Perianne Jones

Milan: cross country ski racing meets couture

2012-01-27T11:07:00.000-08:00

I realize it’s been it’s ben approximately 75 days since my last blog post, and that is an absurdly long time. Truthfully, I have very few excuses other than I’ve been on the road for a long time, and sometimes the internet is hard to come by. But now we are in Ramsau, Austria, and I have a break from racing, and a decent internet connection, so I’ll take a few minutes and fill you in on what’s been happening!

Briefly I should recap the pre-Christmas period - for me personally, it was largely unremarkable. I had one top 30 result in Davos, Switzerland, and then promptly got sick the next weekend in Rogla, so I headed home to Canmore for Christmas wanting more. Christmas was a nice break from World Cup life, but I was chomping at the bit to get back on the start line and turn things around.

The first World Cup weekend for me following Christmas was the City Sprint in Milan, and it turned into a pretty good weekend! Saturday I qualified in the top 30, and advanced into the semi-final, finishing 12th on the pancake flat 600m loop that we zipped around twice before barreling towards the finish line. I learned lots on Saturday, and was excited to put that to good use on Sunday when Chandra and I teamed up for the Sprint-relay.

Here I must point out that sprint relays are probably my absolute favourite event. They are unbelievably hard, since you only get to rest while your partner is on course, and then you have to go again, but I love the format along with the excitement in the pit between legs more than anything. This I believe is at least partly due to the hundreds of relays I did at Nakkertok in my earlier years on Wednesday nights under the lights. If there is ever a World Cup on super narrow winding trails in the dark, I will be ready.

That being said, Chandra and I knew that this was going to be a chaotic day. We needed more than anything to stay out of trouble. In our semifinal we had the absolute best tag-off spot, and were making up positions each lap. I got in a bit of a bind, and almost ended our day early by crashing on one of my first few laps when my ski got stuck in the wrong spot (underneath someone else’s ski) and I ended up on my rear end. Luckily I was able to right myself pretty quickly, relax, and put my head down and catch the rest of the group before tagging off to Chandra who took care of it from there.

We squeaked through to the final as the only lucky loser team coming from our semi-final. New rules in the team sprint now take the first 2 teams in each heat, plus the next 4 fastest times. Our heat was the first semi, therefore we had no idea that the next one would ski much faster than we did!

In the final our strategy was much the same, we crossed our fingers that no one had noticed our amazing tag spot and tried to snag it from us, and agreed that we just needed to stay out of trouble and in a good position so that Chandra could make a move on the finishing stretch. Luckily all of these things happened. We used the same spot to tag, making up spots in the exchange zone, and staying out of trouble at the same time. We were hyper aware of our surroundings at all times. On my first lap (right off the start) there were poles breaking left right and center, at on point there was one flying through the air towards me, so staying relaxed and able to react to whatever came our way certainly helped us. The other thing that helped us was Chandra’s super fast sprint at the end of the last lap which took us to the podium behind the Swedes and our Americain friends Kikkan and Jesse!

It was an awesome day all round, and a great weekend to kick off 2012 on the World Cup, and get my first World Cup Podium.

We are now in Ramsau for a little camp before we head off to Moscow for our next City Sprint!

Special thanks to Scott, and Nordic Focus for the photos! I’ll aim to get the next blog post up in 74 days or less.

It has begun!

2011-11-14T03:38:00.000-08:00

Chandra and I showing off some of our sweet new One Way gear!.

I’ve been over here in Sweden for two weeks today, and we are still waiting for winter to join us.
Luckily the smart Swedish ski experts saved snow from last season that we have been able to ski on. Much like our very own Frozen Thunder in Canmore but large scale, here in Ostersund they buried an Ikea-sized mound of snow under sawdust last season. Slowly unveiling this pile a truckload at a time and turning it into a highly coveted ski track makes each day exciting as we hope for a few more hundred metres of snow to explore on our skis.

In the media over here they call it white gold, and that’s an accurate description of the pile of well kept snow that can only be found here. There aren’t many places in Europe to ski right now unless you want to do it in a ski tunnel.
That being said we did get a race in this past weekend, luckily the stars aligned for the small town of Brucksvallarna, and they pulled off one mens race and one womens race. We raced 10km skate on a 2.5 km manmade loop, but at this point we will take what we can get! It was awesome to put a bib on and ski as hard as I could, after putting the hours in all summer and fall I just want to race.

The snow crew here in Ostersund doing their thing, making skiers happy.

One day last week Chandra and I ventured out on rollerskis- which is something we hadn’t done in a long time, but we needed a break from what was then a 2km long saw-dusty loop with a little pavement and snow mixed in. The rollerski was actually amazing, we went out at 3:30 (sunset around these parts!) and explored all kinds of new terrain on our two wheeled skis.

From here we don’t really know what’s next. My plan had been to travel up to Rovaneimi, Finland (the home of Santa Clause) today and to do some races this coming weekend, but those too have been cancelled, and we are now taking things day by day. One thing is almost for sure, I will race next weekend, but at this juncture I’m just not sure where that will be.

Ciao for now!
Peri

Park City+Whistler=3 intense but great weeks of training

2011-10-07T17:57:00.000-07:00

NST ladies and CVTC ladies still smiling despite the rain.

Ok, so I haven’t put much up here in the last little while, but we’ve been a tad busy. We finished up our altitude camp in Park City less than two weeks ago, and now we are just about done yet another camp in Whistler. Most of us haven’t been back here since Feb 2010, and although we have experienced a lot of precipitation it has been nice to check things out, and reacquaint ourselves with this Mountain Town. Chandra, Em Nish, Allyson and I came out 24 hours earlier than the boys to meet up with the CVTC ladies, eat some tasty food, do a little training, get some girls only time, and do some brainstorming with our sweet sport psych Sharleen. It was a pretty inspiring 24 hours that’s for sure!

It was also great to hang out with the CVTC gals, and hear about what they have been up to over the summer. They were kind enough to adopt me last year for the pre-Christmas Nor-Am Races, so I’ve missed hanging out with them, and feeding off their enthusiasm.

After the boys arrived we still managed to get out a few times with the ladies group. It’s so nice for Chandra and I to have a group to train with, and have a few other brains to pick after spending two weeks training exclusively with each other we have a pretty good idea what’s going on in each other’s lives!

Our Whistler camp is drawing to a close, having done three intensity sessions including one time trial thus far, and a ski striding intensity up tomorrow before we all hop on a plane and head to the closest pumpkin pie laden dinner table. After that it won’t be long before “Frozen Thunder” our stockpile of snow in Canmore is unveiled and we will be gliding around on some of last years finest and well-preserved snowflakes.

2011-09-05T11:03:00.001-07:00

After my great Alaskan Adventure I was in need of some serious rest. The mens team was in New Zealand, so I headed East to cottage country to catch up with my family and friends, and some warm weather.
It was an amazing week of rest, nothing quite beats Ontario cottage country…

I did some windsurfing, though I could have used a little more wind…

And when there was no wind Scout and I just went for a paddle…

Oh yeah, and I trained a little. The new pavement between Almonte and Blakeny is a dream.

FasterSkier reporter Alex Matthews also joined me for a day in Almonte to do some training, you can read her summary here: FasterSkier Article
Check out here other articles on FasterSkier too, they are pretty rad.
I know it looks like I was mostly hanging out alone, this is certainly not the case, but I guess when socializing we were too busy to snap any photos. A big thanks to Neil and Luci for the use of the cottage, Mom and Dad for taking a week off work to hang out with me, Kieran, Pav and Sylvie for coming out and keeping me entertained!

Now it’s back to the grindstone, Fall is in the air here in Canmore. Crisp morning air greets me each morning as I step out the door and onto my rollerskis. Luckily we are heading South in a week for our second annual Park City camp!

Finally an Alaska update

2011-08-15T06:03:00.000-07:00

My view for the last week and a bit has looked a lot like this:

Needless to say that is the reason that I haven't been doing much blogging, but I'm back from vacationing, and have compiled some photos and words from our two week women's camp in Alaska.

10 Reasons Alaska was an Amazing Camp:

1- 20 girls all rollerskiing together with similar mindsets and goals. I’m pretty sure I had never previously rollerskied with a group of 10 girls, so 20 was really mind-blowing.

2- Everyone else took lots of photos and shared them, so despite the fact that I didn’t take any, I still have an album labeled Alaska on my computer, and have some visual aids for my blogging. Thanks Matt, Lauren & Holly!

3- Eric came with us, and helped us stay focused on what we were trying to accomplish- he also did his best to get an Alaskan tan while on the glacier.

4- Chandra and I got to show off our sweet new One Way gear!

5- Salmon fishing season! Generous Alaskans were sending fish our way, and Matt and Liz sure knew how to cook it with an Alder branch and a BBQ.

6- They have snow machines on the Eagle Glacier! If the Haig had these, the “Glacier Dude” job would be even more highly coveted than it is already.
7- We all got to know each other a lot better, after spending two weeks living and training together I think we will all have a few new friends on whatever circuit we are on next winter.

8- Kikkan made us sweatshirts! NAWTA = North American Women’s Training Alliance. Look out! (especially for those hoodlums in the front row)

9- We got a couple of wicked helicopter rides from Alpine Air.

10- I finally got to see this place that Kikkan talks about all the time, and it is pretty sweet. More rollerski paths than you can cover in a week of training, a glacier just a short jaunt over a ridge, and fresh salmon just about everywhere you look.

Thanks to everyone for making this such a great camp, especially Erik Flora and the APU gang for hosting us, and the USST coaches, Matt and Grover. It was a wicked productive camp. Lets do it again sometime!

Maui Camp!

2011-06-29T10:22:00.001-07:00

Haleakala hasn't erupted since the 17th century, so our team thought this 3055 meter above sea level volcano would be the perfect place for a training camp, and they were right!
We had an amazing 10 days of good solid training on Maui, most of which was done on the road up to the top of the legendary volcano which was perfectly paved at a grade that will most certainly make climbing hills in the winter a little easier.

We did some camping, some surfing, lots of good training, and eating, and had an awesome time. When you put our team plus our wicked support staff on a Hawaiian island it's a recipe for success.

View from the top of Haleakala

Lenny's favourite spot on Maui- there are windsurfers out there in the surf.

Devon in his element camping on the volcano.

Joel and I went for a run on the moon while in Maui...

Running in the crater, one of the most scenic runs I think I've ever done.

Thanks to everyone for a great camp, and to One Way for keeping us safe on the roads with our new training gear!

2011-06-03T10:05:00.000-07:00

Training is once again in full swing, we just got home from our first camp of the year down in Bend, Oregon. It was once again a great camp with great skiing, great mexican food great afternoon coffee outings:

We timed our camp perfectly to have the Americans around to train with. The women will meet again in Alaska in July. North American Women's Training Squad (NAWTS?) We obviously need to come up with a name for ourselves...
I'm only back in Canmore for a few days before heading to Ottawa for a Fast and Female event on June 12th! If you haven't signed up yet, do it quick, there aren't many spots left. Go to: Fast and Female Registration

Bike month is also underway in Almonte, and I'll be out for a ride on the 11th. Those details can be found here: Bike month info
It will be sponsored by Baker Bob, so you know it's going to be awesome.

In the meantime there are lots of other sweet biking activities going on like bike polo!

After a few days at home it's back to Canmore to unload my duffle bag, wash, and reload for our Hawaii camp!
June is shaping up to be a pretty good month, I even have lettuce sprouting in my garden, so I'm pretty excited.

Spring Road Trip

2011-04-28T15:26:00.000-07:00

Just got home from a road trip down into the Colorado desert to do some biking, and get some warmer weather!
Here are a few photos from the trip courtesy of one P. Wood who did a most excellent job of documenting our outings.

Time to get back at it!

Spring so Far

2011-04-08T10:35:00.000-07:00

It's mid winter in Canmore...

Thanks for a Great Year!

2011-03-27T14:57:00.000-07:00

It’s that time of year again, we all start looking back and reflecting on our respective seasons, and start looking ahead to the next one.
As I look back at the 2010-2011 racing season I have to consider it one of my most successful. Especially considering where I came from last season. At the end of last season I was dragging myself around the race courses at Nationals in Whitehorse, having just recovered from a brutal cold and pink eye. My body was telling me something- it wasn’t happy.
I took a few months off to get some energy back, and made a plan with Eric about how I was going to get back on track.
It seems like the plan worked, I skied to a number of personal best results this season, and I feel like a completely different person than the tired sack that fled Whitehorse Nationals early because she could barely think rational thoughts.
It’s been a fun season, and I’m looking forward to the next one eagerly as I have an amazing team of people around me that have helped make this year a good one.

Eric and Justin were a great coaching duo all season. Crawford and Company Canada Inc, ADHS the Almonte branch of the Royal Canadian Legion and the Almonte Civitan Club were also key in supporting me this season. THANK YOU!

Here’s a few photos from the spring so far- Kieran has been out visiting, so he has been documenting the last week.

World Champs recap in numbers:

2011-03-11T07:45:00.000-08:00

2- number of team members who were crowned World Champions!
6- where Dasha and I finished in the team sprint
20,000- number of people camping in the bush on Saturday night before the 50km
120,000- number of people who came out to watch the 50km
1 million- number of people so spectated throughout the championships
4 million- population of Norway (that means about a quarter of Norway watched part of World Champs live)
15- my estimate of how many hats my teammates and I made this week- amount of yarn was our limiting factor.
10- rating out of 10 I would give the 2011 Oslo World Championships

We have now moved to Finland where we will race this weekend, so here are a few Finnish stats:

106- my score from bowling last night
93,94- Eric and Nish’s bowling scores
200-Lenny’s bowling score (his arms are so long he only has half as far to bowl)
0- number of tasty meals I’ve eaten since arriving in Finland

And here's a you-tube video you should watch if you haven't already seen it:
Alex & Devon's race- by George

A few notes on the Norwegian Culture

2011-03-01T11:52:00.001-08:00

First of all I always knew that Norway was a country full of pride and nordic super fans, but until World Championships started I don’t think I realized just how into skiing they are. With crowds between 50,000 and 70,000 race days have been nothing short of amazing.
So, yes they love skiing, but what else?
-They love waffles, and brown cheese.
-There are ski trails everywhere- probably partly due to how deeply rooted in nordic culture they are, but around the Oslo area alone there are over 2000km of ski trails.

It’s not uncommon to see sights like this in urban areas...

Or a dude like this getting on a city bus or train...

Or a dude like this plowing his driveway...

-They love wool sweaters- and really anything wool.

And climbing trees I guess...

-Bjorgen and Northug are essentially rock stars, appearing in news papers daily every month of the year, and in the gossip rags that you find at the grocery store checkout.
-A sweet Sunday outing includes packing a backpack full of beer, sausages, reindeer hides, Norwegian flags, and chocolate, strapping on the cross country skis and trudging many kilometers.

Notice the flatscreens, this is out in the bush-waaay out.

-They built a sweet ski jump.

Sweet ski jump floating on the top of the holmenkollen hill.

-They like art that airs on the erotic side of the spectrum.

They are into skiing-all in, and the atmosphere on race day is something that can’t be matched anywhere else in the world of nordic skiing.

Oh, and they have a bit of a rivalry with the swedes.

Sprint-relaying tomorrow!
Thanks for stopping by, and thanks to Dad for the photos :)

Oslo 2011

2011-02-26T12:46:00.000-08:00

The crowds are out, the tents are up, the fires are burning, and the Norwegian flags are flying high. Oslo 2011 is underway!

Stadium crowds on sprint day- this photo doesn’t even come close to showing just how many pumped Norwegians there were out to watch the races.

Yesterday was day one of the championships, with the sprint race kicking things off. I’ve been looking forward to this day for a while, after spending most of the season racing Nor-Ams in Canada I was excited to test my sprinting legs against the rest of the world. I ended up being on of the first starters of the day with bib 9, so it was a little suspenseful as I waited to see if I would remain in the top 30 as the big guns came across the line one by one.
We managed to qualify all three of the women in the top 30, Chandra 23, Me 24, and Dasha 27.
The heats were scrappy, it seemed like everyone was getting skis stepped on, or crashing, or stepping on others. Dasha came away with a top 20, while Chandra and I ended up 28, and 29th respectively.

In other news our new teammate Brooke and I have been crafting like crazy, and fashioned some pompoms for our training tuques!

Chandra and I modeling our new look- new sauce headwear, and little white pompoms with a tiny bit of sparkle!

The women’s pursuit went off today with Brooke as our lone Canadian skier, she was faced with the heaviest pea soup fog I have ever seen. Congratulations to Brooke for competing in her first world Championship race, it looked brutal out there as the ladies pushed the pace from the gun.

This is a photo taken looking at the big screen in the stadium, I wasn’t more than 50 metres away, it was part skiing part swimming out there today.

The boys are off tomorrow hopefully in the sun for their 30km pursuit, and then we are up again (all 4 ladies this time) in the 10km Classic on Monday.

Thanks for stopping by,
Hopefully more photos will be up soon, Brad is out on course snapping photos so quickly that it takes him a while to sift through them at the end of the day.
Stay tuned!

2011-01-20T12:49:00.000-08:00

I’ve been neglecting things on here, I guess I went into hibernation when the weather in Canmore dipped below -20. Yes, it’s been almost a month of frigid temps around here!
I had a great Christmas, a sweet visit from the fam, fun but chilly racing in Thunder Bay, watched my teammates kill it at the Tour, and now I’m back in Canmore doing some altitude training before departing to Oslo for World Championships.

Some sweet Christmas skiing... the best company I could ask for, Mallory, Joel, Dad, and (Kieran the photographer)

Some Christmas board gaming... Joel and I lost at cranium, pretty tough one to swallow for a (board) gamer like me.

Remote control helicopters seem to be the toy of choice for kids of all ages.

I won the last race in T-bay, and no I wasn’t the only one in the race, I was just the only one who didn’t have a flight to catch when I crossed the finish line.

If for some reason you haven't already watched Devon's sweet sprint at the tour you can check it out.

And also a big thanks to Fresh Air in Ottawa for cutting me a sweet deal on a new Suunto Heart Rate Monitor! Mine old one had pretty much disintegrated off my wrist.

Until next time, I’ll be out on these awesome trails, next stop Norway for World Champs!

Nor-Am Racing!

2010-12-22T17:35:00.000-08:00

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...

2010-12-09T20:58:00.000-08:00

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

First Races Done!

2010-12-06T14:50:00.000-08:00

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...

2010-11-15T11:21:00.000-08:00

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.

2010-11-04T08:43:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-10-21T12:29:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-10-07T10:13:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-09-21T11:10:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-09-18T07:58:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-08-30T15:44:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-08-13T14:27:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-08-08T12:59:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-26T11:27:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-18T11:09:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-06-23T17:04:00.000-07:00

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,

First one Down

2010-06-18T12:44:00.000-07:00

We survived our first Haig Camp of the season! We did lots of snowshoeing, rock-shoeing, and tree shoeing, as well as a bit of skiing.
Most of our time was spent on a more modern version of these:

The Haig has a new webcam which can be found here: http://www.winsportcanada.ca/images/haig.jpg

There is way more snow than we have ever seen up there, so we are heading to Jasper for our next 3 day stint, and then back to the glacier!

Going to the Glacier!

2010-06-13T07:30:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is the first day of our hardest training block of the year. In the next three weeks we will make four separate trips up to the glacier. This first one should be interesting, as there is still a lot of snow up high, I've never been in this early, but I've heard plenty of stories of the three hour run being more like a six hour post-hole. We will be equipped with snowshoes, but it is sure to be an adventure, especially since the weather forecast is calling for thunder storms.

The glacier is always a good place to do some solid training, although as I get older I do prefer the shorter visits to the week long stints up there. The massive sleepover, where we are all essentially in one room was more fun when I was seventeen.

As long as the helicopter can fly our gear in we will start our run in tomorrow morning, and I'll do my best to update every time we come down... however by the last time it might be hard for me to put together words that make any sense.

The Road Trip Home

2010-06-05T08:15:00.000-07:00

We left bend a few days ago en route back to Canmore, after about four hours of driving the truck we had rented got a flat tire, so somewhere in the middle of no where Washington we pulled over and the photo documentary began...

Middle of no where Washington...

The Boys putting their heads together...

Old tire off new one on.

Now we need a tire to take us back to Canmore. Les Schwab Perfect!

Our friendly mechanic named... wait for it... Butch!

Butch's favourite lunch spot

30 minutes and 14 dollars later Butch put our spare back and sent us on our way.

Milkshakes and Monsoons

2010-06-02T12:24:00.001-07:00

I realize that milkshakes have little or nothing to do with skiing, but I happen to love them, and I also happened to have a great milkshake experience last night.
First I will say that until yesterday my greatest milkshake experience was at the Deep River Dairy Bar. In my years traveling the Ontario Cup circuit with Nakkertok we would regularly stop between Ottawa and North Bay, Sudbury, Timmins, wherever in Northern Ontario we happened to be going. The chocolate peanut butter milkshake, extra thick with banana was my all time favourite milkshake. I haven't been to the Deep River in probably ten years, but I certainly remember it fondly. Then yesterday we went for an ice cream outing after dinner here in Bend and happened upon a great spot (it wasn't really chance, I did some serious research). Anyway it was a most delicious treat to have a chocolate peanut butter malt with banana, so good in fact that I thought about it for the first hour of my ski this morning in the pouring rain.
It was pouring rain when we arrived on the mountain today, after an hour of skiing I did a complete change of clothes, and rang about a cup of water out of my gloves. I called it quits after the second hour, but I'd say that I probably would not have had such a good ski if it weren't for that milkshake.

Bend!

2010-05-31T11:13:00.000-07:00

Training is going really well here in Bend. We are nearing the end of our camp, but things have gone really well. We have done intensity with the American team, skied lots, played soccer, rollerskied, and gone running at Smith Rocks. It has been a really refreshing way to start the year in a new place with lots of new trails to explore. I'm loving bend!

We went to a Band of Horses show last night, it was awesome!

Rest Day

2010-05-29T14:38:00.000-07:00

We have a rest day here in Bend!
When we left Canmore we realized that we had a lot too much gear in the back of the van. Big White, our trusty team steed was piled high with mountain bikes, fishing rods, climbing gear, hula hoops, skateboards and soccer balls amongst other things. Since this is after all a training camp we spend most days on our skis up at Mt Bachelor. Today is the day we get to use all of our other toys, so we are busily trying to pack as many fun activities into today as we can!
My hula hoop has been used frequently, and there's a possibility for some climbing and fishing later today!

Smith Rock is a pretty well known climbing spot not far from here.

This is actually a photo from Canmore, but it's pretty much what I do for a few minutes when the sun comes out around here.

First Ski of the Training season.

2010-05-24T20:56:00.001-07:00

After more than 13 hours in Big White we finally arrived in Bend last night, and were treated to some most incredible skiing this morning. As I was skiing around I couldn't help but notice the difference between the last time I skied (in Whitehorse at the National Championships) and how I felt today.

I needed some serious rest, but now I'm ready to get back at it. Today was just one of those great days on the trails.

New Blog!

2010-05-22T20:53:00.000-07:00

Yes, I have finally decided I should get my own chunk of the World Wide Web. I'm looking forward to being able to post something whenever I have the urge to.
I am off to Bend, Oregon tomorrow for our first camp of the season, I'll let you know what it's like!
A 12 hour drive is on deck for tomorrow,
Here we go!

2010-05-18T07:04:00.000-07:00