Saturday, June 25, 2011

Mountains beyond Mountains



Mountains beyond Mountains, not only is this the title of a popular Arcade Fire song, it is also the way it feels as you are driving through western Canada. It really does seem as though there is an endless supply of these towering piles of rock. This is how I felt as we were driving through Alberta and British Colombia on our way to Kaslo for a short high volume camp. This was of course my first camp with the Alberta world cup academy and I was anxious albeit a bit nervous to get it underway. The camp, as I said, was a short one (two full days and three nights). The idea was; drive down to Kaslo (about a 6hour drive), do two full days of high volume training including a 200km bike ride and drive back to Canmore. The main event of the camp was of course the long bike ride. Mike Cavalier (the director of the World cup academy) had been training hard for this bike ride so that he could not only keep up with the athletes but push them throughout the ride. The loop we were doing started out with a 47km ride through the kootenay’s from Kaslo to New Denver. The first 25km of this were uphill. On this stretch people got spread out into groups. I ended up in the second of four main groups. We worked well exchanging the lead on the hilly ride from New Denver to Nelson (a 100km stretch). In the last 30km before nelson the long ride started to take its toll. A couple of big hills and a constant head wind made for little rest. On top of that since the groups were more spread out than expected we went three hours without having any support from our team vans that were following us during the ride. I ran out of water and began to feel tired. When we finally did meet up with a support vehicle about 20km after Nelson I had had enough and called it a day. I had done 170km and for those who are interested averaged 31km an hour on a hilly route. Although I didn’t complete the entire 215km ride I was happy with what I had done. Besides I need room to improve next year.

View from the ferry across Upper arrow lake on our way to Kaslo

Pate decided to test out his new toy on the drive to Kaslo. The Nish giving his approval.

The other highlight of the camp was a game of baseball. Although this was not part of the training it was taken quite seriously by most of the team. I had never played or watched baseball in my life so after being briefed several times on the rules I did my best to not let my team down. Although I did make a costly mistake (running between bases when the ball was still in the air and ended up being caught) I did achieve my goal of hitting the ball ( I was so excited when I did this that I forgot to drop the bat and ended up running with it to first base). All in all Kaslo was a successful camp. I biked farther than I ever had, saw more mountains, enjoyed beautiful weather (it was 30degrees and sunny) and hit my first baseball. Right now I am back in Canmore, where it is far from 30 degrees out, enjoying a much needed rest day before the hard training begins again.

Other things I have been up to since my last update… well the team did a 10km road race in Calgary. For me it went well. I ran it in 37:18 which is far from my best (35:11) but for this early in the year and at altitude it was a good test. I also went to Banff to watch a crit race. This I thought was pretty cool as I am a big cycling fan and like nothing better than watching 40 riders battle it out on a narrow course in slippery conditions (yes there were several falls). Well, that’s all for now. There is supposed to be a video of the Kaslo camp made soon. As soon as it is I will post it here.

Banff Bike fest Crit race. Photo credit: Lucas Jungmann (jungmann-photography.com/)

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Welcome to Canmore




I arrived in Canmore two weeks ago. This marked a new chapter in my life. For 19 and a half years I have lived at home. For the past 10 years I have been racing with the Nakkertok Nordic ski club. The past six of which I have been coached by Mike Vieira, Nakkertok’s head coach. I have had lots of success with the Nakkertok racing team, but this year I felt it was time for a change. I applied to some training centers and before I knew it I was making plans to go to Canmore to train with the Alberta World cup Academy.

On Sunday May 22nd I had packed my life into bags and was on my way to Calgary. When I arrived in Calgary that evening I was greeted by our long time family friends the Hicks family. They had generously offered to let my stay at their house while I try to find my own place and had even made the drive to the Calgary airport to pick me up.

The day before I left Chelsea I went for a long bike ride in 25 degree sunny weather. I even went for a swim in the Gatineau River; summer had definitely arrived in the National Capital region. When I arrived in Canmore however, I realized that summer was still a long way off in this part of the country. During my first week here I went for a bike ride in 5 degrees and rain and went for a run in 20cm of fresh snow. My sandals and swim shorts remained packed away in my duffle bag. I have been very happy with my decision to bring my winter training gear with me to Canmore. Despite the weather my first week of training went relatively well. My arrival in Canmore coincided with the start of testing week. I did not do all the fitness testing that was planned since the coaches wanted to give me some time to get used to the altitude. With the exception of some slight back issues during the double pole test (I am working hard doing physio and stretching to correct this) the fitness testing that I did do went well.

Waking up to a May snow storm in Canmore

During my second week in Canmore the weather improved drastically. I have been settling in to the routine of training with the world cup academy. Canmore is a great place to train. There are a seemingly endless number of trails to discover. I have only started to get to know them.

Above Canmore on the Highline trail. Just one of many great running trails in Canmore.

That’s all for now, I will try to post updates twice a month and will do my best to include photos and videos to keep in interesting.