Canmore the rest of the story

Wednesday and Thursday the team skied twice each day.  On Wednesday morning Levi N and Conor joined in with the Winsport group for some intervals under the watchful eye of Eric de Nys.   Eric is a  former National Team coach and he is leading the newly formed Winsport junior cross country ski team.  The intent is to bridge the gap between High School and National Team Development Centers. The remainder of the Manitoba looked great in their interval sets.  Wednesday afternoon was a downhill technique session with Rich Pettit.  We should have had a before and after video (3 of 7 skiers missed the first corner of the session and luckily no one plunged over the edge . . .it was a bit dodgy though).  The skill on downhills improved significantly, with a focus on "control the hill, don't let the hill control you".

Thursday saw some speed work on skate skis, with the group showing some great snap!  By late Thursday afternoon we had news that the planned weekend Alberta Cup races were cancelled due to extreme cold temperatures predicted, and lots of new snow on the way which promised to make driving treacherous.  And the snow fell.  And fell.  Strangely the snow machines continued to pump out new snow all the while.

Friday was to have been a more restful day in preparation for races.  The weather was extremely hostile, with lots of snow falling and howling winds.  We had planned to join the Newfoundland team and do a session with Lisa Patterson.  Some of the team were fixin to mutiny, but Lisa sent a message "suck it up" so out went the team.  Levi's description is that it felt like skiing in the Arctic on the frozen tundra.  Elora had a nice random skier give her a hot paw for her frozen hands.  Word was that you could ski zone 3 on the downhills.  We did a drill with Lisa and finished off with some sprints, working on shooting the foot at the finish.  We were just a bit happy to get inside and warm up. Conor had painfully cold feet and some unorthodox methods were tried in order to help him warm up. There may have been a reference to child bearing.

Canmore Howling

All afternoon the weather got worse and the roads were pretty bad.  We moved to new accommodations as the Alpine hostel had still not got their water sorted out.  Banff Boundary Lodge gave us quite a bit more space and especially a bigger kitchen area.  One of the rooms accommodated floor space for a much needed yoga session in the evening.

Highlight of the day on Friday was the arrival of Steve Scoles, who had endured a scary slow drive in from Calgary to join us.  Steve continued to be the highlight of Saturday as his arrival heralded the "Downtown Nordic World Cup Season Opener"  time trial.  Joined by the hardy Newfoundland team, Manitobans did a fun 4 km time trial, handicap start.  A Newfoundland girl won the coveted Downtown Nordic buff and awards took place in the Canmore club house  (unsuspecting locals joined in the applause).  Steve was thankful that Team Newfoundland came all the way for this season opener,

 The team spent Saturday afternoon at Canmore's indoor climbing (bouldering) and the guys (Steve leading the way) hit the pool afterwards.  Steve screamed louder than anyone on the water slide and coach Alan had to drag him away from the slide to go home.  Evening entertainment consisted of sherades as organized by Steve.  Team Ratchets took on Team Tool Belts.  Sam proved his acting abilities with "Dora the Explorer" and Levi somehow acted out LF4 (wax).  A good time was had by all.

Today (Sunday) is gloriously clear but still very cold.  The team are maxing out their km's and skiing twice on all the freshly groomed trails.  Highlight so far was helping to push a van on the road near the Nordic Center, 99%  sure they got help from Becki Scott.  Ahh.  Only in Canmore.

Photos to come once Elora gets going.  The season is under way!! Looking forward to a good one!!

What is a good ski unless you can share it with a good friend!

Canmore Early Snow Camp November 2014

Hello from cold and snowy Canmore!

Happy to be in Canmore!

The scenery was o.k

 

We have 7 members of Manitoba's High Performance ski community here for some early snow training.  We loaded up 2 vans and made the long drive out with Alan, Megan and Pauline sharing the driving duties.  Our 5:00 AM departure time was a rude but a necessary evil considering the distance. I am happy to say the drive was uneventful and the roads largely bare.  We wondered where all the snow was.  We hit Costco in Medicine Hat to get our large stock of essentials like kale and quinoa (you are not surprised, if you know Pauline).  Alan was heard to say "are we in Calgary?" at this point, and we re-oriented him. We made a team purchase of a cheap blender for breakfast smoothies which proved to be a hugely successful investment of $30.

We had planned to stay in the Alpine hostel but got word 2 days before that they had water supply issues, so Pauline worked her magic to find us accommodation at the Rocky Mountain Ski Lodge.  We had 2 units which were nice but severely cramped for kitchen space (especially lacking in counter space) so that was a bit challenging.

O.k., the reason we came out:  the skiing!  The biathlon trail area had been open for a little while starting with Frozen Thunder, and the snow making equipment was constantly pumping out new snow.  There was skiing concentrated in around the main stadium, biathlon stadium and areas nearby.  The snow quality was very good, right from the first day.

We were looking for lots of zone 1 skiing with a technique focus to make the transition from roller skis.  Technique was awkward initially but came back nicely.  The first day we did 2 hours skate ski, with a short break in between.  In addition to getting on snow, and the great scenery, a highlight of the day  was the evening information session "Deep Thoughts with Coach Alan"  on the topic of the effects of training at altitude.  The team was most interested in the researched scenarios, especially "live high train high" and to great amusement this was the first post on the newly created team Twitter Account.  A clarification was added to point out that this was, in fact, in relation to altitude and not other possible scenarios.

Day 2 saw the team classic skiing in the morning, and in the afternoon we got in a strength training session at the Bill Warren Training Center.  We almost had the place to ourselves.  A Cross Country Canada employee remarked that he was impressed we were going in for a strength session, as not many young teams do so when they are in Canmore.  The evening of day 2 we had guest speaker Rich Pettit visit our wax room for a discussion on ski characteristics, bases, stone grinding and waxing.  Rich is a former Manitoba Provincial coach.  He has been in Canmore 8 years and now works primarily as wax tech for Canadian biathlon teams.  He has been to 5 Olympic Games.  He shared some most interesting information about the fact that biathlon focuses primarily on high fluoros to speed up bases, with quite a small focus on base glide wax.  Some team members were heard to say we should sell most of our wax supplies but I don't think we are quite there yet!

 

The team's technique is really starting to come together.

New video of Manitoba Team Canmore trip 2014

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_V4L1adXAQ0