Convergence Trip

My life has gotten a lot more exciting in the last couple weeks - I have been selected to be on the CCC Convergence Group for some FIS Scandinavian Cups and World Cups! This is a program where additional athletes are added on to World Cup trips to provide more international experience. Kevin Sandau, Drew Goldsack and I are the 3 convergence trip athletes and Graham Nishikawa is also going as the NorAm leader from last year. CCC officially announced it a few days ago here. 

I am flying to Ostersund, Sweden on Nov.6. It looks like we will do some FIS races in Bruksvallarna, Sweden and Rovaniemi, Finland the first 2 weekends. Then I will hopefully get to race a 3-day mini-tour World Cup in Kuusamo, Finland. The final weekend will be World Cups in Dusseldorf, Germany before flying back to Canada on Dec.5. I am incredibly excited for this opportunity to race in Europe get some more World Cup starts! I will get back to Canada just in time for the start of the Canadian racing circuit with NorAms in Vernon, BC. 

Last Thursday most of the Canmore skiers did a classic sprint race on Frozen Thunder. It was a fun way to get back into race mode. I qualified in 5th place and finished the day in 3rd. Results are here. This is Andrea and I skiing together in the quarter-final. 

Photo: Dan Roycroft

I am going to put in one more week of good training then I'm off to Sweden! 

Fall

I'll start this post where I left my last one... moving into the Whistler Four Seasons for the National Team intensity camp. We did 4 intensity sessions in 6 days and the highlight was a time trial partway through the week. Chandra, Perianne, Emily and I did a sprint simulation and the guys did a 15km time trial. The roller ski loop is pretty narrow so we ended up doing four individual start sprints on the 3min course. I took the first 2, Chandra took the 3rd round and Peri won the final round. In the men's TT Graham Nishikawa was first, Devon 2nd and Kevin was 3rd. The results are at www.webscorer.com. This was taken at the top of the climb in the first sprint qualifier

Photo: Mike Cavaliere

We had fun hanging out in Whistler and enjoyed being pampered at the Four Seasons. The complementary boot drying service was well-used since it rained during most of the roller ski workouts. I took advantage of some of the National Team perks including physio and massage to keep my body running smoothly over the week.

The Callaghan Team joined in on some workouts so there was a huge pack of boys.

My original plan was to come right back to Canmore after the camp but I decided at the last minute to fit in a visit home. My brother met me in Vancouver and he gave me a ride back to Salmon Arm. It was my first Thanksgiving at home since I moved to Canmore and it was a great weekend. I was also able to jump in on a training session with my home club. It was exciting to see so many new faces on the racing team!

I caught a ride back to Canmore last Wednesday. I've been fighting off a cold so I have been laying low trying to recover. I been feeling better the last couple days and able to take advantage of the ski track at the Nordic Centre! Frozen Thunder was rolled out on Saturday so we have a couple kilometres of snow to ski on. It is great to get my ski legs back. CTV did a video and article about the Frozen Thunder launch, watch the video here.

The new CCC Buffs arrived the other day and Janelle Greer and I did some promo photos with Peter Collins. This one is my favorite!

Peter also roped me into doing some photos at work one day for a new Buff product - the Infinity Buff! http://www.cuetophoto.com/blog/?p=350 It's my new favorite accessory and it's coming to a store near you in February ;)

On another Buff note, Academy Buffs are now on sale with all proceeds going to the Academy. You can purchase them here.

I'll finish this off with a great video that's been floating around the ski world the last few days:

Girl Power

The last couple weeks I have had a few "girl power" events and it's time to get some pictures up here!

On Sept. 17 there was a Fast and Female event in Canmore for Sports Day in Canada. Annika Hicks and I volunteered to take the 9-14 year-olds for the morning and whitewater kayaker Jessica Groeneveld arrived to help us out with our group of almost 40 girls. 

There were lots of different stations for the women to choose from. Here are all the station leaders.

We managed to herd everyone together for a group shot.

The morning started with a Zumba dance warmup. It was a great way to get everyone energized for the day.

After Zumba everyone dispersed to their stations. Our girls played mingle, the animal game and capture the flag outside. Then we regrouped for a chill yoga session with Kristen Stuart, ending with the usual savasana posture. 

Thanks to Peter Collins of cuetophoto.com for all the great Fast and Female photos!

Part 2 of girl power took place yesterday and today in Whistler. We have a National Team camp that started this afternoon but the 4 girls flew a day earlier for some women-only bonding. We were joined by the 4 Callaghan Valley Training Centre girls and the National Team sport psych, Sharleen Hoar. We spent the night at Sharleen's lovely family cabin. We had a couple good sessions talking about women's issues in skiing, ate delicious food and of course had fun!

After training this morning we headed to Nita Lake Lodge. We felt like royalty as they fed us an incredible 3 course lunch with the chef describing each course as it was served. I can't remember all the details but I'll do my best.... the first course was a salad, partially picked from the rooftop garden, with a clarified gazpacho shooter and goat's cheese.

The main was steelhead salmon cooked really slowly in fennel pollen and turkish olive oil on veges cooked in broth. I didn't take a picture of it because I was too excited to eat it but luckily Chandra got a pic of the salmon and the chef describing it. 

Dessert was fruit salad with pineapple sage (the little leaf in the picture-it actually tasted like a mix of pineapple and sage!) with sorbet and some sort of whipped peach deliciousness. The fruit had been soaked in different things to make it especially yummy.

Then as a surprise touch they brought out some little sweets to end the meal.

As you can probably tell it was the best meal I've eaten in a long time! After getting a bit of time to digest we did some yoga and meditation then wrapped up the weekend.

The boys arrived this afternoon and we joined them and the coaches at the hotel, which happens to be the Four Seasons! Apparently we got a wicked deal since it's the off season so we are getting pampered once again and have a sweet setup. We have a week of hard intensity planned then we fly back to Canmore next Saturday.