Kenya Update #2: Training, Projects, and Flight Changes.

Hi friends!

It’s been one month since I’ve landed in Kenya and co-op is in full swing. Before I get into the projects I’ve been working on, let’s get a training update. Over the last month, I’ve been running 100+km every week. I haven’t ran this kind of mileage in a long time and I was afraid I might not adapt to the training program here. However, with lots of rest and recovery in between sessions, my legs are feeling better than ever. Here’s what a typical week of training looks like for me at the moment:

            -Monday: Hill work (10am) and an easy 30 minutes (5pm).

            -Tuesday: Track workout (10am) and an easy 30 minutes (5pm).

            -Wednesday: 60-70 minutes (6am) and an easy 30 minutes (5pm).

            -Thursday: Track workout (10am) and an easy 30 minutes (5pm).

            -Friday: 60-70 minutes (6am) and an easy 30 minutes (5pm).

            -Saturday: Track workout (10am) and an easy 30 minutes (5pm).

            -Sunday: 60 minutes (6am).

I know most of the guys in my training group are running three times most days but I’m ok with limiting myself to two runs a day. I’ve tried three runs in one day a couple of times but I find it’s a little ambitious for me right now. I’m really happy with the progress I’m making.

Enough about training now. Here’s the work update. Now that John (my supervisor) and the others have arrived, the big projects are starting to progress. Around the camp, our wind turbine has been repaired and is ready to be supplying power, we’re in the process of opening a small bike shop to get Buffalo Bicycles (these bikes are basically mini tanks) into the community, we almost have all the parts to start building a bio-gas plant, and some games have been set up for our entertainment (darts, ping pong, badminton, etc.). Outside of the camp, preparations are progressing to drill wells in a couple of weeks. We have also started collecting video footage of Kenyan runners for a research study conducted by Francois Prince from the University of Montreal. We’ll be analyzing the footage to see if we can obtain an answer as to why Kenyan runners are so dominant. Many studies have looked at physiological differences, nutrition, the effects of altitude, etc., but have not found the “secret” that every runner wants to know. We’ll be focusing on the running economy of the Kenyans for this study. I’m really looking forward to seeing these projects completed before my departure.

Unfortunately, I had one of my return flights cancelled and had to arrange new travel plans for the trip home. So now I’ll be leaving my home in Mosoriot on March 30^th and flying to Nairobi that day. From there, I’ll spend one night in the Kenyan capital and catch an early morning flight to London on March 31^st. Leaving Kenya one day earlier isn’t the end of the world. The good news is I will have one extra day to spend with my girlfriend (who is on a term abroad) in England on my way home. I’ve never been to England (or anywhere in Europe for that matter) so I’m excited to visit a new country and experience it all with her. It will be nice to spend a week together after being apart since the Christmas break. Only 29 days left as of today when this post is published. I’m not 100% sure what the plans are for touring while I’m there but I think we’ll mainly spend our time in Liverpool and London. It’s unfortunate that we're missing the London Marathon by a couple of weeks. We went to go watch the women's Pan-Am marathon back in the summer, so it would have been cool to watch a marathon major together. There's always a lot of excitement around these big races. But that pretty much sums up everything that’s been going on the last month or so.

As always, thanks for reading!

Daniel

Ps. I met Asbel Kiprop at a track meet this past weekend! If you don’t know who he is, I would suggest looking up his results.

Kenya Update #1

Greetings from Kenya!

I have now been in Kenya for two weeks and I am finally settled into my new home. The Rift Valley Resource Centre is nothing like I had envisioned. The scenery is incredible, the food is delicious, the Kenyans are extremely welcoming, and the training is off to a good start. The fact that this is considered my co-op job is a little surreal.

On top of the little projects I am beginning to work on, I am training with a local group in Mosoriot and boy are they are making me work hard! On top of everyone being extremely fast, the altitude was making me suffer for the first couple of days. After about a week, the hills aren’t so bad anymore and I can actually run up them without gasping for air at the top. I am responding well to the training and excited to see the improvements over the next two months. My coach, Laban, has some very impressive credentials including a personal best of 3:29 in the 1500m. I believe I’m in very good hands during my stay.

With limited access to the internet, I won’t be updating this blog as often as I had anticipated. I’m hoping to do bi-weekly updates (if possible) and the photos taken during my travels will be uploaded when I get back to Canada. Maybe I’ll be able to sneak one in at some point?

Even though I’ve only been here two weeks, I have experienced so many new things and I look forward to immersing myself and learning more about the culture here in Kenya.

Thanks for reading,

Daniel

7 Days Until Kenya

Hi Everyone!

I know it’s been a long time since my last post, but I figured I would try and bring this blog back to document my upcoming adventures.

For those of you who don’t know, I will be traveling to Kenya for my next co-op term with Run for Life Inc. During my two month stay in Kenya, I will have the opportunity to work on a variety of projects and hopefully be able to do a little bit of running! It will be nice to skip the cold Canadian winter (sorry Timmins). While I’m away, I’ll be staying at the Rift Valley Resource Centre. Check them out here to see what they’re all about.

I am extremely excited for this once in a lifetime opportunity and I’m looking forward to sharing my experiences with all you.

Stay tuned for updates and photos!

Daniel 

Change of Plans + Wisdom Teeth

The last couple of weeks haven’t been the greatest but they haven’t been the worst. My training for the half-marathon was going well and I was finally getting my long runs back up to 90 minutes. Things seemed to look promising. Unfortunately, a little calf issue has made me have second thoughts about competing in my local half-marathon. I have decided not to race and will continue to build my base. With cross-country season right around the corner, there is no need to go hurt myself on the roads and start playing catch up right off the bat once I get back to school. I think the upcoming x-country season is gearing up to be a good one (I’m optimistic about this year) after the last couple of sub par seasons I've had.

On a side note, last Tuesday I had my wisdom teeth extracted. Being the lucky person I am, I had 6 teeth removed. Yes, I said that right. 6 TEETH!! The procedure itself went very smooth and I spent a good portion of the following two days sleeping. During the recovery, there hasn’t been too much pain since the Dr. prescribed me some good pain medication but the swelling was another thing. I woke up Wednesday morning to a different me. With my new look, I received some unnecessary attention [insert chipmunk joke here…] from family and friends (mainly in the form of laughter and teasing) but I suppose I would have done the same if I were in their place. I do have a photo showing just how bad the swelling was, but I’m going to vote against uploading it for my own sake. Feel free to ask me to show it to you in person, if you’re in need of a laugh at my expense.

Anyways, I am almost back to 100% after having my surgery and will resume training tomorrow. With summer winding down, I have 2 weeks of my work left followed by one week where I’ll be volunteering at my high school’s x-country camp. I am really looking forward to that week! Also, we’re just under 4 weeks out from my university’s x-country training camp. So I have a little more time to sneak in some extra base mileage.

Thanks for reading friends,

Dan

Timmins Triathlon Recap

A little over a week ago, I raced in the Timmins Heart of Gold Triathlon. This being only my second triathlon ever, I had big expectations going in compared to the first time I competed in a sprint triathlon back in 2013. Leading up to the race, I had spent more time in the pool and more hours on the bike than ever before. I also practiced running off the bike, which helped me enormously come race day.

The Swim + T1 (13:55):

This part of the race was probably the most nerve racking for me. I know for a fact that I am not a strong swimmer so going in I knew I would already have to play catch up once I got out of the water. When the gun went off, I went out relatively hard to give myself a chance of swimming a decent time. I felt a little fatigue on the second loop of the swim but I was confident that the swim wouldn’t hurt my bike or run. Exiting the water, I glanced at my watch to get a rough estimate of my swim time and saw that I came out around 12:50. The first time I raced, I swam around 15 minutes. I was surprised and happy with my time but knew I wouldn’t be able to see my actual split since the timing was set up to include the swim, a short run up a little hill, and finally the time it took to transition to the bike. The transition itself was pretty good. Racing in a tri-suit saved me a lot of time not having to put on a shirt after swimming and I’d guess I was in and out of transition in about 30-40 seconds.

Running the small uphill after the swim.

Bike (35:56):

My main focus on the bike was closing the gap between all the swimmers who were ahead of me. With Timmins having a challenging bike course, I focused on maximizing my speed on the flats and working pretty hard on the uphill portions of the course. Near the turn around, I was sitting in 9^th (forgetting once again that there were relay teams and duathletes in the mix). I think I managed to pass one or two athletes on the way back. It was nice having people ahead of me as it gave me motivation to reel them in while keeping my mind off the fatigue that was slowly setting in. Overall, I’m happy with my performance on the bike and managed to take off about three minutes from my previous sprint triathlon.

T2 + Run (21:19):

With running being the strongest of the three disciplines for me, I was hoping to run under 20 minutes for the running portion of the race. However, that did not happen. The second transition went just as smooth as the first one and I was out of there in less than 45 seconds. Once I got out on the course, I focused on tracking down anyone who was ahead of me. I saw that my main competition and eventual winner Matthew Mahaffy had a good 5-6 minute lead on me off the bike so I was pretty sure I would not catch him. I tried rolling at a solid pace for the first loop of the course but started cramping up as I began the second loop. With a bit encouragement from another competitor, Rick Demers, the cramps eventually passed and I was able to continue running as I was prior to the cramps. About 500m from the finish line, the cramps came back and I slowed right down to a walk. Being so close to the finish, all I wanted to do was cross that line and hopefully salvage a decent run. Before that happened, I stopped to throw up the gel I had pre-race and went on to cross the finish line in 1:11:11. Good enough for second place overall in only my second sprint triathlon and a huge personal best by roughly 7 minutes.

Probably the best photo of me on the run.

On the podium.

Moving forward to the last bit of summer and the fall, I have shifted my focus to running again and am training for the Timmins Golden Trails Half-Marathon on August 12^th. I have just under 4 weeks of training left before I make my half-marathon debut. Hopefully this will get me a good base for the upcoming cross-country season and in good shape for when I head back to school to start training with the cross-country team once again.

Thanks for reading,

Dan

Humble Beginnings to the Present

Hello, and welcome to my blog!

I've been contemplating trying this whole blog thing for a couple of years now and I'm not too sure where this blog will go. I'm hoping this blog will be a place where I can document anything interesting happening in my life with my training, school work and other shenanigans. So let's begin!

First off, I suppose an introduction and a bit of background is necessary. My name is Daniel Fournier and I am a third year Kinesiology student at the University of Waterloo as well as a competitive long distance runner. I have always been a runner (starting in the 4th grade when everybody ran cross-country) but I didn't start training seriously until I got into high school. For five years, I competed for École secondaire catholique Thériault and managed to come away with two OFSAA silver medals and one OFSAA gold medal/team championship, which to this day is still one of my most memorable seasons as a runner. When I began training in the 9th grade, I remember running my first 5K race and finishing in about 22:30. It wasn't a very fast time compared to what my teammates were running (at least sub 20min.) but it was a good starting point. As that season progressed, I started noticing improvements at every race and at my first OFSAA cross-country race, I ran 18:46 for 5K and could not believe the improvements after just one season. I'm fairly certain that is where I got hooked on running. I am lucky to have been a part of a team with such a rich history for the sport of cross-country running and cannot imagine where I would be today without everything that the sport has done for me since the beginning. 

Skipping ahead a couple of years, I now compete for the University of Waterloo Warriors on their varsity cross-country running and track & field teams. My university career started off great with lots of personal bests over a variety of distances from the 1500m to 10K cross-country. However, injuries started to take their toll on my body after my first year and I have been in a slump since. It's very frustrating for an athlete to not be able to do the sport they love because their body won't let them. There would be times after a couple of weeks off that things would start looking better and I could resume training but either the same injury or a new one would force me into another period of time off.

This spring, I finally got a hold on the whole injury thing and I have been able to do some consistent training during the warm summer months. So as of right now, I am injury free and back on the grind. I am currently back home for the summer on a work term at Rehab Plus Rehabilitation and Fitness Centre here in Timmins, ON, and things are going pretty well on the work side. I'm learning lots and applying a lot of things I have learned from my previous school term. My work schedule makes it hard to train consistently with my work hours being all over the place but I think I'm making it work. Lately, I have been training for the Heart of Gold Triathlon that takes place in one week (July 12th) here in Timmins. I did this triathlon a couple of years ago and did not perform to my best as I was not running due to injury. I managed a pretty slow 5K at the end of the race and I know I could easily take a couple of minutes off of the run. This time around, I have done equal training for all three disciplines and have been practicing running off of the bike. I think it is safe to say that this year should be an improvement from my first attempt at a triathlon. When I completed the triathlon in 2013, I managed to beat my long-time friend and old teammate Matt Mahaffy. I was not expecting to come out on top since he had been doing triathlons for a couple of years before I decided to try my first one. This year, we will both be competing again and I am looking forward to this rematch. His latest results show that he is in shape and that I'll have to bring my "A" game next weekend.

Well I think this is sufficient enough for a first post. I will most likely have a nice little race recap next weekend after the triathlon.

Thanks for reading,

Dan