Finding Fitness and Earning It

Now three weeks back in Thunder Bay and I’m starting to feel a bit more like a skier than just an exercise junkie. Over the summer I managed to amass some ridiculous amount of fitness, but my body was somehow left behind – I couldn’t find function for the fitness with ski-specific workouts. To remedy this,…

Starting slowly

Sometimes you have to start small. Sometimes you have to start slow. Nationals have started slowly for me. Or rather, I’ve been going slowly at the start of Nationals. In the 5km classic I finished in 16th place, 2 minutes off the pace. It was a tricky day for waxing, with the temperature rising well…

Team Sprint day

Yesterday, I did some short race prep-intensity to get ready for the start of Nationals. My first race will be a 5km classic on Sunday. The workout went well, I’m starting to feel more residual energy in my body, but am still far from feeling spritely. We’ll see how things pan out this week. I…

Thunder Bay to Seefeld -World Champs Part 1

The normality of the World Championship trip so far has been remarkable. Normal by comparison to other racing trips I’ve done in the past. The travel from Thunder Bay, through Toronto and Montreal to Munich went smoothly, as did the drive from Germany’s second largest airport to Seefeld, Austria. Less could be said with the…

Step by step, on to Worlds

    The tone was different at the Under23/Junior Trials at Lappe last weekend, compared to my previous experiences competing and spectating at the event. It may have just been my perception of it though. Arriving at Trials after a mostly downhill rollercoaster of racing at US Nationals the week prior, I felt pretty relaxed.…

Racing from Yellowstone to Canmore

With two weekends of racing under my belt, I’m already three months ahead of schedule from last year – where I didn’t really get racing until mid-February. Needless to say, this season has started off on a much better foot than last year (pardon the pun). My first weekend of competitions (Nov 27-28) were in West Yellowstone,…

Forêt Camp

Winter is fast approaching along with the start of the racing season. With less than three weeks until the first official races of the year the focus and specificity of training has been ramping up. I am now just on the tail end of a 10-day training camp at Forêt Montmorency where I’ve put in over…

Fast and Furious Fall Follow-Up

Fall is in the air. The mornings are cooler, the days growing shorter. The leaves rustle as they become crisp, changing colours. The air has a distinct smell to it; it smells like winter is coming. There isn’t much time left now before the ski season will be fully underway, and I don’t have much…

NDC Roster: Sadie, Sam, Scott

Congratulations on making it to the final instalment of the four part NDC Roster series. It’s been a bit of a haul for me, some of the profiles seemed a bit stale and weren’t quite as personable as last year… but overall I think I have accomplished my goal of introducing the team and providing…