I have been very slack on my blog as I have not been up to much lately! 

Winter arrived in full force and has kept us all training in doors for the most part! The mountain bike trails were full of snow, the roads icy and snowy and the temps frigid! 

 

 Thankfully for Mowgli , he got me outside. He did not seem to mind the cold one bit!

 He would find the biggest piles of snow to jump in and has provided me with many a cold walk, even more cold runs and a lot of laughs!!!

So as you can tell from all the pictures Mowgli was  the sunshine of my winter and the focus pretty much was on him!

 We did manage to get out on the slopes more than normal this year and ski on fresh powder!

A few weeks ago I decided to head down to Miami to do the Miami half marathon! A last minute decision partly as I had a race scheduled, partly as a few days of sun sounded so good! But just as you can imagine it turned out to be 80 degrees, 100% humidity and after a lot of outdoor slow runs or indoor treadmill workouts this race spun out of control pretty quickly for me! With just an afternoon to prepare for the heat I woke race morning sweating well before the race start. I knew I was in trouble! I made sure to take it out slow as I was upfront with the elites and it was easy to get caught up. But slow it stayed until at mile 10 where my legs were in full cramps! I jogged into the finish enjoying the amazing event and was thankful to be there! 

 Two weeks later I was packing up for the QT2 training camp in Clermont Florida! This is the second year training here and I really love this area! Its one time in the year where I can just put my head down and train with no other distractions.  Even though I was tempted to bring my biggest distraction below!!!

The view of the NTC training pool the first day of camp is always a breathe of fresh air! Sun out, long course set up!  A group of 30 or so athletes ready to work hard. I love and appreciate these days so and am very thankful to my family who knows it and lets me go for the 10 days every year!  Camp is a good reality check for me. A place to assess how the winter has gone. For me I am way behind this year but instead of getting down on myself I look at it as a great starting point. I love seeing all our athletes working hard and motivating each other!

Sometimes you have to put your head down and ride! Its been amazing to get some good miles in over the last three days. Roughly around 300 miles!!!

Here the group attentively await the instructions for the main set of our ride. This day it would be 2 x group crit races.

I am on day 8 of camp and have just a few more days here until I head back to the next brewing snow storm in Jersey!!!  I know Coach Jesse has a whole bag full of tricks and those days will hurt!!! 

Can't wait!!!