When you
are training every day it is perhaps normal to fall into a bit of a routine. Perhaps
too often getting out of the door to go training can become something of a
chore. Skiing at its core and in its most simple form is done in the wilderness
far away from everyday nuisances. The ideal image of cross-country skiers is
that of a small group of people deep in the woods in some beautiful part of the
world.
Of course
when you are racing this ideal image rarely corresponds to the actual day to
day training. For nearly a month I have been skiing most days on a loop of manmade
snow less than 2km long. It took about 6 minutes on the first day of skiing to completely
explore the boundaries and outer reaches of this loop. Since then I have been around
it hundreds of times in both classic and skate, both counter clockwise and
clockwise (although mostly the latter).
Not only have I done hundreds of loops I have often done these loops in
the company of hundreds of people (ok I might be exaggerating here), but the
loop does get quite crowded. This year skiers have travelled to Canmore from
all over to enjoy this early season snow.
At its peak
there were at least four local clubs and half a dozen teams from across North America
training on this one loop. Skiing on frozen Thunder often resembles more closely
a morning rush hour commute than the idyllic image of a cross-country skiing.
With everyone going at different speeds you are constantly moving out of the
way of skiers doing intervals, sprints or time trials or working your way around
people if you are doing intensity yourself. The truth is if this was the
everyday image of skiing that I had grown up with I’m not sure I would have
fallen in love with the sport. Still the competitive side of skiing has kept me
motivated and if I’m honest more than happy skiing on this short loop for
nearly a month. The everyday competitive drive is more than enough to keep me walking
up to the Nordic Centre with my boots in my backpack and my skis and poles in
my hands every morning. Since many of the people reading this are still in
rollerski season I am certainly in no position to complain.
The last
week has brought the first blast of sustained winter to Canmore (we had a week
long taster in October). This has brought enough snowfall to Lake Louise for us
to enjoy our first all-natural skiing experience of the winter. On Sunday I
woke up to blue skies and minus fifteen degree weather. Our team made our way
to Lake Louise for the second time this year. About an hour in to my three hour
ski I noticed something. This was the first time I had checked my watch since
we had started skiing. Not only was this the first time I had checked my watch a
part of me was disappointed that I only had two more hours left of skiing. This
was the last day of a twenty plus hour week and by all means I should have been
tired, and wanting to get the ski over with. I was tired, but I didn’t necessarily
want to be done skiing. It was a beautiful day the sun had warmed the
temperature to a pleasant minus ten. The snow was cold enough to get more than
enough grip with a couple of layers of blue wax and the unglazed track meant that
you didn’t have to re-wax once during a three hour ski. The conditions were
perfect. This was a better reminder than any of just how beautiful of a sport
skiing is and although the desire to perform is more than enough to motivate
every day it’s the days like this that made me enjoy skiing in the first place.
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| The Winsport frozen thunder classic sprint brought an even more competitive field this year with many on the top Americans as well as Canadians in attendance. Although I fell in my semi-final I still had a great day finishing in 7th (as the second Canadian) I'm number 13 on the right Photo:© Craig Douce  Another pic of the frozen thunder sprint Photo:© Craig Douce
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