KERSHAW'S CORNER: SPRING IS NOW SUMMER!
Posted on Friday, July 09, 2010
A fantastic spring is now history. This last couple months I felt like George Clooney in the film, “Up in the Air” – except there was no B-Class for me (I was in the back of the plane every time), I’m sadly not blessed with his rugged good looks or charm and I live, love and was traveling with my girlfriend instead of meeting and hooking up with random beautiful women.
I guess in retrospect, I was barely akin to George Clooney in that movie, although the travel schedule that Chandra and I endured in a fairly short period of time was substantial.
France and Spain (from what my last post depicted in the photos) was unbelievable: beautiful, great people and great training. What ensued after that trip was more travel, more great times, a new coach, new training locations, and more great training.
Our first training camp of the year was held in Bend, Oregon this year – which is where our latest coach had been living for over 15 years - Justin Wadsworth’s stomping grounds. I must admit, getting off the plane from Europe and +28 degree weather and jumping straight into a unseasonably cold, wet, Bend, OR was interesting, as was that first ski workout up at Mt. Bachelor. Instead of being greeted with the vineyards of Europe, I was greeted with over 3m of snow still on the ground. On May 25th.
Still, I was thrilled to see that white stuff still around, my teammates again, and perfectly groomed tracks awaiting my skis. I am, after all, much more familiar with snow’s tannins, legs, and colour than that of a 1982 Rioja.
The camp was nothing short of fantastic. I had never been to Bend, Oregon and we had a great time training and checking it out. The skiing was top shelf, and the grooming staff did a fantastic job everyday, making our jobs that much easier. The running trails that are scattered like veins around Bend were great places to lose myself in the beauty and simplicity of training, as were the roads for rollerskiing. We even caught a surprise concert that came through town (Band of Horses – a band I listen to fairly often – it was amazing) and got out fly fishing one evening on the Crooked River (with George, Stef and GKill – thanks to Matt Whitcomb for lending the gear!). Paradise found. Everything I did – whether it was skiing, running, fishing, or rollerskiing was all above expectations, and I left Bend with a new and real love for the place.
It has seemed almost normal over the last 5 or so years, but this year was no different: a new year – a new coach. Justin proved to be a very competent coach, and although I’ve known him for years, and actually raced against him (ok, well behind him) in the past - his coaching style, knowledge and attitude was great! I am really excited to work with him this year as our team continues our quest to improve and hit that elusive men’s championship podium.
Since he’s been an American coach for a number of years prior to moving North to work with us, we did a few workouts with the Americans that were both fun and humbling (Freeman and Newell made us all look like school boy bit@#$s in a tough DP workout). Working with the Yanks is something we haven’t done in the past, and I think both countries stand to benefit from a collective approach when we are at camps together.
After over a month on the road, I was treated to a lonely, short week of “repos” in Canmore which gave me just enough time to make my bed, and unpack/wash my clothes before it was back at it with our annual Yo-yo altitude camp. Like in years past, it’s a camp that sees us split our time between the Haig Glacier and Canmore in 3 days up/ 3 days down four times.
The camp went well. It was a tough 23 days and moving from home to 2600m every three days was a stress on the body for sure. As was the vicious weather that western Canada felt was necessary to throw at us. I’ve never seen so much snow on the “run” up to the glacier in my career – and we even had to snow shoe a few times just to make it into the camp because there was over 1.5m of snow covering the trail like a big, soft, annoying to run in, duvet.
Without question the first bout was the most challenging. We left Canmore in the +9 and rainy conditions on June 14th for the trip up to the glacial moraine camp. We met snow at 1hr20min into our run and saw a 2hr10min run quickly turn into a 3hr20min slog through snow (both on the ground and falling from the sky) on snow shoes just to get into camp.
Luckily, Eric and Justin took some pity on us, and changed one of the Yo-yo periods to long training over the ice fields parkway to Jasper – which was much better training, and great for team morale as well.
A few days ago, that epic May/June/Early July ended, and I have three whole weeks at home in Canmore before our yearly migration down to New Zealand for some more on snow time. In a stroke of luck, summer has finally arrived in the Bow Valley, and although it seemed as though I went through my seasonal spring allergies four separate times because of all the location changes, I seem to be settling into a normal home routine, which is a nice change and much needed to recover from a tough period of training.
The big news is that next week, On Friday, July 16th at 6pm, we’ll have our first ever Share the Road community ride in my adopted town of Canmore, Alberta. Myself, and a majority of the Bow Valley Olympians that are around will host this community bike ride to promote safe cycling and highlight the important benefits of creating bicycle-friendly communities across Canada. It will be a 20km ride and will start and finish at Civic Centre Plaza and is open to all cyclists – all ages, abilities are encouraged to come out.
We’ll have some small talks, go out for the ride, then finish off with a barbeque, and some mingling post-ride. If you own a bike, and are around it would be great to see you all. Mountain Bike National Championships will be held up at the Canmore Nordic Centre the following two days as well, so it will be a great weekend of bike culture, racing, and community coming together under our beautiful Rocky Mountains. I am really excited for this, and it will be so fun to see everyone band together under something that affects most of us who lead commuter or healthy lifestyles.
Not surprisingly then, my time these days has been busy tying up some loose ends with regards to the ride, and training as per usual. In addition to the next weeks’ Share the Road activities, I will also line up for my first race of the season on Sunday in Calgary (the Stampede 10km), so I’ll keep you posted on how that unfolds. Hopefully it’s not utter embarrassment, as I am feeling the effects of that yo-yo period that only ended a couple days ago.
The other completely non-sanctioned Share the Road event next week is the much anticipated “Share the Road Classic” (a hill climb up Norquay in Banff) in which the winner of the climb will lead the ride on Friday evening, so stay tuned for the photos, play by play and video of the battle up the fabled Bow Valley climb which will happen Wednesday, July 14th in the evening at some point (check the twitterotti for updates on this one). As of now, entrants are keeping their names and form close to their chests but I can assure you a few Olympians will test their fitness on their mechanical steeds for the honor of leading the ride and some take home cash.
"Here I am climbing up to the Columbia Glacier on the Icefields Parkway. Great long (6 + hrs) days of training during yo-yo action" Photo - James Cunningham CCC
"Smiling, even though it was a rainy ski up at Mt. Bachelor. The Bend camp was amazing"
" Snowy, nothing really working up at camp (water, power, etc...) - a tough time and place and weather up during the first, snowy yo-yo cycle on June 14th"
"Rollerskiing in the pack during a long sesh" PHOTO: James Cunningham CCC
Chandra took this to show how much snow there is on the ground. They are still about 1hr away from camp, and this was taken on the 3rd yo-yo cycle... About two weeks after our first one."
"A nice change. the Ice Fields parkway is the most beautiful road in Canada."
"G-Kill (who can play a mean game of Monopoly by the way) leading Stef on a great run above the Crooked River during the Bend camp in June."
"This is what it's all about. Long, tough days - but we all want to accomplish something that's never been done. A couple of the best teammates you could ever ask for - here is Babs' and Alex double poling alongside Bow Lake."
