Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Summer :)

Hey everyone,

I've finally started to bike regularly. I have swimming practice from Monday to Friday every week so I'll be riding to and from that which is 22km round trip everyday. In the past week I've done approximately 150 kilometres, and I'm slowly building up my training mileage. By the end of the summer I hope to be doing 100 kilometres or more 3-4 times a week. I'm halfway there!

So... I don't really talk that much, since I don't have a lot to say. So goodbye :)

Friday, June 17, 2011

Training :)

Hey everyone,

I've been training a lot in the past month and I'm definitely making some progress. Since May 15th I've ridden about 320km, and this week I've ridden around 50km, going another 50 tomorrow. Exciting stuff! In the summer I'll probably ride 20-80km per day, because I don't really have anything else to do.
I'm also involved in a missions trip, a daycamp, and a couple of weekend courses during the summer, so I'm away a lot. The team is looking at getting a couple of rides in together during the summer to get used to group cycling, and maybe a tiny road trip at the end of summer.
Exams are next week for highschool! I'm not really worried, but it opens up training opportunities since I won't be in school all day. Also, swimming training is going well, and that's great cross-training for cycling.
Thanks everyone for the support and encouragement that you've given me. :) It really helps when you're down in the dumps and don't want to keep going.
Anyways, it looks like next school year I am still going to be able to train a couple times per week, so that's good, but I'm taking up a lot more responsibility in every aspect of my life, so it will be hard to keep up the training, especially as winter settles in.
Thanks for reading,
have a great day :)

Monday, May 2, 2011

More Training :D

Hey everyone :)

So, the 25 event went pretty well, even though I broke my silence accidentally at least ten times. I'm pretty sure the other EPIC team members did quite well, though, and even after 25 was done I found myself trying to keep quiet even though I didn't have to. Over the Easter weekend I went out, bought a bike computer and looked at some racing bikes, since I desperately need a new one. I saw some pretty good bikes for really cheap.
I actually have got some biking in since I last posted. I biked about 17km on Saturday, and biked a bit in the past couple weeks, but nothing too spectacular. Thankfully, the weather is clearing up quite a bit and I will be out and about in the near future. I also just got a job three weeks ago, at John Dolson Pool. I work as an Assistant Water Safety Instructor, basically helping to teach swimming lessons with special needs children and big classes. However, this takes up a lot of my spare time and I now have no time to ride during the week, besides to and from school. I will be biking a lot more in the summer, hopefully.
I am also into triathlons, given my swimming and biking tendencies, so I will be competing in a couple of those during the summer, and I'm trying to see if I can get into the regional highschool triathlon, although I don't think our school is doing it this year.
Another thing I'm doing this summer is a missions trip in Honduras. I'll be teaching the Bible at a VBS, working in construction projects, evangelizing in the city, and visiting orphanages. It is going to be really fun, but it means missing two weeks of training. I'll probably end up running and working out there to keep up with training.
One more comment. The EPIC team has another new rider that we are excited to introduce, and that is Kelsey Garcia. Welcome to the team! Kelsey lives in BC and is a good friend of Abi's. There is more info on the Facebook page and our website, which is http://www.epicriders.org/, about each of the team members and updates on what's happening with the team.

Anyways, thanks for reading :D

Luke

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Update and Invisible Children's 25

Hey all,

I'm sorry that I haven't posted in a while, I've been busy with homework, training, and being forgetful. I'm well on my way in a five-week fitness training schedule that started on March Break (two weeks ago for those of you who don't know when March Break is). I also turned 16 on March Break, and I plan on getting my G1 license on Thursday. I finally got my bike out on March Break about three times, so that was good. But really hard to do! So, this is probably long overdue, but the new rider who's not so new anymore is Abi Mahon. You can check out her blog at Abi's Blog.

If you've read some of my other blog posts you've probably heard of Invisible Children, the group that EPIC is touring for. Invisible Children has an event coming up called 25. It's called 25 because Joseph Kony has imposed a 25-year reign of terror in Africa, killing millions of people. Everyone participating in the event will be silent from 7pm on Sunday, April 24th to 8pm on Monday, April 25th. You can still text, write, type, whatever, just no talking to silently protest against Joseph Kony. Please join me at 25 to help raise awareness and speak out against terror. Another way to help is pledges. I am hoping to raise $200 for Invisible Children. Any money that you can give would be greatly appreciated, and you can either go to My 25 Fundraising Page or give me the money personally, and I will make sure to donate it myself.

Thank you and have a great day!

Luke

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

More Training!!!

Hey everyone!
I just came back from provincials on Sunday, it was pretty fun. I got to see some of Ottawa, mostly just the Nepean Sportsplex, but still cool. If anyone's wondering, I did alright, and I beat a couple of personal best times. I have four weeks of really intense training coming up, with 18 hours of swimming over six days on March break. I also hope to get to the roads on my bike, provided winter doesn't have any more tricks up its sleeve. If it does, then I'll continue with my indoor workout schedule. I am also about to start a job as an Assistant Water Safety Instructor, basically assisting swimming lessons instructors with big classes, so that will take up a fair bit of my time. I rationalize because one of the first things I will buy with my income is a road racing bike! School's going great, as far as I can tell my average is still in the 90's.
That's about it. Hope whoever's reading this has a great day!

Friday, February 11, 2011

Made Provincials!

So, Western Regionals just ended on the weekend and I have mostly good results, except for the first race. I got three firsts, three seconds, and one fourth. I also got the qualifying time for provincials in the 200metre breaststroke, which is exciting. I had good training this week, and now my arms and legs are really tired, but oh well, that means I'm doing it right.
In other news, semester 2 is going well, but with lots of homework! I think I took on a bit too much of a load with two Grade 11 courses. Oh well, I'll keep going and try to end well. That's about it, i gotta go

Luke

Friday, February 4, 2011

Week update!

Well, this week I haven't done much in terms of training, or anything at all, really.
As last Friday was my last exam, I had basically been resting and playing computer games until Wednesday, and now I have a swim meet that lasts from Friday to Sunday, and I have definitely not started off very well.

On Wednesday, I did an extremely hard endurance set in swimming practice, and I still haven't recovered from that. For all of you non-swimmers, which constitutes probably 90% of the people who read this, a set is a group of swims that are a certain distance and you have to complete each swim and begin the next one on the required pace time. On Wednesday it was 25 X 50 metres on 1:00 each. It's not hard, except that I was sprinting every time, which made it very hard.

So, because of this, and other reasons, in the race I did today I didn't go nearly as fast as I had expected. In a way this is good because I have learned from what I did wrong to prepare and that can be applied to any sport or activity, including biking!

As highschool semester two starts, I am getting anxious about how I am going to fit in biking, swimming, schoolwork, etc. in the spring. I have Gr. 10 English and Math, and Gr. 11 Anthro/Psych/Soc and Chemistry. It looks like I am going to get a lot of homework that I actually have to do. In the first semester, I got along well doing almost zero homework, but I don't think I can do that this time.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. But how could I forget, it's so exciting! A new rider has joined the team, but I don't think I'm allowed to give the name because we haven't posted it on the facebook page, so stay posted. Or go to the facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/EPICRiders and we might have it up.
Well, I don't really have anything else to say, so

Hope you guys have a great week,
Luke

Friday, January 28, 2011

Training update

Hey all,

I figured that since it's been another week since I last updated, I might as well update everyone on what's happening. I haven't done much for training this week, missing three workouts because of reasons related to exams, but the training that I have done has been hard. I had my first swim meet in 2 months on Saturday, and it went pretty well, but it clearly highlighted the areas I need to work on such as sprinting. I am recovering well from not practicing very hard in December due to injury and other things, but I still need to do a lot of work.
Now that exams are over, I can get back to working hard for swimming and biking. As January comes to a close I am continually reminded that the weather will clear up soon and I need to get biking. However, next semester is going to be fairly hard with english, math, and gr. 11 anthro/psych/soc and chemistry, so I will be struggling to find time for extra workouts.

That's about it, thanks for reading,
Luke

Thursday, January 20, 2011

New Week

Well, in the title I said it was a new week, but really that's not true because it's a Thursday.
However, it has been a week since my last post.
My body has slightly adapted to 2-3 workouts per day, but I am extremely tired and sore from this week.
On Monday, I went into the weight room at school with Evan Redka and tired out a bunch of important upper body muscles for swimming, and as a result the next 4 swimming practices were really painful.
Anyways, enough with the complaining.
You might think that as exams are coming up I should take time off to study, however, the only workouts I'm missing are the ones at school because I won't be there. Anyways, North Americans waste way too much time on entertainment when they could be doing work, so I will take half an hour or so out of this entertainment time to study the night before my exam. I do have Western Regional Swimming Championships next weekend and a small swim meet this Saturday, so those affect my workouts because the day before is devoted to racing preparation and pace work.
Fun fact: Provincials for swimming are in one month!
Keep you updated,
Luke.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Workout progress!! :D

Ok, well since January 2nd I've done 14 workouts, including 3 separate ones today, so I'm a little tired right now. However, obviously good things are coming out of it and I can tell the difference in my strength between then and now. Most of my workouts have been swimming, although I got on the stationary bike at school twice last week. I am planning to workout with Evan, another member of the team, on Mondays and Thursdays at lunch and probably also do a solitary workout on Wednesdays at lunch. I also do swimming practices every day after school, and on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday mornings. As a competitive swimmer I also frequently go to weekend swim meets. My swimming practices are mainly cardio, some strength/speed, a bit of technique, and occasionally fun stuff. If anyone wants more information about my workouts, you can contact me on Facebook, email to luke.lewis95@gmail.com, or comment on the blog. I haven't heard anything more about the trip, except that we got in contact with Cambridge Cycle about bikes. I plan on posting every week on the blog about new updates and workout stuff.

Thanks for reading,
Luke

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Intro to my life and EPIC

Hi, I'm Luke Lewis. I recently joined EPIC(Enthusiastically Pedalling for Invisible Children), which is a cross-Canada bike tour to raise awareness and funds for Invisible Children. This tour is going to happen in the summer of 2013.
My training right now consists of swimming 8 times a week, and dryland workouts in the weight room at school during lunch. I plan on joining a biking group in the spring where I can get some professional coaching or tips about group-biking and tours. I also did a lot of biking last summer which is a good start to my training.
I am really excited about joining EPIC and I hope to inform readers about the training and preparations I am doing for this trip.

Happy New Year!
Luke.