October 4, 2005 – At the end of each racing season, every athlete looks back and tries to analyze what worked and what didn’t. In my case this happened in early April after a good dose of recovery time. Having a break from the skiing world allowed me to look back at the season more objectively, rather than full of the emotion of racing. After some reflection as well as scouring my training and racing logs, it became evident that there were a few items that were missing from my ‘master plan’. I wrote many items down on a piece of paper, which became my ‘work-in-progress-ideal-training-racing-situation-wish-list’.

One of the top priorities on my list was to work with more training partners. In addition to breaking the monotony of hard intensity weeks, training partners can provide great motivation. So when the opportunity to go down to Waterloo, Ontario to train with Andrea Dupont arose, it seemed like a great match. Andrea is an incredibly strong skier and I knew there was a lot I could learn from her. After an interval workout with the Waterloo Cross Country Running team, I gained an entirely new perspective in regards to interval fitness and enjoyed the benefits of pushing myself with others. Doing the workout with Andrea helped me push myself harder than I had in a long time, and it left me with great sense of accomplishment and motivation for a summer of training.

Several weeks later I ran the annual Duntroon to Stayner 8km Road Race. At the beginning of the run I met up with a civil engineer who works in my office and he introduced me to his wife Rhonda. The stories of Rhonda’s athletic endeavors had been a hot topic of conversation around the cubicles that winter. She was on a woman’s pro cycling team in the states and had been riding exceptionally well that year. Before turning pro, she had completed several Ironman’s and was a true all-around athlete. Rhonda had not run all winter and had still decided to do the 8km race; I knew she must be a sucker for pain! Following the race we decided to meet up and run together. Slowly but surely I would show her the Bruce Trail and she would slowly but surely turn me into a better runner. As a cross-country skier, I had gotten used to ‘ski-walking’ all of the steep up hills, but true runners do not understand this concept of walking during a run, and I had no choice but to run in order to keep up with her. My hill running technique has been improving with the added bonus of hearing stories from the pro cycling and triathlon worlds.

My final ‘silent’ training partner has been my coach, Larry Sinclair. Up until recently I had been chugging along with my usual rollerski and ski hiking intervals, and then my new training plan arrived with an unusual note on the bottom:

“Rski interval 1X’s/wk 4min+ (assist). These are going to incorporate long uphill work where you will need a ride down”

After reading this I felt a mix of nervousness and excitement. Sunday morning came and I met with Larry at the bottom of County Road 19, a large paved road with wide shoulders that snakes its way up Blue Mountain, minutes from where I live in Collingwood, Ontario. I had only ever tried the hill, known locally as the ‘Eliminator’, on my road bike, and knew the hill was too dangerous to navigate on my rollerskis. The intervals ended up being even better than I had imagined with 91/2 minutes of uphill work, followed by a sweet ride down in the back of a pick up truck. Each week Larry has given up his Sunday morning to help me and fellow team mate Jeff Ellis navigate our way up and down the ‘Eliminator’, and for that I am grateful to be able to call him my coach.

Each of my new training partners has helped me improve, and each in a unique way. During the first Exel Racing Team training camp our team had a week to train together and I know that during the upcoming season our team will be getting to know each other even better as ‘training partners’. More importantly we will learn from each other and bring our experiences together to move forward as a team. Until then we will continue to be ‘virtual’ training partners, supporting each other through emails and phone calls while we all prepare for our exciting first season together.