More Pics of the boys @ Mooloolaba

Get Some Mooloolaba

Solid start for the boys down in Mooloolaba Australia.

First Jenkins won the swim prime, another 1st out of the water for our squad. Jenkins went on to contest the bike primes, led many laps of the ride and got himself into a breakaway of 4 on the last lap of the bike, with 15 secs over the main bunch.

Paul equaled his 7th place from last year at this event, but in a much stronger field with more on the line, and closer to the medals, only 15 secs back from 3rd. Paul also achieved the top 8 performance necessary as a prerequisite for the automatic selection at the final trials race at the Vancouver World Championships.

Kyle had a great swim, and very solid run to finish up in 10th, only 14 secs back from the top 8, and overall one of his best career finishes.

Well done boys!

1 Gomez Javier ESP 01:49:50 00:19:08 00:01:03 00:58:56 00:00:16 00:30:29
2 Kahlefeldt Brad AUS 01:50:14 00:19:03 00:01:03 00:58:59 00:00:14 00:30:57
3 Don Tim GBR 01:50:23 00:19:17 00:01:06 00:58:48 00:00:15 00:31:00
4 Docherty Bevan NZL 01:50:27 00:19:31 00:01:04 00:58:32 00:00:16 00:31:07
5 Bennett Greg AUS 01:50:29 00:19:19 00:01:06 00:58:39 00:00:23 00:31:01
6 Freeman Oliver GBR 01:50:34 00:18:55 00:01:08 00:59:09 00:00:15 00:31:07
7 Tichelaar Paul CAN 01:50:38 00:19:22 00:01:06 00:58:38 00:00:17 00:31:15
8 Sexton Brendan AUS 01:50:44 00:19:25 00:01:06 00:58:39 00:00:16 00:31:20
9 Thompson Simon AUS 01:50:53 00:19:37 00:01:06 00:58:24 00:00:16 00:31:30
10 Jones Kyle CAN 01:50:58 00:19:07 00:01:08 00:58:56 00:00:15 00:31:33

Do you maggots understand that?

If you ladies leave my island, if you survive recruit training, you will be a weapon. You will be a minister of death praying for war. But until that day you are pukes. You are the lowest form of life on Earth. You are not even human, fucking beings. You are nothing but unorganized grabastic pieces of amphibian shit. Because I am hard you will not like me. But the more you hate me the more you will learn. I am hard but I am fair. There is no racial bigotry here. I do not look down on n%#$@s, kikes, wops or greasers. Here you are all equally worthless. And my orders are to weed out all non-hackers who do not pack the gear to serve in my beloved Corps. Do you maggots understand that?

A Quote on Overtraining

"You can avoid overtraining by undertraining, but then you don't win medals"

Bob Larson, Team Running USA Coach

Canada HTFU's

BEIJING OLYMPICS
Canada clears the air on pollution concern

'Not as bad as we all first thought,' physiologist says
Mar 25, 2008 04:30 AM

RANDY STARKMAN SPORTS REPORTER
The Canadian Olympic team's environmental physiologist says athletes will be breathing easier than most expect in Beijing.

Dr. Jon Kolb of the University of Calgary has been crunching data for a few years now to determine what kind of a problem the pollution poses for Canada's athletes at the 2008 Summer Games.

"My feeling is, based on the measurements we've been doing ... it's not as bad as we all first thought," said Kolb. "Certainly, some people have run away with it, without having done the measurements. From my perspective, I don't think of it being that huge of a concern."

Kolb's assessment jibes with what the International Olympic Committee reported last week, but not with the experience of some American athletes who competed in Beijing last year.

More on TheStar.com

20 Questions with Reid and SQW

Follow the youtube link to see parts 2 and 3. From PayNtake World Headquaters in Flag.

Never Discount a 3x World Champion

Tri favourite no longer a 'dark horse'

12:00a.m. 27 March 2008 | By Peter Gardiner
When one of the fancies for this Sunday’s Mooloolaba Triathlon World Cup qualified for the Sydney Olympics triathlon in 2000, it was another case for the sporting public of “Peter who?”

If Peter “Robbo” Robertson had landed from Mars his name could not have been more foreign for a fickle public who only ever know the glamour triathletes.

Robertson, from that faraway galaxy of Perth, experienced exactly how Peter Taylor, one of Australian cricket’s greatest dark horse selections, felt when he swooped from the other worldy ether.

His Sydney Triathlon World Cup win in 2000, which announced his arrival on the world stage was about six or seven years in the making.

“I happened to land my biggest result (til then) in the biggest event going – the Olympic qualifier,” Peter said on the eve of his arrival in Mooloolaba.

Read the rest here

Interview with Hunter Kemper

Inside Triathlon has an interview with Hunter Kemper

As usual, I pulled out the good part :-)

"IT: Can anyone beat Javier Gomez?
HK: He has been the top of the sport this last year. Daniel Unger beat him at worlds last year. I think I can beat Gomez but I’ll have to work on my run more to do it. Guys like Whitfield, Docherty, Atkinson, and Kris Gemmell can all beat him too. He is the gold standard right now. I believe I can win an Olympic gold medal but I know I’ll have to be ready to run with Gomez for the first two kilometers of the run to do so. Whitfield asked Javier for his #1 plate off his bike after Beijing world cup and probably has it hanging up in his room right now as a reminder of how he needs to prepare. Maybe he stole it, but it’s up in his room and he’s telling himself that’s the guy he needs to be able to beat. He’s getting close to running sub-30 minutes off the bike. If you can’t do that, you can’t win the gold medal"

Read the rest at InsideTri.com

Stiff competition

Stiff competition

As Kyle Shewfelt tries to repeat as Olympic floor exercise champion, he's up against some immense talent—and Canadian history

Chris Selley | Mar 21, 2008 | 11:32 pm EST

Triathlon has Simon Whitfield. Biathlon, for better or for worse, has Myriam Bédard. And artistic gymnastics has Kyle Shewfelt, who is profiled in this week's Maclean's. Each has won an Olympic gold medal for Canada—Bédard two. And each is the only Canadian ever to have won a medal of any colour in that sport. Very few Canadians participate in their sports, and practically nobody watches them participate in the four year periods of amateur sports darkness between the Olympic Games. But they have all done their part to rescue Canada from its biennial Olympic angst, and they and their sports are remembered fondly for it.

More at Macleans.ca

I agree with the athletes...

Boycotting Olympics would be unfair to us, athletes say

Jeff Lee and Gary Kingston, Vancouver Sun; with files from Canwest News Service
Published: Thursday, March 20, 2008

Canadian athletes past and present say boycotting any part of the Beijing Olympic Games in response to China's crackdown on protesters in Tibet would be a huge mistake.
A day after European politicians mused about boycotting the opening ceremonies of the Games, athletes, Vancouver's mayor and 2010 organizers argued against any boycott of either the ceremonies or the sporting events.
Charmaine Crooks, a member of the Vancouver Organizing Committee's board of directors, said she has never gotten over being excluded from the 1980 Moscow Games when Canada joined a U.S.-led boycott. She is now being lobbied by Canadian athletes who want her to do what she can to prevent another Olympic boycott.

More at the Vancouver Sun

As Seen @ Training Today

Assume the recovery position #3, originally uploaded by jfilliol1.

Assume the recovery position #1, originally uploaded by jfilliol1.

Assume the recovery position #2, originally uploaded by jfilliol1.

It's foggy because its hot.

Heat Training is Hot, originally uploaded by jfilliol1.

Heat training for Mooloolaba has started. Good times.

Secret Training

Secret Training, originally uploaded by jfilliol1.

HTFU Role Model: Erik Vendt

Herbert Krabel interviewed American 1500m swimming and Olympic Medalist Erik Vendt for Slowtwitch. There were a couple great quotes from Erik in the interview on his training and recovery:

"ST: Just a short while ago you swam 14:47:59 in the 1500 m freestyle, and that is the sixth fastest time of all-time. It appears that your form is great.

Erik: I feel like I'm in the best shape of my life; I've put in more consistent training at a much higher level over a longer period of time than I've ever been able to. I've always considered myself to be one of the hardest workers in the world; it was a sense of pride for me. But lately, I've been able to reach a new level in training, a new tier, that I had previously thought impossible. Times that I could never dream of doing in practice before (in repeats, sprints, endurance based sets, etc.) are a common occurrence now. I think another reason for my body being in such great shape has been the advent of Sunday workouts. I haven't taken a day off, Sunday or otherwise, all year. And I don't plan on being out of the water for more than a day until after Beijing. "

....

"ST: Do you have much of an off-season at all, and if so, what do you do during that time?

Erik: Swimming is a year round sport. We get about a week off in August and that’s it. It's taxing, no doubt about it. But it's something I've gotten used to over the years, so it doesn’t have too much of an effect on my now. But during that week off, I do whatever it is I can't normally do. So I try to sleep in as much as possible and be as lazy as possible! "

Read the rest of the article on Slowtwitch

Slowtwitch Interviews Coach Joel

Herbert from Slowtwitch recently asked me to do an interview - Here it is:

A chat with coach Joel Filliol

Written by: Herbert Krabel
Date: Wed Mar 12 2008

Joel Filliol is a senior coach at the National Triathlon Center in Victoria, BC and the Canadian Olympic Coach. He is currently getting his team ready for the Olympic games in Beijing and was kind enough to have a chat with us.

ST: Joel, how long have you been the Canadian National coach?

Joel: I was hired in the Senior Coach role at the National Triathlon Centre in Victoria, BC in January 2006. I was recently named Canada’s Olympic Coach for the Beijing Games, so preparing the team for the games is my focus this year.

Read the rest on Slowtwitch.com

The Force is strong with this one

High Altitude Sports Massage

Here in Flagstaff we work with Geoffrey Bishop of Stay Tuned Therapeutics. Geoffrey posted a blog about his approach to working with the crew:

"The fine line. The interesting thing for a sport therapist working with elite training camps is just that. The fine line, the dance between "pre and post" event type work. We are taught in schools of bodywork that pre event is fast paced muscle spindle work, get them ready to preform. Post event is to be of a recovery and slower regenerative work speed and focus. So, what do we do when an athlete is recovering from a big run Sunday, and getting ready for a big push on Tuesday? Walk the line. Individualize treatment for the athlete, and within that athlete, individualize the treatment for the muscle belly at hand, or the kinetic chain of a specific movement. With enough thought it can seem tricky to know what to do, where and how to work."

More on Stay Tuned Theraputics

Olympians air a gripe about Beijing... HTFU.

The Great Wall is.... Great, originally uploaded by jfilliol1.

Olympians air a gripe about Beijing

The Beijing Olympic clock, right, is barely visible as smog engulfs the Great Hall of People in Beijing, China.
Fearing the pollution, some will train offshore and may wear masks; others talk of skipping all or part of the Summer Games.
By Barbara Demick, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
March 12, 2008
BEIJING -- Matt Reed was 1,500 meters into the last segment of the triathlon when he found himself gasping for oxygen. His legs were still pounding away at the pavement, his body pumped up after cruising through the swimming and cycling contests, but his lungs were shutting down.

The 32-year-old triathlete from Boulder, Colo., blames air pollution for triggering his asthma attack during the September track meet.

If he returns to Beijing for the Olympics, he says, he will wear a mask except while competing. And he'll try to avoid showing up here until the second week of the Games, when the triathlon is held, even though that would mean missing the Aug. 8 opening ceremonies.

An increasing number of athletes are threatening to skip part or all of the Olympics because they believe the air is unsafe.

More at the LA Times

Week #3 in Flag

Dano looks on, originally uploaded by jfilliol1.

The secret to the hot/cold contrast bath is that is has very little to do with physical recovery. Its actually a psychological test of extreme discomfort that you can choose to end anytime, just like hard training. From very cold, freezing your dangly bits off, to boiling like a lobster. From this photo we can see that Dano assumed a supervisory role for this "test"....

We are now over halfway through the first Flagstaff camp. Although the first part of this week is "light", I just counted up 23 workouts over 30 hours for our third week here. I figured the guys would appreciate an easy day today, so we had 2 runs, a 4km swim and a 2hr ride. In the pool we had a couple 1000s neg split as you feel... usually that means cruisy, but today seemed like it was hammer time and game on with the guys swapping lanes to pass each other. Then for the afternoon I had an option - easy couple hours or ride the snowbowl climb 10km up to ~9,000 feet, and of course some chose the climb... alright Colin didn't have a choice, but the others.... This is why I prefer to have the squad operate "organically". Why place artificial limitations on what athletes can or can't do? They often surprise you when you give them a chance to have a go, when the "should" need rest or recovery. Bring it....

Flagstaff on Olympians' radar screen

San Fran Peaks, originally uploaded by jfilliol1.

Flagstaff on Olympians' radar screen

By ANNIE TURNER
Sun Sports Staff
Sunday, March 09, 2008

It is an exciting date (08/08/'08) for spectators across the United States and the world. For the athletes it is the benchmark of years of hard work and determination.

Some of the finest athletes in the world are training in Flagstaff for the chance to be in Beijing on that date. They are using the facilities at the Center for High Altitude Training at NAU.

Assistant director Sean Anthony said the excitement to work with these world-class athletes should extend beyond the center to Flagstaff itself.

"I think it's exciting for the community too, because once we get closer to the Beijing Games we're going to publish a list of all the athletes that trained through the training center in preparation for the Olympic games," he said. "So that way members of the community can look at the names and say, 'Wow that guy trained in Flagstaff,' or, 'I remember seeing that guy at the pool,' or, whatever the case may be."

More on the AZ Daily Sun

If you have outdoor cats

This is funny:

Interesting choice of tactics...

At the ITU African Regional Championships today...

http://www.triathlon.org/?call=TVRBMg==&nwsid=1855

"In the men’s field, all eyes were on defending champion Hendrik DeVilliers. He emerged from the water first but did not own much of a lead with Kent Horner and Italian Emilio D’Aquino right behind him. On the 40-kilometer bike course, Frenchman Toumy Degham rode back into contention with the fastest bike split of the day. It came down to a dual on the run course between DeVilliers and his compatriot Erhard Wolfaardt. Despite hammering out the fastest run among the men, Wolfaardt didn’t have enough to overtake DeVilliers who broke the tape for his second straight African title. Wolfaardt took the silver just ten seconds behind while Degham came across third. However, as a non-African athlete, Degham was not eligible for a spot on the podium. Horner was the bronze medalist as the third African athlete across the line.
....
" Like the women, South Africa is assured at least one men’s Olympic spot. However, as no individual is allowed to earn their country more than one Olympic spot, DeVilliers’ win may raise some questions as he is almost certain to earn South Africa a spot anyway purely based on his own Olympic ranking. Nevertheless, DeVilliers earns a big win as the BG Triathlon World Cup series kicks off later this month in Australia."

Yeah... like what country would want two spots at the Beijing Games when you could have only one! Duh :-)

Warning

Tri247.com Interview

Simon Whitfield interview
Posted by: Annie Emmerson
Posted on: Friday 7th March 2008

In Sydney 2000, a young and talented Canadian triathlete by the name of Simon Whitfield stood on the start line at triathlon's Olympic debut. He was fit and strong, but certainly not tipped as a favourite to take Gold. One hour, forty-eight minutes and twenty-four seconds later his life was to change forever as he became the first ever male triathlete to win a Gold medal in triathlon at the Olympic games. Complacency and a breakdown in team unity saw him finish in a somewhat disappointing 11th place in the 2004 Athens Olympics, but Beijing is going to be very different, with his team back to full strength and focus, and a much improved swim, Simon's desire to win Gold is as strong as ever.

....

AE What thoughts run through your mind when you stand on the startline at the Olympic Games?

SW In Sydney I was just a kid; smiling, loving the experience and feeling so fortunate to be racing at the Olympic Games with this internal feeling that I had a chance to surprise some people. In Athens it was completely different; our team (coach, manager, staff, athletes) had completely come apart and I take a fair amount of responsibility for that. We simply imploded and arrived at the games with low morale and lacking that sense of camaraderie, especially compared to Sydney. We had complicated everything and lost sight of the joy of racing and competing. I'm very excited about Beijing, our team is so happy to be together and supportive of each other. We'll play guitar hero the day before the race, eat dinner together (and do the dishes together) and everyone brings such fantastic energy, from our massage guru, Kim, and her great smile, to our Hungarian mechanic and his monster hands (and big laugh), to our soft-spoken Chiro, who's all about doing the shitty jobs and doing whatever it takes to get it done, and finally, our chef named Cosmo Memo, who is a dude, with a mohawk and the greatest food ever. Oh yeah and coach Joel, he's OK.

....

Gee, thanks... i tell ya, coaching can be a thankless job ;-)

Living In Fat City

A good article over on lifehack.org about growing obesity rates, which the author says are related to western culture's propensity for eating too much, and moving too little. Craig Harper describes 8 ideas as to how we got this way:

"As an Exercise Scientist, observer of humanity, and ex-fat bloke, there are plenty of things which fascinate me about living in Fat City (the culture, the habits, the behaviors, the thinking, the excuses, the lies, the marketing, the trends, the media), but here’s my short list:
1. We’ve never be more informed, educated, resourced or equipped to combat obesity, yet we’ve never been fatter.
2. I am constantly amazed at our ability (as a society) to complicate the simple.
3. Our obsession with the quick fix.
4. We love playing the ‘blame game’.
5. I laugh when people get grumpy at me for telling the truth; what they don’t want to hear.
6. I marvel that people pay thousands of dollars per year to...
7. Our inability to finish things.
8. The Victim. "

Check out the article for the expanded explanation behind each point.

Flip Your Karma: 8 Tricks to Turn the Bad Into the Awesome

A good post on Zen Habits about when things don't go the way you want. Here are Leo's 8 ways to change perspective when something goes wrong:

1. The power of positive thinking.
2. Failure is a stepping stone to success.
3. Practice patience.
4. Learning experience.
5. Makes you stronger.
6. Test of your character.
7. Turn the other cheek.
8. Love your enemy.

Great quote at the end:

“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” - Winston Churchill

Read the rest with summaries of each at Zen Habits

Get Some

Big day of training today... the crew attacked it like this dude in the clip working the machine gun... Near the end of the ride Colin said: You should do a story about me sometime... Why should I do I story about you I said? Colin says "Because I'm so..." oh well watch the clip :-)

Validation

So after the epic swim this morning here in Flag, I am ready for lunch (we are swimming later here due to all the Japanese clubs). So I head over to my favorite lunch venue, Quiznos. I often get flack for frequenting this establishment from my athletes, but today I was validated. Coaching Legend Jack Daniels was enjoying a fine toasted sub for lunch. So there, Quiznos is the choice for world class coaches like Jack, so it'll do for me too.

NAU Centre for High Altitude Training

We're in Flagstaff Arizona now for our second camp of the year. Tomorrow we wrap up out first week here, which has seen some very solid work accomplished coming off the desert duathlon last weekend. I've heard some of the athletes say this first week here we've had some of our hardest workouts so far this year. However, I'm pretty sure some of the monster sessions I'm planning over the next two weeks will set the bar higher again, now that we've had our first adaptation week at altitude.... Check out the athletes blogs for their impressions. Tomorrow is Colin's birthday, so we'll be "celebrating" with something special.  Check out 20 Questions with Colin to find out more about the man himself. 

Flagstaff is a great training venue and after 3 months here last year it feels like a second home. Sean Anthony and the crew at the NAU Centre for High Altitude Training do an exceptional job supporting the athletes and groups who train here, whether from the USA or foreigners like us. We're coming back to Flag later this spring, when the weather is "better", although personally I'm hoping for snow.... HTFU

No small animals were harmed...

Oh yeah..., originally uploaded by jfilliol1.

In the making of these videos:

http://simonwhitfield.blogspot.com/2008/02/episodes-1-and-1a-of-ntc-visits.html