Wednesday, December 21, 2011

December - A Busy Month for P.A.C.E.

We wrapped up another year of trail running, cycling, adventure, travel, fitness, friends and awesome memories with the P.A.C.E. Sports Fitness Christmas party on December 9th.  This year I decided to forgo hosting at our house, in an effort to have more people attend and to mix things up a bit.  So we went to Rusty's Steakhouse and Pool Hall.  Over 55 athletes (and spouses) joined in on the festivities.  We had a beautiful buffet dinner, draw prizes from our sponsors: Valhalla Pure Outfitters, Udos Oil and Icebreaker.  Our good friends and fellow athletes, Sandy & Sarah from Your Gym Bag also stepped up and donated some amazing product and gift certificates to show their support and love of P.A.C.E.  We watched a slide show and shared some laughs from over the past year and then continued the night with a mixed scotch doubles pool tournament.  P.A.C.E. pep's love to give back and everyone who came to the party brought non-perishable items to support those less fortunate this time of year and we brought the donations to the Kelowna Food Bank.  Thank you to everyone who came out to help us celebrate and for making 2011 such a remarkable year.  I am truly blessed to call the trails my 'office' and 'work place'. 

  





We also wrapped up the 'Maintenance & Core' clinic with a super FUN and if you were in Trent's group... a hammerfest, run at Knox Mountain Park and then we went for dinner and drinks at Baxters Pub.  Over 35 people took to the trails this fall and ran sessions ranging from 1 hour 15 minutes to 3 hours.  A great bunch of dedicated, hard-core athletes who strapped on their headlamps for a mid-week endurance session.  Core videos were sent each week encouraging athletes to do some 'homework' at home.  Thanks to everyone who came out and trusted their heath, fitness and running goals with the PACE team this winter.  You did it!  You hunkered through 8 weeks of dark, cold and snowy weather and your body will be thanking you when you embark on your goals starting January... feeling that much fitter and strong!


With the week before Christmas, I have been busy working on my training plans for the PACE scene for 2012.  Locations, speed workouts, long run specifics and combo workouts.  I have lots of new ideas to apply some pretty cool training principles and to keep making suffering fun!  I am also going to be holding an ultra seminar for my 2012 ultra running athletes.  My vision is to hold a workshop and teach them all about the energy systems... rest, recovery... building their training plans and more.  It will be an intense 2 hours but I know they can handle it and more importantly, their success is so important to me that I want them to have as much information going into the new year as possible.  I don't want my athletes just listening to me... I want them to understand the purpose behind what they're doing.  To be able to make good choices on their own and get the most out of their time and efforts.  So this is taking up some time right now too as I get organized.
I also just finished retaking my NCCP level 3 coaching courses.  Although I already took my level 3, the NCCP has recently changed the way they offer their cert's.  So with 7 new modules I figured I owed it to my athletes to re-take it and see if there was anything I missed or could learn that would be new or perhaps even motivating.  So I have been busy on Monday, Tuesday nights or full days and weekend sessions.  I am glad I did it, although I didn't learn anything 'new' it did give me some new perspective and was a positive refresher.
P.A.C.E. is back on the charity scene this week and offering a community trail run on Christmas Eve.  We will have 3 different groups with varying fitness levels and experience, from A, B and C, allowing more people to participate and to hopefully collect more donations for the Kelowna Food Bank.  For details, visit the facebook event page.


The last and one of the most exciting things for me this month is I have been hired by RBC to work with them and another cycling coach from Vancouver to coach RBC athletes on their journey towards the Whistler and Kelowna Grand Fondos.  I assisted them earlier this year in with setting up some training rides and putting them in contact with a couple of my fellow friends/riders, as I wasn't able to take on any of the coaching with my commitment to the Alps.  The great part is that I am in a position to help out in a much more involved way.  I am really excited and feel very fortunate for this opportunity.  So it looks like I will be 'back in the saddle' a lot more in 2012.  It feels good and it will be great to mix up the runs with some riding from both a personal and professional/coaching perspective.  I will be flying to Vancouver in the new year to meet the RBC team and fellow coach.  I am one lucky gal...

Click for video link
January will be here soon and with so much to look forward to, I can't wait to get it started!  On January 11th I will kick it all off with P.A.C.E. Sports Fitness Season Starter Clinic and it just blows my mind that over 20 athletes will start their training towards a 50k ultra.  I can still remember when it was just a few of us.  And then a few grew to 5.  And then last year we had about 7 or 8.  I love how the trails are motivating people to live their life to the fullest... to believe in themselves and see themselves achieving such goals and (again) how lucky am I that I get to be including in their journey...

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