Whistler Camp

After a busy and tough Whistler camp I am back in Canmore, happily sleeping in my own bed. It was a packed camp with volume and intensity and lots of high quality workouts. The first memorable workout was a mock-sprint race on the paved trails at Callaghan, joined by the biathlon training centre. It was fun to fight it out in the heats and I managed to come out with the win. Here is a video of the women's final - me, Heidi, Brittany and Marlis.

I brought my mountain bike to Whistler and had three great rides during the camp. I am just getting into mountain biking so I had to walk some sections of trail and took a few falls but I had a lot of fun and it provided a much-needed break from roller skiing and running. My last ride was Saturday afternoon with Pate and Brittany. We rode up to a great viewpoint and had to take some photos.

On one of our afternoons off we went to Logger's Lake, enticed by tales of amazing rope swings. The lake did not disappoint and we had three different rope swings to choose from around the lake. I went off the smallest one and the biggest one (though not from the highest possible launch spot). It was a really fun afternoon. I tried to take some action pictures but this was the best I could do.

My friend Sabrina came up from Vancouver one day and we had a great afternoon catching up and shopping followed by an incredible dinner at Elements, a little Tapas restaurant. This is a picture of our desserts - we had apple cobbler and a dense chocolate cake with caramel sauce with goat cheese on the side.... yummy!

 Our last night in Whistler also happened to be the grand opening of the Whistler Olympic Plaza and it was celebrated with a free Sam Roberts concert and fireworks. It was a great way to finish off the camp and we had a lot of fun. We were really close the front and Janelle almost caught a drumstick thrown into the crowd.

Annika did a great job updating her blog almost every day of the camp so check it out for more stories and pictures: annikahicks.tumblr.com.

This week is a rest week and I am taking it easy to let myself recover from the tough training block. 

Summer musings

Way too much has happened in the last month to write it all down but here is a brief summary of what I have been doing since my last update:

After the National Team camps in June and early July I took advantage of my rest week and went to Salmon Arm to visit my family. The weather wasn't as good as I had hoped but I did get a couple sunny days at the family cabin on Shuswap Lake.

Summer eventually arrived in Canmore and I have been taking advantage of the sunny days and have been playing outside as much as possible. I went outdoor climbing twice, scrambled up a couple mountains, laid in the sun by the quarry and have been fitting in as many mountain bike rides as I can into my training schedule.

I hiked up Cascade Mountain with two friends as my first real hike/scramble of the year. The view from the top was incredible! You can see Lake Minnewanka in the background. 

I also did a solo run around the Heart Mountain Circuit last weekend. It was a great run with a steep hike up the mountain, a rolling ridge, then a leg burning descent. My quads are still sore 2 days later...

On Sunday I helped at another Icebreaker event, this time at the Xterra offroad triathlon in Canmore. The Ramotaur head was shipped from Vancouver for the event and Joey Burton did a great job as the official Icebreaker mascot.

Also, I have recently received two grants that will help fund my skiing this year. 

I received a Petro-Canada FACE program grant in the winter but it was officially announced a few weeks ago here. This is a great program that supports athletes and coaches and it will really help me out! 

I was also recently awarded the Supporting the Dream Legacy Fund. It was started by freestyle skier Kristi Richards and supports Okanagan athletes. You can read the press release here.

A big thank you to both grants!

I head to Whistler tomorrow for a 10-day training camp. I decided to fly this year instead of doing the 10 hour drive which my legs will appreciate. I am bringing my mountain bike with me and I'm excited to do some rides.

Alysson