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.