Andrea Dupont

Christmas morning I skied to one of my favorite spots at the nordic centre and took the time to take this panorama.

I hope everyone one enjoyed some good food, good times(with friends and family) and good skiing.

Winter arrived in Canmore Monday night. Usually Canmore has a couple of miserable mid-season weeks where roller skiing becomes treacherous, due to ice, sanded roads or the occasional flirt of snow, and where skiable snow is still weeks away. This year it is as if there is a switch for winter and that someone just decided to turn winter on.

Monday most skiers were wondering if the snow would ever arrive in Canmore. Tuesday morning we all woke up to a winter wonderland. And the rest of the week has been lows in the minus 20’s and highs in the minus teens. The nordic centre has been furiously making snow and the available skiing has grown daily. After skiing on the hamster’esque loop for a couple of weeks the new trails are refreshing.

The delay in the arrival of snow to Canmore has made the race season feel far away, but we are now exactly 2 weeks away from the first races of the season. I am just finishing my last week of volume, which means all the hard work is almost over. And the fun part of skiing fast on race trails is almost here!

Here’s a shot of where the remains of Frozen thunder were just a week ago!

 For those of you wondering how frozen thunder is fairing with these warm temperatures I thought I would post a pic of the the snow patch as of this morning Nov 2nd. My last ski was Oct 31st. Hopefully there will be enough sawdust insulated ice once the temperatures drop enough to make snow again. Until then back to roller skiing.

This year I’ve been able to skiing for at least a week of every month since May. In May we skied in Silver Star, in June we had some fabulous skiing at Sunshine meadow just West of Banff, and July and August our team spent some time on the Haig Glacier in Kananaskis just a short drive from Canmore. The plan was to return to the Haig for a short camp at the end of this September to complete my year of skiing every month of the year. However groomer problems pushed back the camps until I was out of province:( So I guess I will have to wait for another season to attempt to ski every month of the year.

For the month of October the nordic centre has rolled out the store of snow from last season and nicknamed the small loop “Frozen Thunder”. I skied on Frozen Thunder this morning and was pleasantly surprised. The loop has been in place for over a week now and the conditions are still amazing. Some sawdust has come to the surface in some areas however the snow base is still a good foot deep. The loop is a little less than a kilometer but includes a decent hill, worthy of offset and some rolling terrain. It will definitely feed my snow fix until there is real snow to be found.

The weather is looking promising for skiing in early November at Sunshine or in Lake Louise.

Until then, great job Canmore Nordic Centre!

This is a motto I endlessly apply to training as I continually tweek my goals to improve on my weaknesses. This year required a huge focus on skate technique, for me. I will be the first to admit that my skate technique is atrocious, relying mostly on my strong arms

So this training season has involved a ridiculous amount of legs only and more recently, at our fall training camp, a lot of one-skating up mountain passes. The later was initially painful but somehow became easier as the long distance days on continuous climbs forced some technique changes to kick-in. Gotta love those moments when things ‘click’ and suddenly skiing feels almost effortless!

Here is a photo from my last long day of climbing up Highwood pass.

As usual it has taken me way to long to sit down and write this first post of the training year.

Summer training has been going  super well and I am proud to report that I am injury free! Which means I have been able to train doing exactly what I love, running, climbing mountains, strength training, plyos, SSS, roller skiing, Sunshine skiing, glacier skiing and my new f  ound love bouldering.

It is crazy how quickly time flies and how easily training hours can be logged when you don’t have injury limitations. I have not really upped my training hours from last year, only increased the quality replacing biking hours with run/hike hours or arms only hours with full body roller skiing.

Here are some pictures from some hikes in my backyard. For me, this is what makes training in the mountains so fun!

Overlooking Cascade Mountain, one of my favorite scrambles in the valley.

My favorite view of Lake Louise on the way to the plain of 6 glaciers.

A view of the Canmore valley on the way up the East side of Rundle Ridge.

It has taken me far to long to sit down and write this post. I was partly waiting to get my hands on this video and partly waiting to figure out what I was going to say. I was pretty sick going into nationals. I was recovering from a chest cold and decided not to race until I felt 100%, which translated into me not racing until the sprint. So you can imagine how eager I was to race on Sprint day after watching 3 races go by without starting any of them. I qualified not too bad in 7th position. And then I was skiing strong in my heat, perfectly positioned to advance and somehow through some minor contact on the corner my binding popped open and ker-splat. I landed on my face.  I got up a little dazed trying to figure out what exactly happened and where my other ski was. If it weren’t for a coach taping the race I might still be wondering. It is hard to tell, but in slow motion you can almost see exactly when the binding gets opened.

Here it is for your viewing pleasure:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5Wube-xuUA

Not the nicest or easiest way to end the season. But if anything it left me hungry for another sprint race. So maybe it is was the best way to finish the season.

Training for next season starts May 1st.

See you then.

I was one of those fortunate people that my job required me to attend part of the Olympic winter games. I have been running a nation-wide club cross country ski program in which some of the participants were given a chance to experience the first 5 cross country events.

It was amazing to experience first hand the excitement and energy of the games; so much fun to cheer on the Canadian girls I train with and so many inspiring performances.

 Although I did not get to witness all of these events first hand, these are my inspirational pick’s from the games.

Inspiration #1 – Charlotte Kalla – skate & relay

Ever since her ‘Tour de Ski’ victory Charlotte Kalla has been one of my favourite skiers. At the Tour de Ski she showed everyone that she was one of the best climbers on the world cup circuit when she made up more than 30 seconds to pass the leader in the final ‘hill climb stage’ where the race starts at the base of a downhill resort and finishes at the top. Kalla surprised everyone at the Olympics by winner this first skate race since this course is not a climber’s course at all. I will try and attach a link to this most inspiring video of her ‘Tour de ski’ victory.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvQv_y6-kKw

Inspiration #2 – Petra Majdic – sprint

Petra Majdic fell in the warm up for the women’s cross country sprint race. She fell off the trail into a tree hole, breaking 1 ski, 2 poles, 5 ribs and puncturing a lung. If you have not seen footage of this you should youtube it, because it is crazy. Later that day she raced to a bronze medal finish. Cross country sprint racing requires you to race 4 times in the same day to make it to a medal spot. You could see the grimace of pain on her face with each heat and she literally collapsed in pain after each race. It is unbelievable what one can block out when you are so focused on a goal. This is the race she had trained for her entire career and although she did not earn gold she really gave it her all.

In response to having missed her chance at a gold medal she stated, “In a way that no gold medal would inspire so many people, I realize this inspires now… It was really worth it to show the people of the world never give up on your dreams and at least try to make your best. It is enough. You will be rewarded personally. Just follow your dreams, just follow them.”

Inspiration #3 – Canadian Men’s in the Pursuit

Historically Canada does not have a record of strong results in Cross country skiing. We’ve had our break through performances of Pierre Harvey, Becky Scott, Sarah Renner and Chandra Crawford, but often our cross country skiers struggle to be consistently in the top 30 let alone be on the podium. In fact, the best any Canadian male had ever done at the Olympics before Vancouver was 15^th. After years of hard work, the Canadian men finally made their breakthrough in the Olympic pursuit with 3 men in the top 9 and the other finishing 16^th. Not too shabby for a nation that no one expected to be a threat on the World cup stage!

Inspiration #4 – Men’s relay

Peter Northug of Norway and Lukas Bauer of the Czech Republic were the reason that their respective countries earned a medal on relay day. Don’t get me wrong, the rest of their teams skied well, but both teams put these individuals in places where they had some serious time to make up to stay in contention. Bauer was the second leg of the Czech’s team and his team mate tagged off already having lost  25 seconds to the leaders. Bauer responded, skiing an incredible leg of the relay and catching his team back up with the leaders and they were able to hang on for a bronze medal. Northug was similarly handed off in the final leg, about 27 seconds off of the lead, and what seemed completely out of reach of a medal. Northug dug deep and made up 22 seconds, passing and dropping teams along the way and finishing in the silver medal position.

Inspiration #5 – Canadian Figure Skater – Joannie Rochette

Most Canadians followed this heart breaking story so I won’t say much. This girl skated to her potential under the toughest of circumstances. I will leave you with the word of the song she skated her gala performance to.

Celine Dion –

Vole

 
Vole vole petite aile
Ma douce, mon hirondelle
Va t’en loin, va t’en sereine
Qu’ici rien ne te retienne
Rejoins le ciel et l’éther
Laisse-nous laisse la terre
Quitte manteau de misère
Change d’univers

Vole vole petite sœur
Vole mon ange, ma douleur
Quitte ton corps et nous laisse
Qu’enfin ta souffrance cesse
Va rejoindre l’autre rive
Celle des fleurs et des rires
Celle que tu voulais tant
Ta vie d’enfant

Vole vole mon amour
Puisque le nôtre est trop lourd
Puisque rien ne te soulage
Vole à ton dernier voyage
Lâche tes heures épuisées
Vole, tu l’as pas volé
Deviens souffle, sois colombe
Pour t’envoler

Vole, vole petite flamme
Vole mon ange, mon âme
Quitte ta peau de misère
Va retrouver la lumière

Being a sprinter, I don’t often get the chance to do much long distance racing. The few 30km races that I have entered have always been a struggle for me, either with wax or pacing or just not having enough left in the tank to finish strong. But surprisingly my longest race ever, the 55km Canadian Birkie, was my best long distance race yet!

The course was well suited to me with short little climbs but for the most part this course was a double poling course. I was able to hold onto the second pack of guys which skied at the perfect pace to push me but not fast enough to drop me. I struggled a bit between kilometres 42 to 46 because the bottle I was carrying with my GU gels froze closed, and I was seriously running on empty. I lost the pack I was skiing with, but after I got a feed at kilometre 47 I got my legs back and was able to catch back 2 of the pack I was skiing with. I crossed the finished line 9th overall and the first women, only 12 mins back from the lead.

It felt great to race that hard for that long. Now with any luck the 30km at Nationals will feel short!

You want the big races to be breakthrough performances but the reality is they rarely are. I took some giant leaps this year at Olympic trials and was hoping to take another leap at the World Cup in Canmore. Instead I took some baby steps. Baby steps aren’t bad, they are just not as exciting as the leaps. I had the opportunity to race against some of the best skiers in the world at the time when they are peaking for some of the most important races of their lives (ie. the Olympics starting in a couple of days). And on a really tough sprint course I was only a couple of seconds off of making the heats. I was 43rd in a good World Cup field, which is probably a better result than my previous best of 41st in a weak field. Not quite fast enough to make the heats this time, but a few more baby steps and the heats will be within grasp.

I have now had the opportunity to race 4 world cups and this was the first one that I felt comfortable leading into. I felt completely relaxed on the start line, maybe even a little too relaxed. But it was the first time I felt like I belonged on a World Cup start line. And maybe that is more than just a baby step!

Full results are available here:

http://www.fis-ski.com/uk/604/610.html?sector=CC&raceid=16204