BIKE & RUN

If you're not racing this weekend, it's still a big weekend for biking and running.

If you head down to Port Dover, you can join the Friday the 13th ride.

If you're in Cambridge on Saturday, be sure to check out the Mercedes-Benz Mile.

A LITTLE LEVITY...

With all of the serious discussion and post-worlds analysis going on, it's a good time to lighten things up a bit. To that end, I humbly submit "How not to do a transition", from a short little transition skills set we did a few weeks ago. There's nowhere to go but up....

(shaky camera work due to laughter)

Hemet Tips:
1. Don't drop your helmet on the ground, you'll damage it
2. Your helmet should be left at your transition area, not in the middle of the road
3. There is no evidence that aero helmets help run performance

MEN'S OLYMPIC TEAM ANNOUNCED

A quick update (the 100th post!) before I head off to the lake for a workout. Triathlon Canada announced the Men's Olympic Team this morning. Congrats to Simon Whitfield, Paul Tichelaar and Colin Jenkins on their selection.

It sounds like the High Performance Committee has decided to take a little more time to consider who will join Lauren Groves on the Women's team.

I'll post further updates over the next few days as we catch up on all of the action at Worlds, OFSAA Track & Field, and the Ontario triathlon scene.

HOT HOT HEAT

While the folks at Worlds in Vancouver battle the cold, we've been hit with our first heat wave of ~40 degree weather. Some pics of the run workout today with ADM and JL in the midday heat.

JUNIOR WORLDS PREVIEW

Canada's Juniors are first up to the start line tomorrow, with the women at 7am, and the men at 9am (Pacific Daylight Time). ITU preview here. There's no mention of live coverage, but results should be up shortly after the race. Best of luck to Team Canada - racing on home turf should provide them with an extra boost, and we have a strong team.

Back in Ontario, the PTC now has a kayak - essential for open water workouts. Our new 12ft "Clearwater Muskoka" was on Guelph Lake this morning. It's a nice little kayak, but not as stable as the larger 14ft Necky Kayaks used in Victoria. We're taking bets on what will happen first: CT falls out of kayak (it almost happened twice this morning), or Tom swims in to kayak (he swam headlong into a buoy this morning). Leave your vote in the comments.

Go Canada!




EDIT: It looks like a live feed will be available here.

SYKORA CALLS HIS SHOT

If you were watching CBC's coverage of Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Finals last night, you might have missed this story. (Un)fortunately, I was watching the NBC feed, and saw Pierre McGuire report that Petr Sykora had just predicted he would score the winning goal. He called his shot part way through the 2nd overtime - a pretty confident prediction from a struggling player on the verge of elimination. But he delivered in the 3rd OT, keeping the Pens' hopes alive.

You gotta love the athletes who want the ball/puck/opportunity in pressure situations. True competitors.

Full article here.

On a related note, maybe Detroit should lose it's designation as 'Hockeytown'. The Detroit Free Press reported that Todd Gill, who retired in 2003, was on the ice last night:

"• That was pretty scary when the Penguins' Ryan Malone took a Todd Gill slap shot in the face and left the ice with his nose spewing blood. Hey, that's network TV. CBS has Kimbo Slice for blood, NBC counters with hockey."

MILTON TRI

TriSport's Milton Tri historically signals the start of the triathlon season in Ontario, and the race yesterday was no exception. Between the try-a-tri, duathlon and sprint tri, there were over 1000 people racing. TriSport is an impressive logistics company - they make herding cats look easy. For those 2 or 3 people who weren't there, here's a quick summary:

Weather was overcast, 15-18 degrees, and windy; perfect for racing.

Sean Bechtel (C3 Club) led the race wire to wire - he was out of the water with a ~40sec lead, rode his bike like he stole it, and held his 3 min. lead over 2nd with a good run. Wolfgang Guembel (2nd) and Andrew Yorke (3rd) also had strong performances - outclassing the rest of the race to the tune of ~4 mins.



In the women's race, Cythia Wilson took the win, with Nicole Guembel outpacing Sheri Fraser by 5 sec for 2nd. Great race by Sheri.

Overall, it looks like the times were a bit slower than last year. The swims and bikes were slower than last year with some exceptions. I didn't get to see the swim, but the wind was likely an issue on the bike. The runs were faster than last year, likely due to the higher temps for the 2007 race.

PTC'ers raced well. Angela Quick put in a good effort in the try-a-tri, in preparation for her race at Worlds next weekend (U19 Olympic). Angela's little brother Derek (coached by Dan McKerral) also used the try-a-tri as a warm-up for Worlds, leading wire-to-wire. In the sprint race, Adrian DelMonte was 8th overall - a pretty good race as he knocks off some of the rust.

Two unfortunate DNF's at the race: Karsten flatted leaving the park, and I saw David Clinkard walking/limping back from the run course. Karsten will be racing again soon, and David will be leading the Canadian Men at the FISU World Triathlon Championships later this month in Erdek, Turkey.

(Edit: results here.)

A big tip of the cap goes to the volunteers - without them, racing would be almost impossible. There were a lot of parents out there donating their time - Cynthia and Frank VanBeurden (parents to Nicole and Chris) and Katherine Madsen (son Karsten and husband Ken were racing) were officiating, along with Colin Jenkin's parents, Pete and June. Talk about a great deal; along with fast athletes, we recruit volunteers at the same time. A big thanks to Tammy Lyle-Gravlev too - she didn't have any family racing, but she drove over from Ajax just to volunteer. Have a look at Tammy's site to see how you can support someone who selflessly supports our sport.

I took a few pics during the race, which you can find here. I think it's safe to say that I don't have a future in photography (see below where I cut off Tyler Lord's head - sorry Tyler), but if anyone wants a copy, feel free to download.

Congrats to the athletes on their performances.