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Latest news |
Sunday, August 15th, 2010 It’s been a couple of years already that I make the trip down South in order to find some snow. Above from being one of the friendliest country I’ve come to visit, New Zealand offers the best summer skiing conditions available in the world. No wonder…it’s winter down there!
Skiing was great What I like about this deep South training camp in the focus it allows us to put on our physical and technical preparation. We live on the top of a mountain, - literally- the place is called Snow Farm, and is located right next to the ski trails. It allows us to train a lot but at the same time, spend a lot of times on recovery. And maybe some Monopoly too…
The cool thing about this place as that whenever we feel like we’ve had enough with the whole isolation deal, we are 30 min from Wannaka, a sweet – very very sweet – little town, surrounding a lake and overtaken by ski bums and coffee shops. It’s lower altitude allows the temperature to rise enough for us to run in shorts and be able to spend some quality time wondering around.
On an afternoon run around Lake Wannaka Like the other years, we use those 2-3 weeks on snow to put in some very high quality intensities and keep working on the inevitable technique. Some days it was a sprint workout, some a long distance ski and some days were back to the basics, what we like the most, just put a bib on and hammer! With Justin Wadsworth now commanding our ship, I can see a lot of positive changes, whether they are small or big, which bring a refreshing and progressive environment for us to train in. Having been on the coaching staff with the Americans, Justin still has a good relationship with them and it allowed us to train with new partners. It’s kind of ironic that we never got to do this before but sharing their weaknesses and strengths will definitely make us faster skiers when winter comes.
In the sprint final, racing against some of the fastest guys in the World! With all of this and some of the best skiing conditions I’ve seen at the Farm, it just felt easy to go out the door and put in the K’s. Our first week was spent on extra blue kick wax and we got to work on or tan at the same time which is always a bonus!
The Farm's always a good time! From L to R : Stef, me and Ivan With some good planning and a couple key decisions, I am coming out of this camp without being too tired. We had some time to recharge the batteries when needed and it made the whole thing feel like a warm knife in butter. We got to spend a whole day in Queenstown, which is just over and hours from the Snow Farm. The town is nestled on the shores of Lake Wakatipu, surrounded by mountains. After a most needed lunch at Furgburger – sellf proclaimed as ‘’The Best Burger in New Zealand’’ -, we hopped into the gondola that would bring us to the highest summit of the area and went lugging. Big ups to Joel, our wax tech, for winning 3 of the 6 runs! And a special mention to Kershaw who braved all of his daemons just to make his way down the track! It’s hard to choose between Furgburger and lugging for the highlight of the day, or perhaps it is the last 15 minutes of our drive back to Farm, with the exhaust fumes coming straight into the so-called ‘’safe Subaru habitacle’’.
On our way to the top of the luge track
Above Lake Wakatipu. From L to R : Ivan, Stef, Joel and me. I am now on my way home, somewhere between San Francisco and Toronto. It only a matter of weeks now before the Fall, and with it, beginning of University but most excitingly, the first World Cup! Coming up next is the Mont-Sainte-Anne training camp. It is now up to me to put up for my teammates and show them what’s good! Last but not least, big thank you to Kersh for providing all the pics!
Ciao p.s. Sorry for the spelling errors, I usually write in French!
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Sunday, November 15th, 2009 Kershaw’s Korner : Special to www.alexharvey.ca As many of my adoring fans (mom – that means you) may have noticed, there hasn’t been a lot of blog-action coming out of this guy lately. I’ll state the obvious (in regards to the reason) www.devonkershaw.com could possibly be the most ghetto website EVER. It’s an out of date, ugly mess and lately – to add insult to injury - it now has decided to not allow me to update anything. It’s fat, out and well… not even working. Good news is on the way though – a new website has been designed and approved (Nighbor came up with a sweet design, and my boy Matty J is working hard to get it up and running), and it should hit “the google machine” soon (I hope!) Check twitter for the launch. For the meantime, I will leech off friends’ websites for my post-race updates. Bruksvallarna, Sweden version 2.0! I’ve now been enjoying boiled potatoes here in Europe for 9 days now, and our team has based ourselves yet again in the mid-Scando ski mecca – Bruksvallarna, Sweden. It’s a fantastic xc venue with hundreds of kilometers of skiing (in the winter – right now there’s still probably 50 + kms of groomed trails for our enjoyment) located in the middle of Sweden, very close to the Norwegian border. It’s the perfect place for early skiing with a ton of skiers, great grooming, and great vibes all around (and way more light than Northern Finland!) The good news is that this fall things unfolded as planned (unlike last autumn when I hit the wall there for 2 + weeks). Training has been going well, and I have been feeling motivated, and our whole team seems to have done very good preparations. As for now - I was really excited to see Alex and Nish, because it had been a few months (New Zealand in late August) since I’d seen them last. I really enjoy training with those guys, and we are great friends as well as teammates. We’ve been laughing a ton, and it’s been great to catch up on how things have been going (in life, and in sport). I’ve been training slightly differently from them, putting in my usual big hours of skiing as soon as I get on snow – which is something I’ve been doing now for a few years.
Alex and Nish enjoying perfect Swedish conditions.
Alex's sleeping cabin, high above Bruksvallarna. Aside from catching up with Nish and Alex “Quebec Gold” Harvey, another big change and sweet deal is that Chandra is back baby! After last year off with injury, she made the journey over here too and it’s so amazing to have her over here in Europe again. She has really dialed in some great totally custom boots with Fischer and they seem to be working well. The only sad news, was that earlier this week we found out that my friend, Peter Larsson announced he has retired. The great Swedish sprinting demon, with 6 World Cup victories to his credit, decided, “enough was enough.” He was with our Canadian Team down in Mammoth Lakes, CA earlier in October training well, but he’s battled with a plethora of health issues over the last few years which have left him little choice. He joked that he “is sick 200 days a year,” and even down in Mammoth (a 3 week camp) he was sick on TWO separate occasions… The world of ski racing will miss him – not only for his manic speed, but also his personality, the dude rules! On to the races… Yesterday – Saturday – was my 2009/10-campaign season opener – a classic sprint. It was dumping snow, and the course was “Ulvang-long (Ulvang just LOVES long sprint courses),” taking me over 4 minutes to complete in the qualifier. I felt good, but when I saw that the result was 27th and 10 seconds off Modin (who won) I was shocked! What happened? Well, “what happened” was that most raced on skate skis and double poled. Actually, 27 of the 30 that made the heats were on skate skis. Because of all the fresh snow, it was WAY faster (for those strong enough to endure it). Alex and Nish were outside the top 30, so I was to be the lonely Canadian in the heats. After much debate, I decided to go on classic skis again for the quarter finals. There were 3 hills on course, and my thinking was that I’d just hammer like crazy on the steepest climb and gap the field and hopefully “hold on.” It didn’t work out… The course was narrow, and the dudes on skate skis were actually skating all over the place! I was struggling to get around dudes, and as a result never got higher than 3rd. Then, on the descent, the “skate ski double polers” rocked me. I ended up 25th overall… 5th in my quarterfinal. I was pissed off. Frustrated, and not happy. It was a disaster of a day. All of us were upset about it, but we were eager to have another crack at it – in the 15km skate.
Today – the 15km skate - was amazing for me. I felt good, and although it was a very difficult race (they always hurt so bad this time of year), I was able to ski very relaxed, smooth and with good technique the entire way. That in turn, resulted in a victory for me here in Sweden! I was very much surprised with the win, and although it was a narrow victory (only 6 sec up on Olsson), I’ll take it. I executed my race plan well (start slower than normal, and pick it us as the race goes on) and wasn’t even leading after 10km?!?! I was happy because today affirms that I am in decent shape, and that things are on track. And (as in the previous few years), I seem to have opened the season well. Alex and Nish raced well too – finishing 14th and 15th respectively.
On my way to victory during the 15km skate.
L to R : Olsson (+6sec), Kershaw, Sodergren (+21sec) That’s the news, enjoy some of the photos, and check back soon – I’m back on the bloggosphere baby, and to quote Julien Nury, “I’m be pretty pump ‘bout dat” |
Friday, October 2nd, 2009 The days are getting shorter and the air smells crispy. It’s September and I can already feel the first World Cup approaching fast, too fast! After New Zealand, I took a couple of easy days and then got back at it, big time! With this first month of the fall comes a drastic change in my training mode. I switch from building base to gaining speed and power.
Warming up in Québec before one of the first hard intensity session of the Fall. I have to say that the first couple sessions weren’t totally welcomed by my body but after a week of plyometrics and hard intervals I started feeling good again. The boys in Quebec all have something to bring to every workout. Some are animals in the strength room and over the hurdles while other are leaving me standing still during bounding intervals or in running races.
At the start of the Laval University 10km running race. It’s great. It makes me suffer, both physically and mentally and that’s exactly what I need at that time of year. It seams like I need more intensity than the ‘’normal’’ cross country skier in order to reach my top form. Don’t go crazy here, I don’t plan on reaching that shape before February but I wouldn’t mind starting the season closer to this type of form than the past years. After a three week bloc of hard work, I flew over to Austria. Even though it’s the land of downhill skiing, Austria has an amazing glacier to offer and it’s not any kind of secret. The whole world is here. Austrians, Italians, Russians, Sweeds, Norwegians, Finns, Estonians, Slovenians and more.
It’s my fifth year coming over to Europe in the fall to ski on a glacier. I use those two weeks to test skis, refine my technique and train at altitude. Last year the conditions were great on the glacier, fresh snow every couple of days and we skied on hard wax during the whole camp. Unfortunately, this year ain’t quite exactly like that. It hasn’t snowed in 3 weeks and the snow is brown and dirty. The nights are still cold so we can get fast conditions early in the morning.
The training schedule is pretty boring if you are not a skier but if you are one, it’s heaven. It goes something like this; Breakfast, gondola up to the glacier, long ski, gondola down into the valley, lunch, shower, nap, secondary workout, sauna, shower, dinner and then bed. Sometimes I might even throw some studying in there.
Here is Julien just about to fall asleep. Training is hard sometimes! Today was the easy day of the camp. After five long days of training, the rest was much needed. Tomorrow I am doing the hardest workout there is, 6x1min bounding intervals. There will be plenty of lactic acid floating all over my body but it’s fine, sometime hard is good.
Bounding session earlier this week.
Ciao
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Sunday, August 30th, 2009 We are now approaching the end of the New Zealand training camp and to my surprise, the body is holding up good. We kicked off this second week with three back-to-back races. I’m not gonna lie to you, it felt pretty weird to be racing on snow in the middle of august but all in all, it was good training. Right after the last race, most of the guys on the team left to Dunedin for a surf trip. It was planned to have a rest day on the Wednesday and thanks to Stef, that day was amazing. After a three and half-hour drive, we arrived at destination and were welcome by perfect waves, right in front of our condo. The beach was literally 10 seconds away from the door. Unfortunately, our rental surfboards weren’t ready yet so we didn’t get to have a evening sesh.
Our condo was in the red building on the right
After a pretty early morning and a wicked breakfast, the ‘’surf guy’’ showed up with his trailer full of boards and wetsuits. By 7:30 we were in the water but unlike the past evening, the waves weren’t good at all.
Leaving the first beach The strong winds made for very unpredictable waves so after an hour or so of unsuccessful surfing, we decided to go hit a different beach, on the other side of town.
Julien looking at the second beach That new beach was great. The waves were a bit to big for us but we still had a lot of fun.
After lunch, we came back to the first beach for a quick third surf-sesh that was, again, unsuccessful.
Julien after the 3rd session of the day The next day, I could defiantly feel the pain in my back. Those waves really crushed me! On Thursday I was back to my normal ‘’Snow Farm life’’. Eat, ski, eat, nap, massage, ski, eat, physio, sleep. Not much is happening up here at the Farm but it makes us focus on what is needed to ski fast this winter. We have now 5 days left in the camp. Hopefully the weather cooperates a bit more than it did today and we can have some more of those blue bird days!
Ciao |
Sunday, August 23rd, 2009 I’ve been in New Zealand for over a week now and things are going pretty well. First, I went to Canmore for two days in order to cut the huge travel I had to do between Quebec and the Snow Farm. Then the whole team met in Vancouver Airport and off we went to the southern hemisphere! The 14h plane ride wasn’t too bad for me. Thanks to my awesome sleeping pills, I was able to get close to 8hrs of sleep.
Brent and I still feeling energized after traveling halfway around the world! The camp started as soon as we set the foot on the Farm. That first ski felt amazing, even with my internal clock was all messed up. The next couple of days were filled with a lot of skiing and two trip down to Wanaka, the little town down the hill. We pumped some weights in a local gym and then went for lunch and we even did some shopping. George and I ended up buying three lumberjack style shirts between the two of us!
Right to left: Ivan, George and I shopping in Wanaka. Devon took this photo.
Ivan and I out for a run in Wanaka. Devon took this photo. Today – Sunday – is the end of the first full week of training and the hours are coming up quickly. I have done 25 hours of training including a FIS race this morning. It was a 15km classical style. In order to shake things up a little, Devon and I made a bet. With his usual ‘’I’m am so tired, I will race insanely slow tomorrow!’’ style, the best of us had to give the other one $100. I felt pretty confident that I would get that $100 for 3 reasons. First, Devon is one of the best classic skier in the world, straight up! Then, in second, he tends to be in good shape at the start of the season while I am the total opposite, getting into peaking form in the last months of the season. And finally, with all the training that had been done in the first week, I felt bagged and not ready for a race. But I guess, that was the same for all of us.
Devon and I starting a speed sesh. David Greer took this photo. My race went better than expected and came in 3rd, right behind Devon and Ivan. It was a very hard effort and exactly what I need in order to start the season a bit better than in the past years! Tomorrow is a skate sprint and Tuesday we will do a 10km skate. Those three races are only for training, nothing else. They don’t mean much for us but they are great workouts and the fact of putting an actual race bib on gives us that extra edge needed in order to push our body beyond it’s limits.
Near the end of a long ski. David Greer took this photo. I will post a short update after the last race with some racing shots.
Ciao |
Monday, July 21st, 2009 I am sitting on a plane between Calgary and Toronto and the movie just ended up, so I figured it was a good timing to right something! My body feels tired and that is exactly what was planned! I just completed the biggest 5 weeks of training of my life. Straight up. I put 120 hours of training in my body during the last 5 weeks and most of that load was over 1700 meters. I could write about what the last week looked like, glacier, Canmore, Lake Louise, Canmore but you can read the last two updates for that. The real kicker of the last week was actually a race. A triathlon!
We started talking about that triathlon at the first training camp of the year in Vernon, B.C. at the beginning of May. Since then, the main discussion topic during our workouts has been that triathlon! I can’t say enough about all the smack talking that went around during the last three months! So there I was on Saturday morning, in my wetsuit, tired, stiff from the training and still half asleep because I woke up at 5:30 to get ready and set the transition box by 6:30. At 7:15 we got the talk about all the needed information on the triathlon. Then McMurr arrived, eyes half opened: Hey guys, I slept thru my alarm! I couldn’t help cracking out laughing when I saw his facial expression saying that. Especially since the day before he told me he wanted to arrive before 6:30 to set his transition box! Then I warmed up running with Devon and I swear I haven’t feel that stressed since the start of the relay at the World Ski Championship in Liberec last February! I guesse Devon felt the same as he ripped the bottom part of his wetsuit while he was getting in it! Shortly before the start, I made shure that all the ‘’friction’’ areas of my body where covered by the awesome and very amazing Body Glide. After a quick swim to get use to that weird movement that swimming is for me, I lined up on the Quarry Lake beach and waited for the gun to fire. The start was, to my surprise, uneventful. No, I didn’t get my swimming cap ripped off my head and after 30 sec, my googles were still sitting right in front of my eyes. Good. I swam OK and got out of the water in 15th position, no to shabby for Alberta Championship! I got into my bike gear real quick, putting close to 30 seconds on Devon and off I was onto the saddle.
At that point, I strongly believed in my chances to catch that guy. Unfortunately for me, my legs were soaked in lactic acid and running a 10K on the Canmore Nordic Center roller ski loop isn’t exactly the easiest way to get rid of that stuff. So the race went a bit backward from that point and I ended up in 5th but still managed to stop the clock with the 3rd running time.
Devon, who started the run over 4 minutes down on me manage to run a sub 33 10K, off the bike, on that demanding and slow course to finally overtake me with 1 K to go. I didn’t even react, just because I couldn’t. At that point, I was way deep into survival mode! All in all, I am very satisfied with this triathlon. After all, this is my first ever triathlon and I was cooked from all the training that was done prior to it. It was also a great long and intense workout.
The day was topped with a 70’s inspired -strongly inspired- party with all of my teammates from the National Ski Team, it was a blast! I am heading home and will have a super easy week to recover from that training and come out of it much stronger!
Ciao
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Saturday, July 11th, 2009 The big wheel keeps on turnin’! The second week of this Yo-Yo camp is almost over and I start to realize that things are basically staying exactly the same! The big difference would be in the crap weather we had during this second week of glacier skiing! Most of Monday was spent under the rain. We even had to cut 30 minutes of our ski on the glacier because of the thunderstorm that was coming on us. Not too hard to figure that one out…skiers on a glacier…perfect target for the lightning! In the end I wasn’t too bummed out about that 30 minute cut because I wasn’t feeling great at all on that day anyway. Here are some pics of the first week on the Haig Glacier. John Evely was with us for the 3 days up there, taking shots for our sponsors.
The next day was much better, even with some sunny period during the ski and body feeling much better. Still, there was no rush to ski any harder, six hour days can be pretty tricky to handle, especially during the last hour. I treated the guys with some ‘’Harvey pacing’’. We ended up coming down to Canmore on that day after looking at the forecast for the next day. On Wednesday after an EPIC discussion with Devon (nothing wrong with the guy, I could almost say that I love him, but man does he get worked up!) we decided to go for a bike ride with Ivan around the mountains in Banff. The first hour was great, short sleeve weather! But then, at the top of Mount Norquay, it started pouring rain and, unlike in the East, rain in the Rocky is not warm! Ivan got his first ever experience of ridding in the rain and he wasn’t too pumped about that one…Only one thing could come out of his mouth after a 20 min downhill in a rainy 5°C, with no rain jacket nor gloves…I have never rode in the rain before, I really don’t like it, I am going home now guys. Luckily our teammate and good buddy P. Widdy is from Banff and so we stopped at his parent’s to get Ivan some more clothes! Next day I did some strength in the AM followed by a uphill double polling sesh topped with some intervals on the flat in order to imitate the kind of effort needed to just kill it in the Whistler stadium. On Friday we did a threshold workout up Silver Tip and then went to Lake Louise to change up the altitude and a reco run ‘’Harvey pace’’ style. Devon bunked 20mins in, thanks to Brian who hand him some gel in order to finish that hour run! I guess that’s what happens when you bang back to back 25+ hrs weeks.
We were then treated to some pretty fine dinning at the Walliser Stube, the Swiss restaurant in the Chateau Lake Louise. I got out of there with some serious tummy ache but I knew I needed all that food for the following day. Finally today we went on a long roller ski and then jumped in our runners and go on a hike near Moraine Lake, finishing up at 2613 meters!
Tommorow ‘s plan is to go for a swim with some of the boys (let’s not forget that I will be racing my first ever triathlon in 7 days) and then trash talk a little more about the Grande boucle and the Canmore Triathlon while we get huge in the gym.
Ciao
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Sunday, July 5th, 2009 The first week of the Yo-Yo camp is now a thing of the past and I am feeling ready to attack the next two weeks! This is a Yo-Yo camp because we change the altitude we train at every second day to improve, amongst other thing, our oxygen carrying capacity. So I spent the first three days of the last week on the Haig Glacier, close to Canmore. We did two big training days, on Monday and Wednesday as well as an average day in the middle for a total of 15 hours of training in three days. All of this at an altitude of 2 700 meters.
Skiing was excellent. It was cold enough during the night for the snow to freeze which made for incredible conditions and even some good ‘’crust-skiing’’!
Even with these amazing skiing conditions, I was happy to be leaving the Haig Camp. Nothing against my teammates but 15 athletes sleeping in a small bunker, in the middle of a training camp and at 2 700 meters makes for some interesting odors! For some reasons, altitude mixed with the amount of food we put in our body is a perfect recipe for farts!
Thursday was kind of mellow with some monitoring to make shure I am not over doing it and some strength in Canmore. Friday morning I did intensities with the boys and in the afternoon we went to Lake Louise to vary the altitude once again. On Saturday we did a classical roller ski on the road between Lake Louise and Jasper to finish at around 2 000m of altitude. Today was easy again with some swimming (yeah, I still have to get ready for that triathlon in two weeks…Ishhh…) and some strength. Yesterday we celebrated Ivan’s 29th birthday at his house. It is those kind of things that make me realize how lucky I am to be part of this training group. Not only do I train with the best in the country by the team spirit of the men’s team is at such a high level this year, it’s incredible! We spend a lot of times outside of training just hanging out together and I am conviced that it will have an impact this winter!
So the first third of this Yo-Yo camp is behind me and I am ready for the last two remaining weeks!
Ciao |
Sunday, June 28th, 2009 I have been in Canmore for three weeks now and training is going very well! Last weekend I was in Banff for the annual B2ten retreat . www.b2ten.ca
We also had the opportunity to chat with Johann Olav Koss, a former long track speed skater and now president and CEO of Right To Play www.righttoplay.com He competed in the 1994 Olympic Games in Lillehammer, Norway, his home country. He talked about the huge pressure that was on him and the hard and unexpected lead up he had to the Games. Two weeks prior to the Games, he had his worse Word Cup ever in Davos. Then the pre-Olympic training camp got move because of a lack of ice to skate on. Guess what, the guy came home – or stayed home??!! - with 3 gold medals and 3 world records…He knows his stuff and to me, what is even more impressive, is that he became successful even after his career as an athlete, by leading one of the – if not THE - most helpful program for humanity. The retreat was also a great opportunity to try a new sport, rock climbing! I climbed a couple of times on an artificial wall but to get to do it in the nature and to actually climb a whole mountain was something pretty, pretty special! It brought a whole new challenge and by the top of the last pitch, the feeling of accomplishment was incredible!
I came back from Banff with more self-confidence but most importantly, a feeling of control about medias at the Olympic Games. Last week I did some testing at the human performance lab from the University of Calgary. The numbers are very good and I know what to work on to keep improving! Training never stopped in the last weeks, roller skiing, running, hiking, strength, biking, swimming, etc… I have accumulated a fair amount of quality hours and now one of the biggest training bloc is coming at me. I will be training according to the yo-yo theory for the next tree weeks. I will spend the Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays on the glacier, Thursdays in Canmore, Fridays and Saturdays in Lake Louise and Sundays in Canmore. The whole training crew is ready and excited about the next weeks and it should be a blast! I will give some updates about the bloc but priority will be on training and most importantly, recovery between workouts!
Ciao |
Sunday, June 14th, 2009 Last January, I decided that I would be spending a little bit more time in Canmore for the summer training. I wanted to spend more time training and hanging out with the national team crew. The boys are all good friends and I can make good use of the impressive team of staff here. So after spending all of May training with my Quebec training center team at home, I started to drive out west on June 7th. The drive was uneventful and it went by faster than I had imagined. I drove thru the US and, after having my car completely search at the border, I crossed back into Canada to make sure I was not going to avoid the nice straight and flat part of the Transcanadian that Saskatchewan is! I arrived in Canmore on Tuesday and since then I have been chilling out quite a bit! I’ve done close to a hundred hours of training in this first cycle of the year so I had an easy week training wise. I’ve had time to hang out with the boys here, watching game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals, going for some open water swimming in preparation for the July triathlon and a sushi and movie night in Banff last night.
I’m staying at Stefan Kuhn’s house right downtown Canmore. Stef is a good buddy and an awesome training partner so when he offered me to stay at his pad last winter, the decision was easy to make! Him and his wife, Erin, are celebrating their 5th year of marriage anniversary so congrats you two! The rest of the team in Quebec arrives on Tuesday and I can’t wait for Nish to show up. He is staying at my house while he is in Quebec and I forgot many important things home, such as my razor and my camera! Life is good here but I had enough of holding myself not to train. I know it is a crucial part of being a smart athlete but I always feel more tired when I am not training so I am looking forward to the next bloc of training!
Ciao |
Thursday, Mai 21st, 2009 Whoaa it’s been a long time! I have to say that April was not as free as I thought. Between my 10+ hours of sleep a night, I was surrounded by interviews, exams, new car, more interviews, trip to Cuba, a massive scandal and a short-of-notice training camp all the way across the country. When I arrived at the Québec city airport, I was surprised to see all these people. As I put my foot on my motherland for the first time since January, a couple journalists and TV cameras encircled me. Then there was a school-class of kids that I visited in the fall who was singing a song that they made for me. My friends were also there with some champagne to welcome me. It was a pretty interesting mix but I was very happy to be back home and that warm welcoming made me forget about all the tiredness in my body and the jet lag. A couple days after my return, I wrote an exam, and then an other one a couple days later. It was kind if a shocker to work my brain so hard after what seamed like such a long time but in the end, it went all right! I also got a new car, which I’m super, pumped about. I have to thank GDG Informatique and Volkswagen Rimouski for the car. It’s an amazing car to start with but when I heard it was the Green car of the year, I felt even better about it!
I finally had a bit of down time with my buddies in Cuba. We spent a week under the sun and I was able to really disconnect from all the rest for a week and come back hungrier than ever for training and racing.
When I came back home, I was surprised to see that there was such a big scandal around me. There was a little conflict between Cross Country Canada and me before I left for Cuba but when I came back, it was all over the medias and even at the Parliament! Funny enough, I was away for most of if so I did get any stress about it. As a matter of fact, the day after I came back, all of this was arranged and in the end, everybody is happy with the deal. The day after we settled everything, I hoped on a plane and landed in Kelowna, British Columbia, with an empty bottle of antiseptic gel but no swine flu! The on-snow training camp was really good and the snow conditions were amazing. I mean, fresh fallen snow mid may…what else can you ask for ?!! So now I’m back home and it feels good to finally get going into my normal way of life and training after a month of April charged with everything but training!
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Monday, March 23rd, 2009 The season is over and it feels good! Even after 32 races, I still enjoyed every second of the last one but my body has had enough and it needs some serious rest before I start punishing it again in May! The last two races of the Falun World Cup Grand Finale were a 20Km duathlon and a 15Km skating pursuit. The pace was hard right from the start in the duathlon. People were sprinting for the bonus seconds and the pack got down to 15 guys quite early in the race. My skis were a little too slow so I was getting pushed to the back of the group in the long donwhills. I got stuck in traffic going up Mördarbacken in the last lap and could not respond to last attack. Six guys got away and I ended up crossing the line with the 2nd group in 8th place. I was then sitting in 11th overall and excited for the last day! On Sunday, I started the pursuit a minute and a half behind the leader. The body was feeling good so I chased hard to bridge to the group ahead of me. I thought I was gonna die 3Km in but I was able to ski relax and recover well in the downhills. I broke away with Bauer and Gaillard going up Mördarbacken on the 2nd lap and I thought it would be enough to stay away from the rest of the group. Unfortunately, the pack came back in the long downhill into the stadium. The 3rd lap was pretty uneventful, with a steady pace and no attacks until Mördarbacken. Then the same thing happened again in the long descent into the stadium. Northug had wicked fast skis and went from last to first of our pack and grabbed the 4th place. Gaillard followed him for 5th and I ended up 6th in this World Cup Finale. I also made the red group for distance, which is awesome for next season! The after-ski-Italian-buffet-party was great, with all the racers celebrating together! I finish this season full of confidence and looking forward to next summer and all the training that is coming up but for now, I will take it pretty easy and catch up with my family and my friends. I haven’t slept in the comfort of my own bed since December 28th, it was in 2008! I can’t wait to come home!
Ciao |
Friday, March 20th, 2009 Long time since I wrote an update in English! If you feel adventurous, you can always try to read me in French, I post news more regularly! So…my life took a steep turn lately, I went from, aiming at top 30 in a World Cup to BE on the podium in a World Cup. I would say I’m 5 years ahead of the schedule I made for myself. Trondheim was (obviously) a weekend I will remember for all of my life. I mean, I dreamed about stepping on a World Cup podium since I was a little mini-midget. I saw pictures of my dad winning in Falun and Holmenkollen, so I knew it was possible, but on the pictures, he was 30 years old! The 50Km was amazing. Nice and sunny day, fast tracks, great skis and superman body! I skied alone in the front for about 10 Km. I knew I was going to get cut at one point but I was hoping that my attack would blow the field open and that a group of about 10 guys would come back on me, so I would fight for a top 10 finish. All of this happened, like it was a dream, were everything goes your way. In the last 3Km, I was towing Petter Northug and Maxim Vylegzhanin; those two guys were 1st and 2nd respectively two weeks before that, at World Championship. I knew Northug would not take the lead - because he never does – but I was hoping for the Russian to lead a bit. It didn’t happen. In the end, Northug got dropped and I out sprinted Vylegzhanin. For 3rd!
I could not believe it, me, Alex, third, in a freaking World Cup??? Aight, no big deal, I’m third.
The next day we traveled to Falun in Sweden for the World Cup Grand Finale. I was supposed to go home after Trondheim, but luckily enough, the FIS gave us an extra spot for Falun and I got to stay. So now here I am, in my hotel room with George at the Scandic in Falun. Wednesday we did a classic sprint. I qualified 25th but felt like crap. I had no snap whatsoever and the rounds were even worse. The 50Km was still deep into my muscles and my mind wasn’t strong enough to forget it. I rested as much as I could on Thursday and was hoping to survive Friday’s prologue. I mean, going up Mördarbacken twice in a 3,3Km loop was scaring me out. I love skating, I do, more than anything else, but I never seam to quite find my rhythm up those steep climbs. You know, the one you need to shorten your stride into and pick up your tempo. I just don’t get it, yet. I am stocked right now. Today, I prove to myself that if I’m in good shape I can be amongst the best in the world – not junior this time! -, on any type of course. Tomorrow is a 20Km duathlon, I’m feeling good and rested from today’s effort, should be fun!
Ciao
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Friday, March 13th, 2009 After last weekend in Lahti, I tried to figure what went wrong. I made a couple adjustments to my training in the beginning of the current week and hoped for better results in Trondheim. I threw the afternoon runs out the window and skied twice a day, kind of November-like. Then Thursday came, with its gray sky, warm temperatures, and the classic sprint. I’m not gonna lie to you. I don’t like classic sprints, I’ve be doing pretty bad in every single one of them this year and actually, for more or less all of my life. I saw Thursday’s classic sprint as a good race prep for Sundays 50 Km and maybe as a chance to surprise myself. I mean, there were 21 Norwegian in the race and it was a classic sprint – without a doubt their best event – on their motherland. I was able to ski relax and powerful in the qualifier, and I had good jam coming into the finish. It’s always hard for me to know how I did after a qualifier. I mean, I’m out there for about 3 minutes, by myself, skiing as fast as I can. Some days I ski a little slower than normal, and some others I ski a little faster than normal. I’d say that I skied a little faster than normal in that qualifier. I got the 16th time, 2.55 seconds out of the lead. I was shocked by that result. I was well into the top 30 and pumped to get a chance to fight for the real deal in the ¼ final. Then shit hit the fan. In the ¼ final, the Swede right next to me false started. I thought they would call it, so I kind of stood still on the line for a quick moment, but realized that everyone else was going. Devon was in my heat too and had a bad start too, so we were two Canadians chasing hard right from the start to come back on the group. We were able to do so, thanks to a long climb 200m after the race, but we gave too much too early trying to close the gap. We both ran out of gas in the finishing stretch and had to settle for 5th and 6th. I’m a little undecided yet for my evaluation of the day. I mean, I had an amazing qualifier, undoubtedly my best of the season. But then, the ¼ final was horrible and it leaves me with a sour taste in my mouth. Tomorrow is the 50 Km classic and I’m really looking forward to that race. It's now time for Arild's favorite indian trick, ''Carbo Loading'' !
Ciao p.s. Sorry for the lack of pictures, I don't have any yet.
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Monday, March 9th, 2009 There is not much to say about Sundays’ 15 Km. I skied slow, REALLY slow! I felt normal during the warm-up and still O.K. during the race but I just wasn’t fast enough The course might of not suited me but still, 50th and just over 2 min back is not what I expected coming into the race. It was a weird day for the whole team. Looking at the result page, it would be easy to say that we had bad skis but the fact is that the skis were good, good enough. We were just slow. I guess we just have to toss this one out, actually, toss the entire weekend out. I know – and so do the other guys – that we can ski much faster than that, we just had a rough weekend in Lahti. Life goes on, I learned from this weekend and now I’m ready for what’s coming next and I got my smiley face back.
I am now in Trondheim, Norway. We arrived at around noon. The hotel is great, good food, comfortable beds and located right downtown, next to a gothic church, close to the good shops and coffee places.
Nighbor, Devon and I went for coffee this afternoon in a funny place. Felt like a university lounge, quite relaxing vibe and good music. We were all able to put our Finnish disaster behind and move forward, thanks to Daves’ good stories!
Thursday is a classic sprint. With half the field being Norwegian in their best event, it should be an interesting day. Then Saturday will be the 50 Km classic. Time to carbo-load and chill out! Keep you posted. Alex |
Saturday, March 7th, 2009 Our team arrived in Lahti last Monday and it felt good. Czech Republic is a nice country and I’m glad I got to visit it but after two weeks of university dorm and cafeteria life in smoky Liberec, I was ready to move on to something, hopefully, better. Turns out, Lahti is awesome. It’s my first time here and the last time I was in Finland, I was like a kid getting in a candy store for the first time. I was 16 years old, never been to Europe before, on my first trip with the National Team and about to compete in my first World Junior Championship. Our hotel in Lahti is right downtown, 5 minutes away from everything you need. Grocery stores, restaurants, shopping malls (there is like 20 of them here) and coffee shops. It’s nice to be able to get out of the hotel and see other things than two little bed, a T.V. and a roommate!
The race site is one of the most impressive if seen. The ski jumps are right next to it, there is a lot of stand, a giant rotating board, massive flood lights and the vibe is just amazing. The distance race trails are very demanding, with steep climbs, fast downhills and barely any flats.
The sprint course is all the opposite of the distance loop. Nice and gradual climbs, long downhills, the king of course I prefer.
Aight, enough preliminaries, lets get to the good stuff, racing action! Saturday was the skate sprint. I was ready for it, and hoped to have a long day. I felt good warming-up and feel like I skied well in the qualifier. I was able to deliver a lot of power to my skis and poles, glide well and tuck low in the long downhills but the final result was not good enough to keep me going thru the day, I ended up 35th. The times are incredibly tight. I mean, I’m in 35th, 5.44 seconds down on the quickest guy out there…
Sunday will be a 15 Km skate on this grueling 5 Km loop. I have to admit that, at first, I was pretty scared of the course but Wednesday I did a good intensity session on those steep walls and now I feel confident. Ciao
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Sunday, February 22nd, 2009 The weather has been insane here in Liberec, the city of the white tracks, or, if you prefer, the main capital of skiing. Snow, a lot of it, and temperatures always around 0°C, just to make it more interesting. On Friday, with ten minutes to start, I didn’t know if I was going to use hairies or hard wax skis. I chose the hairies. It was the best decision but they were too soft for me. We were in such a rush testing our skis, with the weather changing every 5 minutes and my early start (6th to start) that I did not have much time to compare different hairies skis. So the race was O.K. I would rate it as sub par. Not bad, not great and a little more bad than great… The body felt good although I couldn’t really get that extra gear needed to really punch it up those steep climbs. I settled up for 36th, my best (and first) ever result at a World Senior Championship.
Then the day of the 30km pursuit came. I have been looking forward to this race since the Whistler World Cup. 30km pursuit is my favorite event by far, I like the distance and the way it skis. As I woke up this morning, I looked outside the window and saw that it was NOT snowing. I was pumped and I rushed to my computer to update my Twitter status. Then the snow (obviously) started to come down and so did the temperature to stop at (guess what…) yeah, you got it, 0°C. Classic. I tested my classic skis as I was warming up. The snow wasn’t falling anymore and the track was starting to glaze. The hard wax was working perfectly and for the second time of the day, I was pumped. Once the warm-up was done, I changed and went to the start to get my skis marked. As I walked into that weird shed (yeah, the mark our skis in a little house/shed, kinda nice for the volunteers but deadly slow for the athletes) the snow started to come down again, and hard this time, big wet flakes and a lot of them. I thought I’d be fine by following people in front of me in the race, they are going to groom the track for me and my skis won’t ice. I was wrong, my skis iced, and so did the skis from my teammates. Most of the other countries were on hairies but we thought hard wax was going to be faster. So I got dropped from the lead group at about 7k and skied more or less by my self for the rest of the classic. I keep pushing as hard as I could, hoping to jump on fast skate skis in the transition and come back on the lead group a lap later.
I surprised myself! I did exactly that. My skate skis were crazy fast and my legs felt like they came out of the miraculous regenerating bath that Angelina Jolie uses in her latest movie. As a matter of fact, I felt so strong in skating that I dropped one of my slow classic skis buddy. I don’t know if you ever heard of him, he’s a decent skater, his name is Vicent Vittoz! A lap later I was back in the lead group and feeling pretty ecstatic. I’m not quit use to ski in such a big pack yet – about 35 guys – so I had a hard time holding my position. At one point, I was in 12th but I let too many people go around me and then, when it was go time, I was too far back. As I was moving back to the front of my group, I went around Rene Sommerfeldt, he decider that I wasn’t going to pass him so he cut me off. We both crashed, the whole group went by us and by the time I got back on my skis, I was in 30th. I gave the little German a Are you happy now? look and sprinted to try to catch as many skiers as I could, I had only 2 a bit kilometers to go… I crossed the line in 22nd. I can say, without a doubt, that today was my best race of the season. I felt really strong out there, gave a good fight and ended up better than my expectations. I was able to ski smooth, especially in skating and I got the 7th time for the skate leg. It’s a bummer to know that I could of done better than that without the crash but I will take 22nd for now and come back stronger next time! A big thank you to the techs. They gave me crazy fast skate skis and they must of prepared 6 pairs of classic just for me, I ended up going for hard wax skis while I should of gone with hairies but this was my decision. I will take it pretty easy tomorrow, short skate ski on the sprint course in the AM and hit the coffee shop in the PM. Tuesday will be the skate sprint and Friday the 4x10km relay. My apologies for the many misspellings out there. As you might know, I’m a francophone and Brent is not here to check my back. Peace out. |
Sunday, February 1st, 2009 The weather has been pretty friendly with us here in Praz de Lys. We have had blue skies, sun and very little wind. The day of the pursuit was the sunniest and warmest day we’ve had, we were cooking during the race. We still can see marks of this day on our coach’s burnt faces! I was ranked well enough to be on the front row. I had a good start and I put myself in the lead to avoid all the chaos. It ended up being a good decision because there were a lot of crashes in the first lap.
During the race we had to do 12 laps; 6 classic and 6 skate laps. The lead group was really big for the first two laps of classic. During the 3rd lap, the two Kazakhs put the hammer down along with the Russian. By the beginning of the 4th lap, we were only four skiers in the lead group. I was pretty happy with the small lead group, there is less chance of crashes happening and no ‘’elastic’’ effect at the top of every hill. I was able to ski smooth and relaxed, saving every bit of energy possible and covering all the mini attacks. The techs provided us with perfect skis, they were easy to kick and fast. In the 5th lap, I was pleasantly surprised when I saw that two of my teammates had bridged the gap back to the lead group, Fred and Lenny.
The pace remained high throughout the whole classic leg and at the transition, the lead group was back to four guys, two Kazakhs, a Russian and me. The first two laps of skating were slow, really slow! No one wanted to lead nor push the pace. At that point, we were already racing for the win. I saw a group of three skiers gaining on us dangerously fast, so I took the lead and pushed the pace for a bit. It worked well enough to prevent two of the three skiers to from catching us. Now the lead group had 5 skiers. The pace went easy again on the 5th lap. I was feeling good but I didn’t want to waste any energy by leading, I was getting ready for the last lap. Starting that last lap, a Russian guy moved to the front and set a punishing pace. Just like that, the group exploded. I was hanging onto third at the top of the steepest hill but I could see the two leaders pulling away.
When I got to the top of the course, I was done, my legs wouldn’t respond and the 4th guy, a Russian, caught me. He was pretty small and I was pretty confident with my finishing kick so I sat on him until 100m to go. I went on his left and slowly gained on him. Then, with 5 meters to go, I messed up. I lost my balance and did not finish the sprint strong enough… So I had to settle for 4th. I was happy with the way I felt during the race and with the way I skied, but I couldn’t stop thinking about what could have happened if I hadn’t stumbled… On the next morning, I could feel that I made the mistake of not eating enough, a beginner mistake! During my morning run, my legs felt flat and my arms were pretty stiff. Thanks to a strong espresso an hour before I raced, I was able to pull my stuff together and I still put out a good effort in the qualifiers, taking the 11th position. Nothing to crazy, but I when it comes down to classic sprinting I never feel really fast. I can never seam to find the right pace and I still can’t quit turn it over on the double polling yet. It’s something I will have to improve. In my quarter final, I had a disgustingly slow start. I was in last after 300m but I was able to ski strongly enough on the two climbs and I crossed the line in 3rd. My heat was the fastest, I was in with the winner of the qualifier, and he pushed the pace hard, thank you Razym! I got the lucky loser position and I made it to the semi final. I had the same slow start and was last after 300m. I skied the same as I did in my quarter final and coming into the final stretch there were four guys fighting for the top two positions. My heat was once again the fastest, so the two lucky looser were picked from my heat, Lenny and I. We were pumped, two Canadian in the final! The start was once again too fast for me, and guess what, I was in 6th after 300m. I was able to gain a position on the long climb and it remained the same until the end. This 5th place is unexpected for me. As I said earlier, classic sprint is not my thing so I am much happier with 5th today than 4th yesterday. My three buddys, Len, Fred and Brent were respectively 6th, 8th and 10th. The best day, EVER, for Canada at a world championship! Way to the finish the week boys!!! I will be heading to Livigno in a couple days for a training camp and a World Cup. I will keep you posted!
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Wednesday, January 28th, 2009 Things did not go as planned since the last race in Whistler. The travel was fine, every flight was on schedule and all of my bags made it. The problem was, along with all my bags, I got a cold! I’m very allergic to dust from carpets in hotels and the recycled air from airplanes. Because of this, my throat is always messed up for a couple days. At first I thought that this sore throat was because of my allergies, but it turns out that it was the beginning of cold. After a couple of days, my body did not bounce back so I had to visit the doctor in Les Gets. The Doctor prescribed me antibiotics, the kind of stuff that knocks you out for a week or two… Right after the visit, I called my mom to explain everything. She’s a doctor and she knows a lot about athletes. I called home when it was noon here, so just around 6 AM back home. She did not sound too happy to get woken up by the phone. After I explained the situation, she started laughing. “Those French doctors, they prescribe antibiotics for no reason. Go for an easy ski this afternoon and you will be fine by tomorrow. You probably got a small virus in the plane.’’ I love my mom. Since then, I took it pretty chilled. I would do an easy ski in the morning and be a couch potato during the afternoon. The sore throat went away and the energy came back. This morning, I did hard intervals. Felt good and fast. I won’t be racing the 15km skate tomorrow. I’m healthy now and I feel great but I did not prepare like I normally do for the race. Other than today, I did not do any intervals and I prefer saving myself for the 30km pursuit on Saturday. Sickness is now long gone and I can’t wait to race. Ciao
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Wednesday, January 21st, 2009 It has been a weekend of premieres for me. It was my very first time in Whistler. Skiing on the Olympic trails on Wednesday was awesome and the weather was so great, sunny with blue skies it reminded me of Italy! On Friday, it was the classic sprint. I consider myself as a decent all-rounder but the classic sprint is definitely my weakest event. I need to keep working on it and I thought that doing the qualifier would be the perfect race prep for the next day, the 30km. As it turned out, I did shitty in the qualifier. 1.6km might seem like a short distance but it is long for a sprint. I started out too hard and I didn’t ski smooth or glide enough to make it into the rounds. I qualified 31st. Definitely the worst position to get in a qualifier. So close to making it ino the top 30 but yet, not any better than last! The day ended up turning from poorly to historical for me! As a matter of fact, a guy got disqualified from the final and I got moved up to 30th. Yea-hooo! My first World Cup point EVER! I was pumped for the next day, a 30km duathlon, my favorite race! I got off to a good start, moving up from 18th to 10th right off the gun. I was able to ski well, and smooth, the pace set was sustainable for me. In the 2nd lap, someone skied on the tip of my ski and broke it! At first, I was freaking out, thinking that I had to change the ski and that I would lose soooooooo much time. But I ended up finishing the classic part with my broken ski. I could ski normally on the flats and up-hills, the only disadvantage was in the downhill’s. The tip was flipped to the front and it was dragging in the track, slowing me down. By the end of the classic part, I was starting to lose contact with the leaders at the top of the climbs. I think that with a normal ski, I would have been able to bridge back in the downhill’s but not that day. At the exchange, I was 20ish seconds of the pace, along with Ivan Babikov who had crashed in classic. Ivan started super hard in skating, antsy to catch back to the leading group. I couldn’t follow his pace so I skied by myself for more or less the entire 15km skate. I was trying to ski as well as possible and keep focusing on pushing my body trough the pain. I was able to keep the chase group behind me away and I even caught an American guy. In the last lap I got pretty close to catching, a French skier, Maurice Manificat. He is 22 years old and last year, he was 3rd at the World U23 championship. I came within 5 sec from him in the last K or so but couldn’t quit close the gap. I ended up 12th, by far my best placing on a world cup and getting back to back days in the points made for a great start of the weekend! After that punishing 30km, my legs were fried. I got a massage in the evening and the next morning I felt like a new man! Thanks to Wolfman, our massage therapist, he’s awesome. I was teamed up with George Grey. We were roommates in Whistler and in New-Zealand so there was no way I was gonna race with someone else! Our semi-final went well, we got 4th, 0.9seconds of the winner and we knew we would make the final after skiing this well.
Just before the final George and I had a talk about the strategy to use for the race. Ski easy, smooth, relaxed, safe, play it cool kinda thing. We knew how long that sprint course was and how wide it was, plenty of time to pass but also plenty of time the burn yourself. We executed our plan like it was our job! Sitting at the back of the pack, wasting no energy and staying out of trouble for the first 4 laps. When George started his final lap (lap 5), it was time to put the hammer down and man….did he put the hammer down! On the last climb, he moved up from the back of the pack (around 10th position) into 4th. We then had our best exchange that put me into 2nd place! I didn’t want to ski at the front yet, so I let a couple skiers pass me and skied relaxed up the first climb. In the last climb, the leaders fired their turbo and the French skier and I got dropped. By the time I went around him, there was already a 5-meter gap to the leaders. I pushed as hard as I could at the top of the last downhill, took the corner wide, you had to snow plow in the inside, so I kept my speed up by taking the outside and entered the stadium with more speed than the 4 guys ahead. I quickly closed the gap and as I entered the final corner the Italian skier went down.
There were 4 lanes in the final stretch and I was sitting in 4th. I had to wait for the guys ahead to choose their lane and then pick the last one and fire the jets! I had good speed down the finish and was able to out sprint the Russian for the bronze medal! I was stoked! Crossing that finishing line in 3rd was pretty special. All the fans were screaming and so many people I know were present. My dad was the announcer in the stadium, all my teammates were there and sharing that moment with one of my teammate was super cool. Also, doing it in our home country, on the Olympic course, means a lot to me.
I am now sitting in the airport in Frankfurt. Soon I will fly to Geneva, and then drive to Praz de Lys, in France where I will compete in the U23 world championship. I’m feeling pretty good right now. I think that my shape has not totally come yet so it will be interesting to see how I can ski in Europe. Aight, now it’s time for me to shut’er down but before I do, here are some quotes from the weekend in Whistler. For those who weren’t there, it can bring something new to the story.
I knew he was good, but I did not know he was that good! – Pierre Harvey It is a good way to end up the weekend! No, it’s only a beginning! – George Bertrand and Tom Holland Well, we were there for the first one! – Yves Bilodeau talking to Jean Boisvert |
Saturday, January 4th, 2009 It’s been a rough week in Canmore for me. First, back in Quebec on the 28th, my flight got cancelled because of the freezing rain so I woke up at 4: 30 AM for nothing! The next day, waking up at 4: 30 AM was even worst. Guess what, the heavy winds during the night broke an electricity line and the whole area was in a blackout! In the drive to the airport, I was pretty worried about having my flight cancelled once again but finally, it ended up right. On Monday afternoon, I got to ski a bit in Canmore to try to get the blood flow in me and the legs back after the travel day. On the next day, we did hard intervals and wow…I was slow! The days leading up to the first race, the 30km duathlon, I was a little stressed out but I was able to set my mind up and focus on what was coming. Then the race got cancelled. It was so cold for a couple of days that the snow felt like straight up Styrofoam! On Saturday, after having the start delayed twice in the same day, we finally were able to do our skate qualifier. I did OK but nothing to special. I feel like I skied to tight and that I didn’t glide enough in the first part of the 1.2km loop. The 3rd best time was good enough to make me think I had a chance for the win. The rounds went pretty well. I was able to relax and ski smart. I felt like I was getting stronger and stronger the day went. In the final, all the big names were there - Phil Widmer, Sean Crooks, Stefan Kuhn, Mike Argue, Jeff Ellis, and me – I got off the line pretty quickly, in 2nd place. Sean was leading and up the long gradual climb, he put the hammer down and by the top of the hill, we were two guys with a small gap on the field. In the next downhill, the guys from the back came back and it was like the hill never happened. I tried to get in Mike’s draft but it wasn’t good enough to take the lead. I entered the last straight tie with Sean and Mike but I did not have the jam to win so I ended up 3rd. Mike Argue was strong enough to get his first win on the NorAm circuit.
On the next day, it was the 15km skate. In the last two years, that 15km individual start in Canmore has been my nightmare. I can’t seam to have the right tempo to go up those steep hills and it’s a real bummer. I was hoping get it right this time but guess what…I did not! I’m more of a glider then anything else and I always have a hard time shortening my stride. I also was in a pretty bad day, my legs would fill up with lactic acid and I got pretty tight early in the race. I ended up in 6th position. Big up to Lenny, who had the 3rd fastest time. First podium on the NorAm circuit for the guy!
So now what?? Well, there is one distance race left. A 30km mass start. I will try to shorten my stride a bit and keep the tempo up in those hills. I like mass starts because you can copy a bit the way the guy in front of you skis. So hopefully, with the right approach and my fitness, I will be able to be in the hunt. Till’ next time Alex |
I arrived in Canmore last Saturday. The travel went just fine. No delays and all my bags came in at the same time as I did. Skiing in Canmore is on a short loop but it’s fine for afternoon skis. We train in Lake Louise for our morning workouts. There is a lot of snow so it’s worth the 45min drive! I’ve had quit a bit of time to test my new boards. Others better watch out, I got rockets! Training is going well, I got my feel for the snow back after only a few strides. We did a time trial on Sunday. It was hard but hey, we’re skiing at 1800m and we flew the day before. I was supposed to go to West Yellowstone but the snow is pretty thin so I will race in Golden, B-C. It’s much close rand also at lower altitude, which isn’t bad for the first official race. It snowed in Quebec ?!?! Alex Friday, November 2nd, 2008 I was excited about it, and so were others! Thank’s to Gestev for the awesome press confenrence. Also, a big thank you to Amalgame Créativité Stratégique, CIBC Wood Gundy, AVW-Telav Solutions Audiovisuelles and the Hilton Quebec for the incredible support on the day! I will write my own news after races, training camps, or simply to talk about life as an athlete. I also invite you to visit « Pixels to Sponsor » to support me your own way. Cheers!
In July I spent more time on the snow than anywhere else. You’re really lucky, you say?? I agree! First, we had a week of training camp on the Haig Glacier near Canmore, Alberta with the national team, then, a week’s rest in Canmore. On Sunday, we were on our way. We were eight athletes and the new Norwegian coach, Arild. We got on the plane in Calgary and arrived in Snow Farm, New Zealand two days later (with the difference in time zones). I can sleep just about anywhere so I was able to rest up a little on the long flight between San Francisco and Aukland. As soon as I arrived at the hotel, my first thought was to go skiing and to explore the 60 km network of trails. First observation—our summer is REALLY their winter. The conditions were fantastic, all through the entire three weeks of camp. Out of 21 days, we skied for 20 with hard wax. The only day we didn’t use hard wax was our day off! Snow Farm is 40 minutes by car from Wannaka. We went to Wannaka three or four times a week to use the fitness room and run in shorts, but mainly to relax. The city is gorgeous, with a large lake, plenty of sun, and a relaxed atmosphere, as well as coffee shops on every street corner and smiling tourists! I returned home on August 4, tired but completely satisfied with the month of training. I was able to test myself several times against the best in Canada, and so far so good! I’m going to rest up for a week and then resume training more intensively at the national training center, and I have a camp in La Malbaie in late August. Ciao
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