The 2001 season has been another encouraging and progressive year for me, both as an athlete and as a person. Like all years it has been full of ups and downs, failures and yes, success.

I had a number of goals going into the year. My long term goal remain to qualify and compete at the 2004 olympics in Athens, Greece. Short term, i.e. for the year I hoped to improve my swim time and work a lot on my shooting. I planned to maintin the other sports and do clinics and camps where possible. I stuck to my plan and put a lo of miles in the pool and hours on the range with my coaches Andrew Cole (swimming- UNB Varsity coach) and Bob Kierstead (shooting).

Since this was primarily a training year I did only one trip to Europe to compete before worlds. I had a best swim at my first competion in Europe and a best shoot the follwing week. What would have been a best performance to date was unfortunatly marred by a difficult horse and a poor ride. However, such is life and such is the nature of the sport. With excellent performances in my other events I knew things were moving in the right direction.

I returned to Fredericton to train until worlds which took place in Millfield, England July 16-22. The day started well with a good shoot. The fencing was another story though and things weren't looking good after the fence. None the less I had a personal best swim by more than two seconds and scored my first 1000 point swim in a 50m pool. I started the run in 29th place after the swim and managed to overcome 5 poeple in the run to finish 24th in my semi-final. Although I did not advance to the final with this performance I can say that I have improved this year and that good things will come.

The Canadian National Pentathlon Championships was the next competition on my list and I headed out to Canmore, Alberta on August 15. This proved to be my best competion of the season with an excellent shoot, and excellent fence. My other events were also strong and I retained my national title for the third year running.

From Canmore I flew direcetly to London, Ontario for the Canada Summer Games where I'm part of the Athletics team. On Monday I ran in the women's 5000m final where I finished 14th. I consider myself very fortunate to have been able to compete in so many challenging and wonderful events this year. This was my first Canada Games and I'm really proud to have been able to represent PEI in London.

The next couple of weeks will be a time of rest, relaxation, and organization as I prepare for the coming school year and the coming training year. I will be returning to Fredericton for the fall semester and back to UPEI in January to finish my degree and graduate in May with a Bachelor of Science with a major in biology and minor in French.

Every year is an important year for training and this year no less. I'll continue to focus on my swim for a time while doing as much fencing and shooting as possible. I will also be trying to do a number of fencing and shooting competitions as well as run Cross Country with UNB in the fall. As you can see my life is never dull!