Fishing Video (July 2011)

The Early Season

With the race season just around the corner, athletes are finally switching from wheeling to gliding: pavement to snow. Roller skiing may look like a lot of fun to the curious onlooker, and at times, it can be. But when I’ve roller skied countless hours over the same cracked, weather-beaten pavement, I can’t help but try and loose myself in anything other than roller skiing. I imagine myself back in the Yukon, silently striding along the 80km of groomed trails, through the thick spruce forest. Then suddenly I hear a loud rumbling noise as a dump truck puffs a cloud of diesel in my face and I’m hit with the strong draft which scoops last nights rain off the pavement and blasts it in my face along with the trail of sand the truck spews out as it plows down the road. I’m back. There’s no escaping from Quebec’s November fury: rain, sleet. She’ll even kick up a hurricane-like wind that’ll knock your socks off.

Lucky for me, I have a one-way ticket to Yukon on November 9^th… turns out there is a way to escape Quebec’s November fury. The Yukon is my home, and home is a very special place for an athlete because they’re so seldom there. For me, it’s a place where I can forget about my training load and drain the “stress valve”. I visit the old ski club and I ski for fun, not to become a faster skier, but to become a better athlete. Because a good athlete has fun doing what he does best.

On November 26^th, I’m off to Canmore to start off the race season. It’s almost a relief to finally begin racing after all the hard work in the summer. Usually the team (CNEPH) travels straight to Sovereign Lakes to get a little extra on-snow training in before the first North American Cup. The change was made to Canmore for a few reasons. One: because Canmore is at a lower altitude, which makes for easier training, and two: to race some Alberta Cups. The Alberta Cup races are not FIS races, meaning skiers don’t receive any beneficial “points” for international events. I guess you could call them practice races. For my teammates staying in Quebec, this will likely be the first time on snow since our glacier camp in Austria.

From Canmore, we’ll travel straight to Sovereign Lakes to race the first of the North American Cup series. In my opinion, Sovereign Lakes is one of the only places in Canada that can compete with the trails at the Whitehorse Cross-Country Ski Club. Because of its elevation there is guaranteed early snow, and lots of it. This is why it’s chosen as the site for one of the first races of the year. Although only a twenty-minute drive from Vernon, Sovereign Lakes is a completely different world than its neighbouring city. The Drive takes you from a warm, shrub-desert environment, into a winter wonderland. This year, we’ll stay at Silver Star instead of down in Vernon. Sovereign Lakes is one of my favorite places to ski. There are two races, a sprint and a distance race. The courses here are hard; lots of hills. Not to mention we’re racing at 1600m above sea level. Skiing here is almost like being on a rollercoaster.

After These two races, the team rushes to Rossland to compete at the second of the North American Cup Series. For these races I really don’t know what to expect because I’ve never been to Rossland. The team went last year but I had decided to return home for some extra rest. Not this year! I’m excited to see how it’ll go.

Then its time to come home for Christmas! It won’t be quite as long as most people’s holiday but still a good break. It’s one of those rare times that my whole family will be together again. Something I used to take for granted. For those who don’t know I have three sisters: Annie, the youngest, and two older sisters, Solvey and Aurora. I might be a bit late to help with the tree this year. I hope it’s a bit warmer for Christmas this year. I don’t mind the cold but intervals at -40 don’t work very well.

New years! I mean: “oh new years”… For the past I don’t know how many years, new years has been spent on an airplane or in a van. World Junior/U23 Trials are always one of the biggest events of the year. Especially this year because its my last year as a junior and my last and best chance of qualifying for the World Junior Championships in Turkey. I’m pretty confident that if all goes well I will be going there. Then again, I was also confident last year. I’ll try not to dwell on this too long. I’ll just pretend it’s a time trial. Too much pressure can get to a man.

Because the rest of my season (where I’m going and what I’ll do) all depends on these races, I can’t really plan ahead any further. I believe its better to live in the present than future anyway so I’ll just stop at that.

More updates to come as the race season unfolds!

Eating on a budget

todays catch: a practical solution to rising food prices. great on the grill, oven, or open fire. fur can be used to make small garments like hats or mittens

The Dachstein

The Dachstein Glacier was pretty bare this year. A lot of rocks, a lot of dirt, a lot of ice. However the camp went fairly smooth.

I guess you could say we were lucky to have nice sunny weather for the entire 2 weeks we were there (though that didn't help with the snow factor). I was hoping to be able to test a few pairs of new skis on warm snow before the race season but i guess that will not happen now. I brought 8 pairs of skis all the way across the Atlantic and only used 2. luckily those were just training skis because they got beaten up pretty bad.

A nice thing about being on the Dachstein is you can always count on running into different skiers from all over the world: teams from Finland, Norway, Japan, Russia. Most of the time i keep to myself when i'm skiing but its great to watch some of the great skiers such as Matti Heikkinen stride along beside you.

Glacier camps are not one of the harder camps we do, they are more to work on technique. Roller skiing is about as close as it gets but still far from the real thing. Every day on the glacier is spent skiing in "zone 1". Nice and easy but still fast enough to ski with good technique. Its tricky to do in icy conditions but, when i get into a good rhythm i feel like i could ski for days. The coaches took lots of video on the glacier and afterwards we'd analyse that video so that the next day i'd know what i'd have to improve. In the afternoon we'd do a shorter workout in roller ski or run.

Training camps can sometimes be stressful, but one thing that is definately a relief, atleast at the Dachstein, is that all of your meals are cooked for us. Its nice to wake up to a big bowl of oatmeal and come down hungry from skiing all morning on the glacier and have a hot lunch waiting for you. We stayed in a hotel which is really more like a bed & breakfast if you ask me. Very small, traditional and privately owned. The beds we slept in were very small, the blankets were very thick, and the pillows very big. I like big beds because i like to roll around. i like thin blankets because i sleep very hot. And I like small pillows because they take up less room on the bed. I didn't have the best sleeps.. and resting heart rate was always high. This being my second time on the camp i can say that thats pretty normal though.

Last year I returned from that camp pretty exhausted. Learning from my mistake, this year I skied  a few less hours, but had a much better intensity workout and with a couple rest days I'll be ready for the time trial this weekend. 

We got  a lot of "ok" skiing in in the past couple weeks but now its great to be back in MSA for a good rest. Really excited to return home in November as well.

training camp video!