The Mission

To introduce myself, I am Dominic (Nick) Fontaine...a recreational athlete from Ottawa, Ontario and I am starting this blog to document and share my journey to earning a Rudy Award.

A good friend of mine (Joel Barrette) and I have had an ongoing joke the last few years about doing the Rudy Award - we usually say it while out on rides or doing the Rideau Lakes Tour knowing full well that we weren't up to it. It's usually said when one of us complements each other on our riding or something like that....the typical exchange is something like this:

Joel - "You're riding pretty strong"
Me - "Yeah, I'm doing the Rudy this year..."
Joel - "really?"
Me - "no, not really - are you nuts?"

Then we laugh. We've done the routine at least a hundred times and it doesn't get old - what else are we supposed to do on a 3 hour ride?

Well, this year is going to be different, I am going to do the events that make up the Rudy Award and when asked "really?" the answer will be "yes" this time.

For those that don't know what the Rudy Award is, a good description is available here http://www.zone3sports.com/Rudy%20Award.htm

It will be an interesting journey, I have been "training" since September, which for me is about 5 days a week of doing something like cycling, skating, hockey etc...not necessarily tri specific. I pretty much love sports of all kinds and to give up all my other sports to focus strictly on training for the events seems far too monotonous so I will be attempting these events with some specific training but overall it will be based more on overall fitness - speed and performance are not the priorities.

I'll update the blog on a weekly basis as to what training/activities I have done, weight loss, whether I have decided to give up :) etc... basically, anything I want to capture on my way.

For the record - I was already pretty active but I stepped up my activity level and modified my diet in September and weighed in at 235lbs...as of this posting I am at 218 and still exercise 5-6 times a week.