Life is good in Victoria

Well I have arrived at the end of the week and at the beginning of the next, rather unscathed from the strong build and well, hungry for more. It was a good start to the week rough mid-week and strong finish. Victoria has warmed up considerably to a balmy 10 degrees but with it, rain. Lots of rain. For training I do prefer this but it would be nice to have a white Christmas. Maybe for a day or two.

So I began this week with a lot of niggles, aches and pains. Kind of felt like I had run into a wall. It was almost like my whole right side of the body just sorta hated me. My shoulder had a limited range of motion either from sleeping on it wrong or overdoing it in the gym. Either way, I was doing a lot of one arm swimming for a couple of days. Regular aches and pains made for a challenging set of Mile repeats on Tuesday, where it ended up being the effort that counted. Things started to turn around thanks to an awesome massage by Kim, foam roller, Zen Gu Sui("Dragon's Blood"), Traumeel(life saver) icing and many dips in the ocean(In the dark, and in about 6 degree water) So Wednesday we had a solid session on the CompuTrainers and a personal best session of hill repeats on Thursday. This time doing 16 reps of the 200m climb I was on average 3 sec faster then last week with less rest and more reps. It is amazing how the body adapts. In fact all of us were feeling stronger this week. In the pool I am at about 27km a week now while maintaining a focus on my running. I am feeling strong in the water. I have been talking with fellow athletes here in Victoria and the consensus is that we are all looking so forward to the summer, warm dry weather, shorts and t-shirts and of course the race season.

Another Great Video Thanks to Simon.

dark day hills from swhitfield on Vimeo.

Till then Maui is the next destination, leaving on January 10th and returning home on February 2nd. But more on that later.

Other than sport, my Uncle John deBoer is in town. He is a very talented Musician and has helped inspire me to play the guitar much more. I am currently working on some Eddy Vedder songs from the soundtrack "Into The Wild" Great guitar. My guitar has never been used to its potential as it has been with John. Its been great to listen to.

Well last big day of training before Christmas tomorrow and I am in need of a good sleep so I will say good night to you now.

Hope all is well out there n'Ciao for now,

Andrew McCartney

Christmas Party 2009