Thanks for a Great Year!

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:

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

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

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!

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!

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.