July 2008We’ll, skiing in July is certainly a luxury, and one that was an incredible experience and will certainly help my skiing next season.
I went to the Farnum glacier expecting the worst. A mountain top camp, where the weather is constantly changing, where you are sleeping in tents at over 2600 meters above sea level, brings with it many questions as to how comfortable the living will be. Three teammates, 8 staff and I took the 2 hour trek from Radium not really knowing what we were getting ourselves into. We have heard, for a few years now, about the camp at the bottom of the glacier, where you sleep in tents and have nothing to do other than ski, but still had never made the trip ourselves.
I am very thankful to say we were all pleasantly surprised. The weather for the week was perfect, which certainly helped. The tents we slept in were very much like army tents. They had solid foundations and were able to withstand all of the elements. A full time kitchen with kitchen staff was the best eating we have ever had at any training camp. A full gym allowed us to train after skiing everyday and the general amenities were outstanding.
Not to mention… the skiing was phenomenal. The glacier had a perfect terrain for what we needed and the snow froze and hardened every night which made for great training conditions throughout the week.
My skiing was solid for this time of year. It was a week of doing drills and working on changes in technique. Overall skiing was great and I continued to build on what I was working on in late April.
The Farnum glacier, an exclusive training centre for Canadian snow sports, was a great place for training. I went expecting the worst and after a few short days realized that this training centre was actually the best place for my teammates and I. Skiing in July was great and I look forward to going back to Farnum in October.
Some of you may ask how you prepare for skiing in June. Well, it involves a lot of time on your bike, a lot of time in the gym and some more time doing plyometrics and interval training, again on the bike or in the gym.
From the time I last updated this blog things have been getting increasingly better. I definitely struggled my way through the first few weeks of the summer programs. However in recent few weeks my body has felt a lot better and my conditioning continues to get better each and every day. Certainly the end, however brief, to the terrible weather we’ve had on the west coast doesn’t hurt.
I am currently on a six day a week training schedule which consists of two days in the gym lifting weights, two days on the bike riding for about 2 hours, and 2 days of doing intervals on my bike along with some plyometrics. The seventh day of the week usually consists of a game of golf; that can be a bit hit or miss.
At the moment I feel really strong in the gym with my weight training. The two hour ride days have been going quite well as of late, which has a lot to do with riding in the sunshine rather than the rain. The interval days however are a bit of a killer. They are my weakness in training at the moment and something that I need to improve on to better my skiing come December. The coaches and training staff realized last season that getting to the finish line going 100% all the way was a weakness that needed to be addressed. So here I am trying to work it out in the summer. So far it’s a struggle but I’m confident it will work out come December. At least I sure hope it does because it’s certainly not my favourite thing to do at the moment.
So June has brought some great training and I look forward to my first on snow training coming in just a few short weeks at the Farnum glacier near Invermere in south eastern British Columbia. There are 6 members of my team getting our first look at the exclusive training facility for Canadian athletes and we are quite excited. Skiing in July can never be a bad thing!
The end of April brought with it some much needed time off. After my team’s final training camp here in Whistler, I have only put the skis on one more time.
Since then I have spent some time simply resting. It is amazing how during the course of a season you continue to push you body and the limits of what it is capable of doing, and for the most part throughout the year it is willing (with some coaxing) to reach for those limits. It is also amazing how when you stop, and the adrenaline finally stops flowing, your body crashes. I never feel as tired during the season as I do the first few weeks that I take off at the end of the season. My body has had enough of me pushing it and takes the much needed rest and relaxation. It is something that is needed and allows me to get ready to start preparing once again for the following season.
So after a great family vacation in Hawaii (thanks mom and dad) I’m back at home and back on the bike and in the gym.
And I feel it.
The first few weeks of a new summer training season can prove to be difficult. It isn’t that long ago that the juices were flowing and races were day after day. Now the snow is as far away as it gets and it can prove to be difficult getting out on your bike in the rainy wet days of May.
There is one thing I always remember on those days that I would rather stay in bed. I can’t remember where it came from but it has stuck with me and motivated me on those early days of summer. Champions are made in the summer.
It is true. I have worked hard at over the past summers to prepare myself and my body for the upcoming grind ahead. So off I go again to climb a few more hills which I hope will push me over the top in the coming season.
As the program for Paralympic skiing in Canada continues to get better and better, the time that the athletes and staff get to rest in the off season becomes shorter and shorter. Just 12 days after the last race of the season I had an opportunity that I could not pass up. I was given an invitation to join the women’s World Cup speed team and train on what will be the official Paralympic race hill in 2010.
I had never had the opportunity to train with the women’s team, nor had I had the opportunity to train on the Paralympic hill. Both turned out to be a tremendous opportunity and a big advantage over the rest of the world in preparing for the 2010 Paralympics.
I trained for 6 days with the women’s team, 3 days of Giant Slalom, 2 days of Downhill and a day of Super G. Each day proved to be a great challenge because the courses that they ski are faster, more demanding and longer than any of the courses that I would be racing in the Paralympics.
The training conditions for the 6 days of training were very good. For the most part the air was cold and the snow remained hard, great conditions at any point in the season but especially for late March on the bottom half of Whistler Mountain. In the final day of Downhill training I reached speeds of 112km/h and flew off a jump near the finish taking between 15 and 25 meters of air.
Overall the hill is very demanding with constant terrain changes, increases in speed, air, and a large vertical drop. I really enjoyed the time I got to spend training with the women’s team and it prepared me very well for both my team coming in the next week to train on the same hill and next year’s World Cup Finals to be held here in Whistler as the test event for 2010.
After a few days of rest and a day of physical testing with my team, we headed up the hill to do some training for ourselves. Unfortunately the weather had changed a bit and conditions were not as good as the previous weeks. Training however was still very good on the top half of the hill. While my team was here we got to try out a few more ways of setting the courses on the hill, and different combinations to take out some of the big airs that were a part of the previous two weeks. Overall the 5 days spent training were not perfect, but still an advantage over our competition and a great first look at the Paralympic hill.
The previous 3 weeks have been very exciting. They have been a great opportunity to take a look at the hills we will be racing on in 2 shorts years time. If nothing else it has been a great motivator to continue to work hard over the next 2 seasons for what will surely be the opportunity of a lifetime.
and see the latest video room podcast in which I am interviewed.
Also canski.org for a great update.
March 2008
After four short days at home we made our way to Kimberley Alpine Resort for 4 days or racing where we competed in two Downhill races and two Super G races. Kimberley is a regular stop for our team; we have skied there so many times we know the hill just as well as our local hills at home.
One thing that is a virtual guarantee about Kimberley is that there will be sunny skies and great conditions for ski racing; this week was no different. The week started with 2 days of Downhill training runs in preparation for the Downhill race held on Thursday. Downhill training days went well for me. I took this time to try and implement a few changes we thought would improve my overall times. I also worked on some equipment in order to improve the setup I have.
Race day consisted of two Downhill races in one day. The top section of the Kimberley race hill is pretty flat, with some rolling terrain, and the last 25 seconds is down a fairly steep pitch, with the speed increasing all the way to the finish line.
I made a couple of errors in the first run and finished in second place behind my teammate Morgan Perrin. I was about 2 seconds behind after the run, which I was alright with, but I knew I had a good chance of closing the gap if I could clean up the two mistakes in the second run.
I managed to clean up one big mistake in the second run, but did still make a small mistake going into the pitch. I crossed the finish line going 104 km/hr and once again finished second to Morgan, but this time only 0.75 seconds behind. Overall I was happy with the performances. Morgan is a very strong Downhill and Super G skier, while these events are not my strongest, so my performance was strong overall and gave me some good confidence going into Super G the next day.
Super G race day was once again a beautiful Kimberley day and I was trying to take the confidence I gained from the Downhill into Super G. The first run I skied very well in the top flat section. I made a small mistake going into the pitch, but was able to still ski the lower section pretty well, so I crossed the finish line and narrowly nudged out Morgan by 0.40 to finish first. The second run was much the same. The speed that I carried into the pitch was much faster than in the first run, which caused me, like many others, to get late in the lower section, but I was able to pull it off and finish first for a second time that day.
Overall Kimberley was a good week for me skiing on the NorAm circuit and I had some strong results heading into the Canadian Championships the following week.
After a day of travel and a day of free skiing, our National Championships were underway at Sun Peaks resort just outside of Kamloops BC. The first race day was a challenge in that it snowed nearly 30 cm’s. The race crew did do a good job in getting the hill ready and we were able to host the first of two Giant Slalom races.
The first two days of Giant Slalom were not very friendly for me. I struggled in the soft snow conditions and was unable to finish the first race, and crashed again in the second race. I have always struggled in soft snow conditions, which is a bit surprising considering the amount of skiing I do in Whistler, but it is definitely something I would like to address in the off season.
Fortunately for me the last two days of the season were Slalom races, the event that is currently my strongest. The first of the two races, just as in Giant Slalom, was the National Championship, while the second was a NorAm race. I skied a solid first run the first day and was able to take a two second lead into the second run. After the previous two days of being unable to finish without a big mistake I wanted to have a solid second run, and cross the finish line with a solid time. I was able to do just that and maintain my overall two second lead and retain my Canadian National Slalom title.
For the second slalom race I had a very strong first run and carried a three second lead into the second run. I once again was just trying to cross the finish line and maintain my lead, which I was able to do, finishing first for a second straight slalom and capturing a fourth race win in the two week series.
Overall the two weeks of competition to end our season was a success for me. I was able to work on a few aspects of my skiing that needed addressing, and was able to work with my equipment a bit to try and improve things heading into next season. Right now I am at home resting and preparing for what will be our first official training on the Whistler Paralympic Downhill track. I am really looking forward to the training as it is one of the areas that can give me and my teammates a good advantage going into 2010.
It is amazing how fast things go by, but the World Cup ski season has now wrapped up for 2008. While it seems to have flown by in my mind, my body has certainly welcomed the last 2 days at home in my own bed.
About three weeks ago my teammates and I made our way to South Korea for 5 races in a ski resort near Pyong Chang, one of the places that were bidding against Vancouver and Salzburg for the 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralympics.
The weather in Korea was basically as good as a ski racer can ask for. The snow is almost entirely man made, which makes it hard, and the skies were sunny with temperatures around minus 5 celsius all week long. We also got to stay in a very nice hotel, which included good meals to our great relief, and to which the gondola came right inside.
As for the actual skiing, the hill was not the most difficult; it included a steep start that led into a long flat section, followed by two average “break over sections” and a flat finish.
We started the races off with a Super Combined, followed by two days of Giant Slalom and finished off the trip with a slalom.
Overall for the week, much like the rest of the season, I skied fairly consistently. I entered each day with the hope of trying to improve on the last, but was in a constant battle to maintain my position somewhere around the top 15. It was a bit of a joke amongst the team that no matter what, I finished 15th. While 15th is a solid position, and in past years I would have been happy with that, it does get frustrating after a while to not be able to improve your position at all.
The next day we packed up and left Korea for Hakuba, Japan, home of the men’s Alpine events in the 1998 Winter Olympics. I was really excited to see Hakuba. I have always enjoyed skiing in Japan; the people are very nice and the sushi is really good.
We arrived, took a day off to relax, rest and enjoy the best meal of sushi I’ve ever had, then got ready for two days of downhill training runs before what would be our first downhill race in nearly two years on the circuit.
Because of the fresh snow that there had been in Hakuba, the downhill was not very fast. It did have a steep section in the middle with some good turns, a little bit of air at the bottom and a good gliding flat section out of the start. We raced two days of training, three runs in total, and to everyone’s surprise I finished around 15th three more times. It is worth noting that the weather for the two days of downhill training was very good, sunny blue skies and minus 5 to minus 10 temperatures.
I woke up the next morning feeling ready for a good day of racing. Got on the first chairlift, turned around and watched the sun rise, in, appropriately enough, the land of the rising sun. Then I got on the second chairlift to get to the warm up area. As I got off the second lift I shook the nearly 1cm of snow off my lap, and no, it hadn’t been snowing when I got on that second chairlift.
I can tell you one thing about Japan, man can it snow! We waited around in the lodge for a while, but there was no way they would be able to host a downhill under those conditions; it was snowing as hard as I have ever seen it snow anywhere.
From there they changed the plan to race slalom the next day, which was cancelled because it was still snowing. We managed to squeeze a day of Giant Slalom in before a final day of cancelling a second slalom race. In total we got one official race in the week we were there. I don’t know exactly how much it snowed in the final 4 days, but I’m sure the total was well over a metre. Not ideal race conditions but if you ask our staff it was the best day of free skiing in a long time!
Now that the World Cup season is over and I have a chance to look back on it, overall I am happy with the consistency of the season and how I was able to approach each and every race. I am happy with my physical fitness and how I was able to maintain strength throughout the season. I am, however, a little disappointed to not have been in the top 10 at any point. Obviously my injury at the end of the summer caused me to miss some crucial training time, but I was confident going into the season that my experience would help me through that. It didn’t quite work out that way however. I think my experience helped me in getting over the tough start to the season, and helped me be as consistent as I was, but it wasn’t enough to get me to that next level I was looking for. This having been the first, and hopefully only, major injury of my career I suppose I handled it fairly well, but it’s always a bit of a letdown when you don’t achieve the goals you were looking for.
Thankfully for me there is still some time for training and competing to go this year where I can now look to improving on my weak points for next season. I am home at the moment for a very short stay to catch up on some rest and relax a little bit. However I will be in Kimberly next week for 4 NorAm races followed by Sun Peaks the following week for 4 more races which make up our National Championships. Then back home here in Whistler for our first training on the 2010 Paralympic track.
I am looking forward to the training on the track here in Whistler; I hope that it gives me an edge next season for our World Cup Finals to be held here in Whistler and of course for the Paralympics in 2010.
Finally, nine months after the last World Cup race of the season, countless hours spent on the bike and in the gym, a trip to the emergency room, surgery, on hill training, a few tune up races and some last minute preparation, my team and I reached Abtenau Austria for the first World Cup races of the season.
The journey started with a few days of acclimatization, one day spent touring Salzburg, and a couple of training days. I was looking forward to the first races of the season but would have loved to have had a little bit more time to prepare on snow, but accidents happen and I had to deal with the situation that was in front of me.
Slalom was on the schedule for the first day in Abtenau and it took everything the organizing committee had to battle the constant downpour of rain. Needless to say conditions weren’t ideal for racing. I, like many others, struggled through the day and ended up not finishing the second run.
Fortunately for everyone, the rain stopped, it got cold and clear, and the conditions remained nearly perfect for racing the next 4 days in Austria.
Slalom was followed with a Giant Slalom the next day, where I felt rusty and my confidence was not at its highest. I made a big mistake in the second run and ended up crossing the line 26th, definitely not what I had in mind.
I have started off a lot of World Cup seasons poorly and was not looking forward to starting this one off that way. I took a step back that night, looked through my old ski journals and really remembered what it was that I needed to do. Basically I needed to get out of my own way and just ski. Get back to what got me there, have some fun and just ski. Seems really easy to say, but always proves to be difficult to do.
I woke up the next morning feeling immensely better. I was confident again and ready for three days of Super Combined. A Super Combined consists of a Super G run and a Slalom run, in one day. For our races they counted the Super G as an individual race, and then the Super Combined as an individual race as well. So basically we had 6 runs, which counted for 6 races, in 3 days. A tough grind no doubt but one that I was ready for and one that proved to really get things going.
I crossed the line in the first Super G in 16th and moved up my position to 13th after the Slalom portion of the Super Combined. I followed that with three 13th and a 15th place finish over the next two days. Overall I was pretty happy with how I performed after the first two days. I was able to put 6 straight good runs together, be consistently in the top 15 in what will surely be the strongest field of the World Cup season and score a lot of World Cup points for myself and my team.
Consistency has always been a weakness in my skiing throughout my time on the team and I was very proud of the way I learned from my past mistakes. I was able to forget about the first two days and really build and continue to get better each day as the week progressed. After a strong week in Austria I was looking forward to a day off, and was hopeful for another successful week in France.
After a long day of travel we arrived at a tiny little ski hill, way up in the Alps very close to the France/Italy border. We had a day of rest and preparations while our staff went out and enjoyed the almost meter of snow that had fallen in the last week.
The snow that had fallen did make for some very soft conditions but the groomer and course workers did a surprisingly good job preparing the hill. Conditions were much better than I anticipated them being for the first of four races to be held in France.
The week consisted of two Giant Slaloms and two Slaloms. I finished 16th and 17th in the first two Giant Slaloms which I was satisfied with. The softer conditions were not my favorite conditions and a lot of the people in my class struggled, so overall I was pleased with my positioning.
As for the Slaloms to cap off the end of the trip, I finished 13th in the first and did not finish the second. I was hoping to crack the top 10 at some point during the slaloms but my consistent skiing and ability to continuously cross the finish line was not something to complain about.
Overall the first two weeks of the World Cup season went very well. I finished 10 of 12 races, with all but one of those results being in the top 17. I am not certain but I believe I scored more World Cup points in the last two weeks than I have for any two weeks in my career. I would have loved to crack the top 10 with such a strong field, but I was not quite able to do it. I have taken a few things out of the races to work on in the next few weeks and hopefully that will allow me to improve my position by the time my team and I make our way to Korea and Japan in 3 weeks.
After what was a shaky start to the NorAm season following an unfortunate injury, I am really happy with how things rebounded and am looking forward to a bit of rest, some more great training here at home in Whistler and a strong second half of the season starting in 3 short weeks.
Breckenridge, Colorado – NorAm races
After what turned out to be a long summer of dry land training due to injury and a short on snow training season my team-mates and I headed to Breckenridge, Colorado for the first competition of the season.
The races in Breckenridge are part of the NorAm circuit and are a good tune up for the bigger races yet to come. They are also a part of the development of ski racing, and some of my team-mates were headed down there to try and qualify for the World Cups in early January. I would like to congratulate many of my team-mate who did qualify to race in January; it appears that Canada has one of its biggest teams ever going into the World Cup season, and we continue to build to being a leading nation come 2010.
The first day in Breckenridge was a slalom race. The course is fairly easy, with no real steep section, just a gradual slope from start to finish. My first run was not my strongest; I was a little nervous for the first race of the season and felt like I was a little tight all the way down. I finished the first run in fourth, behind Adam Hall from New Zealand and two Americans.
The second run I was able to make some changes and calm myself down. I was skiing very strong and heading into the lower flat section into the finish I took a chance to try and carry maximum speed across the flats. I figured I was in fourth and needed to take the chance to try and crack the podium. Unfortunately when you take chances sometime they don’t pay off and this was one of those times. I ended up crashing and not finishing the race. Overall however I was pleased with the day. I knew I had a chance at the podium, and after the first run I needed to take some more risk to achieve that goal. I did just that but unfortunately on this day it didn’t pay off.
Day two was a giant slalom held on the same hill as the slalom. I built on my first day’s performance with a strong first run. I made a few small mistakes throughout the run but overall it was quite strong and I carried a lot of speed through the bottom flats. I was sitting in third after the first run, once again behind Adam Hall of New Zealand and George Sansonetis of the United States.
I pushed out of the start on run number two with a shot at finishing second. I had a better top section to the course, cleaning up my mistake from the first run and carried a lot of speed into the middle section. Once again however I crashed in the middle section of the course but was able to get up and finish the race, finishing in 5th place.
I was disappointed in the outcomes of the two days but not disappointed in how I was skiing. I was in positions to win medals, which has not been something that in the past few years has been a realistic goal. The margin for error at that speed caught up to me on those two days and unfortunately I wasn’t able to finish the races and accomplish the goals. However I was pleased that I was in a position to podium and taking the risks to finish one step higher.
Pitztal, Austria – Europa Cup Races
From Breckenridge our team was split into two different groups. I and three of my team-mates left for the Denver Airport and headed over the Atlantic to Pitztal, Austria for some Europa Cup races, while the rest of the team made their way a much shorter distance down the road to Winter Park, Colorado for another series of NorAm races. While I was excited for Europe and comparing myself with some of the top skiers that will be on the World Cup circuit, I was jealous of the two hour commute my teammates got, rather than the 24 hour commute that I faced.
After a long day we reached the Pitztal glacier where it was snowing, a lot. For two days we free skied and rented powder ski’s to ski some off terrain fresh tracks that for some reason most Europeans don’t like skiing.
Once race day arrived the conditions had not improved much, the snow was still very soft, and with 180 racers starting in the field it makes for very difficult conditions for the standing men’s class which starts at the back of the field. With what seemed to be the common theme of this trip for me I missed a gate in slalom and had to hike up to get it. I got a second run, which I finished, but overall it was a difficult day.
Both of the next two races ended much the same. In Giant Slalom the next day I missed a gate and did not finish, while crashing in the Super G and not finishing.
I struggled to make it to the finish line for the entire trip away. I felt like I was skiing strong and remained confident throughout the trip, but for various reasons just didn’t make it down. I am going to spend the next few days resting and evaluating the situations, in order to be able to train before January and go into the season ready to go. I am still confident that my skiing is improving and am very much looking forward to a great season and hope to reach all of the goals I have set out.
I wish all of you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Keep your eyes open for updates in the New Year.
So finally after a long summer of training in the gym and on the bike, and an injury that claimed my first training on snow in August, my team and I made our way back to Zermatt, Switzerland for some early season training.
Obviously coming off an injury as big as a fractured femur I took the first few days to ease into things and make sure all was well before I started to push my skiing. After a couple days on the glacier, my confidence grew and my leg held out just fine. If there is any good news about breaking my femur it is that it was to my right leg (the one that was amputated through the knee) and not my left; this allowed me to be skiing 8 weeks post operation, something that very few other people have been able to do.
As expected after not having skied for such a long time, things were a little rusty and it did take a week or so of just skiing to get to a point where I felt somewhat comfortable training at a fast pace with my teammates. The good news is that I was skiing technically quite well all things considered, and after a week of testing out my leg and allowing the confidence to come back I felt quite strong. Physically I was as strong as ever, another positive aspect of having missed the Chile training camp and spending one more month lifting weights in the gym.
Sometime near the end of the first week, I began to push things a little, trying to get the racing juices flowing and push the limit. With my technique being surprisingly good and my fitness being as strong as it was, I really was not as far behind my teammates as I had anticipated being. My coaches began timing, and after only a day or two of training each event, I was right where I was at the end of last year compared to many of my teammates. This was very encouraging, and certainly contributed to my confidence and skiing.
Overall the 3 weeks spend in Zermatt were a success. Zermatt is a beautiful Swiss mountain town which I really enjoy going to. We were lucky in that we were only held off the mountain for one unplanned day, which considering the volatility of the mountain weather in the European glaciers, is excellent.
I will hopefully get a few more days of training between now and the beginning of the race season in early December, I still feel I have some improvements to make going into the season and am doing what I can off the hill to make sure I’m as ready as possible for the big days ahead. I do have nearly 2 months until the World Cup season begins and am confident I’ll be ready for another great season.
Thanks to all of you for your support during my injury. All of your kind wishes and encouragements were very much appreciated. Injuries are an unfortunate part of any sport and one which every athlete has to go through at some point in their career. I am happy to have put this one behind me and look forward to a great season!