1500 Indoor Opener

This past Saturday Josh and I lined up with a field which included several top local high school runners in a 1500 metre race at the first indoor meet of the year here at our 400m Dome in Ottawa. With a couple of guys shooting for a sub 4:00 race, we thought it best to hang back and if we could, to move up through the field as the race went along. The other reason in being cautious at the start was that we were trying to run with a looser tether. We had tried this in a workout of kilometre repeats the previous Tuesday and it seemed to work well. The starts can be tricky though particularly in a 1500m, where everybody cuts to the inside right away, so we wanted to be careful.

We were able to get a smooth start though and positioned ourselves on the outside. Predictably a couple of runners boltet right away and Josh and I found ourselves in last place through the first 200m. We hit about 51 seconds through 300m, definitely on the slow side. With a little more room to move as things opened up in front of us though, we were able to begin moving up through the field and got into a nice running rhythm. There were no official lap split times but I’ve heard we hit about 68 seconds for 400m and 2:13 at 800m. With a lap to go, Josh looked up at the clock and thought he saw 3:01 or 3:02. This meant that running a final 400m of 65 seconds would have put us right around my personal best of 4:07.05 which I ran with Greg back in 2007. Even though I didn’t know our split at the time, I knew we had a good one going. The main field was right ahead of us and we were in the race. And Josh was getting excited too, and was yelling at me with 300m to go. Unfortunately at that point the wheels started coming off a bit… or actually its probably more accurate to say that I just didn’t have the extra gear I needed. We had a bunch of runners cuing up behind us and we got eaten by about four of them over the last 200m. We finished tenth in 4:11.42. I probably mentally gave up a bit in the final few metres. It was a bit disappointing to fall apart a bit and miss out on running a really good time. On the positive side though, I haven’t run 4:11 in a couple of years. We are really just doing strength related work right now with hardly anything fast.

Update

Time is flying as I realized its been nearly two weeks since last posting. Training is continuing to roll along. We did back off a little after getting home but Ian is keen to gear up for some indoor races in hopes of building on where we are at following Para PanAms. We’re based out at the Dome now, the 400m indoor track here in Ottawa. On Saturday mornings, the workouts have started to involve a 400m approx road hill right outside the Dome. Its not a very steep hill, which means we can run them fast. Ian is convinced that running these hills fast is the best type of strength training we could do. This past Saturday we ran five of them. It was taking us 82 to 83 seconds, and we jogged down for recovery which took about 2:30. After that we went inside for some 400′s at 1500m pace and some 300′s a little faster. On the first of the 400′s, my legs were cooked from the hills and it was all I could do to run a 67. After that though we were hitting 65′s and 66′s and I started to feel better. I was able to finish the workout with a couple of 45 second 300′s guided by Cody. That ended up being a good workout. Yesterday I did a long run with Josh and Mike Woods and they killed me for 96 minutes, much of it around 6 minute mile pace. For mid December the weather is still great here at least from a running point of view, right around zero through the day and no snow on the ground.

This Saturday there is a meet here and Josh and I are going to race a 1500m. It’ll be good to see where we’re at before Christmas and to hopefully get pushed by the U of Ottawa GG athletes who will be in the race too.

There is a PhD student named Andrea Bundon who is based out in Vancouver and who competed as a guide skier in the 2010 Winter Paralympics. Recently Andrea launched a blog, www.athletesfirst.ca, to assist with her research. The purpose is to create a forum to get people talking about various issues and topics related to the Paralympics. Andrea has asked a few athletes including me to contribute posts from time to time. I’ve written one post so far and have included it here… its about the relationship between guide runners and blind athletes. www.athletesfirst.ca is just a few weeks old but there has already been some interesting discussion, worth checking out if you have a few minutes.
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From ‘Non-Competing Participant’ to a Place on the Podium: Running is a True Team Sport

I recently got back from the Para PanAmerican Games in Guadalajara. Living for two weeks among coaches, support staff and athletes with a variety of disabilities in a multicultural athlete village, you quickly become sensitive to the terminology used to classify people. One ironic example of this is the ‘Non-Competing Participant’ designation given to guide runners on the accreditation which functions virtually as a passport at a major Games. The International Paralympic Committee’s intension with using this terminology is no doubt to draw a distinction between guide runners and the athletes they guide. In the past, usually over beers after competing, it is something we have laughed about. The truth is that along with athletes who are blind, today’s guides are committed to and invested in high level training and racing more than at any other time. The performance level among blind athletes is at an all-time high across the spectrum of running events from the 100 metres up to the marathon. This means that guides must work harder to stay a step ahead and that ultimately, teams must do more training together if they are serious about pursuing success. There was a time when blind athletes might show up at a competition and have a local guide assigned to them by the organizers but those days are years in the past. So all this said, is it really fair to consider today’s guide runners as ‘Non-Competing Participants’?

We’re all familiar with the stereotype of the lonely long distance runner. As a sport, running is often characterized as an individual sport where athletes are out there on their own. But what if it is not possible for you to train or compete solo?

For a runner who is blind, working with a sighted guide runner is the simple modification that enables you to get out the door, gain improved physical fitness, experience the transformative benefits of an active lifestyle, and perhaps even aspire to compete at a Paralympic Games. As a guide runner, giving the gift of running to another person is noble, and selfless on many levels. Statistics around low physical activity participation among people with a disability are well documented. For a person with low or no vision, what opens the door to physical activity is very often the encouragement of a person in a position to facilitate the experience – namely a family member or friend, a recreation provider, teacher, coach, or in this instance a guide runner.

Yet for a runner who gets involved in guiding and who does it regularly, it may often be difficult to avoid foregoing or modifying the running which he or she would otherwise do on their own. This is even more the case for guides working with blind athletes who compete nationally or internationally on the track. In that scenario it may sometimes be necessary to look to the guidance of prospective or former ablebodied national team athletes. There are blind runners with sub 50 second 400 metre track speed so as you can imagine, a person guiding one of these athletes might need an individual 400 metre personal best of 47 seconds or better, a time which would rank them among the top five ablebodied athletes in Canada. The guide I raced with for thirteen years was a 3:48 1500 metre runner, a time equivalent to about a 4:05 mile. Athletes with this type of ability who commit to training and racing with blind runners inevitably make compromises with respect to their own competitive aspirations, or may even sacrifice their own goals altogether. And we are not even talking about the life logistics in coordinating training and races to work for not one but two people simultaneously. So as you might imagine, for a runner who is blind, particularly a competitive one, finding a guide is no easy task.

The blind runners and guides who do connect and run together for a sustained period of time develop a unique relationship characterized by deep trust, friendship and a sense of team. And it is as a team that they work together through the inevitable highs and lows of training and racing, encourage one another, challenge each other, buy into a vision for success, celebrate successes as they come, and evolve as one unit.

This is the nature of the team dynamic between the blind athlete-guide duo at the international level. To designate guide runners as ‘Non-Competing Participants’ is therefore very misleading. It makes it seem that guide runners really don’t do much when nothing could be further from the truth. Guides suffer through the same training and may often do extra so as to stay a step ahead. As mentioned earlier they may put their own competitive aspirations on hold or abandon them altogether. The commitment of guiding at an international level can impact a guide’s family and professional career too. And when it comes to racing, they must make split second decisions under extreme pressure and attempt to execute an agreed-upon race plan while running at or near their own top speed.

Since the late 1990′s, national team guide runners in our country have been treated in much the same way as blind athletes by Athletics Canada, the sport’s governing body. This means that guides receive medals at national championships and are eligible to receive carding through Sport Canada’s Athlete Assistance Program. In a sport in which blind athletes must look to the help of others and which demands so much of their guides, this progressive thinking and the incentives made available acknowledge the value which our Canadian athletics culture has placed on the contribution of guide runners. Additionally, for ablebodied athletes who just missed making a national team on their own, the chance to guide internationally is a chance to wear the Canadian uniform. And at an even deeper level, there is the human element of aspiring towards something in partnership with another person. The guide I trained and raced with for thirteen years has said that for him, our efforts together and what we accomplished in running were so much more meaningful than what he was able to accomplish on his own.

In Guadalajara we finally saw guide runners being awarded medals for the first time at a major international competition. This is in keeping with other sports such as tandem cycling and cross country skiing in which guides have for years been awarded medals alongside their athletes. Awarding medals to guide runners is a positive step in the right direction in terms of acknowledging the incredible contribution they make to our sport. It has been a very long time in coming. In an environment where nothing happens quickly, how much longer will it take for the International Paralympic Committee to come to realize the irony in the designation of guides as ‘Non-Competing Participants’?

Living One Moment at a Time: Para Pan Perspective

Its great to be back on home soil after two weeks living in the Athlete Village in Guadalajara. There was a huge emphasis on security during our time there – sometimes you feel that some of the warnings and the fact we had two RCMP officers on-site with our team might have been based on our North American paranoia – but obviously the precautions were well founded. Last week after our team returned to Canada there was the discovery of 23 bodies in an abandoned vehicle in the centre of Guadalajara. On the Saturday before coming home, Josh, Cody and I had walked around for a couple of hours in the city in search of the place where my coach Ian was staying, totally lost… two white guys and one black one who were clearly not local and who stuck out bigtime, judging from the stares we were getting. Exploring in that way probably wasn’t the smartest thing for us to have done. It sounds as though the discovery of these bodies may have been drug related – apparently Guadalajara is a gateway for meth anthetamin trafficking. Still it is a very sad and blatent reminder that not everywhere is safety something you can more or less take for granted. Take the barbed wire surrounding many of the houses that you just don’t see in Canada. And then contrasted with this, we saw cops hanging out by their police cars outside the stadium with music blaring out of car radios – not exactly keeping the peace. At times, you could stroll into the Para Pan athlete village without showing any accreditation, they simply waved those of us wearing Canadian gear through although they were not as blase with others, which raises a whole other interesting question. At the end of the trip, a couple of athletes came back to their rooms just in time to catch housekeeping staff trying to take their gear. And on a run with Josh early in our trip, we jogged past a guy in a Texas Longhorn truck sitting in the driver’s seat, totally naked. So many contradictions. At the closing ceremony, the President of Mexico, Felipe Calderón, made an impassioned speech where he talked about increased equality, inclusion and opportunity brought about through hosting the PanAm and Para PanAm Games in his country. You hope these things would remain as a lasting legacy of the Games… I like to think so, because there’s no question that sport can do so much to inspire positive change in those it touches. But it was obvious when in Mexico, even as a sheltered outsider who caught just a fleeting glimpse of life beyond the fence, that there are other big, systemic problems to confront in bringing about real equality, inclusion and opportunity.

The last couple of days of our time in Guadalajara involved some team meetings, a tour by our own Minister of State for Sport the Honourable Bal Gosal, a late night or two, a trip into the city to meet up for dinner with Ian in which we got hopelessly lost but which culminated in a great Mexican meal along with authentic live music, and the closing ceremonies complete with fireworks, lots of hype around the PanAm and Para PanAms coming to Toronto in 2015, and an artistic demonstration of some kind (this stuff always goes completely over my head). I think the organizers of major Para competitions should give some consideration to the visually impaired crowd and come up with something more original and accessible – just my take. Following the closing ceremonies, our team convened for a 2:30 am departure, and a brutal 19-hour travel day which landed me at home at about 10 pm last Monday. Suffice to say, it was great falling asleep in my own bed.

Para PanAms was an important wake-up call for me. The Paralympics are just nine months away and that time will get eaten up very quickly. I really appreciated the help of Cody and Simon, two guides who did not expect to get thrown into middle distance races in Guad – they each did an excellent job for me and I’m very grateful. For Josh, who was sidelined by a quad strain, and for Ian too, there were some important takeaways. One of the big things we all agreed on is that we paid too much respect to the altitude. We approached both races conservatively. In our 1500 metre final when the Brazilian, O’Dair Santos sprinted out in 27 seconds for the first 200, we let him and his guide go and they ran away with the race unchallenged. It might have been worth going with them, even if we blew up. Of course, hindsight is 2020. In championship races you always want to keep something in reserve and avoid being vulnourable, but we went too far in the other direction. Having raced O’Dair several times now, we know that he and his guide are front runners and we need to challenge them at this and not allow them to dictate these races. Ian felt that they looked vulnourable, beatable. By just being up there with them at the front, he feels that we could be in the right place for something good to happen. This is something we’ll keep in mind for the next time.

Another important takeaway is that I know I simply need to be fitter, work harder, be prepared to hurt more, and not back down. My friend Mikhail, who I go to see for massage treatments put it well when I was speaking with him last night. He said that this is the one year when you need to put absolutely everything you can into it. I think this is a mind set, as much as it is in doing the right things – training properly, eating and sleeping well, and the other things that support race performances. Racing is like going to war and I need to bring that kind of killer instinct into my racing. In our 5000m, the Mexican team moved past us just after we hit 3000m. Rather than latching right on their heels, I made a mistake in allowing a gap to open and from that point on it got much harder. I remember thinking about how much I was hurting with another 2 km to go, rather than committing to closing down the gap and making that the absolute priority. I should have been focussed on running a lap at a time and thinking about nothing else. The lesson for me? To live one moment at a time.

Wearing the Canadian uniform has special meaning and I was extremely proud to have had the opportunity to do so once again. It was fun being part of such a young, energetic athletics team – a team which really embraced the chance to be there and which saw no limitations in its potential. The Athletics team came away with sixteen medals in all, one less than the medal tally earned by a more experienced Para PanAm team in 2007 against arguably softer competition. As a whole Canada earned 63 medals. Brazil, with 80 medals, is emerging as the Para Pan powerhouse ahead of the 2016 Paralympic Games which will take place in Rio.

So, what’s next for me? We have no plans to take down time right away. I’m fit following a good fall of training and we want to keep rolling and build on that. After missing a few days of running, Josh was able to get a lot of treatment for his strained quad in Guadalajara and is nearly back to 100 % now. Together, our plan is to pick up where we left off and gear our training around several indoor races here in Ottawa between December and February. These races usually offer great competition against ablebodied athletes and a chance to run fast with no pressure. I’m hoping these races will enable us to take important steps in our planning and preparation for next summer.

Race Update: Day Thirteen in Guadalajara

I came away with silver and bronze over 1500m and 5000m. Here are a few thoughts on each race.

1500m
In our 1500 metre race, run as a straight final on Thursday evening, our plan was to be conservative in the first 800m and let anyone going out hard go if need be. O’dair Santos, who holds the T11 1500m world record at 4:04.71, took out the first 200m in 27 secondss, which was flying. Cody and I hung back, hitting a 65 second first 400m and 2:17 at 800, with everyone lining up behind us. O’Dair had a big gap on the field and maintained that throughout the race. As we came around with a lap to go I asked Cody, who had been nervous about going the entire way beforehand if he was okay and he said he was good to go. Another of our guides here, Simon was ready to jump in with 300 to go if he had been needed but we were fine. With 300 to go, the Brazilians Carlos Barto Silva and his guide, who we’ve raced a lot over the years, were sitting right on us. We picked it up and they hung with us but never gained, and with 200 to go I knew we’d be fine and we finished hard. Our final time was 4:20, nine seconds back from O’Dair. Cody was absolutely exhausted but he helped me to get the job done and I’m very grateful to him for that. They are giving medals to guides here, so you can imagine what that meant to Cody whose first major international competition this is, especially the photo opp on the podium.
In retrospect, I wish I’d been a little more aggressive in the race. As it turned out we ended up running for second, not for the win. I’ve raced O’Dair three times now and each time he goes out very hard. The next time, I’ll try going with him. My coach, Ian Clark who made the trip down here to watch our races, said O’Dair looked vulnourable and was running almost the same pace we were although he had a huge lead. Here at altitude, once you cross the line you’re in big trouble so we were conscious of that and made the decision to hold back for that reason.

5000m
The 5000m was run at 10 am on Friday. Simon and Cody shared the guiding in this race, with Simon going just under 8 laps. They did a great job. O’Dair once again was the big dog in the race, and there was a new Mexican athlete-guide team with a personal best of 16:05 coming in. I had run 16:23 on the roads back in September. Our plan was to aim to run conservatively in the beginning, 80 seconds per lap pace and then after 3 km to try to pick it up and hopefully work on catching O’Dair, who we expected to go out hard again. Simon and I found ourselves leading in the first 200m which we hit in 37. We slowed it right down, no need to do any more work than necesary early in the race especially with the altitude. O’Dair didn’t bolt this time. He and his guide passed us about a lap in, and pulled away steadily and ran an even 3:13 per km virtually the whole way to finish in 16:06. Behind us, the team from Mexico were right there. We were hitting 80′s and I was feeling pretty good. The Mexicans moved past us maybe about a kilometre in and we sat right behind them. There was a very patriotic, pro-Mexican crowd in the stands so it was a great atmosphere for racing. The Mexicans weren’t pushing the pace and at one point I said to Simon, lets sit here a little longer and then we’ll pass them, and a half lap later we did. They responded and got right on the train. We hit 3 km in 10:02, still more or less on pace. On the back stretch Simon and I moved out to lane three and we did the “guide switcheroony” as Cody coined it in an interview we had afterwards and it went very smoothly with the Mexicans still just behind us. My coach Ian had yelled at Cody from the stands to pick things up once he took over and for us to go after O’Dair… having a new, fresh set of legs would have enabled us to do that but my own legs weren’t ready to pick it up. I never hit the wall hard but the fatigue just creeps up on you here. Shortly after that the Mexicans moved past us again. I was thinking, they can take it for a bit and then we’ll pass them back. The other athletes behind us were far back. I got a little too comfortable, and the Mexicans opened up a gap on us and once they got away it became a lot harder. We finished in 16:47, nine seconds back from the Mexicans and 41 seconds behind O’Dair and his guide. Afterwards Ian said that we should have jumped right on them and just hung on. If we’d hung with them I’m pretty sure we would have had better closing speed because in the 1500m the previous night, they had run just 4:31. When Cody told we were 20 metres back with a lap remaining, I knew I couldn’t make that up with how I was feeling. As I’m learning, racing this new distance of 5000m takes serious concentration and any lapse can cost you big time.

I learned some things in both races – some things I need to work on – and some positives also, not least the chance to train and race hard at altitude given that we’re gonna keep rolling once back home and aim for some fast races indoors. Josh has been able to do a little more running as the week has gone along, so we should be ready to jump right into training again once home.

Races and Changes: Day Nine in Guadalajara

I was set to race the 1500 metre semifinal later this afternoon, only to be told by Dave our Head Coach this morning at breakfast that the semis were cancelled and that we would be running a straight final tomorrow afternoon. Changes like this are not uncommon even in major Para competitions. I imagine the number of entrants in our T11 1500m is low enough that they decided just to go to a straight final, although of course we have not as of yet seen a start list… again, par for the course.

With being entered in the 5000 metres on Friday morning also, I’ll be more fresh for that race now than I would have been with running a semi today and then if we had qualified, a final tomorrow. And there is another reason why this change is beneficial for us. On Saturday during our workout, Josh strained his left quad. He had been feeling tightness in his quad, right at the top just below the hip flexer, earlier in the week and during one of our intervals on Saturday, it gave out on him. He has been getting daily therapy since Saturday with regular ultrasound as well as frequent icing, and they have given him the goahead to try an easy run today but he will be out for our race tomorrow and it is unlikely that he will be able to race on Friday. Obviously this is a big blow and something we did not count on happening. I’m very fortunate in that Cody Boast, who is down here guiding Brandon King (they finished fourth in the T12 400m yesterday), has agreed to step in tomorrow to guide me in the 1500m final. Cody has a personal best of 4:01 over 1500m which he accomplished this past summer (my best is 4:07), and although his training with Brandon has been more speed focussed of late, Cody and I have done a fair amount of running together in the past and I’m confident we’ll race strong.

Josh’s injury highlights the very critical role that guide runners play in the blind athlete-guide team dynamic. I think this relationship is often misrepresented and not well understood. On the Para PanAm accreditations given to each accredited participant, guides are referred to as “non-competing participants”. This designation has been used at past Para events also and the irony is not lost on us, because in truth, guides are very much active participants, invested as much as the athletes they guide in the competitive dog-fight and the thrills and spills of racing hard.

Josh and I have put in good, consistent hard work together in training over the fall and in that respect, he has contributed meaningfully to whatever comes out of these races tomorrow and Friday. But even more than that over these past few months, training with Josh has helped me to begin to understand my own true potential and to set my sites higher, and to expect more out of myself than I ever have. For himself, Josh is in phenomenal shape at the moment and was planning on competing in the Canadian National Cross Country Championships in Vancouver the weekend after we got back. Hopefully he’ll still get the chance to race, and to use xc Nationals as a steppingstone in his own competitive aspirations towards next year and the possibility of representing Canada in his own right.

It is fun being around this young team and seeing our athletes find their competitive feet in what is a new, first-time environment for many of them. Our Athletics team has won six medals over the first two days of competition with several Canadian record and personal best performances. I think our group is riding high at the moment and I hope I can feed on this positive energy and carry it into the 1500m tomorrow. I’ve been feeling good and after a shaky first few days here with acclimatizing to the altitude, training has gone very well. Before his injury flared up in our workout on Saturday, Josh and I clipped off a 27 second 200m and it felt easy. Its encouraging because all through the fall, speedwork was the thing I struggled with and now I feel that my speed is finally coming back, just at the right time.

Running Miles a Mile High: Day Four in Guadalajara

When you’re sitting and talking or just walking around, it isn’t immediately apparent that you are at altitude. But when climbing stairs or walking up a hill, you find yourself breathing a little more than normal. It is very dry also – being well hydrated is really important and fortunately there is tons of water, juices and gatoraid around. I notice how dry it is particularly in the mornings waking up. Speaking of sleep, I haven’t had a really deep sleep yet and have been up early each morning, and I understand that altitude can be a factor with sleep also. And of course, running is harder as everybody on our team has been finding out. On Wednesday Josh and I did some mile repeats on the track… or at least that was the idea. We ran our first one in 5:21 and it felt relatively comfortable. We hit 5:26 on our second however and it was much, much harder. I found myself falling wayyyyy off pace on the third one and had to dig very deep just to hit 5:25. I think recovery up here is just that much harder. Normally at home I can run 5 x a mile comfortably at 5:21. After the third mile on Wednesday we jogged around for a bit and ran 4 * 200 and these went pretty well as we ended off with a 27. Yesterday, Josh and I ran with Richard Carr’s guide, Evan for 45 minutes and Evan and I ripped off some good strides after that. Today I have an easy run and strides and then Josh and I will do our last track workout tomorrow, a series of 200′s and 300′s with some pace changes.

We finally know when we will be racing now – unbelievably the schedule was just finalized last night. Our 1500m semifinal will go on Wednesday evening and if we make the final, we’ll race Thursday night. The 5k is on Friday morning at 10 am. It looks as though my coach Ian is going to be able to travel down to watch us race and it will be great to have him here. I talked with him on Skype this morning and he said there’s nothing we can do in training over the next few days that will make us any faster, and that the important thing now is to be well rested and to keep sharp. With adapting to altitude, the third and fourth days are supposed to be the toughest and after that you begin to acclimitize, so I think by next week our team as a whole will be feeling much better.

Speaking of our team, I mentioned before that its comprised mostly of younger athletes. Its a really good, fun group to be around and its pretty refreshing because people – from athletes to coaches and therapists – seem genuinely happy to be here and are in a positive frame of mind. With some of the previous teams I’ve been a part of, the vibe hasn’t always been so up-beat. We had our Team Canada flag raising ceremony on Wednesday and it was actually a very uplifting event which people were really into. I was talking last night with Rick Ball who is one of the few older athletes here. There are few people who ever have the opportunity to represent their country and as Canadians, we don’t wear our pride on our sleeve and are not strongly nationalistic. I guess I feel a sense today more than in years past that representing my country is truly something to take seriously and be very proud of… I feel lucky to have the opportunity.

With being at any Games, particularly among athletes who have a disability, there are funny things which happen from time to time. The other day I was sitting with Cody who is here guiding Brandon who is running the 100 and 400m. Keep in mind, Cody grew up near Ottawa, and is white. One of the young visually impaired athletes, whose name I won’t mention came up and introduced themselves and said how great it was to meet Josh. Now, Josh was born in Kenya and is black, and probably couldn’t look any more different than Cody. Anyways, this was a true-blue visually impaired moment and we all had a good laugh about it.

Where the Air is Thinner: Day 1 in Guadalajara

We arrived here in Guadalajara last night around 8 pm, at the end of sixteen hours of travel which brought us through four airports and involved some rigmarole with untagged baggage – all part of the fun. A Mexican volunteer with the Games picked up Josh, Ueli who is a wheelchair coach, Remo our massage therapist, and I from the Guadalajara airport and drove us to the Athlete’s Village which took about an hour through the evening traffic. According to our driver there are three rush hours in Guadalajara – the first being between 8 and 10 am, then 1 and 3 pm due to people commuting to have a siesta, and then again between 7 and 9 pm. Our driver was extremely friendly and took advantage of the chance to practice his few words of English on us. When he found out that I could speak some Spanish however he was thrilled and proceeded to bombard me with information and questions. It was obvious how proud he was of his city and the work that has gone into hosting the Games here. It has been a few years since I studied Spanish so I’m rusty to say the least – I minored in Spanish and spent time in Guatemala and was fairly fluent at one time. It was pretty humbling to realize how much I’ve forgotten and how difficult even basic communication with our driver was. Regardless, he seemed very happy that we were able to converse even in a basic way. I’m hopeful that some of my Spanish will return just with being here and through more conversations.

The Athletes Village is very nice. The room I’m sharing with Isayah who is a wheelchair sprinter, and Josh overlooks a fountain set up in the middle of a square with buildings on each side. With the weather being what it is here – today got into the mid twenties – its hard not to want to be outside taking full advantage and there are lots of open spaces to do that. They had warned us in advance that things cool down at night and its true – although we have thin blankets here in our rooms, Athletics Canada had advised us to bring a sleepingbag or a blanket. We have this thick, hand-made wool blanket at home which I’d bought when I was in Guatemala for exactly this reason. Bringing it made for a tight packing job but I appreciated having it last night.

This morning there were a couple of meetings – first the CPC orientation meeting followed by our own Athletics Canada team meeting. The majority of our athletics contingent is made up of younger athletes. I’m one of two team captains, the other being Alistair McQueen who is a young sprinter also living in Ottawa. Athletics Canada wanted this to mainly be a developmental opportunity for up-and-coming athletes. For Josh and I this will be our first major competition, and a chance to compete against the Brazilians who are among our top competition. Its also going to be good to test ourselves in this environment after missing most of the summer outdoor season with rehabbing my achilles.

This afternoon we did our first run here. Guadalajara is at 5200 feet so the altitude is a factor, particularly right now with not being used to it. Josh and I ran for just over an hour in a park close to the track. There were some nice hills, something we don’t have much of in Ottawa. The pace picked up over the second part of our run, or at least it felt that way… Josh’s internal speedometer might be broken as we could be running at 7-minute mile pace, or 5:40 per mile, and it would be the same to him – I guess that’s how it works when you can run a 14:10 5km. Training with him and competing together here over these two weeks, I figure I’m bound to leave far fitter than coming in.

Tomorrow morning we’ll do our first track workout here. Before leaving Ottawa, Ian had Josh and I run a 1500m timetrial on Saturday in which we hit 4:12. I felt great on the timetrial and it was a good confidence boost for the two of us. On Sunday we did a hard long run with Mike Woods. I was hanging on at the end of that one but again, I think to run fast you need to do what fast runners do. I feel like Josh and I are in a great spot coming into the competition here and I’m excited to see what we can do, and excited to build on it as a part of the bigger picture towards next year.