2 Months until Olympic Trials!
I can’t believe it is only 2 months until the Canadian Olympic Trials in Montreal! We just came off a four week block of hard training. We spent the first two weeks in Calgary after Christmas before we left on January 7th to Hawaii for two weeks. The whole two weeks we were there, we only had one day off so it was all business there. We trained at the University of Hawaii again where the weather was absolutely beautiful compared to -40 degrees back in Calgary, it was sure a nice time to get away and focus on training.
I have been focusing a lot on breaststroke technique and have really taken my recovery and stretching to new levels during hard training times. I have had some encouraging practices so far and look forward to competing again the second weekend in February at the Missouri US Grand Prix Meet.
Below are some pictures from Hawaii Training Camp:
Photos courtesy of Rick Pelletier
Hawaii Recap and looking forward to Summer Racing
Here are some photos from the Hawaii Training camp:
All images are courtesy of Rick Pelletier. Check out all his pictures at Rick Pelletier’s Flickr here.
Sorry it has been a while since I last posted. I have taken some time updating my website so feel free to check out the other page links above too. More updates will follow as I get some more time this summer too. I was in Hawaii again for a training camp for a couple of weeks in May where we did some heavy training.
It was great to swim outdoors again in the sunshine. I really enjoyed being able to get away and fully concentrate on swimming again with my team. We did some really heavy training and did the most meters in a week that I have ever done going around 90 km in one week and totaling around 155,000 meters overall. This included some long three-hour 10,000 meter practices. It was really important during this time to recover in between practices as much as possible so you were ready for the next practice. My freestyle got a lot better during the camp and the results showed at a meet the week after where I went a best time in the 100 free in 53.40 seconds. Hopefully building this solid training base during May will lead to great things this summer in July!
I will be heading down to Mission Viejo, California for the Meet of Champions where I will be competing from June 24-26. This will be my big test of the summer, so I am getting prepared to swim fast before summer nationals.
CBC coverage of SC Worlds on January 8th
You can watch this Saturday, January 8th, a brief recap of the FINA Short Course World Championships on CBC television or online at http://www.CBCsports.ca. It will air from 2 – 3 pm EST so check your local listings and time zone to make sure you don’t miss it. I am not sure if any of my swims will be aired, but I hope at least my 100 Breast semi-finals will be aired.
Here is a link to CBC, but make sure to check your local listings or online settings so you don’t miss it!
After returning from a brief vacation in southern Africa with my family, I am back to full-time training with my team in Hawaii for the next two weeks. It is great to be in the water again and I am enjoying working really hard in preparation for Canadian Spring Nationals at the end of March. There are six of us training together in our group under our coach Jan Bidrman and strength coach Scott Mauw. We are training at the University of Hawaii and staying nearby as we enjoy escaping the Canadian winter for a few weeks and training outdoors. Other swim teams I have seen training here include University of Minnesota men, University of Wisconsin, University of Houston, Colorado College, Notre Dame, and Cal-Berkeley women. It seems to be a very popular training destination and tourist spot for some reason. It should be a very intense training camp with lots of focused breaststroke training and lots of yardage. Should be fun!
I did want to share a brief video of a lion feeding that my family and I got to witness about two feet away from us. These were two wild lions that had been taken into a game reserve after getting kicked out of their pride in Etosha National Park in Namibia. We got to see all sorts of wild game including an actual lion killing of a springbok that was incredible. Enjoy!
Paul Kornfeld 