Hi Everyone,
So I am back in Thunder Bay now. I spent most of my summer out west in Canmore training with the team. We had five hard weeks of intense training, which included two weeks of skiing up at the Haig Glacier. I had a great time living with the team and training with them everyday. Except for the exception of a couple thunderstorms up on the glacier, the weather was warm and sunny. I think I trained harder then I have ever done before, and I felt great the entire time. While I was out there, I also found a new love for mountain biking, which is good, because now I have something to look forward to when the snow melts and the ski season comes to an end. For my last couple weeks of summer I was able to go back to Calgary and finally get some time to relax, catch up with friends, and enjoy some of my Mom’s cooking! I even managed to spend a weekend at my parent’s cabin, which I think pretty much everyone except Tim (my brother) and I had visited up until that point.
At the beginning of September I traveled back to Thunder Bay and got right back into training. I just completed a build up of three hard weeks, which included lots of testing and intensity workouts. So far everything is looking good, I improved on all the tests, but still have plenty of room for improvement when we test again near the end of October. I competed in my first mountain bike race on Sunday. It was a blast! I liked it because it was a lot different from the skiing or running races I have done in the past, and the longer I raced the more comfortable I became and was able to go faster and faster. I’m a little disappointed that the biking season is almost over, because it would have been fun to do a few more races. Oh well, there is always next year.
Don’t worry my life isn’t all fun and games. I am also in the middle of taking two school courses by correspondence. Chemistry and Calculus… I can’t say it’s the easiest thing in the world, especially when you get home from a 3-hour training session and have to hammer out another 3 hours to do an at home Chem. Lab. But I am slowly getting the work done. And if all goes well I should be completed most of the work by the time the racing season rolls around, and then I will be free just to focus on skiing.
On Friday we leave for a four-day canoe trip on Clear Water and White Otter Lake (about two hours away from here). The scenery is supposed to be quite beautiful. The guys on the team are getting all their fishing gear together, and hope to catch a couple fish for dinner for a few nights. It should be a lot of fun. I just hope it doesn’t rain (or snow) like it has been for the last couple weeks. After that, we have a couple rest weeks before we do our last big haul of the fall. Which is going to be a large amount of training hours with a whole lot of intensity. YAH HOO!
