there and back again....AGAIN.

I am writing this post back at home, but having completed another epic road trip to Canmore and back. This last trip has been sort of same old same old, yet brand new at the same time. The same old part was Canmore. It seems, you only need to spend a couple of days there (either in the summer, or winter) and you know what its like there all year round (the one exception was the glacier camp when all our time spent there it was raining). So this time, well it was back to good'ol Canmore. Not a cloud in the sky, cool-to-cold every morning and warm during the day. But where the sun was, it was hot. So, the point of this camp was volume, period (more emphasis when it is spelled out). When it comes to volume, there is no better way to do it than rollerskiing. Simply put it is the best training for skiing. As crazy as it sounds, but it gets really monotonous when the scenery is the same. Therefore doing this in Canmore wasn't too bad of an idea after all. In fact, I really enjoyed it. as much as Canmore is boring, it is always a super good change of scenery and therefor my trash talking is just talk (hold tight guys, i still love it!). To make this a shorter than epic post (so i can include some unreal pictures) the week broke down like this.

Saturday the 22nd:

5 Peaks R

unning race on

top of Whistler Mt. 10.6km in 1:06:34 (sounds slow, and was, but even the winner (Ed McCarth

y, props to him, undefeated in his 3 races from the series) walked up the huge hills. Than aft

er than bone crushing run, jumped in the van and drove to Revelstoke.

Sunday the 23rd:

Morning in Revelstoke, 2h rollerski up Mount Revelstoke. Jump in van, drive to Canmore.

Monday 24th:

2h rollerski kick dp up Silvertip, 1h run.

Tuesday 25th:

4h total, rollerski sk, run and core..... than Inglourious Bastards!!! super good movie.

Thanks a million to Tasha for those warm ups, they are perfect, and I don't have to make them fast, because she has already done that. Really appreciate it!

Wednesday 26th:

3h rollerski cl on HWY 40 toward Highwood Pass, with AWCA. + 1h run.

Thursday 27th:

4h total, rollerski in am, Hike up a mountain.

Friday 28th:

1 work out, 4h, sk rollersk

i up and over Highwood Pass. Than back up from the other side.

Saturday 29th

:

1.5h classic and 30min intensity double pole.

Than jump in the van to head back to whistler. one shot.

Sunday 30th:

Sleep in than 2h at the gym.

15 days straight completed, now I am done! rest tomorrow, than one more big week.

To back track one week before that, it was a week of testing and fun intensity.

So to start that week on the sunday, with some short Z3 ski strid

ing intervals not far from rainbow mountain. The next day was off to the Big City.

Vancouver, actually Richmond. The Oval to be specific. This morning was dedicated to VO2 and Lact

ate testing. This was my first ever experience in a lab, HAMMER as hard as I could, and thats basically the point of it. You get readings from your heart rate, blood lactate levels, breathing rate, and gas exchange to measure the VO sub max.

This was super interesting for me since it was my first time.

Than the next piece of intensity we had was our uphill skate time trial up Kadenwood. This was awesome, really hammered, it was the first for the year for me becuase I had a stumach bug the first time.

Finally the last piece of intensity was the race which I mentioned earlier on top of whistler Mountain. So this completes my entry. I must say it went a little longer than thought.

Peace for now,

C

All photos credit of Lee Churchill

CRAnkWorX @ Whistler

This past week for me has been quite relaxing. I have taken some big steps in my life of living in whistler. I had been hunting for a place to live for the winter since had gotten back from the Haig. After some very frustrating no reply emails and tons of time spent trying to find a place without braking the bank account. I managed to get a room with a family in town. So now I am no longer homeless for the winter. I had begun my job hunt. Not so stressfull, but deffinitly important for me being able to train here this year. I had given my word to Jen Scholte, and made a brew bet with Lee (in other word beer was on the line), that i'd have a job by the 10th of august. Something which was hard without procrastinating. So the Thursday comes along and I finally get some resumes printed and get a couple handed out that day. Friday comes along (the 7th) and I made a point to get out and bassically give those resumes out as flyers. Most of the shops I went to said that they would see for the fall (since it is still the beggining of august most of the businesses still have all their summer staff until september at least). This made me realize that this was going to be a much harder battle than I had anticipated. Sunday came and, with Thomsen back from YK, the three of us (Lee, Thomsen, and I) headed up Whistler Mt. during that time Lee, smoothly mentioned, that "we are the... 9th today? that correct?" My answer, "yeah." Than he said "so tomorrow is the 10th?" i piped out "yep!" than... "right." I had no job yet... So seeing as we had not really layed out the rules of this Brew bet I decided to lay them out, and said "i can get a job on the day of. And that counts!"

The 10th came around and I decided to follow up on some of the places I had visited earlier. The first one I went to, the nordic shop, hired me on the spot! So bet won, and word kept. I am employed and housed for the year!

with my easy week i had a lot of extra time on my hands. I only worked 1 day of this week, so the rest of the time I had, I spent in the village checking out Crankworx.

These are some shot I took from the Slopestyle competition. This was one epic comp, let me tell you.

I totally enjoyed this week from a tourist point of view. But I am exited to get back into real training so that my days are full and nights are all sleep.

One regret from the week though. I missed the Cheese rolling competition. the legendary whistler Cheese roll! So next year I will for sure watch it. If not even participate. Deffinatly a regret.

I have a decent sized week coming up. A lot of intensity and testing, than off to Canmore for the BC camp!

Peace for now,

C

mmmm....barbeque over a wood fire...the whole valley smells like it!!!

Wait, that could very well be the worlds largest BBQ if people just decided to pull out all their burgers, sausages, drumsticks, and hot dogs from their freezer and set them out side! What an idea. BC would hold a record for the guinness book for sure!

Thats the funny way to think of these last two weeks. the truth is almost every morning, before the wind picks up, all is still and the smoke from the ridiculous amount of forest fires in BC settles in the valleys over night. It really does smell like a wood fire BBQ, nice redwood/cedar smoke, toss in a little Fraser fir, and Hemlok. Life in the last two weeks has been almost completely normal for me (kind of crazy to think this way but its true), I have not strayed one millimeter from my routine. Every day I set out and do my training. The smoke here in whistler, really has not been that bad, the first few times it really shocked me, and I was able to notice the smallest amounts. Now i seem to take it more like "oh, its smokey again today, oh well, i'll just train a little later, give the time for the wind to pick up and push the smoke out of the valley." That is the most these fires have affected me...physically. Mentally, as a newcomer to BC and totally foreign to the thought of forest fire danger I have been "internally" freaking out. The first was the fact that 4 fires surrounded the valley. the closest was 32.4KM from whistler, yet as soon as that number was under 100km, it seemed to knock a little louder on my door. It was still well south and over the whistler mountain, so not too bad. Than, Blackcomb. In the blink of an eye, it was burning right in town! (not literally, because it was still a little ways away, but you could definitely see it from the village). This is what truly made the whole forest fire ordeal strike home. It made me realize that this danger was totally real, and that this is something that fire crews, no matter how big can't really do anything about. Try as they may, without rain, they would not win. Two days of thinking over what would happen if I were to be evacuated, and I realized, I can prepare myself as much as I want, but it really does not matter. For now, the fire is burning, but away from the village, it is on the east side, and we have had nothing but westerly winds. So really there isn't any danger there. Unless the winds change. They never seem to here.

All this while, I was keeping the good training happening. A couple of really good Rollerski intervals at WOP, some nice rides, and some rockin strength sessions kept the volume up for me, so I didn't really have the time to worry about any of this.

Last sunday was the workout of the year for me so far. At the beginning of the week, since I felt like i was still getting better from a super hard calf day at the gym, Lee proposed that instead of ski walking up Blackcomb (and because the fire was still going) that we would do a long ride. Not any ride either. It was one I had been looking foreword to since hearing about it. Duffy Lake Rd. The plan was for me to ride from home, meet Lee who would bring the van to Pemberton, continue riding together on 99 climb the legendary Duffy Lake Rd hill, and come back down and finish at the van. It ended up being three hours and 40 minutes for me total, and the climb was an hour and three minutes of that. to be in the saddle once again and climbing for that long really reminded me of my ride up Alpe d'Huez last summer. And nothing made me happier than completing it. The epic climb, and the decent which took about 15 minutes, hitting 75km/h a times, just made the day absolutely unreal. I think if I was not a Cross Country Skier, I could totally do the cycling thing.... But I don't deal well with heat that much... So winter is way more fun!

So now I have made a couple of deals with people (bets) to finding a job before a deadline, and the house hunt is (cross my fingers) in its final stages. And life is good!

So I'll keep the training going smoothly, last big week until Canmore!

Cheers,

C

C