Hello Slowtwitch World and welcome to my first post in a new column documenting my journey to Olympic selection and then hopefully to the BIG SHOW in August in Beijing, China.

For all of those who have no idea who I am, my name is Colin Jenkins, and I am a Canadian Triathlete on the National Team racing on the World Cup circuit.  We travel all around the World and race everywhere from exotic destinations to big municipality cores, all in hopes of getting those coveted Olympic and World Cup points that are essential to getting your country an Olympic spot and being selected to the team.  The selection criteria set up by the ITU and your individual country is pretty complicated, and I will not get into the details in this post; I will leave it for a later one.

Although the Opening Ceremony for the Games are just over four months away, this is the final stretch for all of us who are trying to qualify and be selected.  This has been a 3 year process for me from moving across Canada from Hamilton, Ontario to Victoria, British Columbia to train with the best athletes in Canada, all with the final goal of the Olympics.  The actual qualifying period to gain Olympic Points from the ITU is coming to a close after two years of racing at this years World Championships in Vancouver in June.  It is also Canada's last race before the rest of our team will be announced (Simon Whitfield has already been named, and we should have two remaining spots to be filled).  So this is a very exciting (and nerve-racking) time as every race counts.

So far this year our training squad has done two training camps in Arizona.  We started the year off in Tucson for four weeks to trade out the miserably cold snow and rain for the warm and balmy sunshine.  The training there was awesome as we were all just happy to be riding outside and getting some solid base work in for our second training camp.  We then all went back to our home training bases for a couple weeks in February and then hopped on another plane back to Arizona.  We raced in a small duathlon in Phoenix and then headed up to Flagstaff (7000ft. altitude) where we got some awesome altitude training in to get us ready for the start of the World Cup year.  We did a three month training camp in Flagstaff last winter, and I completely forgot how hard it was to train when their is no oxygen in the air.  But it definitely taught our bodies how to suffer, and suffering is the name of the game!

So that leaves me to where I am now.  I just completed the first World Cup of the year in Mooloolaba, Australia where I had some really solid points in the race, accompanied by some really less desirable points which showed up in the results (48th place).  Do not let the final result fool you, I swear their I had decent sections, honestly!  I was first out of the water and worked like a race horse on the bike to get in a small break away.  Too much energy was used up for that in the first two legs and not much left for the final leg.  I felt like I could have used some rockets attached to my ass, but I doubt even those would have saved me.  I am very much a swim/bike kind of athlete and have always suffered in the run.  Strong swims and break-aways on the bike are my favorite friend, then it turns into "holding on for dear life" for as long as I can on the run.

I am currently in New Plymouth, New Zealand for the second World Cup of the year.  We race this Sunday and you can watch the race live with live audio, live video, and live timing on www.triathlon.org.  Click here to see what time the race starts in your part of the World.  You can cheer me on and hope that I get off the front away from all those men with DNA genetically altered with a Cheetah.

Cheers for now,

Colin Jenkins

Photos © 2008 Delly Carr, Triathlon.org