2013 training season

This year’s training season was the most focused and goal orientated I've ever had. Very little training missed due to sickness or injury and was loaded with amazing ski camps and training sessions.

We started off the season this year a little differently to the last few with 3 days on Hornby Island, 2 hrs north of Victoria, just off Vancouver Island. This was the first outing of the year so we had our new team psychologist come and talk to us and we also got in a few relaxing runs around the island. Not long after, we were lucky enough to get two weeks of skiing on Madeley road, above Whistler Olympic Park. They groomed every day for us, working hard to made it as good as was possible. We had about 4km each way to start with but that slowly shrank over time till we were down to about 2k. Despite the warm conditions, I still got in some solid hours and worked a huge amount on classic technique.

 In July the team loaded up the trailer and headed south to Park City for a month of altitude work. Park City is an amazing place to train. It was unbelievably hot pretty much the whole time we were there so workouts were early in the morning or late afternoon/evening. We would head down to Salt Lake City for roller ski intensity days so that we could get the lower altitude. The rest of the workouts were either running on the 100’s of miles of trails or exploring the area by road bike. I got sick in the middle and missed a few days of training but was back at it quickly. After two long days of driving we had a few hard intensity sessions with some light biking in between for recovery days. I put in some huge hours of training but it was focused and the down time was well used and much appreciated.

August, I joined my family in the Okanagan for a few days of biking the Kettle Valley Railway. Loads of fun and a good rest after the hard training in the States. The rest of the month was spent in and around Whistler, including runs at the top of Whistler, hikes in new areas around the local mountains, lots of time spent out building a trail linking function junction to the rest of the trail network. I volunteered for the Whistler Ironman, what an amazing inspiration to see some dedicated and driven athletes. At the end of the month I headed up to Kamloops with my girlfriend to be the Best-man at my brothers wedding. Lots of fun and nice to catch up with some old friends.

Fall training camp this year was different to usual. For the first time I went to Haig in September. We had clear skies every day. Unfortunately though, the groomer broke down after 4 days so we skied for another two days on unpacked. On the up side, we had the opportunity to hike up one of the surrounding mountains which was really cool and interesting to see things from a different perspective. It was a bit of a shock on the body spending the whole week up on the glacier instead of yo-yoing like we have done for the last three year. We ran out one day early and stayed an extra night in Canmore which wasn’t so bad because it meant we got most of a day to rest before we drove to Rossland for the next part of the camp. The team was split up in Rossland with three of us staying at my parents place and the rest in a condo at Red mtn. We ran the epic 7 summits trail again, which is 31km and took us 4hrs. Roller skied a few times near the US boarder (20m drive from Rossland) And of course some long bike rides on the mountain roads.

Next stop was Revelstoke and one last week of hard hours. The weather in Revelstoke was the worst of the trip. We woke up to fresh snow on the mountain tops many mornings. We joined up with the BC team later in the week for a roller ski up Mt Revelstoke in thick fog and snow, and a run on the xc trails. We ended off the three long weeks with a 7km running race amongst our team, I ended up pulling out a second place after an overtake in the last kilometre. BC is an amazing province to live and train in, there is just so much potential for spectacular workouts and unbelievable training camps.

I was picked up the last day of the camp by my girlfriend and we headed over to kimberley to visit her parents and work for them for a few days. We did a couple of fun mountain bikes and runs around there. From Kimberly we drove over to Rossland to visit my parents because they were away when I was there for the camp a few weeks before. I ended up getting sick after working too much in Kimberley and for a friend in Rossland. I don’t think I took enough rest after all the training of the previous month. We decided to stay in Rossland for thanksgiving after my girlfriends car had some issues and besides, I couldn’t do testing because of my cold.

Back to Whistler. We had the chance to enjoying some unusually dry fall training and getting in lots of hours at work. The start of November brought the usual snow fever, unfortunately this year we were stuck in Whistler with no chance to go any where to find early snow. This year though for the first time CVTC decided to head over to frozen thunder for a week and partook in the classic sprint. None of us qualified but it was a good wake up for where we need to be performing for the coming season. We returned to Whistler only to find we still had no snow. So the roller skis were pulled out and poll tips changed and back at it. We were roller skiing in colder and wetter conditions each day till finally we got enough snow on the upper race trails for a rather rocky loop. The short loop never really expanded (except for were the coaches shoveled) before we left for the first races in Canmore, Sovereign Lake and Rossland

 With many great camps and training sessions under my belt, at the end of this training season I feel more prepared then I ever have and I'm excited and ready for whatever the winter has in stock for me. I am looking forward to a great season of racing, traveling and training with the team.