So it has been a little while since my last blog post – this is because it took me a little bit to acquire the photos for this blog post. Fear not! Because this one is late the next post should come pretty soon, immediately following my trip to La Malbaie starting tomorrow, for a training camp with CNEPH and the rest of the quebec team.

So about 3 weeks ago (I know, I’m slow), I left with my mom and my sister on a trip to Bruce Peninsula, Manitoulin Islands and Lake Superior.

We started by heading out to Orangeville, north of Toronto, where we stayed the night with some awesome family friends. Then we heading further north, up to Owen Sound, and then up into Bruce Peninsula National Park.

What?

I fell into the crevasse... my sister was quite happy

In Bruce Peninsula National Park we stayed the night, and this is where I discovered possibly one of the best swimming spots I’ve ever been to. It had everything – pebbled beach, jumping rocks, jumping cliffs, caves and hiking trails, all within a hundred metres. The water was the perfect temperature, cool and refreshing, and was amazingly clear. It was awesome.

My sister and I going for a swim

This was a harder picture to take than you would think

My mom and Indian Head Cove

We then took a ferry up onto the Manitoulin Islands, after spending the day in a cute town on the shoreline by the name of Tobermory. We then continued our drive up past the North Channel towards Lake Superior.

Lake Superior was amazing. We stayed a night at Agawa beach with is another pebbled beach. The following day the wind picked up and made some pretty wicked waves, so my mom and I took the opportunity to go play in them. The waves were so strong, especially when they were taller than you, they would just knock you off your feet, then pound you into the beach. Pretty much the most fun I’d had in a while.

Ummm... so I'm actual inside that wave...

Scarier from my point of view. This picture doesn't really show the speed of the wave.

My mom went in as well

We then headed up even further north to a small resort just out of Wawa, called Rocky Island Lodge, where we would spend the last 3 days of the trip. It was awesome, inexpensive and pretty. It was situated on a peninsula on lake superior, right beside a river. This made for awesome swimming, chilling, kayaking and picture taking opportunites.

My mom took some nice sunset shots.

My sister kayaking

Me (winning)

We then took our last day and did a 13 hour drive home from Wawa.

It was an awesome trip, I’d recommend it to anyone considering a week-long trip. It helped that I was with my awesome mom and sister though!

Training during this trip wasn’t super easy. As best I could, I did the training I would otherwise be doing back home. This involved doing a lot of planning of my day to get my workouts in. One day I had to try to simulate a sprint race (qualifier, quarterfinals, semifinals and finals), running, by myself. I did some pretty epic moves on some of the uphills – totally drop everybody else… uhm…

propecia 5mg href=”http://steffanlloyd.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/IMG_0887.jpg”>Me in my sprint race. You can't even see my competitors.

I also had to resort to a lot of biking. Sometimes I would bike the distance we were travelling instead of driving them, sometimes I would squeeze a workout in after the ride.

After getting back from the trip, and until now I’ve gotten a couple very solid training weeks in. As I mentioned earlier, I’ll be heading out tomorrow to La Malbaie for a training camp, which should be fun. Stayed tuned for a blog post after the camp!