The First Few Weeks

Wow, talk about a big time life change. You don't realize how much food you eat until you're buying it yourself hahaha. These past few weeks have meant some big adjustments in my life, but now that I've been here for a while, I'm starting to calm down and get used to being on my own.

For anyone who doesn't already know, I was recently (May 1st) named to the Alberta World Cup Academy (AWCA) Ski Team for the 2009/2010 season, so I have moved out to Canmore AB and am now living in a 3 bedroom house with my friend/teammate Bob Thompson. Having been out here three weeks now, I have already done some of the best training of my life, both here in Canmore as well as on the Haig Glacier, and I have also found myself a job at one of the local gift shops.

So as I just hinted at, I just returned to Canmore from my first training camp with the team, which took place on the Haig Glacier. It's about a 1 hour drive from Canmore, followed by a 2-3 hour hike. With an elevation of around 2300m, the only means of accessing this beatiful piece of land is by hiking in like we did, or by helicopter. This was my first time ever being able to ski on snow in the middle of July, and what a treat that was. In the 6 days of skiing that I did, I did a total of 25 hours of training and skied about 150km. So it's safe to say I am now completely exhausted, but talk about an amazing experience.

A typical day up there started out around 7am with breakfast, then we would all hike up another 300m in altitude to the glacier where we would ski for the morning. Once we finished our ski, we would hike back down to the camp, eat lunch, and then relax for a few hours of the afternoon. This time would be spent either napping, lounging around, eating, and of course, playing/competing in the annual disc golf tournament that the team holds every year at this camp. Being the rookie that I am, I didn't go too far in the tournament, but it was very fun and got pretty intense watching some of the final games. Most days we did another small workout around 4pm, then we would eat dinner, followed by watching the Tour de France and going over the technique video that our coaches shot of us from our ski that morning.

Being my first time up on the glacier, I had an amazing time, not to mention one of the best weeks of training I have ever completed. Now, with my first AWCA training camp under my belt, I am looking forward to our next team camp taking place in Whistler from August 9th -19th. Between now and then however, I have lots of training and working to occupy my time.

That's all I really have to say at the moment, but if anyone is curious about anything else that's going on out here, feel free to contact me and ask.