still alive

i m still alive. On the beach of cocoa beach in florida relaxing and recovering from the hard racing and training. I m also trying to get fat and put on weight! I been eating a lot of McDonald, ice cream, fry chicken, chocolat, cheescake and more!!!!!!
I m actually coaching at a training camp in clermont and working with some very awsome athlete. Here is me and cynthia working on the swim stroke technic.
Here i m showing the proper position to enter in the water!!! I m really enjoying my time as a coach!

silly group pic before a lake swim with the gator watching us on the shore....
me explaning the latest technic on how to succesfully survive a attack by aligator.
me and one of my first ever coach, Daniel Rozon at the NTC pool.
i once awile get in the water with the athlete as i need to not get to hot of shape! I did a good 1000m that day!
Me and annie claude working on the catch phase!

well, i will be here for another 10 days.... keep working hard and trying to help these very motivated and fun group of athlete. I will be going to St Petersburg for the triathlon next weekend! hope to see a lot of you out there...

time for bed

A picture says a 1000 words....

Desapointement, frustration, mad!!! Dam it!!! Can we redo this race again tomorow? I m so fit, i want to have another shot at it right now, not tomorow, now now now....

The ironic part is that this pic is of me crossing the line in 8h48 in 6th place of a ironman. A year ago, i would have been on cloud number nine. But today, i just walk straigh pass the finish line and try to shallow the pills.

The race started well with a good swim. I was on TJ feet and gumbel was setting a good pace. I came out of the water in 5th and got on the bike and rode the first lap so so easy. it was a smart move as pretty much everyone rode the first loop so hard and started to blow up by the second lap of the bike. I was on the same strategy as jordan to increase the effort at each loop and i was so excited to see that i was actually keeping the leader with in 6min and actually gain back on them on the second loop. I was feeling great and only increasing the pace slowly as the ride went on. I also had a short chat with jordan a bit before half way...he was on a good mood and so was i!

Close to the end of the second loop, as i was coming back to the hot corner, a police motorcycle coming in the opposite way decided to cross the cone line and come face to face with me. I had no choice but to take a hard right on the side of the road and hit a huge bump(put hole or a grill??) It hitted really hard and my handlebar moved down. I was now riding with the extension pointing toward the tire. I could also feel a bump on the front wheel and was really hoping i didnt break my zipp 808. Nop, it was broken, i had a flat! I jumped off the bike to repair as quickly as possible but made a stupid mistake of now opening the valve of the spare so when i plugged the co2 cartridge, nothing went in.... I then had to run to the ''hot corner'' on my bike shoes were i SCREAMED at Paul Huddle where i could find a new wheel!!! He pointed me towards a mechanic tent and sended someone to help me out. before getting to the tent, i had to cross the most busy intersection of the race with tons of athlete coming by on both side. I was simply going crazy... this was a total nigthmare.... finaly made it to the tent and the mechanic took my wheel and proced to change the tube. I right away asked politely if he could just put a brand new aero wheel on my bike... I M ON A HURRY! he did... i was now outfitted with a flash point 60. I then took a allen key and proceded to repositionnate the aerobar to his normal position and make sure it stays like this.

and then, i was back out of the course about 8 minutes later after a freaking police motorcycle did think that it could be kind of dangerous to ride in opposite direction from traffic with bike coming at 30mph.....

i was simply broke down mentaly... i even stopped on the side of the road to tell paulo i would simply pull out as i was out of contention and didnt see the point of going. He of course started to screem at me and as he looked very mad, i decided to keep riding.

Another thing a noticed later was that i had lose all my bottles and as i race on maltodextrin only, that would now be a challenge to survive with the on course nutrition! I reallised i was facing a lot of adversity at this point and had the choice of feeling sorry for myself about it or just try to pull it off and save the day. I rode the last loop pretty strong and got on the run. Paulo asked me to simply focus and get the work done. He didnt give me any split or position so i know very well i was out of the game. I ran with as much passion as i could find...there wasnt much but i keep on plugging in and made it to the finish line with a 3h marathon. I was happy to make it to the line and got a nice high five from jordan but was of course very down at the same time. I think frustrated is the best word actually. I done the work and was fit and ready to go, But life is life and it happen, nothing can be change and i did learn a little hard piece of HTFU. My wallet will sure notice the difference and i think that it s the part that hurt the most....

To finish, i want to highlight the performance of my friend jordan rapp. WOW... that is smart clever racing! He race like a experience guy and almost pull it off for the win. That is only the beggining and i m really proud of you rappo!!!!! I really hope to get to race you again soon!

jonathan

the day in pictures....

the bike is ready to go.... in racing outfit!
my new selle italia SLR with my own made bottle holder systeme
aero front drink.....
thank you to kylie, mike, paul and Rich....all of you made this disc possible...a last minutes urgency!!! thank you so much.... i truly appreciate! it s a disc cover from wheelbuilder.com attached to a 808. This is the fastest clincher disc in the world and i m serious... for 80$...you get that cover to a 808 and it does test faster than any expensive disc money can buy...

me and sergio were in a good mood at the press conference, we joke a bit and had a great time. It s always a bit of a stressfull time to do these things but we handle it well.... we also give a interview me and sergio together and it should be on youtube soon...and should be funny!

Michellie, the one i will be trying to beat on race day.... she as beaten me many times....
we went to YC for a amazing lunch..... i piled the food!
wow... i look retard! I made this shirt because i was thinking it was actually funny, i was going to wear it at the press conference but decided to put my blue shirt on top as it s important to be professional and reconise my sponsors in these kind of events.... 2XU, Cervelo, PsTriathlon, TheBikeBarn!

3 days before

thank you very much to everyone that is writing me messages before the race, i dont have the time right now to answer them all but i really like to receive them! thank you.... it s really welcome before the race!

I was at the race site for a few hours this morning and got a swim in, then register and meet some cool people.

Tomorow will be a press conference at 11am and a pro panel question/answer... please come say hi!

A big thank you to kylie for hug help.... i cracked my disc cover and wheelbuilder is sending me one extremly fast with the help of kylie so i can ride it on race day!


i can feel the tension going up... lots of fast athletes around... very intimidating but me and sergio still found the courage to have our pictures taken with this really fast girl.... not sure who she is but she sure look fast...and serious also... she didnt even smile!!!!

driving in the middle of nowhere.....

today was a quick 45 minutes run, a 1h45 ride and pack my life in the paseo to make it to phoenix. I m in phx now at sophie's condo and heading out to bed...

here s my reflection on the last few months and las cruces

So now i know how far you go, to be the next freak show ...........and save a watt or two!

the new way to carrie my bottle on race day. i have change a bit the bottle holder but that is my set up on new hed bars......
it is very well shelter....
sergio and paulo making modification to the profile bars..... the hacksaw is a precious tool here at the house! Sergio also cut one of the leg of his fork as the fork is really strong and will still be plenty stiff for the bike... it is of course more aero with only one blade and lighter!

me taking a break and tired of working on the bike.

ok.... so i have some extra time and wonder how to save a watt or two to help me out next weekend. I need it... there is so many great athlete on the start list and many of them great cyclist.... lets see what i can do to pimp my p3c.
the cable routing..... behind the stem to make it as clean as possible
pic of the hooker brake.... and the new Hed Vantage 8 bar and S bend.


well... that s about it...lots of work...many hours for probably not much of a saving but... i m happy... my bike is cool now... a few more modification to come .... lots of fun

today was a brick workout. 2h ride and 30 min run... i m now relaxing and getting everything ready as i will leave for phoenix on tuesday. Then, florida and hopefully boulder!

what after ironman Az.....boulder?????$%#@

So... i m confuse again. After ironman arizona, Paulo told me he wants me to do a cycle of training in altitude to get ready for ironman lake placid. He told me that Boulder should be the place. I never heard of this place and after googling Boulder...this is what i got??????

well, it sure look quiet and green but dosnt seems so exciting. Why does he want me to go there? it just look like a big rock? Where will i stay???? maybe i should get a dog so it would more fun??? i can see there is plenty of grass so i guess i will use my north face expedition tent to live in!

anyway, i still have a few weeks to figure out where this boulder is located....!!!!!

today was a hard swim, 6X400m for 4km total and a run that was very slow....

i also did a lot of work on my bike to get it race ready. Tomorow is my last brick before the race and i have to be on race set up.... i got a cool aero brake, hed bars, new cable aero routing and bottle positionning.....

my first watch!!!!

I m not a member of the team timex.... i wasnt invited at there camp and didnt get to participate in there celebration...... but my good friend sergio got me a cool watch!!!! YEAH, my first watch i have ever own! today was cloudy and i could not use the sun to time my ride. I usualy calculate the movement(in degrees) of the sun from the start of my ride till the end to find out how long i rode but you cant do that when it s cloudy!!!!! the watch was really handy!!! Sergio also told me that it can controle my ipod so i tried to listen to some song during my ride but it didnt work. I m not sure what was wrong, but sergio told me i need to bring the ipod also on the ride for it to work... not sure i really understand all this technology but i will read the instruction tomorow.

Today was a brick workout, a 3h ride with some z3 follow by a 40min run. It went ok and we had the rest of the day to relax. We went to the coffee shop and tonight, as i was really bored, i decided to initiate paulo and sergio to the game of curling.

Now, we dont have ice here, and dont have to normal rock but we do have a brown carpet and golf balls so that was all we needed to start a very exciting game. I won the first game against paulo by the score of 10-2. He isnt really fast at understanding the rules but he still manage to score twice.

Here s a pic and a ESPN coverage of the game!!!!

also, a big thank you to Steve and Ann Hed that have sended me some toys to put on my bike for ironman arizona. I always like there aerobars and mine was pretty old and they offer to put me on a brand new vantage 8 aero base bar and the carbon flip light extension(s-bend). I will finish installation tomorow and take some pictures!!!! thank you Steve and Ann!!!!

short!

today: 50min run

swim: 3300m

dinner with paulo and sergio.... mostly talk about, insurrance policies, WOMENS and relationship... that was one hilarious evening.....!!!!!!