!) exception for me. Not thinking that the snow was going to melt overnight, I planned on spending my 3.5hrs watching LOTR movies.... my newly decked out road bike, with super awesome fenders was going to have to wait. Turns out the heavy rain melted all of the snow and left clear roads, and to make things better I had two great athletes, Emma and Alex, who also wanted to ride. The ride was great- one of the best that I have had in a long time! Cycling through periods of ridiculously hard rain, patches of snow/slush and chasing the blue sky made me feel like a super hard core roadie. The only downside to the day was waking up with a small tickle in the day of my throat. Fast-forward to saturday post swim and that tickle morphed into a sore throat/cough, and now by sunday morning I have no voice. Time to bust out the oil of oregano, probiotics and buckleys. Some sleep will help too!

Hope everyone is happy, healthy and enjoying their weekend!

Post #30 and some ramblings

This is my 30th blog post! Something small to celebrate, but celebrate none-the-less! When I started this blog I had no idea that I would ever reach 30 posts, or stay committed to (semi) regular blogging.

Currently I am back at Uvic for spring semester. Taking 5 courses is proving to be a time juggling act. Physics, advanced ochem, microbiology, statistics and genetics isn't the easiest load to pile on all at once. But I can handle one rough semester- after all it is only 3 months! The biggest downside to this semester is my schedule... unfortunately I can only attend one or two group workouts a week because of class conflict. I have also started a small tutoring job that runs two nights a week. Brushing up on high-school math, chemistry and physics is never a bad thing right?

The first sunday back in Victoria I participated in my first running race of the year, the Pioneer 8km. It went ok. Overall I am not pleased with my performance. The first 3km were great- and then I blew up. Guess I should learn some pacing techniques! My energy levels have been in the dirt, but I have now figured out the cause and hope that it will soon be remedied. I am very happy to say that I finally feel like a real swimmer! Over the past month I have noticed an improvement in my times, and I am super pumped to say that a 4km swim feels "normal" now.

This past weekend I had my first "city" experience: clubbing. Let's just say that it isn't really my thing... fun, but not for me. I also went to see an awesome band: The Boom Booms on saturday night. The have an amazing stage presence and great tunes to boot! Check them out here!