Desert Yoga

This year the plan was to get a good chunk of miles in outside.  We live in snowy Alberta now, so that meant travelling south for winter.  The main goal of my day is to get the prescribed miles in on the bike but after that we get to explore all these beautiful places!  Part of my personal approach to training and resting and increasing my happy endorphins include wrapping myself up and stretching myself out in yoga poses.  I would like to share some amazing Californian desert yoga shots that my husband, Alex Jackson, took of me featuring my partnered brand myinnerfire.  Myinnerfire is a local Vancouver-made brand that creates fantastically fun leggings, shorts, shirts and sweatshirts - and get this, the fabric they use is made out of recycled water bottles!!  Check their store out online at myinnerfire.com and use the code ‘ AlisonJ ‘ to get 15% off your order!

Waiting for 2015 World Championship Team Selection

Hey!

Here is a cool video made by AJCmedia (Alex Jackson Creative media) to recap a bit of racing and wait for the news on who has been selected for the 2015 Canadian Women's Road World Championship team.

Seen in the video: Felt Bicycles, SRAM red components, Quarq power meter, Zipp Speed Weaponry, Speedplay pedals, Fizik shoes/saddle, K-Edge, Arundel bottle cages, JLVelo clothing, Sho-Air International sponsor, GQ-6 Hydration found at GNC stores, Modify Watches, SockGuy socks

A Spartan for the Final Season

With only one more class needed to finish my degree and only one more year of eligibility to run for the university, I took a French class for fun and planned to run every day.  However, my biggest goal was to inspire other athletes to be leaders on the TWU Spartan track team.

First: A Kudos to my 4 years at Trinity Western University.

In the beginning, it took a bit of convincing to make the switch from where I was at a local university to attend and train at TWU.  When I did decide to make the switch I was all in: the faith community, the high-level of academics, and the elite level of training that TWU offered could not be beat.  I was challenged in many ways and have graduated a better person full of confidence to pursue all of my God-given dreams.

Second: The final XC season.

Just as we planned in training, I came out faster at every race throughout the season than the previous year (about 30+sec faster over 6km).  I placed 3^rd, 4^th, 2^nd and 7^th respectively, in the CIS season, finishing 7^th at nationals.  Our women’s team took home the CanWest Championship banner and trophy for the second year running (pardon the pun *wink*) and finished 2^nd as a team at our National Championships.  The word of the year for our team was ‘history’, and even though we wanted to make that by winning our National Championships, that National Championship race made history in and of itself!  Race day included 100kph winds with gusts of up to 140kph!  We will all be talking about our week out in St.John’s, Newfoundland for years to come.  Also, TWU’s XC team made history by giving back to the local community and inspire young runners in schools to participate in athletics.  We hosted a School Spirit Contest across the entire school district in St.John’s and surrounding communities awarding two winning schools with a running clinic from the TWU XC team.  The run clinics were a great success which brought as much joy to the elementary students as it did our team. Finally, and especially meaningful to me, was that the love of my life flew all the way across the country to watch the race and tour the countryside with me afterward.  The history books will say, that I have the best family who ever supported an athlete.

A few girls from one of the School Spirit Run Clinics

Royal Blue: color matched for TWU

That's me, second row, tucked in like a cyclist to defend myself against the brutal wind!

Hanging onto our well-earned Championship banner

Alex and I exploring the east coast

One of many Newfoundland fishing town

We were awarded honorary Newfoundland status after getting 'Screeched-in'

Living out of the back of a rental van :)

Fogo Island - a must visit on the east coast

Fogo Island's beautiful coast

In order to wrap up my time at TWU, here is a list of a few of my accomplishments during my university career:

-          Best finish at CIS XC Nationals : 5^th (2013), 7^th (2014)

-          Best finish at Canadian XC Nationals: 14^th (2013), 19^th (2014)

-          Named to Canadian World University XC Team 2014 to finish 17^th individually, 3^rd as a team

-          Best indoor 3000m: 9:36 and CanWest Champion (2013, 2014), 4^th at Nationals (2013), 6^th (2014)

-          Best indoor 1500m: 4:31 and 6^th at Nationals (2013), 11^th (2014)

-          Canada West Student Athlete of the Year 2013

-          Hosting the School Spirit Contest during our trip to Newfoundland for the 2014 XC Nationals

-          A graduating GPA equivalent to an A-

As for the goals that I set out to accomplish this season, I did not make the Canadian team for XC Worlds - God knows that it doesn't fit with my new line of work anyway (more to come) - however, I do believe I succeeded in leading myself out of a job as Team Captain on the TWU track team because I am not missed yet from a void of my input, lol, but I am happy to say that the team is full of beautiful candidates for future leadership.

Cheers to the next season of athletics and of life!!