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Loving that I can ride in some SUN

Palm Springs has been awesome for the past couple of days, more specifically, there has been SUN and no SNOW!!! I couldn't have left Vancouver at a better time, even though I do love a good snowfall when I can stay inside drinking coffee all day. Time to go and get geared up to ride, another hard day in the headwinds!!!!

Cool video by Steve Di Tomaso

Xmas time, Family time, Re-focus time, Business time

So I recently just got home from an amazing vacation with my family in Hawaii, Waikiki to be exact. It is my happy place, the weather, the ocean, the running, the people, the smell of Hawaii even brings a smile to my face. I didn't bring my bike with me which is a little sad, but it gave me the opportunity to get some new running shoes and hit the streets of Hawaii. I ran up around Diamond Head several times and it was good, I forgot how much I enjoyed running minus the blisters, tight calves and adductors. As of lately I haven't been writing much, but once again I am going to make it a priority to add a quick blurb here and there. My strength and conditioning coach, Steve Di Tomaso, just made a really cool video featuring your's truly which I will post shortly. My sister, Marla Guloien, also made a cool video for me which I will also post shortly when my computer will cooperate. I have such a great group of people surrounding me that are so supportive, and I want to be able to give props to them and show how amazing they are. The life of an athlete can be very tough and I need to suck it up a lot of the time and sometimes it makes it easier when I know I have people that believe in me!!! Okay time for bed. Leah

First Cross Race Done and Done

Cross is so fun, I forgot how much fun it is. Yes, I tasted blood at the end of the race, yes I wanted to quit on several occasions and yes I almost bit it on the run-up, but now that it is over I can reflect and think about how much fun it was. Cross is a great way to stay in shape in the off season, as well as a great way to work on your technical bike handling skills which can be very useful in the European peloton. I ended up coming in 4th today, and it was nice to ride with my friends and duke it out. The "Animal" Jeananne Berkenpas won, Sandy aka Sandra Walter 2nd and Kelly Jones third. From the gun we had a good paceline going and I felt pretty strong and then suddenly I didn't haha, I had enough for a 13 minute race, not a 45 minute one haha. Here are some awesome pics taken by my good friend, Tim Sherstobitoff.

Cross Race

This year I decided to get a cross bike and do some races for FUN hahaha, I laugh every time I say that, and then I think, no really I am just doing this for fun, no pressure. I have ridden my new Rocky Solo CX twice now, and the bike fits and feels really good, so I am excited to test it out in a race. The technical part of cross is going to be a challenge for me, I am pretty pathetic at jumping back on the bike. I refuse to have both feet off of the ground and kick my legs back to jump on the saddle, seriously what if I miss the saddle- I will have much bigger problems than losing 10 seconds in the race. I am going to work on it though and put on some clinics for myself, so if anyone wants to join in on the fun, lemme know. Wish me luck!

Awesome day with the RENTS and last day with my seester, Marla

Bike riding, tennis, hot tubing need I say more!!!!

OFFSEASON

Over the past week, I have been in HOT La Quinta, Palm Springs (like 105F-117F degrees, or 41C-47C) spending some time with my entire immediate family. I haven't seen my older sister, Krista, since Xmas and she had a brief break after Worlds and winning a Silver medal! It is nice to spend some time with the family, we are always travelling somewhere, or busy doing something and it is nice to just sit down and have a conversation. Being away and having some time to sit and think about my next steps is also nice. What team will I race with for next season, (as my team this year will no longer be on the circuit), what will I do for work, how will I improve my training and fitness to achieve the goals I have set for myself ??? and the list goes on... I am anxious, excited and scared all at the same time, but I need to continue to live in the moment and right now life is pretty good. I have a lot of offseason goals I would like to tackle too. My TO DO list includes 1. racing some cross races, 2. trail running, 3. some long hikes- I want to go back to Whistler for this, 4. getting some strength in the gym, 5. work on my technical mountain bike skills and 6. HAVE FUN doing it!!!

South Carolina, Palm Springs and soon Europe!

I recently got home from a ten day training camp in South Carolina and the weather was amazing, the people were awesome and the riding was hard!!! I was really impressed with some of the rides we went on, particularly Whitewater Falls and Sassafrass, both of which had a great climb that tested all of our legs. The camp had a great mix of mountain bikers, road cyclists and track riders and everyone brought something to the table. There were doctors, physiotherapists and tons of students pursuing goals outside of their athletic endeavours- very impressive!!!

I am now back in beautiful, sunny Palm Springs and getting in some good miles with my Dad. My Dad has been slacking on his training and his road riding is suffering haha, the day has officially come where I can kick his ass. If my Dad hadn't punished me for years on the bike, I might have some sympathy, but that is not the case. I can't even begin to count how many times I have bonked, been dropped and cried on the side of the trail/road because I was being pushed way beyond my limits. Payback is a biatch hahaha.

My grandma is currently in town for several weeks and her sister and husband are visiting at the moment. They brought me a really cool gem that sits beside my bed and I am supposed to hold it at night and it promotes love and passion. It opens the heart chakra to all forms of love- self love, family love, platonic love and romantic love. With that said, I might need a garden of those little gems hahaha, just kidding I got a lot of love to give. My grandma then insisted that I needed some more gem bracelets. So now I am wearing some Protection, Balance and Harmony on my wrist. I am still not sure if I should be appreciative or offended that people are thinking I am lacking in these areas???? Once again kidding- obviously just a thoughtful gesture right???

Lots of things are coming up for me. Racing in Madera with my teammate Cara and then off to Europe at the end of March until the beginning of May. I can't wait to start racing!!!

Cycling, clogged drains, bootcamp sessions and packing

My Dad's friend and now my friend, Peter, left today to go back to the fore casted rain and snow flurries brrrr. I really shouldn't talk because I am headed to South Carolina and the weather isn't looking so great there either, you really can't beat the desert. Before Peter left, I took him out to Box Canyon which is one of my favorite aerobic rides, if you are not being chased by crazy dogs, you are riding through some sketchy areas which keeps me rather entertained ha and then ofcourse there is the beautiful scenery in the Canyon.

Speaking of entertainment, my cousin Poppy clogged our sink in the kitchen and was freaking out my Mom was gonna kill her haha so I came to the rescue. After several failed attempts of plunging with a plastic cup, I had to resort to the toilette plunger barf. My cousin was saying the most ridiculous things while I was plunging, things I am not even going to get into, that I couldn't stop laughing and in the end Peter had to help us out haha.

I was feeling a little tired this morning so I decided to take the day off of the bike and do some strength training this morning. I then decided to put my cousin through boot camp, she did awesome! She refused the wall sits, but everything else she performed like a true champ :) I wanted to take some video footage, but sadly she wouldn't let me. I think she just might love kettle bell swings :) Okay I gotta go pack up my bike!!!!

Biking and New People

So lately I have been feeling significantly better and I have even logged some decent hours on the bike and it hasn't been all Zone 1. First off, my Mom and I have discovered a way in which we can ride together and both be working fairly equal, however, there are some cons in this plan. So we have been riding side by side and I am pushing her with my right arm while she continues to pedal in a hard gear. I am amazed how efficient and fast we actually are, the con, however, is that my right arm is getting stronger than my left and I don't want another muscle imbalance. My Mom seems to love going fast though and better yet, she loves passing all of the men riding solo on the road. This is where my workout goes from Zone 2 to Zone 5 haha. As for training without an additional person, things are going pretty good. I have met up for some rides with a trialthon group led by Mitch Gold at Counterpart Coaching Systems. Annie Ewart and Leah Kirchman are also in town and joined in for some of the rides. The triathlon group are a group of people that amaze me with the amount of hours and training they put in. I actually think it is crazy, but I can appreciate what they are trying to achieve, so props to them. Yesterday was the Tour de Palm Springs which brought out thousands of people on bikes, chaos!. It was a great ride and a good pace, unfortunately, our friend, Peter, got a flat which disconnected us from the group we were originally in. We decided to take a bit of a short cut home :) which seemed like a good idea at the time, but as we were coming through the finish line so were the 55mile group. I have never seen so many close calls. People were all over the road and their bikes, I think some people might just dust off their bike and come out for this one very special day and it shows hahaha. There was one man that became part of our trio which included me, my Dad and Peter and he was the ultimate Mr. America. He was fully kitted out in a USA kit, high end bike and he was going at a solid clip, I was impressed. Okay I was getting a little irritated with him towards the end, but good for him for taking it to the line, and believe me when I say he was risking it all weaving through some of those people. I am sitting here laughing thinking about all of the funny event that took place yesterday, but words wouldn't do it justice. Well thats all I got for now, four more days and I am off to a camp in South Carolina.

127 Hours

Last night my Mom and I went and saw the movie "127 Hours." It was pretty intense and it once again reminded me how important it is to tell people where you are going when partaking in certain adventures. Anything can happen out there and it is important to be SMART and prepared. I must admit, I did some pretty sketchy hikes in 2010 fairly ill prepared oopsie, lesson learned!!! Today was a good day in the desert and it was actually super hot. I took my Mom out on the bike today and she rode for over one hour, I am so impressed. I love watching people ride that are so fresh to the sport and just purely enjoy being on a bike and feeling the wind in their hair. I need to learn to love the bike for fun at times, especially when I am sick or injured and can't train the way I want too. My Mom and I rode to the golf course today where my Dad was playing at and I spotted my him and his cousin, Doug from miles away. I actually yelled his name oopsie, I forgot that is a no no in the golf world. I think I need to take up golf, that is on my list of things to do before I leave Palm Springs.

Enjoying the desert

Aside from recovering from illness, life is pretty good in the desert! The temperature has been pretty warm, but the more important part is that it has been sunny. My parents are back in town now too, so everything is that much better :).

Back to Blogging

So I have not blogged in the longest time and I am feeling rather guilty about it, yes I know I feel guilty about everything I do ha. This is not because I think there are people reading my blog and I am disappointing them, it is more for myself and to keep myself accountable for something I started. I always want to blog when everything is going great in my life, and NEVER want to blog when I am struggling and I think I need to change that. Life throws you curve balls whether you want them or not and it is all about how you deal with them. Once again, I am not good at dealing with curve balls and sometimes it takes me some crying, some depressed days and some conversations with great friends to help get me back on track. Over the past month, I have been dealing with stomach issues, fatigue, dizziness, weakness etc. and no one knew what was wrong with me. I had some similar symptoms I had last year at the SAME TIME and didn't understand how this could possibly be happening to me again. After being disappointed by several doctors, I basically requested that they test everything and anything possible. I spent countless hours on the internet, like seriously all hours of the day and night, I had/have hehe a serious problem. And no, I was not looking at inappropriate things people!!! I came to the conclusion that I had Giardia and even though my doctor said there is no way that is what it is, I demanded that we test for it. Three days later, my results showed I have Giardia!!!! Once again, I listened to my body and I was right, this just reaffirms that you need to listen to your gut instinct. I have been on five rounds of antibiotics over the past month and my body feels it. I am currently taking multiple supplements and herbal remedies in hopes of healing quicker. I have had to ease off of the training and just ride to spin the legs out and keep the mind sane. I am starting to come around and I am very optimistic that I will be good to go in one more week. I am really looking forward to getting back on the bike and training. I am heading to South Carolina on Feb.17th for a National team training camp, so lets hope I am recovered and good to go by then.

The Clean and Jerk

So I made it through the Olympic Weightlifting course!!! I learned a ton and definitely will be using the knowledge I gained. The body was a little sore, but nothing compared to the pain I endured on Monday. I ventured out on a 6 hour hike with Tim, Denise and Denise's boyfriend, Jamie. We decided to hike up Buntzen because we thought it would have less snow than Golden Ears, and yeah we were very very wrong. There was a ridiculous amount of snow after the first lookout and we were literally cutting fresh tracks for hours in runners and hikers. The snow was coming up to my hips and at one point I decided that crawling across the top of it would be easier. The four of us took turns cutting the tracks, but we were all pretty cooked at about 4 hours in and decided we needed to turn around and abort out initial intentions of doing a loop. It was a great day, but I am feeling a wee bit tired today!!

Olympic Weightlifting

So all weekend I am taking a coaching course on Olympic Weightlifting. I came into the course thinking the majority of the day would be spent on theory and taking notes etc., and this was SOOOOO not the case. We literally did the lifts and parts of the lifts for the entire day. When I say lifts, I am referring to the Clean and Jerk and The Snatch. We also did some front and back squats, which I have a short video of. My thumbs are raw from the "hooked" grip which is when the thumb is hooked between the bar and the last joint of the forefinger and middle finger. Tomorrow I am going to be evaluated on my lifts and I will also be doing some evaluating of my fellow classmates. Wish me luck!!!

Snowshoeing!!!!

It may only be November, but there is snow and when there is snow, there is snowshoeing. Some friends and I decided to venture to the top of the third peak on Seymour and we couldn't have lucked out with a better day. The sun was shining and the snow was abundant which made for some soft landings. Heading into the third peak there was one section that I was not too fond of. The fact that I could see some rocks and a rock ledge/dropoff didn't appeal to me so much, call me crazy haha. Unfortunately, Denise went down like it was a slip and slide having the time of her life, damn 20 year olds, and there were several strangers watching at the bottom telling me to "go, come on just do it," so I really had no choice. It actually wasn't bad, but it looked freaking scary!!!! I am excited for more snowshoeing and skate skiing ahead. I will need to work on my skate skiing skills because I am pretty sure it is supposed to be a lower body workout and not an upper body one ha. Along with some fun weekend adventures, I also got certified in FMS which is Functional Movement Screening. It is basically a screening process that enables the trainer to asses ones body movements in some basic functional movements and determine whether or not they have any mobility or stability problems. I would love to screen a handful of cyclists because I can almost guarantee the majority are one step away from a serious injury, whether it be lower back, hip, shoulder, or knee issues. My plan is to take this knowledge I have gained and continue learning in hopes of helping my fellow athletes out. I will keep you posted on this!!!!

More Hiking and Adventures

This past weekend I decided to go exploring a little further into my backyard. I went on a great hike with my roomie Tim and cycling buddy, Denise and it was good times. We had set out to do no more than 6 hours because Denise had a school assignment and we would have had to wake up a lot earlier than 8am if we wanted to get in the 10 hour option hike. We ended up doing the Lindsay Lake loop at Buntzen Lake and it would have had some amazing views had it not been so misty and foggy- oh well looks like we will have to do it again :). There was actually a fair amount of snow at the top too which made for some slipping and sketchy descents, but it was much better than all of the wet puddles we had to truck through prior to the snow. Good thing I have gortex runners, Tim and Denise are not so lucky :) Surprisingly we ran into a fair amount of people on our hike, I thought I was the only crazy one, but no there are others like my kind. We met a couple that drove in from Vancouver and once again I was reminded that I love where I live. We didn't run into any wild life which is good, I would like to think this is because I kept the noise levels up the ENTIRE hike since my friends were in a state of lethargy haha. Okay I must admit my quads were burning as we began our descent and I was struggling to not fall into the mindless trance where you can't even remember how you made it down the mountain. I am determined to go back up there, but this time I want to do the longer loop. I am really hoping the rain stops soon, some sun would be ideal, but as we like to say Harden the F**** Up Princess. Tomorrow is gym day and that means deadlifts and squats and DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness). I am wondering if the DOMS will ever go away? My plan is to get stronger than my sister, you know the olympic rower haha. Just because she is almost 6 ft tall and has about 30lbs more of muscle mass doesn't mean she can beat me in the gym right? By the way, my sister just won Silver at the World Championships in the women's 8, not too shabby if I do say so myself. I told her I am thinking of becoming a lightweight rower again :) Focus Leah, Focus. And while me and big sis are working on our quads, little sis is singing up a storm. She is going to be doing a concert I believe in December so I will keep you posted on the date and venue. She is killing it right now and is on her way to some big success. So much excitement in my family, I love it!!!!

Having some FUN

So my goal is to get back to blogging and start sharing all of my amazing experiences with my friends and family. I have been thoroughly enjoying the off season. It was a rough start, as my body was only capable of sitting on a road bike and turning the cranks around for hours on end. My first gym workout led to some very unpleasant pain the next day, as did my first 4 hour hike. As a Kinesiologist and personal trainer, I would highly recommend not doing what I do haha. After a couple of weeks, my body has been adjusting to the new stresses I have put upon it. My weights are increasing in the gym and I just got back from a weekend of hiking for 12 hours. I went and hiked Black Tusk and Wedgemount Lake in the Squamish and Whistler area. The snow is starting to accumulate now on the top of the mountains so I think I need to dust off the snowshoes. It is so nice to be home in Port Moody and I am loving training for fun and purely because I want to. Although, I must admit I did go for a road ride yesterday and it felt like home. Well that's all for now, I need to run some errands and get ready for my appointment this afternoon with a man specializing in structural integration, should be interesting.

Lots of chamois time

Since the cleanse has been over, I have been feeling much better!!! I am continuing to watch what I eat and I am hoping to get some food allergy testing done soon. However, in the meantime I will just be careful and take note if certain foods affect the way I feel. This week has been a solid week of training with my good old Dad. The week started with some 20 minute efforts where I left my Dad in the dust :) The winds were super strong and being the little pip squeak he is, he couldn't hang. Sadly, our next interval session involved 10 second efforts. My coach, Dan Proux, gave me 5 to 7 efforts; however, due to a battle between father and daughter it turned into 9 efforts. My Dad annihilated me 6 to 3, although I don't really count the 9th one. The next couple of rides were long hours in the beautiful Palm Springs sun. It has been super hot here lately and my tan is starting to get very interesting to say the least, but I promise (FAMILY) I am wearing sunscreen every ride. I think I need to purchase SPF 70 or something like that. My Dad and I did a 4 hour ride through Box Canyon which is now all cleaned up after all of the flooding which created heaps of sand dispersed throughout the roads. We rode to the top of the Canyon where it meets HWY 10 and tried to continue on this remote road to where I thought was a look-out, but clearly I was wrong and we were just paralleling HWY 10 oops. The ride went quite smoothly until we were about 30 minutes from the car and boom, my rear ZIPP blew. Yeah I know you are all thinking who trains on a freaking ZIPP, but my power tap is in the shop getting fixed and that was all I had to ride on. Good thing I was carrying a spare tubular; however, that doesn't do one much good if you can't get the super-glued tire off the WHEEL. So my Dad had to leave me stranded on HWY 111 and go retrieve the car. By the time he got back I had the tire off and the first and second layer of skin off of both of my thumbs :) The next day we both signed up for the Tour de Palm Springs which is quite the big event. There were thousands of riders of all different levels and from all over the place, I definitely met my fair share of Canucks- GO CANADA GO!!! I also got the opportunity to talk with Kristin Armstrong (2008 Olympic Gold Medalist in the Individual Time Trial) who is in Palm Springs with a group of guys from Boise, Idaho doing some training. The Tour de Palm Springs is a casual, fun, family event for some and for others it is an opportunity to get in a solid workout with some hard efforts. Naturally, my Dad and I chose the solid workout group and we were both pretty cooked at the end of the day. Aside from feeling like I had heat stroke it was a super fun event that I would recommend to anyone. Today I had another 4 hour ride with the Tram climb in the middle of my ride. The Tram road is a very steep climb that takes you to the bottom of the Tramway which takes you to the top of the mountain. I am not sure of the stats of this climb, but all I can say is that it is very steep (over 2000ft elevation gain in a short??? distance) and very hard. I started the climb feeling OK and then I started delivering mail as Ben Travis from Palm Springs would say. I couldn't understand why my cadence was so slow and I could barely turn the cranks around and then it dawned on me. I was using a spare wheel from the bike shop with a 23 on the back, I actually stopped and counted the rear cog cassette to confirm that I wasn't going crazy. Yep it was a 23. I made it to the top, barely, and I was pretty much standing and doing the full body bob to the top, but hey I made it!!! Well that is all I got for now. GO CANADA!!!