More Haig shots

Aprés ski routine...in the lake. cold water is nothing new for me, but the walk barefoot, sure added extra pain to the already frigid water pain. (Adriene Underhill)

Dialed and ready go bomb down the snow pack with the BC'ers. Boot skiing!!!(Nicole Perrin)

and now is the present

Post glacier. I came back to Whistler with the legendary lee Churchill, (I'll skip the driving part because I mentioned it previously). Now, once in whistler it occurred to me that it was extremely dry, and the heat was equal to pre glacier, the sun, relentless, but not humid like back home in Ontario, it was a dry hot heat, tolerable, but brutal, I found myself drinking a lot more fluids than previously. Both in workouts and in chill sessions. Apparently the weather had been like this basically since we had left for the rainy Canmore. There was a day or so where there were some thundershowers, but that's it, and thundershowers do not hydrate the ground, because it is so hot the water starts evaporating once it hits the ground, all it does is cool the temps for a little while.

So back in training mode, I was facing a very comfortable couple of weeks ahead of me. Nothing huge, just in the 12h hour range. The Thursday of my week back lee and I headed out to WOP (first time for him to roller ski there as he had finally switched his wheels) and hammered some awesome death intervals. Nothing unreal, just taking advantage of the altitude the week before. It was rest and get feeling good again. This week was the second chill week, nothing huge, just sitting around 12h. Today was the day. We hit up the gym (if anyone knows me, they will know the feat in that) and pulled a super solid weight session. I surprised myself in some areas, and others like the bench press....well lets just say its not my forte. So after punishing my body under a ton of weight, I took a short nap that afternoon and decided to go for a recovery ride. And guess what. It rained! We were supposed to have thundershowers through out the afternoon...we had one. At 5:00 PM the time I was heading out for my ride. So as I was quite the down pore, I sat it out under a spruce tree for the majority of the wetness, than I got fed up and headed out, the rain subsided and I ended up having a superb ride. I felt like I was flying! With all this Tour De France I've been watching, I'm trying to adjust my riding style to what I see, and let me tell you it felt GOOD! So i am back, just over a week and a half since the glacier and that epic week, I am feeling ready to conquer the world! Well lets start with some intervals tomorrow and go from there.

One thing this rain has made me realize (as I was headed out for my ride) is that, that sunny hot weather is and has been impeccable to train in, you just have to head out before it gets really hot. It is so good because it is consistent, I have been plugging away since I've arrived here. The weather has made my motivation, work ethic, and general mentality very focused.

but we need rain. that is for sure. Its dry to the point where forest fires are more than a possibility here in whistler, the ones around kelowna are just a reminder of what can happen with this dryness. We are supposed to have another 14 days without rain and it is going to be hot....35°C. So, let the training be solid!

C

Lee enjoying the killer day on the crust

Thomsen rippin it on the frozen snow

The HAIG... and the adventure

To start this next update, I would like first to thank all those super fun athletes who were at theHaig with us....the BC team and the BC development team...good times. And next, to thank Joel and john for their brilliant witty remarks... and for their gigantic amount of help with everything around the camp.

Now... for the details.

Following a long drive with Lee from Whistler to Canmore, and that dreadful day of postponement in Canmore, we ran into camp. The 18km run started a little on the warm side and I started feeling a little stupid about wearing long spandex bottoms and even carrying a small camelback with a jacket in it, plus my drink belt. I think I remember Thomson even making a witty remark about me being overdressed... karma my friend. About 14km in, the weather changed, no longer was it sunny and warm,  the wind picked up the clouds rolled in and, so did the sleet and snow. All of a sudden the guys i was running with started commenting on being cold...not me, I was just right!

So after a nice run in, nothing special, 2:35. The camp had begun.

When the next day came I was super pumped to ski, this is what I had waited for, for what seemed forever. Maybe I was a little too eager to get up there. Once skiing, I got tested and my lactates were way too high....bummer. I was crushed at my stupidity of heading up to the glacier to ski to fast. so my day was cut short, and I headed down to rest up and see what my levels would be in the afternoon. A combination of this and the altitude adjustment, I believe was the culprit of this. The next day was much better, in fact I was so scared to get my lactates too high that the were super low and Lee told me to pick it up...I felt awesome!

This continued to build an epic week. Putting in good quality training hours on the snow, and enjoying the beautiful sun which came out more permanently as the week progressed.

A ton of card games later, and some enormous quantities of food consumed, I came to my last day on snow. This one was beautiful.... not a cloud in the sky, it froze overnight so it was super fast skating, which meant I could really work on technique rather than plaude along on super slow skis bringing my heart rate up, than as I got slower I switched to classic to put the hairies to work. This day left me with the best feeling of spring skiing in my legs, I was PUMPED! But super tired as well because if the very big week of training.

The next day was the run out... I didn't want to say anything the evening of, but when some of the athletes slept out on the helipad that night I thought that they would be running inside mid sleep because of the rain. It just seemed to fit.  i was wrong, but only partially, what had been a pristine cloudless night had turned to a very cool very cloudy sky in the morning. and of course, just as Thomson and I finished our last game of cribbage (which he won...payback for skunking him the time before i assume) the rain started... well no, the hail actually. So Lee, Thomsen and I (last to leave the camp due to the game) set out in the hail storm which included some pretty impressive lightning strikes, and the lower we got in the run out, the wetter it got. It was monsoon season in Kananaskis country. everything was soaked... everything. Somehow or another once back in Canmore it started clearing up...our luck of course...

The luggage on the other hand was a whole other story. Because of inclement weather, the helicopters are very limited in flying since they do not have all the high tech navigation systems such as planes. Mainly because they do not just land on huge runways. They rely almost exclusively on the pilots vision  and training to be landed and flown. So when the cloud cover is too thick, they don't fly.

So when it came to our bags no one really believed they would be able to fly them out. I was staying the night in Canmore anyways with Lee because we did not want to drive the 10h trek back to whistler right after the run out. But not everyone had our logic. They pretty much left at their first chance to head either to the airport or home. Without bags because it was unsure whether or not the helicopter could fly in.  An hour and a half later of course, we get word that all the luggage is back... and soaked. everything. soaked inside and out.

Now the adventure begins...for the first time in my life I have a cell phone... something I have faught my whole life against because I think they are stupid... and now I have conceded. 

wow... big update...

C

enjoying a nice roller ski at WOP.......saw my first black bear since arriving in whistler!

THE HAIG...

I am sitting in the rocky mountain ski lodge in Canmore, getting ready for my first in the country glacier camp. It will be my second time skiing on a glacier, however it will also be drastically different from what I had experienced last year. 

recap.

In the summer of 2008, I decided to travel in Europe after finishing high school. I took this opportunity to join my ski team in Ramsau Austria. This was one of the big highlights of last year.

But I heard often from people to not take it for granted. Cable car rides up to the glacier for two skis a day, breakfast, lunch and dinner prepared for you. A nice warm bed in a hotel 200m from the cable car. This was the life.

Well now I know that I was extremely lucky to have that as my first glacier experience. Because as I said I am waiting in Canmore. We were supposed to run up today to the glacier, but the weather was no help as the helicopter could not fly due to the rain and heavy cloud cover. So now our camp has be pushed back to tomorrow WEATHER PERMITTING!!!!!!

I just seems a little ridiculous having to base everything off of weather when you are set to head up. Anyways, I am sure I feel this way because my first experience was so incredible. So I'll just chill and see what happens, but now I don't think we will be skiing tomorrow assuming we make it up tomorrow which is a huge bummer. Oh well. Life goes on. I will add a little good thing that has happened because of this. I felt pretty tired after our big week blocks and even with this easy week i didn't feel rested, mostly because I haven't been sleeping well these last couple of nights, so this gives me one more day to rest up before going full tilt on the glacier so I can really take advantage of the altitude and snow. Skiing in the summer for a week is worth more than a month of rollerskiing. So I am absolutely pumped to get up there and feeling good!

All that said, I am super exited to go skiing, hoping the weather gets nice, which it looks like sun is on the way, just too late for today. i am sure my next update will be super positive about the camp. 

C

jumping on the fast train!

Well these past two weeks have been stellar in terms of training. Putting two very solid volume weeks together. Just on little hickup which was I got a stomach bug, but luckily it only lasted about 36h so I was back on my feet quickly. 

After a few epic trail runs, High altitude hikes, and some superb WOP rollerskiing Canada Day came. With it, the annual Pemberton spud run. well not yet annual for me, my first. This race was extremely fun, my first running race of the year, we were all expecting a 7-8km race and it turned out to be 10, so other than the fact that everybody suffered in the last km. It was awesome. The weather, just like the rest of the week was picture perfect. Not a cloud in the sky, 15 degrees C. The sun was so intense though that half way through, at 15C we felt the heat (it felt more like 30C) while running on the road section.

It was a good finish for me... as I am deffinitly not a runner, I did run a PB. 

I am getting ready to head to Canmore now, we have a week gracier camp with Cross Country BC which should be a ton of fun. I'll see some friends I don't otherwise get many chances to see. 

till the next time.