With the excitement of the Canmore world cup finally coming to an end I thought it would be a great time to share my experience from the past weekend. With the world coming for the final world cup stop prior to the Olympics, there was great excitement surrounding the event. The weekend consisted of a 10/15 km skate race on Friday and a classic sprint on Saturday. I was excited to have the opportunity to race on the very familiar trails of the Canmore Nordic center. My main focus was the classic sprint (prep for the Olympics) but I choose to race both days, seeing as I feel I race well after...

First off all I want to thank all of my sponsors and supporters for helping me along the way to the Olympics in Vancouver. I was officially named to the Olympic team today and I am very excited to do Canada proud. The last two months have been pretty crazy for me. The biggest goal of my season and of my ski career up until now was to qualify for the Olympics at the trials at the start of December. The criteria weren't super clear but I knew that a win at the Trials would very likely qualify. After a horrible race in the first of four qualifying races I regrouped and raced very well in the remaining...

Last week, the Alberta World Cup Academy completed the second and final week of testing for the year. The idea was that we would complete the same tests that we had in mid-June and hope to see improvements in all our results after all the hard work we put in during the summer. Unfortunately (or rather fortunately) Christmas came early! We got snow! On October 8th, Canmore received a fairly decent sprinkle of snow, followed by a week or so of cold weather with daily highs below zero. This allowed for the Canmore Nordic Centre to open a 400m loop on October the 13th. Sweet! But because of the...

As I sit here writing this I am 8 hours into a flight to Chicago and then on to Quebec, on my way “home” from a training camp in Ramsau Austria. I write home like this because in my life it has a pretty loose meaning. Something more like a bed I am going to sleep in for a couple weeks, than the traditional meaning. I have become accustomed to this and this summer has been no different. Since the start of June the longest I have been in any one “home” is four weeks, with me spending my time in Quebec, Canmore, New Zealand, back to Canmore, back to Quebec, and Finally and most recently in Ramsau....

A week ago in the middle of an easier week I decided it would be a great time to head into Calgary and reconnect with the athletes from my home club, Foothills Nordic. I called up Chris Jeffries, my friend and head coach of the club, to find out what the schedule for training was. I was excited to hear that the team's strength workout was when I was free in Calgary. I arrived to the gym at Canada Olympic Park to see a bunch of new faces and a few people I knew from before. I think there were around ten athletes and Chris. After Chris and his team walked me through their warm up routine in...

With it being that time of the year the last two weeks have been filed with lots of training. After a couple easier weeks following my Haig camp it was time to ramp it up a bit. The training dynamic was a little bit different than usual, Louis had gone home, as well as all the guys from the CNEPH ,and the National teamers based out of Canmore were all on recovery weeks. So this meant lots of time spent with Nish, Phil, and Dave which was great. We met at least once a day and often twice to push each other and have some company for all of the hard work. Below is a quick recap of the work that...

Lifelong Foothills member and AWCA Team Athlete Shayla Swanson provides an update from Liberec, CZ, where she is competing for Team Canada in the 2009 FIS World Championships.

Hello!! Like many other European cities Liberec, Czech Republic used to get snow in the winter. However, in the past 5 years it has been a rare occurrence. The organizing committee for the World Championships was prepared for a snow-less winter, with a thick layer of man-made snow on the ski trails, and a reserve that was available in case of an extreme meltdown. A few days before we arrived it started snowing, and...

Hello!!
Like many other European cities Liberec, Czech Republic used to get snow in the winter. However, in the past 5 years it has been a rare occurrence. The organizing committee for the World Championships was prepared for a snow-less winter, with a thick layer of man-made snow on the ski trails, and a reserve that was available in case of an extreme meltdown. A few days before we arrived it started snowing, and the precipitation didn¹t stop the entire time we were in town. You might think, "oh, you guys are skiers. You like snow." Most of the time this statement would be correct, but this...

I first met Sara four years ago at a foothills camp in Kananaskis country. We ended up running together for most of the second half of my first "hiking in the Mountains" experience (she probably doesn't remember) and I remember trying my hardest to drop her, but I couldn't. My first impression was "this is one tough cookie". Nothing much has changed from four years ago: she is still a tough cookie and most certainly a threat on the ski trails.
Sara is the true meaning of Canadian Athlete Development. She started skiing at age 3, and by 6 her parents had enrolled her in the Jackrabbit program...

Let's face it, skiing is an individual sport. But is it always? By my calculations, 6.8 hours out of my training year are spent racing. So then what about the rest of the time? I train with my team, call it 550 hours. I travel with my team, about 95 days, 2280 hours. That's 6.8 to 2830. For every minute I'm on the race course I've spent almost 7 hours with my team. I'm a big believer in team mentality. There's the obvious benefit of always having someone to push you. More often that not I find that my toughest competition (and biggest rivalries) are within my own team. As much as I want to come...