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!