travels: April 2013

Monday 8 April 2013

Celebrity Status

Red River Nordic coach Megan Carter on Global TV, repping the sport.

Tuesday 2 April 2013

After much packing the evening before, most of the team elected to join Corey in his dream of downhill skiing in Whistler. Corey, Sean, Ben, and Anna rented equipment, Lisle had her own downhill stuff, and Levi rented a snow board. All were at the lift ticket booth when it opened at 8 AM! Megan sent up a few prayers that all would return with limbs intact . . .and 3 ½ hours later all did return with big smiles on their faces and more then slightly stiff and tired bodies. But as Elora and Lisle like to remind us all, “YOLO”.

Lisle was long gone by this point, leaving us behind to suit up.

hey Ben, how'd you get your head stuck in a bowling ball?

a boarder in our midst

those are some dorky looking helmets. (don't worry, I had one too.)

Downhill highlights, as I understand, were the amazing views from the top of the mountains, the “peak to peak” gondala, and oh yeah, the skiing and boarding too. All but Sean had some downhill experience previously. Sean says it took a bit of time to get used to and then it was pretty darn fun. Sean was apparently highly entertaining for Corey as he headed for what he thought was a small bump, which turned out to be NOT a small bump . .taking some major air and landing in NOT a terribly recommended way. Good thing I was not there watching . . .

fun with chairlifts

gorgeous.

"ok, hips forward, weight on balls of my feet...wait, what do you mean I'm doing it wrong?"

I think he's laughing at me...

seriously dorky looking helmets.

the peak to peak gondola

did I mention it was gorgeous? cause it's gorgeous

panorama from the top of Whistler mountain

Elora and Alex visited shops in Whistler, went for coffee and had a relaxing morning. Maya elected to re-join her parents as she was still short on energy. That left me, managing to valiantly RESIST the team pressure to join in the downhill ~~insanity~~ adventures. So I headed off on my own and did a zipline tour which was totally AWESOME!!!!!!!! Yes, it was great and wonderful and thrilling and I even have the video to prove it (in case there are any doubters).

that's...a reasonably long way down

she's smiling now...

exhilaration? sure, we'll go with that.

The drive back to Vancouver once again featured stunning scenery, which was every bit as good as it was on that first day. And so our wonderful 10 day 2013 Whistler Nationals adventure came to a close.

do I really need to say it?

note: large amounts of pictures were shamefully stolen from the facebook albums of Ben and Elora.

Nationals - Day 9

Saturday March 30, 2013

WOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think this, or something very similar was heard coming from the mouths of Corey and me as we celebrated the fact that today’s race was a skate race. Yes, a skate race. No grip testing. No sticking to the wax tubes. No klister. No crazy combos. No stress. (Do I sound happy? I am quite forgetting myself as I still claim to prefer classic skiing!)

Alex, on the other hand, was NOT heard to voice similar sentiments , as he had the 30 km skate race to contend with. This consisted of 4 laps of a very tough 7.5 km course, that took in every climb possible. I once again remind you that this was the Olympic course. All open men and women raced in the morning before the course turned to mush. Alex did a great job of completing his second ever 30 km race. The jump he has made from junior boys to men this season is so very steep . . .the saying I put on the wall for Alex leading up to this day was: “strength doesn’t come from what you CAN do . .it comes from OVERCOMING the things you once thought you couldn’t.” So to summarize Alex’s race, two words, said in a Russian accent “strong boy”.

The remainder of the team enjoyed another relaxing morning of sleeping in, stretching, eating and otherwise prepping for the afternoon races. One of the main pre-race decisions of the day was how little could be worn and still called decent. This especially applied to the girls, who did not race until nearly 3:00 in the afternoon in the hot sun. One of my pre-race jobs with the girls (after serving as minimalist fashion consultant) was to call out at regular intervals “get into the shade” and “are you drinking water?"

all set for a day at the beach

All Manitoba skiers raced well, with grit and determination in the slushy and slow conditions. All races were mass start. Lisle fared the worst in the pack skiing, being taken down by an elbow to the gut and having the wind knocked out of her. She completed the race regardless. Go Lisle. Elora put on a very impressive display of guts on a few climbs especially on her first lap. She finished 39^th of 72 which was very close to top ½ of the pack. Elora is a gem! Levi had a strong ski and finished 36^th of 73 which was also essentially the top ½ of the pack. Anna looked strong and held her technique together well. Ben was decently pleased with his race. Sean says his race was a “sufferfest”, but he was pleased that he was able to focus on technique despite lacking much energy. Maya finished the race which was extremely gutsy given the 4 days she had just spent sick. Wow, it is hard to train all year and end up sick at the most important event of the season. Maya is a hero to me.

Lisle and Elora, looking fierce

The day ended with packing up the wax trailer and all gear as quickly as possible, in order to get cleaned up for the evening banquet event in Whistler. And WOW did we get cleaned up! Everyone cut rather a fine figure in our “black and white” themed clothing – check out the updated photo of us on the Olympic rings! We definitely caused a bit of a stir as we had to walk through the town from our accommodation to the conference center. “How was the wedding?” rang out more than once. Sheesh. You would think those snowboarders in their dreadlocks have never seen anyone dressed up before! Lisle and Elora were the life of the evening, staying later than the rest of the team to visit the free photo booth at least 17 times, and trying to catch glimpses of National Team skiers.

I guess we look okay. Ya know, in a blisteringly sexy kind of way.

(captions by Sean, in case you were wondering)

Nationals - Day 8

Blog for Friday March 29, 2013

Today was a day off racing but it was quite a busy day none-the-less. All 4 girls headed to “Fast and Female” from 10:30-1:00. We were very happy that Maya finally joined the group back on skis, after having a nasty chest cold for most of the week. Lisle was a bit disgruntled as she somehow ended up in a group that did not match her ability (they were rather slow ) but the rest of the girls had various national team and developmental team athletes as their “ambassadors” for a ski. There was a short presentation afterwards that I snuck into, and I was happy to connect with Leah Kirchmann – our own former Winnipegger and former Red River Nordic member! Leah is now a pro cyclist and member of the National cycling team, and she has become involved in “Fast and Female” events for cycling. On this day, however, she was there as one of the ski ambassadors. One of the big messages from most of the high level skiers who spoke, was that team-mates are important and that it is very important to enjoy what you are doing. This helps for the tough training days and those days when racing is not going as you hoped.

Lisle on the right, doing some stretches. (both pictures from Fast and Female facebook page)

it's either rapt attention or boredom. hopefully the former.

Meanwhile the guys all went out for a pre-ski, and then glided over to the nearby ski jumps where the Nationals were under way in that sport as well. Sean comments that “it was definitely cool but none of us would have wanted to do it”.

the possibility of hill sprints up this thing was briefly discussed and then rejected

see the little dot? that's a skier. crazy.

In the afternoon Corey and I headed over to hear some coaching presentations. We caught the tail end of a presentation by Olympic rower Marnie McBean. If you ever get the chance, go and hear this woman speak as she is dynamic, funny, and has lots of great wisdom to share about training, racing, stress, and facing your fears. In our evening team meeting we shared with everyone some of the things Marnie spoke about. Some of these things were especially relevant as we knew the next day’s racing for all but Alex would be a hot slushy slog in the late afternoon sunshine. Something that stuck was “Remember all your competitors are feeling the same things, the same fear and pain. Just think about outlasting your competitors."

Nationals - Day 7

Blog for Thursday March 28, 2013

Well it seems the blogging job has fallen into my corner, after the team has done such a fine job for the past week. I am writing this now from home without the advantage of being able to consult with everyone for their opinions so I hope this will represent well enough . . .

Thursday was a race day for Alex (junior men/senior men sprint) and a rest day for the remainder of the team. Corey, Megan and Alex headed out to Whistler Olympic Park bright and early. As usual, the snow was pretty icy first thing. Corey and I had been optimistic that we would not have to do as much klister testing this day, and be able to rely upon some of the combinations that worked on other days. This was not entirely the case, and we set about klistering once again, looking for the elusive magic combo.

the joys of klister

hermit's hideaway

one of the hermits

fantastic job done by these two.

A note here on grip testing the past few days: there were many challenges as the other posts have indicated. The course usually offered a combination of areas in sun and shade, some icy track and some more loosely packed. That would mean that a number of klisters were needed at any one time of day. The other challenge was trying to anticipate how quickly the snow would soften as the sun climbed over the mountains. The previous sprint day we had been the most successful nailing Levi’s wax at the time of day that he raced – this was the “Corey Mulitgrade” special consisting of a combination of 5 klisters. Levi had the best wax of the week for his race, giving the wax techs a 5/5. Corey and I were happy that nobody had worse than a 3.5/5 which given the difficulty of the waxing we had to be satisfied with.

Alex’s sprint course was a difficult 1.6 km with a couple of significant climbs. Remember, this was the Vancouver Olympic course. Alex gave all he could but was not able to crack the top 30 to advance to the heats.

Alex before his sprint

Meanwhile, the rest of the team had a relaxing morning of extra sleep, breakfast, stretching, and generally hanging out. Most of the team elected to join me in the afternoon to watch the open men’s semi-final and finals which was pretty awesome racing. We kept the spectating short, though, to ensure the day was mostly rest and recovery. The evening was nice down time as we did not have a coaches’ meeting to attend.