Here is the video Jon got of me the other morning in the pool. There have been some great changes from last year, but there is lots left to do this year. Main focus now is better catch on the right hand and engaging my latts for the catch. Higher elbow and slightly deeper catch are also on my to do list.
Speaking at Calgary Marathon Expo
Are you racing this Sunday in one of the races for the 48th annual Calgary Marathon? I’m speaking at the expo on Friday at 4:30 on Motivation and Mindset. I’ll be discussing how to get through and approach a race mentally, as well as strategies for achieving your best results on and away from race day.
Grant
Centaur Subaru Clinics 2012
Centaur Subaru – Triathlon Clinic Weekend
Day 1 – Swim & Bike
Cottage Country -Ghost Lake – Saturday June 2, 2012 – 10:00am
Centaur Subaru is proud to support grassroots triathlon in Calgary for the third straight year with day one. Both beginner and intermediate triathletes are invited to attend a free clinic put on by Canadian professional triathetes Jon Bird and Grant Burwash. The first part of the morning will have us test out Ghost lake. We will focus on skills and tips for swimming in a lake, including sighting, entering and exiting the water, swimming straight, pack swimming dynamics and wetsuit information. Following the swim we will dry off and warm up with some goodies from fresh kitchen then hope on the bike. The bike-handling course will focus on skills and tips for bike handling, pack riding, climbing, basic bike maintenance and road safety. This course is limited to the first 35 people that RSVP, each participant will receive a free catered lunch, water bottle and some PowerBar products. All participants are required to have an Alberta Triathlon Association membership to participate.
Itinerary:
10:00am: Arrival and get into your wetsuit
10:00 – 10:15: Brief chat from Grant and Jon about what to expect
10:15 – 10:45: Swim for as long as you can comfortably
10:45 – 11:30: Warm up and get changed – ‘ what to expect on the bike’
11:30 – 1:00: work on drafting bike handling and gearing
1:00 pm: lunch and PowerBar samples and talk on bike mechanics by Speed Theory
What you need to bring:
Bike, Helmet, warm clothing, wetsuit, towel, toque, gloves, riding jacket
View Centaur Subaru Clinic Day 1 in a larger mapiew Centaur Subaru Clinic Day 1 in a larger map
Centaur Subaru – Triathlon Clinic Weekend
Day 2 – Run Clinic
North Glenmore Park – Sunday June 3, 2012 – 10:00am
Centaur Subaru is proud to support grassroots triathlon in Calgary with the second day of our weekend triathlon clinic. Both beginner and intermediate and advanced triathletes are invited to attend a free clinic put on by Jon Bird and Grant Burwash of Talisman Centre’s Endurance Training Systems. This run clinic will focus on skills and tips for Calgary 70.3 including race nutrition, staying cool, fast transitions, running form and a preview of the 70.3 run course. This course is limited to the first 35 people that RSVP, each participant will receive a free catered lunch, water bottle and some PowerBar products. All participants are required to have an Alberta Triathlon Association membership to participate.
Itinerary:
9:45am: Arrival and light warm up
10:00am: Begin 21 km run preview of 70.3 course (you don’t have to run the full 21km)
11:45 – 12:00: Running school with focus on technical running form
12:00 – 12:15: lunch and talk on transitions and nutrition
What you need to bring:
Running shoes, appropriate running gear, warm down gear for post run
View Centaur Run Clinic in a larger map
Grant Burwash – grantburwash@gmail.com
Cost – FREE * requires a ATA license
Not my day
Just a quick post to let everyone know why I had a DNF beside my name for Ironman 70.3 St Croix. About half way through the bike today I got a flat. I tried to fix it and my pitstop didn’t work. Super frustrating, so I got a ride home in the back of a truck. I was 8th coming out of the water and was in 9th or 10th when I flatted and feeling better and better as the day went on. Very angry right now and not really sure what to do next. I feel like I wasted my fitness and time coming here because nothing worked out. I can’t let myself feel like that though and need to instead focus on the next race and transferring this anger into training.
Congrats to Andy Potts and Angela Naeth who took the wins today.
Grant
Last Minute Musings
I’m packed and ready to race tomorrow. The story of today was definitely the rain. It rained heavily this morning and then poured for 3+hours this afternoon. The training swim was actually cancelled and many roads are flooded with lots of debris on them. It will make the race even more interesting if there is still flooding in the morning, but right now you can’t think about that.
I’m definitely excited about the race tomorrow and am getting into the suffer mindset for tomorrow. There is no doubt in my mind that tomorrow is really going to hurt. The difficulty of the course, the intense humidity and the heat will leave all competitors fighting for every stroke, pedal and step. Yes, tomorrow will be a sufferfest. That being said, it doesn’t mean there won’t be success or reward for your efforts, you’ll just need to work for it
The race start at 6:30am local time. You can follow live and track me at the following link;
http://live.ironmanlive.com/Event/Ironman_703_St_Croix_2
Thanks to everyone who helped me get here and I’ll talk to you after the race.
Grant
Splattered Peacock Ride
This morning I woke up at 6 to observe a beautiful morning in St Croix. The water was gave off a rolling background noise as the island seemed to stand still. The ocean air flowed through my open window as I sat doing work and enjoying the sunny, windless morning in the Caribbean. After it had warmed up a bit and was 28C, I decided to head out for my run. I had a great run and loved the heat beating down on my bare back and face and couldn’t help but smile as I poured sweat onto the pavement.
Then, it was time for the swim. It was waiting to jump into the crystal clear ocean that I got my first glance of Lance Armstrong. As expected, everyone seemed to hover around him, but his body language and posse made it clear he was there to swim and not sign. I found the swim very helpful because I had guessed the currents wrong earlier and had made a mistake on where to swim coming back in. Another chance in the water tomorrow will be welcomed. After that it was time to ride. My legs felt heavy to start, but after a good warm up and some time at race effort, they really started to turn around. I was thoroughly enjoying the ride and the scenery was incredible when I saw Peacock feathers. Then, there were more…and more and then splat, the bird behind the feathers lying flattened on it’s road. I thought it was funny to see the beauty before disaster that lead to them. Not a couple kms later, I got a flat on my tubular. I tried my pitstop, but that didn’t work, so it was a long 13km ride until I met someone who was meeting their wife and gave me a ride home. All I’m going to say is that when you are riding on a carbon rim with no dampening, the roads here in St Croix are ROUGH. So, like the Peacock, my beautiful ride quickly turned to disaster.
The rest of the day was encompassed with driving the rest of the bike course including the 24%grade of the Beast, a pro meet and greet, a local street festival called Jump Up, dinner and rest. What a day. Let’s hope I’m done with all the little disasters of the trip and Sunday goes off without a hitch.
Time to change a tubular tire, so that’s all for today.
Grant
Interesting first day in Paradise
I arrived in St Croix late Wednesday night for the Ironman 70.3 St Croix. I have never been this far South, let alone the Caribbean, so I was excited to get off the plane and feel the warmth and the humidity of the air as it hit me. I didn’t get to my home stay until about 11, so it was straight to bed and deal with everything the next morning.
Task number 1- when I awoke, I found out that the container and bag I had carried my PowerBar Ironman Perform drink mixture in had been punctured and the crystals were all over my bag. Thanks to the humidity, all the clothes had a sticky powder coating on them…nice. That required a trip downtown later to search out quarters for the washing machine where I proceeded to wash everything I owned, leaving me shirtless for most of the day. Thankfully it’s not cold!
Task number 2- While putting my bike together, I noticed I was missing some very essential pieces of equipment…my skewers. Not really sure what happened to them, but they were in the pocket where the lovely TSA’s “your bag has been checked” paper was. I’m assuming these were taken out to see what they were and never put back in. So, on my tour of the island with DJ in search of food and a road that didn’t rattle our bones to badly, I bought some skewers from the local bike shop.
Task number 3- Training in new places is always a treat. It’s a great way to explore and get a sense of the area and people. I started the day with a nice run that took me through Christiansted (city I’m staying in) and along most of the run course. Legs felt descent for spending 10hours in the air the day before. Later in the day I went out for a ride. When I left it was overcast, which it had been all day, but 30-40mins later I was in for a surprise. The skies opened up and the rain poured down. I can’t remember ever being in such a heavy rain storm, at least not on my bike. The road were flooding and there was water everywhere. A great thing about the Caribbean is that when it rains, it’s still warm, so I wasn’t huddled under a tree shivering like I would have been in Calgary. After some sketchy corners I came up on a deer going pretty fast. He ran on to the road, tried to stop and slipped. I slowed down to avoid him as he went down in front of me. I proceeded to go down trying to avoid him and slid along the pavement. Thankfully, there was so much water everywhere I slid along the pavement like a water slide. Bike, body and deer all left the accident site with no injuries. Phew!
Day 1 is down, I can’t wait to see what day 2 has to offer.
Grant
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