Bird Swim Camp April 9th & 10th

After several years racing the elite ITU circuit for Canada, Jon Bird is returning home to Calgary for a weekend workshop on Triathlon Swimming. Sharing some of the cutting edge concepts he has gained training at the National Training Centre in Victoria. The focus for the weekend is on increasing performance and confidence in the pool. With the aid of underwater video camera, swim snorkels, swim specific paddles and cutting edge drills; Jon is looking to pass along the tools to improve your swim and change the way think about training and racing.
The weekend aims to give each triathlete specific feedback and information directly related to increasing performance for this upcoming race season, and this opportunity will assist athletes in the development and visualization of their swim stroke. This course is limited to 15 participants and the cost is $300.00 a person.

More Info


This cost is being used by Jon to fund his upcoming season in a points race to qualify for Pan American Games and the 2012 Olympics.

Hope to see you there

Yoga Sessions

On Saturday March 26th 11:30am - 1pm and April 16th 1-2:30pm, Hillary Higgins will be leading Triathlon Club members through two yoga sessions in the Profile Room at the Talisman Centre. These sessions take place after the morning group ride and will offer up a nice way to relax your tired muscles.

Embracing an athletic background, Hillary has taught yoga specific seminars for runners and sports teams as well as one-on-one personal programs. Yoga has provided tremendous benefits for the athletes not only in body awareness but also injury prevention. Now for the Tri-club, she will present a two part series incorporating the practice of yoga in a tangible class focused specifically for triathletes. The multi-level class will incorporate a variety of yoga styles to lengthen muscles, relieve tension and encourage breath capacity – all skills to enhance training for the race season. Whether you are a practiced yogi, or have never stepped onto a mat, this is an opportunity to flow your triathlon training into a light-hearted yoga practice.

Over the last five years Hillary has been teaching yoga to a variety of ages through a wide breadth of class types. She completed the 200 hour Yoga Alliance Teaching Certificate in Calgary in the classical Ashtanga training series. After, she spent a considerable amount of time in Rishikesh, India at the Anand Prakash Ashram obtaining a further 500 hour accreditation with the Yoga Alliance and further specializing in yoga for children, pre-natal yoga, and yoga for athletes. Enjoying the depth of a multitude of yoga practices, she loves sharing the classical Ashtanga series, flow, hatha, yoga nidra, meditation and hot yoga fundamentals classes.

Please contact Jack at jvandyk@talismancentre.com to reserve your spot.

Wasa Lake Accomodations

For those looking to stay in Kimberly B.C. for the Wasa Lake Triathlon June 11/12th, we have once again been able to get a Club rate for condos.

The accommodation and rate will be the same as last year.

3 bedroom condo – Timberstone $250 per night plus tax
2 bedroom condo – Timberstone - $180 per night plus tax
1 bedroom condo – Timberstone - $100 per night plus tax

The 2 and 3 bedroom condos have a private hot tub. The 1 bedrooms do not.

Please contact Anne Harris of Rocky Mountain Accommodations at info@rockynow.com or 1-866-822-2666 to book your condo. These are fantastic condosso everyone will be comfortable on race weekend.

JVD

Club Presentations

With our meeting rooms now available, I am lining up a series of presenters for the Triathlon Club. Please indicate to me your interest in the following topics along with preferred day of the week;

Yoga for Triathletes with Hillary Higgins.

Performance Profiling "an effective tool that allows the athlete to assess and monitor their performance needs". John Clubb Sport Psychologist.

Sports Physiotherapist Dave Holmes on dealing with back pain in cycling.

Retul Bicycle Fitting 101 with Adam Redmond of SpeedMatrix.

TYR Wetsuit demo

The TYR wetsuit demo that was scheduled for next week's Tuesday and Thursday swim sessions will now happen Tuesday March 8th from 6:45-8:00pm, Thursday March 10th from 6:00-7:00am and March 10th from 6:45-8:00pm.

JVD

Spring 2011 Triathlon Club Courses

Hello all Club members, we are now accepting your registration forms for the Spring 2011 training courses.

Registration procedures will remain the same where you fill out your form completely for me and I will begin processing registrations in early March. Once again existing Club members will have priority registration before I open up to new members who wish to join. The deadline for existing members will be Friday March 11th 2011. After this date I will begin accepting and processing new members. To ensure you get your selections please email your completed forms to me as this provides me a date and time stamp to set an order for me to process registrations. Many have asked if they have to fill out the forms completely. The reason I ask for this is in case anyone's personal information or payment information changes and therefore I have up to date records for each Club member and I don't have to hound people for missing information.

Triathlon Club Run & Swim
The run and swim portion of a triathlon can be the most challenging and sometimes intimidating components of the triathlon! Intensify your training to boost your swimming and running race paces and be ready for the upcoming summer races.

13 classes $180
Tue Apr 5-Jun 28 6:45pm-9:00pm
Thu Apr 7-Jun 30 6:45pm-9:00pm

Triathlon Club Group Brick
The ability to run after the cycling portion of a triathlon is a key element to having a successful day. This group training session is designed to build your aerobic base and increase your ability to quickly run comfortably off the bike. These are also fun training sessions that makes the time go by quickly with your Club mates.

12 classes $180 Mon Apr 4-Jun 27 6:30pm- 8:30pm
13 classes $195 Wed Apr 6-Jun 29 6:30pm- 8:30pm

Triathlon Club Group Ride
Triathlon Club members can ride in a group setting using their own bicycles on the Tacx ergotrainers. Focus specifically on increasing your cycling power this winter by training with power output in a motivating group setting. Make the bike your strength for next season.

6 sessions $180 Sat Apr 9 - May 14 9am - 12pm

Triathlon Club Swim
The Spring Triathlon Club Swim courses now focus on increasing your swim speed and readiness to race. Our experienced coaches have helped many Club members reach new levels of comfort in the water and achieve personal best times in their respective triathlon events. Club members also help keep each other accountable to these early morning sessions.

13 classes $130
Tue Apr 5-Jun 28 6:00am-7:00am Code #35171
Thu Apr 7-Jun 30 6:00am-7:00am Code #35172

Race season is almost here! Are you all ready?

Triathlon Club 2011 Update

Hello everyone, it has been a great start to the New Year here at Talisman Centre. We now have our main building back including the competition pool and the track. Sadly I have yet to run on the track!

First off welcome to all the new Club members and welcome back to all returning members. It is great to see and hear all the enthusiasm in the groups during training sessions. Our membership is now 52 triathletes!

Secondly, for everyone in a swimming session you have no doubt met our newest swim coaches Erin Schultz and Ellen Danielson. Both have competitive swimming backgrounds, direct coaching experience with some of the local swim clubs and as many are learning excellent technical knowledge of correcting swim mechanics.

The following are a series of updates from my end pertaining to all Club members in no order of importance;

1. Several people have asked about the Alberta Triathlon Association (ATA) membership which we have covered in the past. For those not in the know, a membership with the ATA has allowed for insurance coverage for Club activities and what many deem the most important “perk” that being a discount on race entry fees where you can get back $10 to $15 in insurance fees. This has typically cost the Club between $1200 to $1700 per year of which many Club members did not register for a sanctioned event or the events in which they signed up for did not offer this discount. Therefore it is deemed a non-essential expense. Coupled with the fact that the ATA has still not after 3 years of requests acknowledged us as an official affiliated club on their website as promised has prompted me to not cover the ATA membership fee as part of your Club fees. Prior to the roof replacement project we had brought in some guest speakers as part of the Club socials of which the fees helped cover their expenses. The Club fees also helped to subsidize several of the weekend clinics and camps we offered. Therefore we would like to bring these components back to the Club this year so stay tuned for announcements on presenters and clinics.

2. Most of you will have noticed the change in the Talisman Centre logo and colors. This means we have a new logo in the works and new uniforms to come! We are looking at a new clothing supplier this year and SpeedTheory has provided us with a full fit kit from Sugoi for us to try on. Over the next several weeks Grant will have the kit in my office for Club members to try on. We hope to have uniforms ready by the end of May.

3. SpeedTheory will be bringing in a representative from TYR for a wetsuit demo to the morning swim sessions and evening swim sessions on March 1st and 3rd. If you are not scheduled for any of those swim times but would like to test a wetsuit you are welcome to drop in to any of them. I have heard nothing but great things about the new TYP wetsuits so if you are in the market for one, here is a great opportunity to try one. We are still awaiting word from Blue Seventy as they may be in the following week for a demo too.

4. For those new to the Club, SpeedTheory has been one of our supporters and offers Club members a discount on most in store items. They are located at 735A 10th Avenue SW Phone: 403.202.1030. Please speak with Darcy Bell the store manager and tell them Jack sent you.

5. We have two Blogs to bookmark. The first one will have updates like this one and anything related to registration or administrative items http://www.talismancentre.com/triclub/triclubblog.php. The second one was created by Jon Bird before he left and is one open to Club members to post their stories, race results, pictures, invites to training or other social events http://talismantriathlon.blogspot.com/.

6. Jon Bird and I had submitted a piece to Triathlon Canada Magazine to have the Club featured in an upcoming issue. They informed me that the spring issue will contain our Club profile and story. Here is hoping that the pictures I took with Alan Larter’s help turned out!

On a final note, I sat down with Jon Bird before he drove out to Victoria for his official move. He made it through the Maui training camp in fine form and demonstrated to the NTC that he deserves to be there. It was a pleasure coaching Jon the past 2.5 years and gives me immense pride to see him move closer towards his athletic goals. We miss his energy and commitment here but he is where he needs to be to take the next necessary steps. You can follow him on his Blog at http://thereisabird.blogspot.com/.

Have a great season everyone!
JVD