The Off-Season Fun Begins!!! Whistler Relay with the guys.....

A lot of people get the off-season blues. It's the day after your last race of the year (BIG races I mean,) the culmination of months and months of training has finally been cashed in, and what are you going to do now? That's how I usually feel after the last big one. Always thinking about what's next, until there is no next for the season (at least in the triathlon respective.) With this thought comes a bit of a sadness:

"Did I race well this year?"
"Did I go as fast as I could?"
"What am I going to do now?"

etc, etc, etc......

But this year is different for me. Yeah, I'm still thinking about what's next for training and such, but I'm really trying to just go-with-the-flow this off-season. You know, have some fun (not that life isn't usually 110% AWESOME,) outside of just training and working. So, I know they're still competitions, but one of the things I love about the fall is doing the running relay with the guys from work (Delta Fire Rescue.) Last year I was on the team (for the first time,) when it was the Haney-to-Harrison 100km's relay (consisting of 8 relay legs.) It was terminated after that race, as the logistics and stress on the local communities (not to mention the backlog on traffic,) became too much to bare.

The start line: added an extra 600m's to the leg, so 12.6k.

Now, it's the Whistler relay and Ultra, an 8 leg relay, 80km/50mile Ultra Marathon held up in Whistler. When asked to run with the team again this year, OBVIOUSLY I was all in!! Too much fun every time, I knew it would be a blast. It's run on a 20km loop, the first leg being 12km (what I ran,) and the second being 8km. Then you do it again.

Nearing the end of my 12.6k leg. CHILLY!

And again.

And again.

A perfect Whistler morning greeted us as we arrived, cold and crisp, but dry (albeit a bit of snow on the ground.) I lined up to run the first leg, and what a fun course it was, with some good hills and trails. I pulled off a 3rd in my leg, around the 44min mark, and handed off our chip to the next runner (Ian McCabe,) with almost a 5minute lead on the next Fire guy. Our team ran so well, and came out 3rd in our division (one spot better than last year, improvement is always a plus!!) The main point of this was to have fun, and although I couldn't stay around to party that night, it was a blast and I'll DEFINITELY be back next year. I'll plan to be able to stay the night though, have a little 'extra' fun :)

Next in the sights is a day in the pool at the UBC Masters Swim meet (look at the time, I gotta get going!) ALWAYS an amazing day of racing (and eating, because lets be real, that's why we REALLY do all the training: to eat MORE!) I'm damn excited as I'm entered into 5 events, one of which being the 50m fly, an event I haven't swam before. I haven't even BEEN to a pool in about 8 days, so it's sure to be a gong-show.

But hey, that's what the off-season's for, isn't it?


Enjoy the day, and happy training!!