Nor-Am Racing!

It’s been a busy couple of weeks since i last posted anything on here. Two weeks ago G-Kill (otherwise known as Greame Killick) and I piled into my Honda Fit with all of our bags, some food, a few bags of yarn and Michaela G-Kills girlfriend. It’s not called a Fit for nothing!
At this juncture I must extend a huge shout out to Chris Manhard, Graham MacLean, and the athletes on the CVTC. They graciously took G-kill and I under their wing for the weekend in Silverstar. They are an impressive group of up and coming athletes and it was great fun to be able to spend a few days getting to know them a little better. One day we watched Harry Potter, played bananagrams, crocheted tuques, and went to the greatest coffee shop on Silverstar Mountain to eat baked goods- all of which are amongst some of my favourite pastimes!
All photos are thanks to Jesse Winter, there are lots more at: www.jessewinterphotography.com



We also raced, and I came away with the win in the sprint which was encouraging and necessary as i was the lone canadian on the start line in the final.
The 10 km skate the next day was uber hard, historically distance skate races are not my forte, and throwing a bit of fresh snow in there just makes it gritty, and although the Americans totally dominated I was happy with my effort. Thank goodness Brooke Gosling laid down a fast time and stepped on to the podium to break up the total American dominance.
From there we moved on to Rossland for the Mini-Tour, and World Championship sprint trials.


The sprint race was up first, and I was pretty anxious to get this day over with, it’s been on my radar since the training season started. This was my chance, so in the final I let’er rip out of the start gate and didn’t look back. I may have let’er rip a little too aggressively as Sadie Bjorenson of APU came past me in the finishing stretch, and Holly Brooks and I ended up in a tie for second. I also can’t report on this day without mentioning the young Heidi Widmer who skied impressively strongly all day.
I also noticed she has a new blog, so check that out here!:

www.heidiwidmer.blogspot.com


Stef- after punching his ticket to world championships in the skate sprint needed a little help getting his poles off...

With the major excitement over we still had two more days of racing, a super short 5km skate, and a super snowy 10km classic race.
I didn’t manage to break onto the podium in the overall mini tour, I ended up with the wooden medal and the Americans took home the hardware.
It would appear that we Canadian women need to step it up with the distance racing!
Now it’s time to head back to Canmore for Christmas! I’m bummed that I will miss the hotly contested, and legendary Boxing Day Burn off at Nakkertok, but it will be nice to get some good training in in Canmore.


Merry Christmas!

A sweet outing...

This is what happens when a motley crew goes for a ski, and I remember my camera.

First Races Done!

It's been a long time since I put a bib on, but this past weekend it was a wonderful feeling.
There were some Alberta Cup races happening up at the Nordic Center, so most people took the opportunity to get some racing in before heading to Vernon for the first Nor-Am of the year next weekend.
I felt great both days, and am pretty excited to hit the trails again next weekend.
Even more exciting though was to wake up Sunday morning and see that my teammates had won a Bronze Medal in Dusseldorf!!
It's awesome to have great teammates, but it's even more awesome when they are lighting it up on the World Cup. A big Congrats to Dasha and Chandra, and good luck to everyone next weekend in Davos.
G-Kill and I are road tripping to the Star...

Well we are still waiting for any trace of real snow to show up here in Canmore. Luckily Frozen Thunder (the loop at the nordic center) is getting longer by the day, and the snow guns have been going like crazy whenever it's cold enough, so soon we should be able to ski around a loop that takes more than five minutes!
It's a little more lonely these days as most of my teammates have taken off to Scandinavia to battle the darkness and take on the world. If this past weekend is any indication (which I think it is) our team is looking pretty good. They had a great first weekend of racing, and the World Cup starts next weekend, so lookout!

This year I'll be sticking around North America tackling the Nor-Am circuit, starting in Silverstar in a few weeks!

For now, the lack of snow has made some pretty awesome skating conditions! We got a hockey game going yesterday afternoon in Banff.



Chris Butler checking out the ice... it must have been safe enough, no one fell in.



The gang, which later grew substantially to over 20 skiers (skaters I suppose)



And a few canine friends- one of which was Blitz who is quite the hockey fan -or maybe just puck fan.

We have been Yo-Yo-ing again back and forth to Sunshine Village just outside of Banff. The kind folks up on the mountain graciously opened up the hotel for us, and fed and watered us. The staff up at Sunshine were busily trying to get things ready for the season, so we are extra lucky that they were able to accommodate us up there!
Our usual protocol involves a couple long days, and an easier one up at altitude, I was enjoying the scenery up at sunshine while out for a hike (I know we should have been skiing!)...





We ran to Banff from the nordic centre and Chandra found a nice soft place to take a nap!


Small team photo up at Sunshine, it was an awesome afternoon up there!

We are anxiously awaiting the arrival of some snow here. The snow guns are firing so hopefully it will get colder soon!

Park City!

We had an amazing camp in Park City. The air was thin, the sun was shining, and we had an awesome crew of girls to train with. Thanks to everyone and their camera’s and the great weather there are lots of photos to share!
Here are just a few...




Awesome Rollerskiing and Running...




Kikkanimal joined us for the camp, it was awesome to have a new fast female to follow!



Thanks to everyone for a fantastic camp, and now we are on snow skiing on "Frozen Thunder" here in Canmore!

Mark Oct 30th on your calendar!

The second annual Almonte Fundraising Run is taking place Saturday October 30th at 10am!
I'm super excited to share the proceeds with SchoolBox an awesome local charity that is making education for children in less fortunate countries possible.

Check out their website at:
www.schoolbox.ca

To register go to:
www.runalmonte.ca

SNOW!

Well it's September 21st, and a little early for snow but despite the weather I had a wicked run this morning, with an awesome crew!


Part of our awesome crew of ladies.


So snowy!



We stopped to admire the de Nys Family snowmen!

Quebec Camp!

It was a short, intense and very rainy camp we had in Quebec last week. It was awesome to join up with CNEPH and have a few more girls (and a lot more guys) to train with!
It was close enough to home that I got a weekend visit from mom and Kieran, and Kieran even braved the rain to join us for a rollerski workout which was fun.
As you can see it was pretty wet:


The rain didn’t stop us from getting in a number of very high quality intensity sessions, here’s the women’s team doing some uphill sprinting:




Rainy Quebec doesn’t seem so bad now. We are back in Canmore where I wake up to my neighbours scraping frost off their windshields in the morning, and when I look out the window I see a blanket of snow covering the surrounding mountains. It’s a beautiful sight, but it’s still September!




Luckily in a week we are heading down to Park City to our annual altitude camp where hopefully we will get some sun and warmer weather!

Back Online!
The last few weeks have been fun, and frustrating!
The fun came in the form of a training camp at Hardwood Ski and Bike, and friend and former teammate Shayla Swanson’s wedding in Bozeman, Montana!
Following the wedding by my computer totally bit the dust, and then smoke rolled into Canmore making training difficult, and moving things indoors for a few days, which was less than ideal.
Things are looking up, I have a new computer, the skies are clear, though it is rather chilly out, and I was on the top of a mountain in ankle deep snow yesterday. Luckily we are headed east to Quebec for a training camp Monday, and to get a little more summer into our systems before the cold weather settles in.
Since we were in Big Sky Country for Shayla’s wedding, we decided to stay and explore West Yellowstone for a few days, luckily my camera didn’t suffer the same fate as my computer:




Old Faithful was a must see, and it was indeed impressive


Unfortunately we weren’t the only ones there…


We spent the morning soaking in the boiling river! There was a super hot river that emptied into a cooler river that made for unlimited temperature choices and the best hot spring experience ever.


Sarah and Dan forgot their tent poles…luckily I had my hula hoop and a few ropes!


On our quest to find buffalo Dan is on the lookout.


Big Sky Country Indeed.

Window to a Wicked Workout!

In an attempt to update my blog more often, I am going to try and post weekly photos of awesome workouts past and present...



Since I'm sitting in the Toronto Airport between a great few days at Hardwood Ski and Bike with the Ontario Team, and an upcoming wedding of Shayla Swanson's in Montana, I thought it might be appropriate to start with a photo from a training session in Moab, Utah. This was an amazingly mind blowing hike in Arches National Park, the photo really doesn't do this place justice.

What a Weekend!

I'm back in Almonte for a few days, and what a weekend it has been!
The International Puppet Festival is going on, and I was invited to be a special guest (not because I have anything to do with puppetry, but because Almonte is such a great supportive community).
Saturday was also Midget Training Day for Nakkertok in Almonte!! The first ever Nakkertok training session held in Almonte was quite the event, I wish it had happened 10 years ago, but I was still excited to be a part of it.


Then it was on to the Puppet Parade, where day one I got to ride in a nice shiny convertible, and day two in a 1946 Willys! There was a great turnout from locals and visitors and it was great to see so many familiar faces in the crowds.


The wonderful woman behind the Puppet Festival is Noreen Young, renowned puppeteer, and creators of Gloria, Iggy and Jay- for those of you who may remember Under the Umbrella Tree. Noreen is a pillar in our community, and it was so nice of her to invite me to be a part of the festivities.



Just some of Noreens most famous puppets- they came to my 8th Birthday Party!


Just a few of the puppets in town for the weekend...


My ride down main street on Saturday


... and Sunday


Awesome crowds out both days. I Love Almonte.

Dad and I also had a chance to get out for a run this morning, and this is what we found!...


Add fresh strawberries, corn, cherry tomatoes, and peaches, that about covers all of my favourite summer foods and activities.

Thanks for a great weekend everyone!

Sunday Morning Ride

Every once in a while I have a workout that is in a special category. I have one of those workouts where I finish and say, wow, that was one of the best skis, hikes or bike rides ever.
This weekend I had one of those days, and miraculously I brought along my camera, and even took a few photos!
Here they are:



We had an amazing crew of ladies out biking, it's rare to get to train with five other women!


The day was spectacular


The new path between Canmore and Banff makes “road” riding so much safer on a Sunday morning.


We stopped for a dip in Johnson Lake!



Thanks for a great ride ladies!

Yo-Yo, Rest time and Mountain Bike Races

It has been way too long since my last post. As usually is the case when I get tired my ability to sit in front of my computer and string words together is extremely compromised.
Needless to say I survived the last two weeks of our Yo-yo camp. I don't have any photos, but Chandra has lots, so check out her blog: www.chandracrawford.ca
Since then I've been mostly resting and trying to recover from the hardest three weeks of the year thus far.
Summer has finally hit Canmore, my garden is coming along nicely, rollerskiing in the sun is much nicer than the pouring rain!


Mountain Bike Nationals are also happening in Canmore this weekend.
It looked like a grueling race out there with a few familiar faces:

Teammate Alex Harvey, even with an upper body twice the size of everyone else he fared quite well in the U23 field.



An old Ontario Teammate of mine Catherine Vipond powering her way to a fourth place finish! You can always check her out at: www.catherinevipond.weebly.com/


The next generation of Mountain bikers:



My rest time is coming to an end, things start to ramp up again next week! I'm looking forward to some more hard training before heading east to do a Camp at Hardwood Ski and Bike in August!

Jasper!

We had a great few days of training in Jasper with a long day of training including both cycling and rollerskiing on the scenic Icefields Parkway between Jasper and Banff sandwiching an easier day where we enjoyed a run in Jasper. We are almost halfway through this period of training, so far so good!

Joel took a few photos while standing on the side of the road:

The Boys Peloton...



The Girls- much less of a peloton, we need more!




Coach Eric practicing his gun show...


Until next time,