Lake Louise Life and tt

By admin | Published: November 20, 2009

Early snow conditions have been amazing this year with snow dumping on Lake Louise every other day and a “hamster loop” at the nordic center ready for action as soon as we arrived back from Cali. For the last 2 weeks the team crashed at the Lake Louise Inn to get in some on snow training without the commute. Its a little weird doing a ski camp 1 hr from your bed but in the end it was totally worth the nap in between workouts and the extra hour of sleep in the mornings. Both weeks included some high hours with a few intensity sessions which went well for me, improving on my snap and working on staying smooth through the longer intervals. I was also able to get in some testing of my new Fischer fleet and found some serious rockets in the batch. After getting back to Canmore we went straight to the bell store (one of our supporters), who just got in the iphone! So now Im officially 3GS’d and wasting way to much time on the app store and mapping out bathrooms for the SitOrSquat app… Back to business, we had a classic time trial last weekend at the nordic center with 7 laps of the loop making it about 15 k. I started out pretty slow, probably way to slow and ended up getting caught by Crooks on lap 2 who coincidentally was flying and I was able to ride behind him for the rest of the race, just sprinting by on the finish. I ended up 4th just 15 seconds off Brent which is a good place to be right now.

timetrial

photo by Anders Lenes

I feel good and my body seems to be primed and ready for some more racing to get me in peak form before the trials. Next Monday Ill be heading down to West Yellowstone for 3 races and then back in Canmore for some AB cups. All for now…Check out this Franz Ferdinand remix. profs to Gerard

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Mammoth

By admin | Published: October 20, 2009

Just got back from a 3 week epic down in sunny California. This was the camp I had been worried about all summer since I made the National Team, hearing horror stories of people managing to destroy their summer gains in a few weeks of crazy high altitude and heavy training.  Turns out I made it through and  am feeling better than  I have all summer. Being able to watch the veterans of the camp and learn from their approach to training at high altitudes helped me figure out a strategy for myself. TRAIN SLOW! With some of the workouts going above 3000 m,  you can burn yourself pretty bad by ignoring the heart rate.

Besides a 3 day cold midcamp the training was consistently strong and my body was able to adjust to the altitude, making gains in heart rate  and getting the snap back into  intensity. Aside from the high altitude benefits Mammoth was just an awesome place to train with beatifully paved roads, warm weather (for the most part) and sick mountain scenery.

photo by Devon Kershaw

photo by Devon Kershaw

That was from one of our high runs through some beautiful mountain lakes. After two weeks of solid training we packed up and drove 2 hrs into Yosemite National Park for some serious site seeing. Heres a picture of Half Dome on the right and some of El Cap to the left.

photo by Brian McKeever

photo by Brian McKeever

The next morning we went for a 4 1/2 hour run/hike up Half Dome , pretty sweet view up top!

mammoth 4 069

The last week of the camp went really well and I was able to build on my fitness, bringing the heart rate down and skiing competitively in the intensities. With this positive feedback I cant wait to get on snow and enter the final buildup to the racing season.

Check out these sweet videos by Sean:




Let it snow…

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OPA – Zwiesel – Schilpario

By admin | Published: February 28, 2009

After france most of the u23s and a few of us juniors went through Austria, Italy and Germany to hit up some OPA continental cup races.

First race was in Zwiesel, Germany aka the glass blowing capital of the world. The week in Austria had hit me hard with a cold/sore throat and I was still feeling sick the morning of the 15 k classic. After skiing a warmup with some faster zone 3, I decided the intensity wouldn’t make anything worse. The first lap was pretty conservative for me but I still managed to have a good split going by our coaches. Each lap after I was able to improve on my time by 2 – 3 seconds with 14 seconds on the final lap. In the end I won jr. and was 5th senior to Len Valjas who dominated the mens field, giving us two runs through the Canadian anthem. FIS points were also amazing that day, earning a miniscule 34.39! (lower is better)

here are some pics.

classic race (photo credit sandau.ca)

2nd place didn’t show

After Zwiesel we headed south to Schilpario, Italy for the next set of OPA races. Despite not getting snow since November, there was a good meter of dry fast snow. The races were put together as sort of a “mini tour” where your positioning in one race would handicap your start for the next one. It started with a classic sprint followed by a 10 k classic and finishing off with a 15 k skate.

The classic sprint went pretty well for me and I was able to qualify in 8th and moving down one position to 9th through the heats. The course was ok for me with a massive climb the first half of the race followed by a speedy switch back downhill and a longer than I would have liked double pole finish into the stadium. I was always  in 1st or 2nd cresting the climb but would drift back slowly in the double pole finish.

In the end I was more than happy with the result because if I were to lose a few more positions I would have been out of the series with too much time to make up. I ended up starting the next day 27 seconds behind the leader. After about 3 k I was able to close that gap and began to sit in behind the leaders. The pace began to really increase towards the end and many of our lead pack dropped off leaving 6 of us. I was able to hold on till then end, finishing 5th just 10 seconds of the leader and securing a spot beside the podium.

Next day, the 10 k skate, I was able to make up the 10 seconds on the first hill and began to ride behind the leaders. The pace was quite slow and the lead group began to get bigger with people making up time on us. I moved to the front and began to push the pace along with Thomas Bing (5th at world jrs.). Between us we were able to lean out our group to 6 guys which made me much more comfortable for the sprint finish.  On the final climb before the stadium one of the italians went for it, breaking the group down to four, two italians, Bing and me. Going into the finish I stepped in behind the italian who had won the day before but I guess he didn’t really have anything left so I broke away from him and sprinted to the line with Bing and Federico, finishing 3rd, but still within a second of 1st. The medal ceremony was legit with glass shooting star trophies, basket full of cheese etc. and 100 Euros!

(photo credit Eric Bailey)

Anyway thats it for OPA, ciao!

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World Juniors!

By admin | Published: February 26, 2009


So this will be what should be a few posts compressed into 1.

After a week of training in the beautiful mountain village of Praz de-lys we had our first race of the week, a 1.5 km classic sprint. Going into the day my goal was to place top 30 and get to know what its like to race against an international field. Turns out the course couldn’t have been better for me and I was able to lay down a 13th place qualifier. In the quarter final I felt super strong but I think a few small mistakes may have cost me a position, putting me in 3rd for 14th overall.
Next for the pursuit day I was feeling good and was able to turn out a good result despite having a really rough classic leg. The layout of the course made it really tough for nailing the wax everywhere. Unfortunately we along with a few other countries missed it for all the hills in the back of the course. The whole classic became damage control, herring-boning up the slightest incline and having everyone ripping past you with perfect striding.  Coming into the skate I had been redlining the whole way and managed to latch on to a group with Thomas Bing, Thomas Northug, Musgrave and a few others who dropped off. Musgrave broke from the front of our group on the first lap and we continued to lean out our group. After a lap I began to feel better and knowing I had lost any sprint in the classic, I moved to the front and led the last two laps trying to drop Bing and Northug. Unfortunately they stuck it out and dropped me going to the line landing me in 15th.
I think the race could have gone considerably better but I am still extremely happy with a top 20.  Heres a video from the start of the pursuit with David Greer leading alongside the likes of Petr Sedov and Tim Tscharnke!

The 10 k skate wasn’t my day. I didn’t have any problems just couldn’t keep a good pace going. I finished in 25th place which Im still somewhat happy with.
Day after the skate was the 4*5 km relay. Our team in order of starting was me, Jess, Ghislain and David. Off the start everyone was jostling for positions and the tracks were over capacity with people breaking equipment all round. I tried to remain calm and hung around the back for the first lap. When things had spread out a little I moved to the front and just as I got there the Russian took off. I jumped in the track behind him and we were able to make a small gap on the field. Coming in I lost a few seconds on him but was still able to tag off in 2nd place. We drifted back slowly over the next few legs but managed to pull off 9th with some good skiing by dave.
heres a video from the last lap just before the exchange.

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