This week on the program we take another dive into the world of ultra-running and if you’ve never heard of a Backyard Ultra you are not alone. It turns out that it involves a lot of running. How much running depends on your mind and body. It sort of is a “last person standing sort of affair.”
Our feature guest this week is Agassiz Ultra Runner Marina Striker. She is going to give us a 1st-hand account of what a Backyard Ultra is. She was the top female! Marina is also going to let us in on some of her training and motovational secrets. Giving us the perspective of what it is like to be a crew member for one of these around-the-clock events is Fitspeek and Tri*Joy regular contributor Jamie Imal.
Ending off the show & fresh off his win at the Oliver Sprint Triathlon, Abbotsford Triathlon coach, Mikey Ross returns for another Top 5 List. If you are like most athletes, you’ve suffered a running injury, Mikey will go through a self-checklist to ensure that your return to running & racing isn’t too early. Hear it all now by pressing play below
This week the gloves come off as Tri-Warrior Head Coach Kevin Cutjar, representing Penticton and Pinnacle Fitness Head Coach, Paul Regensburg, representing Victoria square off to determine which is BC’s top triathlon town.
Also on the show is Mikey’s Top 5 List. The ATC coach offers advice on improving your swim stroke and efficiency for your next trip to the lake or the pool. Hear it now by pressing play below
When it comes to having excellent places to be a triathlete British Columbians are very fortunate. Our combination of geography & climate means not only do we have more months of the year to train outdoors but also we have lakes and trails that are challenging and inspiring.
Many folks consider Penticton to be the triathlon epicentre of the nation. Almost 20 years before Simon Whitfield became the poster boy for Canadian triathlon, this south Okanagan city was synonymous with endurance sports, not only here but around the world. Having a city park that features plaques commemorating all the Ironman’s winners is metal proof that this town takes triathlon very seriously.
And then there’s Victoria, the place a lot of Canadians, and almost everyone over 40 would love to call home. With our national triathlon training centre there, an abundance of training venues, and unarguably the best climate in Canada, it has everything a triathlete would want, maybe except an Ironman.
This week on Fitspeek we have a bit of a tri-town smackdown. What is our province’s best place to be a triathlete? Representing Victoria is race director of the Victoria Half and head coach of Pinnacle Fitness, Paul Regensburg. Representing Penticton is Ultraman champion and head coach of Triathlon Warriors, Kevin Cutjar. In this, the 1st part of our 2 part feature, the coaches talk about how their triathlon communities have emerged out of the Covid pandemic as well as the cycling and running opportunities their towns have. And speaking of running, Mikey Ross just bought a pair of carbon soled running shoes. You can hear his revelations in a new Top Five List. Run over and press play below to hear this week’s episode.
Back in the spring of 2020 before most of us knew what a Coronavirus was, we were all excited about the Ironman returning to Penticton. After a couple of setbacks it looks like it is all systems go for this August.
Even though Susie Ernsting has been the race director for Ironman Canada since the fall of 2019, this August will be the first time the race will actually be run under her leadership.
On the show we talk about the new race course, the legendary Ironarmy, as well as what input she actually has as a contractor for Ironman. Mikey Ross, the head coach for the Abbotsford Triathlon Club ends off the program with his Top Five List. This week he offers us some advice on how to be gracious and grateful after finishing a race. Hear it now by pressing that play button below.
This week on the show we keep it very local. One of the folks who has seen the Mission Bridge in various altered stages resulting from long runs is ATC Coach, Mikey Ross. He’s on the program this week with his Top Five List. As we all know Covid took a big bite out of our personal connections over the past 23 months, Mikey gives us 5 strategies on ways to emerge out of our caves and reconnect with our tribes.
In addition to the list, local F2C Ambassador Roy McBeth joins Kevin with a 15 minute chat on the local as well as international cycling and triathlon scene. We have some results and analysis from the Pacific First Half Marathon and we look forward to the return of the Fraser Valley Granfondo. And this week’s trivia gossip Fitspeeking, Roy seems to have kept the Christmas kilos off but not so much for Kevin. Hear it all right now by pressing play below.
When compared to the common Canadian Couch Potatoe, the average endurance athlete is far from “normal.” And at the faaaar end of the endurance spectrum, you have the ultra athletes. Vancouver’s Lucy Ryan is one of those!
In this week’s Fitspeek, we chat with the indefatigable Lucy. She is a veteran of The Badwater Ultramarathon, Ultraman Canada, and many other far past the edge of sanity endurance events. She is also a hero (my words not hers).
A few years back Lucy decided to become a kidney donor. She has since gone on to finish many more endurance events, just to show folks what is possible to do with just one kidney. Lucy’s latest adventure is another chapter in her book of philanthropic deeds as she is trekking up Mt. Kilimanjaro in order to raise awareness and funds for Kidney Donor Athletes.
From her Kilamanjaro prep to the depths of Death Valley, to a side order of perogies, we have 20 minutes of inspirational ultra-talk with Lucy. Click on the play button to hear her story. Click on the cute red kidney to help out Lucy with her cause.
This March hundreds of provincial multisport athletes will finally get a chance race again for real, as the long-running UBC Triathlon/Duathlon returns. Not only is it a great motivator for some early season intensity, it is also a reason to get that bike checked out and make sure that it is road-ready.
On the show this week, we Fitspeek with some seasoned veterans from the event, Burnaby’s Craig Premack and Vancouver’s Winston Guo. Between the 2 of them, they have almost 40 years of UBC experience. They will be sharing some of their experiences from the race course as well as some tips for folks doing the event for the first time.
Also on the program, ATC Head coach, Mikey Ross returns with his Top Five List . If you have ever had to deal with race anxiety, Coach Mikey has a 5-4-3-2-1 strategy that will keep you focused on the world around you and not the butterflies in your stomach.
30 minutes of family friendly Fitspeek is ready for your consumption by pressing that play button below.
As an average grouper, one of your dreams might be to qualify for the Ironman World Championships and see how well you stack up against the world’s best. But what happens when you win the darn thing?
This week on Fitspeek, we answer that very question as we chat with the 2019 overall age group champion, Ruth Astle, from Leeds, England. Of course, Ruth’s decision to turn pro happened right before the Covid 19 pandemic so races were far and few between.
Ruth however, made the most out of the races she did, winning as a pro at Ironman Malorca and Ironman South Africa. In addition to excelling on the race course, Ruth is also becoming very adept at marketing herself on social media. In our interview, we talk about just what goes into one of her YouTube training videos and about how Cam Wurf may be wrong.
And if you think that Ruth is just another uni-dimensional triathlete living a monastic existence, well then you’d be wrong as Ruth still holds down a very demanding part-time job in the world of finance. She also fancies a piece of chocolate (or two) and a glass of wine….or 2, especially in her lazy-season. You can follow Ruth on Facebook (1) Ruth Astle | Facebook and on Instagram Ruth Astle (@rastle50) • Instagram photos and videos and you can spend 40 minutes with one of the best cyclists in long-course triathlon now, by pressing play below.
As I write this, my playground that is called the Fraser Valley is glazed in a dicey mixture of fresh snow and ice. It’s about 2 above and it can’t decide to snow or rain.
I’m a bit more decisive this morning. I’m dropping the latest Fitspeek. This time we come full circle with reigning Ultraman World Champion and outdoorsman, Jordan Bryden.
Jordan’s life is pretty much based around the sport of triathlon, so when Covid-19 came around, he was faced with a lot of challenges. In our chat, we discuss how a full-time tri-guy makes ends meet when there’s no racin’. Jordan also answers my question “why so fast” when it comes to the current streak of fastest ever Ironman finishes. Ya gotta listen to his ideas (and it ain’t the Viking horns).
somewhere in this happy mess of humanity are two of the folks on this week’s show
To round off this week’s show, if you have ever wanted to go faster in a race (& who doesn’t) you may want to engage with others on the race course to give you that edge. On this week’s Top Five List, Mikey Ross, Abbotsford Triathlon Club coach offers 5 ways to engage and excel, the next time you hit the start line.
So, this is how it feels to wake up without regrets about what and how much went into my body the night before. Actually, that is a bit of an exaggeration, as those years of seasonal extravagance and remorse ended well before anyone knew about the wrath of Justin Bieber on music. I now see that the Ontario lad is now shilling Timbits, so I know a duet with Ian Tyson will soon be on the way and all will be well with the music world.
That other wrath is still with us, that Covid-thing, version…whatever. That thing that has, and continues to, throw uncertainty into the lives of most of us. When I go back to work on Monday, however, it will be without students; that is certain. But is it shocking? Not so much anymore.
It’s usually on this day that I look giddily at a blank piece of paper and fill it with race dates. For the second year in a row, this may become an exercise in disappointment and flushed dreams. For two years in a row I trained for Ironman Canada. For two years in a row, I stood in a wetsuit next to a Big Peach with only a handful of other die-hards who didn’t need a medal and a tattoo and a t-shirt as evidence that we had too much spare time on our hands. Yeah, we did the whole damn thing anyway.
If you had an opportunity to do a real race in the past 20 months you were either rich or lucky or both. Anybody with the money and motivation could scoot over to Andorra or Arizona or Alberta, places where the local leaders deemed Covid “over.” Over here in BC, Bonnie’s abundance of caution cancelled most races.
Folks who managed to race the Vancouver Triathlon totally lucked out as the heat domes of summer had passed, Covid numbers temporarily abated, and the curse of the coyote was averted. Hitting the finish line must have been as much of a relief as it was an accomplishment. Being on a real race course with real salt water stinging your eyes, real gravity pulling you downhill, and having real people pass you was something most of us thought was a right…not a privilege. Truthfully, however, I’m more of a racing is a necessity kind of athlete. A greedy bastard.
And as lucky as you were in actually having a race to do, you may have been doubly lucky if you had a race ready bike to do the race on. In 2021, the worldwide conspiracy against cyclists and triathletes entered stage 2 with bikes and the things that make them move (chains, derailleurs and the like) being in short supply and the prices of used equipment rise substantially.
As you map out your athletic year you need the faith of a pilgrim and the nerve of a gambler. What happens if all the races you sign up for are cancelled? Worse yet, what happens if all the races that you signed up for this year, plus all those races that you rolled over from 2020 and 2021 actually go ahead? Physical exhaustion and financial ruin looms on the horizon. Well maybe not but you have a lot of thinking and soul searching to do before you whip out that credit card and hit register. Happy New Year!
