Sochi: Day 4 - rain and wind, wind and rain

Today brought an interesting turn of events...

I had my alarm set for 8:30 as my race was not till after 1 o'clock. After the alarm went off I was just lying there and dosing for a bit. Suddenly the door opens and in comes Colette, who is supposed to be up at the venue by now. She says, "Well, you might as well stay in bed. The races are cancelled." I sit up in shock, all possible reasons for this running through my mind. "A tower blew down and the gondola is not running," she continues. I say "Oh my God!" and jump out of bed.

We don't actually know if a tower really blew down but it's apparently extremely windy up at "Laura," the cross-country venue, and the gondola is not running for safety reasons. Apparently, there are also some trees down at the site and a lot of the tents have blown away. The official press release is on the IPC website. It is currently raining here and up at the site and they're calling for snow overnight - 50 cm of it! They are hoping to run the sprints tomorrow afternoon as planned. I really hope they can!

In the meantime, there isn't much for us to do here. We are supposed to stay at Rosa Khutor (our little hotel strip) and the poor guys staying up top have to stay in their cabins or the restaurant. At least, Colette and I were able to go for a good 50-minute jog outside before the rain began. A decision on tomorrow will be made by 8 o'clock tonight so all we can do now is rest up and wait.

This is the view from our balcony right now:

I will post another update when I know more.

Good afternoon from rainy Sochi.

Sochi: Day 3 - Skiing in the sub-tropics

On the agenda for today was race prep for tomorrow's 15 km classic race. It wasn't as sunny today but more muggy up at the ski site (there's a sentence you don't hear every day!). We don't think it dropped below zero overnight so the snow was very sugary and mushy. It flew everywhere as you went down the hills. So of course we had to use Klister (everyone's favourite glue-like grip wax), but at least it worked.

Tomorrow's race promises to be challenging but it will be that way for everyone. My guide Phil and I went around the course a few times testing wax and doing a few pick-ups and sprints in order to wake up our muscles. Mine felt a little sluggish from the long travel and the jetlag starting to kick in. We met Brian McKeever on one of the hills and I asked him for some advice for tomorrow's race. He gladly gave us a little lesson on how to take uphills conservatively on the first few laps in order to save some energy for the big push at the end, which was much appreciated.

This afternoon Phil and I went over our race plan in fine detail so we will be as ready for tomorrow as we can be. Our start time is at 1:22 p.m. and our category is pretty small unfortunately. But we will totally give it our best and stick to our race plan.

I just got back from a nice evening stroll with Joanne, the team massage therapist, and Colette, my roommate (and a para-nordic ski legend, might I add). It was 15 degrees out there! We cannot believe how nice it is, except for, well, it makes for some wonky ski conditions. On our return from our walk, we watched two guys trying to walk a really drunk guy back to his room (it is Friday night in Russia after all). It was hillarious. At one point, the guy keeled right over taking one of the support guys with him, who fell right on top of him. We really wished we had gotten it on video!

Anyway. here are a couple of pictures before I go to bed. Better make sure I'm well rested for my race tomorrow!

This was taken on the edge of the IPC stadium yesterday or, as Phil put it, "on the edge of paradise." Pretty amazing, eh?

And this is one of the buildings on the little strip that we are staying on. I've still got the touch with photos, don't I? :) 

Good night from Sochi.

Arrived in Wisconsin

We are here in Cable, Wisconsin, for the first leg of the IPC World Cups in the U.S. Team Canada made up of the National World Cup Team, Development Team and the National Group (which I am a part of) arrived at the Telemark Resort last night after a day-long journey from various parts of the country. Caroline and I flew from Ottawa at 11 a.m. and met most of the team in Toronto. We made our connection even though we were late coming in. Our skis weren't as lucky. We think they were offloaded in Toronto because there wasn't enough space on the plane. Thankfully, the USOC volunteers got them to the hotel safely late last night.

Today was an absolutely gorgeous day: sunny and somewhat mild. The trails here at Telemark start right outside our door, which is really awesome. We took the morning to get organized and some people had classification. Since I wasn't one of those people, having been classified twice already, I helped our coaches scrape some skis in the wax room.

After lunch, most of us went out skiing. We skied the 5 km loop that will be used for the 15 km race on Thursday. My guide, Brian, isn't here yet, as there was a bad storm in Thunder Bay and he is somewhere on the way. So I asked Mary,, one of our coaches, to guide me today. The course is nice and mostly rolling, but there are some bigger downhills and longer climbs. The only downhill that might present a problem is somewhere in the middle of the course. It's got lots of turns through which you keep picking up speed. Mary and I went down it not realizing what it was like. I was holding on for dear life until the very last left-hand turn, where I got carried out to the outside and wiped out followed closely by Erica, who had to fall to avoid running over me, and Caroline, who fell to avoid running over Erica's pole. Then there was Mary, who looked back at me to see what happened and almost ran into a bush and wiped out to avoid that collision. So I caused a four-girl pile-up!

It's now evening and Brian has finally arrived. Yay! So tomorrow we'll be skiing at 10 a.m. and also possibly practicing some shooting. And I'm off to bed. Still need more rest after yesterday.

Good night from Cable.

O-Cup #1 in review

I've been back from Thunder Bay for almost a week, and finally found some time to write about it.

The weekend's races went really well overall. It was great to have a chance to compete and get the first-race nerves out of the way before the World Cups coming up in a week. The nerves definitely got the better of me in the first race: a 3 km classic. I had skied the course quite a few times the day before and thought I had it down. Out of the three races, I'd say the first one had the most challenging course, both in terms of climbing and in terms of downhills. I was really nervous on the day of the race, it being the first race of the season. It also didn't help that I hadn't thought of arranging a meeting time and place with Brian, my guide. So in between doing our warm-up and testing wax to make sure we had grip, Caroline and I kept looking for Brian in and around the chalet. It later turned out that Brian was also forerunning (pre-skiing) the course every day, so that might have had something to do with why we couldn't find him. Needless to say that by the time my start time rolled around, I was really frazzled. I was almost relieved to start the race. Everything went more or less smoothly until we got to Lena's Leap: I jumped out of the tracks to go down the drop, but didn't quite make the right-hand turn at the bottom and tumbled into the snowbank. When I tried to get up, the tail of my ski kept digging into the snow. It wasn't until I stopped to analyze the situation and realized that I needed to turn onto my side and then put my skis down that I was able to get up and get going. Of course, by that time, I could hear Christine and her guide coming up behind me and thought, "Crap! She started 30 seconds after me, she shouldn't be catching up!" So I started skiing up the hill like mad. It didn't help that I had lost my toque and got snow in my ears when I fell. With about a kilometre to go, they were still close behind us, but we finally got away on the last hilly section of the race. This was a race when I actually found myself thinking "why am I doing this to myself?", as the last kilometre was super tough. It was not a great race, but definitely good practice for mental toughness!

The other two races went much more smoothly. I stopped worrying about finding Brian as we agreed just to meet at the stadium close to start time. I was able to do my warm-up with Caroline and then with Christine and her guide. It was very nice of both of them to let me tag along.

The second day's race was a 1 km classic sprint, which meant that we had to do a qualifier in the morning at around 10 and, as there were only three of us, a final at around 2 p.m. I had a really good warm-up and awesome grip for the qualifier (thank you, Harris). It was a really good race. I caught Christine on the uphill even though she started 30 seconds ahead of me this time. Then, we had quite a few hours to kill so a whole delegation of us went to scout out the next day's 5 km skate racecourse. We were able to ski only part of it though, as the rest was blocked off for the races. Caroline and I then had time to have some lunch and even a little nap on the floor! I was a little worried about the sprint final, as I tend to have trouble with racing more than once in one day, but I was able to warm up well once again and to finish the race without incident and well ahead of my competitors. This gives me confidence for the sprint races in the U.S. as sprints tend to be my worst event.

Sunday's race was a 5 km skate race, as I mentioned, and Robbi Weldon, the fastest female para-nordic racer in Canada, took part in the race. Robbi tried competing in tandem cycling last year and turned out to be amazing at it. So she will be competing in London 2012. But, as Thunder Bay is her hometown, she wanted to race with us. This was very good for us all, as competing against the fastest in your class is always a great way to measure your own performance. The 5 km race was a mass start and Robbi started to pull away right away. But, according to Brian, she was only 10 to 15 seconds ahead of us all through the first downhill and then uphill sections of the race. In the end, she beat me by a little less than a minute, which is really good if you compare it to last year's nationals. She must have gotten away on the last portion of the course, which was very twisty and curvy. Downhill corners are definitely an area I really need to work on. But I had a personal best in this race with a time of 17:03. I do acknowldge that it was a really easy course, but a PB is a PB and another confidence booster.

I stayed in Thunder Bay for another day when the races were done to work on skiing with Brian in preparation for the World Cups. We skied for two hours on Monday, and Brian took me up the two biggest hills at Lappe. He said he couldn't let me go home without going up them. I was completely exhausted by the end of that ski! So, this week, I've been taking it easy and recovering. Though on Wendesday, Patti had me do as many 30-second sprints as I could handle before getting light-headed. I ended up doing 25 of them and I never got light-headed! That was something.

So now there is only one week left before I go to the U.S. for the IPC World Cups. I hope they have wi-fi over there so I can actually post regularly.

For now, good night from Ottawa.

Snow was here...for a second

We finally had our first snowfall this week! Sadly, after messing with traffic and flipping a bus, it all melted away in two days. But Harris, Lindsey and I got a good ski in on Wednesday night before it all disappeared. There were a good 5 cm on the ground at Mooney's Bay and a few people had already skied before us, so we were able to follow their tracks all around the park. We even ventured over to Vincent Massey Park for a spell. All in all, we got a good hour and 15 minutes of solid (well, not that solid actually, it being the first ski) skiing in.





But now the snow is all gone, so we're busting out the rollerskis and hiking poles again. Today, Kanata Nordic racers had a training session in the Gatineau Park. We all hiked from the Old Chelsea Picnic Ground, up Penguin hill and then my parents and I continued on Trail 1, while the racers did Skyline Trail, which is very rocky and ragged, so not so great for the vision impaired. It was an overcast and gloomy sort of day, but not much beats being in the forest, smelling the fall smells and breathing the fresh air while going up and down windy forest trails. It's one of my favourite types of training. There were lots of people out on the trails today, some walking with dogs, some nordic walking with big backpacks, lots running with ski hiking poles like ourselves. My parents and I did about 2.5 hours of ski hiking, consisting of ski striding with our poles up the hills (as I'm doing in the photo), jogging down the hills and jogging or ski walking on flats. 

After training, we stopped off at Fresh Air Experience to pick out some skis for me. I've decided that it's time for me to act like a real racer and acquire more than just two pairs of good racing skis. I brought my two pairs of skis (classic and skate) with me to the store, and Duncan tested them for me to figure out what kind of conditions they are best for, so that I can buy two more pairs that will be good for different conditions. It turns out my two pairs are best for powder or hard-packed conditions, which I apparently knew without realizing it, because when Duncan asked me what I found the skis were good for I told him that the skate skis were horrible in that crazy 15 km race in Vancouver with the wet soppy snow. Duncan said his testing confirmed that those skis would be better for powder or hard-packed snow. So my new pair of skate skis is going to be better for wet conditions. For my classic skis, I said that they are really good for everything, but then amended that maybe they were not so good for Klister skiing (Klister is a horribly sticky grip wax that is used for hard-packed icy conditions in classic skiing). I was pleased to find out that I was right - based on the testing Duncan did with Fresh Air's very cool ski testing machine, my classic skis had no Klister pocket, so they would be no good on Klister days. So I will be getting a new pair of Klister skis. Unfortunately, they didn't have these two types of skis for my height and weight, so I've been put on the list of racers waiting for new skis and they will keep an eye on their new arrivals for skis that will fit what I'm looking for. I was super impressed with the way I was treated at Fresh Air today. I've always been treated super nice by Chris and everyone else there, but I've never had such special racer treatment before. If ever, anyone is looking for cross country ski equipment or bicycles in the Ottawa area and beyond, I highly recommend Fresh Air Experience. They have the best prices, very knowledgeable staff, and you can shop online. And as you can see, they really get to know their customers. And that's my positive rant for the day.

We were supposed to have a development training camp for the Eastern half of the country next weekend, but as there is no snow in Mont Ste-Anne, QC, it probably won't happen. The coaches are making the call on Monday. Either option is fine by me, since going to this camp meant that I couldn't attend my friend's wedding. I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens. 

I'm going rollerskiing in the Gatineau Park tomorrow morning, and I really hope it doesn't rain as much as they're calling for! If anyone is readying this, please think of snow for me. I'd like to try out my new skis when I get them and to actually get off the pavement before races start!

And that's the end of this lengthy update. Good night from Ottawa! 

Mid-season update

Well, I guess I'm being a slacker blogger again. I really wish I could stick to this better. Oh well, I'm here now, so here's a mid-season update.

This winter's been a bit of a challenge ski-wise. First we had no snow, then we got a bit and it all melted around New Year's. It was really scarse after that until last Wednesday, when we finally got that big dumping we'd all been hoping and praying for. So now the conditions are finally great and the weather has finally gotten nice and warm so we can really enjoy being outside.

I've had great coaching and teammate support this season, even if the weather has not been cooperating. I've been skiing with our Kanata Nordic group and my new part-time guide, Vesta, so almost every day of the week I have someone to ski with. And that's a huge help for getting out there on those dark, cold winter evenings when you'd rather just curl up with a book or watch a movie. Patti Kitler has also been coaching me long-distance by writing programs for me to follow, and I think that's going well so far.

I've also done a few more races since the last update, including the Nakkertok Invitational, Tay Valley Loppet and the Kanata Pretzel Sprints. Nakkertok's race was a bit difficult due to very light snow coverage resulting in a very bumpy course. But it gave me good experience in rinding over those bumps and not letting them throw me off. The Tay Valley Loppet was a really relaxed and fun 18 km race. The course was gently rolling - super enjoyable - and the weather was just perfect for a race: sunny and about -8. I came in second overall for women but it was just a small local race.

Today I participated in the Kanata Pretzel Sprints. Our new Para recruit Caroline and I got to race againt the sure-footed Juvenile girls' category (13-14 year-olds). There were 12 of us on the start list, which made for some interesting races. We got to do 4 sprint races each (prologue, heats, semis and finals). This was the first time I got to do that many races in one day, and though I'm now dead tired and don't know how I'm going to work tomorrow, it was a great experience. I got to practice passing, jockeying for position and trying to not let someone get away. All very valuable experience.

So that's all for the small local races this year. Now is the time more serious competition starts. Next weekend is Eastern Canadians and the weekend after that I leave for Halifax and Canada Games. Then in March, I've got Nationals, which will be my only (very slim) chance of qualifying for the IPC World Championships in Russia in April. For that, I would have to be the fastest B female in Canada, which is not likely with Robbi Weldon around. But I can always stay positive and do my best!

The other very exciting news is that Cliff and I are taking possession of our new house next Friday! We get to be homeowners and finally get out of this annoying apartment. This, of course, means that the next couple of weeks are going to be super busy, what with Easterns, getting the house ready, moving and then my departure for Halifax. But that's life. As Patti said today, it's always busy! At least my life is, anyway. And I wouldn't want it any other way!

That's all for now. Good night from Ottawa!

Hello, 2011!

Yes, I know, I'm a little late on this, but hey, at least I haven't disappeared this time!

So 2010, "the year of so many hopes and dreams," as I believe I dubbed it last year, is over. And what a year it was! Europe, the Paralympics, a wedding - it's like I wanted to do it all in one year...and did! 2010 was a blast and a whirlwind, but 2011 brings with it new hopes, new dreams and new opportunities. The future is always more interesting than the past, just because it hasn't happened yet. I can't wait to see what's around the corner!

Undoubtedly, this season can't be as exciting as the last one, but there are still interesting events to look forward to. In February, I will be participating in my first ever Canada Winter Games. These Games are modelled on the Olympic Games and are designed to give younger development athletes (and artists) an opportunity to compete in an environment similar to the Olympic Games, only instead of competing for their country, they compete for their province or territory. The Games will be held in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and promise a fair share of their own fun and excitement. This year's Games will be the first to feature Para-Nordic and Para-Alpine events. I will get to ski with my Paralympic teammates, Courtney Knight and Mary Benson again, as well as to meet new promising young skiers. Check out the Games' website for more details.

Before the Games, I will be competing in a few local races and at Eastern Canadian Championships (which are, of course, always local). And after the Games, there will be Nationals in good old Canmore again. This time, they'll be integrated with the able-bodied Nationals as usual. And that's the plan for this season.

The season, so far, has been off to a very slow start: Ottawa, which never really had a lot of snow to begin with this year, lost all of it on New Year's Day. We got some of it back late last week, but conditions are far from ideal. This weekend, I'm racing the Nakkertok Invitational at the Nakkertok Ski Club. We went there on Wednesday night to check out the trails, and we could literally check them out - that is, there was not enough snow to really cover them up. So it was a very bumpy ski to say the least! We really really need some more snow...so please, everyone, send us your snowiest thoughts tonight!

Okay, I've rambled on for quite a while now. I'd better get some sleep before tomorrow's ski. Good night from the Nation's Capital.

TIme to play catch-up!

Well, I'm sure everyone thought this blog was a goner, and, really, even I had my doubts, but here it is: my valiant effort at resurrecting it!

So...Where do I start on this catching up business? The new ski season has begun, and there's a good amount of white stuff on the ground although it favoured Ottawa with its presence a title late this winter. Last weekend was the first Ontario Cup of the season at Duntroon Highlands. The Kanata Nordic para team had a good showing. We got 2 complete sets of medals on both days: gold for Alex, silver for me and bronze for our new recruit Caroline. The Para-Nordic movement in Ontario has come a long way since even a couple of years ago. Last weekend saw 14 Para skiers out on the race course. Two years ago there were only 5 (and I was the only girl!).

In other news, I got married last summer, and my wedding was absolutely amazing. Everything went exactly according to plan, and even the weather co-operated. It was a perfect day that no one  will soon forget.

Well, It is Christmas Eve, which means I can't stay long. I've got a train to Kingston to catch in a couple of hours. I know my newly resurrected blog is off to a bit of a shaky start, but I promise, it will get better.

For now, good afternoon from Ottawa and MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Just another day In the Athletes' Village...

Today has been a good day characterized by intense pin trading and the realization that WE are very special around here. This experience is going to spoil everyday life forever! How will we ever recover?!

We started the day off with some skiing. It was snowing really hard out there, but the snow was more soft and fluffy than yesterday, so the turns were really easy to do today. Tom Siletta, the coach designated to the development group, was helping Andrea, Courtney, Robert and me with step-turns. By the end of it all, I was able to do two perfect step-turns around that difficult right-hand corner into the stadium. That was an amazing feeling. Now I just have to remember that moment when I race. We had some trouble with the classic skiing though. My zero skis (skis with chemical bases used for days like today) were really catching the snow on the downhills and making them difficult to negociate. We will have to figure something else out if the classic race conditions are like today's.

After the ski, I went for a massage at the polyclinic. I got an ART provider and my back now feels so much better! Then I had some volunteers do my laundry for me. I met a Japanese coach who spoke very little English in the laundry trailer. He managed to intimate that he wanted to trade pins. So I showed him that I would be back in five mintues and brought down some Canada pins and tatoos. He gave me a Japan pin, and I went for my massage. When I came back to pick up the laundry, the volunteers told me that the Japanese man was looking for me because he wanted to give me a present and take a picture. And just on cue, he shows up with a "Hello Kitty" toy and his camera. We took a picture with each other's hats on and said "see you at the Opening Ceremonies." And that's how I made a Japanese friend!

The pin trading continued at supper, where my guide, Robert, got all excited and ran around the dining hall trading with everyone in sight! It was intense and pretty hilarious. Then, we met my old Russian friends that go way back with my parents and traded some more pins. Canada pins are a hot commodity around here!

I've still got a lot of pins left to trade, and I hear Kathleen is bringing me some City of Ottawa ones. That'll be exciting. If only all the other countries' pins were as nice as ours!

So tomorrow's the Opening Ceremonies, and most of us are going. It'll be a long afternoon. We're leaving at 2:30, the Ceremonies start at 6, and then we have the option of leaving right after we march in or staying untill the end. If we stay till the end, we won't get back until midnight. It's a pretty tough call considering most of us race first thing Saturday morning, but it would be so cool to be part of the excitement at BC Place! If you're interested in watching live, go to http://www.paralympicsport.tv/. Otherwise, CTV will air something or other that they taped at 11 a.m. on Saturday.

Well, it's a big day tomorrow. Good night!

Gorgeous day at Lake Louise

I was finally feeling well enough today to go for a bit of a ski. I can't remember the last time that I took three days off in a row, so I really needed to shake the cobwebs out and get some movement in. Andrea took us up to Lake Louise today, and what a day it was to be up there! The sun was so bright and warm that our new warm-up suits were definitely too hot to wear, and the scenery was so beautiful that I had to keep stopping for pictures.

That being said, I got a solid 1.5 hours of skiing in with a few short sprints to shake myself up and get my muscles to remember speed. It was really hard to get myself going at first, but after about 40 minutes it got easier: I could breathe better and my muscles felt more inclined to do their job. I think in a couple more days, I'll be good as new. Now, if only the rest of my teammates can stay healthy!

It being as warm as it was, we of course had to use klister for grip today. For those of you not familiar with this ski-specific stuff, klister is what nordic skiers use when the conditions are warm and icy. It's a really sticky liquid grip wax that is a huge pain to deal with. We Ottawa skiers are a little spoiled when it comes to ski conditions: our snow can most often be counted on to be cold and wet - very easy to wax for. As a result, I don't even own any klister, much less know how to apply it! Well, I got a lesson today from the non-spoiled west-coast skiers! If you're interested (and I'm sure most of you are not), Klister comes in a tube like toothpaste, and you have to put little dabs of it all along your grip zone and then use a cork - or apparently your thumb (no, thank you!) - to spread it very evenly. But the really fun part is of course cleaning it off your skis after you're done skiing! It's a sticky mess. Yuck!

Anyway, after we'd finished our ski, Andrea took us "to say a quick hi to the lake." So today I actually saw Lake Louise for the first time in my life. Granted it was covered in ice, but it was still breathtaking. See for yourselves!

The Lake Louise Ice Festival is on there now. They've got a skating rink set up on the lake, an ice castle bult and some Olympic-themed ice sculptures including giant Olympic rings. Of course, we had to take a picture with those. Don't we look sharp in our new team outfits? Apparently, Andrea missed that memo :).

And that's our day! Two more sleeps till Wistler! Good night from Canmore for now.

Canmore: Day 4 - Skiing in K Country

As you have probably gathered from the title, we went for a ski in Kananaskis Country today, more specifically, at Mount Shark. The ski area is at 1750 metres of altitude and has got some amazing, perfectly groomed trails. It was sunny and beautiful all morning, and the air smelled wonderfully of pine. Courtney and I went for a two-hour relaxed ski. I'm still not back to 100% and don't want to overdo it. Most of the others skied for 3 hours.

That is Mount Shark in the background of this picture, which Courtney and I took hurriedly before our guides started complaining about our dallying. It's supposed to look like a shark's fin. The scenery around here is absolutely breathtaking. Here is another shot of the mountains around Mount Shark. 

And guess who we met on our way back from Mount Shark? This cute gentleman right here.

It was pretty funny too because Andrea, who acts as our local guide to the area, was just saying that sometimes you have to stop for mountain goats when you're driving up here, and the next thing we know there's this mountain goat right in front of us! And then he ran up the cliff face like it was nothing!

Well, we're now about to eat our shrimp and pasta supper prepared by Courtney and Robert (who is a self-proclaimed professional vegetable chopper). So talk to you tomorrow.

Germany: Day 6: 15 km skate

Today was a very pretty and warm day here in the Black Forest. We had our long-distance skate race. I finally had a great race today. After the short sauna and some rest yesterday, my muscles felt like new instead of feeling tired and being full of lactic acid like before. We did 4 laps 3.75 km each. It was a tough course with a very long gradual climb, some wicked downhill corners and a very steep coulple of uphills just before the stadium. But this is a World Cup race after all! I actually didn't find the long gradual hill to be such a big nuisance - I train on those all the time up in the Gatineaus - it was the shorter steep ones that got me every time. And I've realized that I really need to work on those hairpin corners, because I'm too chicken to step-turn them, even though I know that in therory I can do it. I have exactly 18 days in Ottawa before I have to head out again for Nationals and the Paralympics (assuing I get to go) to work on some of that stuff.

Robert and I tried using the two-way radio headsets that the Vancouvver gang has been racing with in the last few years. We really liked them for a race like today's. They allow me to communicate with Robert if I need to tell him to slow down or to let me know about something, and they allow Robert to not have to yell over all the noise of the race and the distance between us. I can hear every word he says through the earpiece.

As for my result, even though I came in 9th and second last and was just 1.1 seconds out of the World Cup points, I'm still happy with it. I have never been anywhere near points in a long race before. And had I been my old classification, a B2, (they've just reclassified me as a B3 God knows why), I actually would have gotten quite a few points. I know this is too technical for you non-paranordic skier readers, but just know this: today was the best long-distance race I've ever skied!

Oh, official results can be found here.

Well, it's getting pretty late and I'm really sleepy, so I'd better go to bed. Tomorrow's the last World Cup race of the season, and it's a short bithlon, just like the first race we had in France. If I shoot clean and ski fast, maybe I'll get some points tomorrow. I certainly hope so. I also hope to go into Frieburg tomorrow after the race, since I still haven't done any sightseeing in Germany. We start late again tomorrow, so who knows. Then we get outta here early on Monday morning. So if I don't get a chance to update this tomorrow. I will see y'all in Canada and hopefully write from there. For now though, good night again from Oberried deep in the Balck Forest of Germany.

Germany: Day 5 - Biathlon Pursuit

Today was kind of a weird day. I've been totally stressed out and on edge all day. My race went alright I guess. I was 8th out of 11, which is not too bad for me. No points though. I didn't shoot well, only got 5 out of 10, but it was snowing all day and the guns tend to flake out a bit when the snowflakes get between them and the targets. Also, the biathlon range is just at the top of a small hill, which means that your heart rate tends to be higher when you come in, which in turn, makes it harder to hold the gun steady. Neither Courtney or I advanced to the pursuit finals, even though we thought we would. We were told last night that the top 10 would advance, but it appears that it was only whoever got World Cup points. So only 6 advanced. Robbi was one of them, but she ended up quitting the race for some reason.

Tomorrow is the long skate race (15 km), and I'm not looking forward to it, to be honest. I'm tired and it's a long way to ski. I didn't see the course, but I was told it was very hilly, so it'll be really hard. Oh well, I'll just ski it and not worry about anything else tomorrow. Yeah, at least that's what I'm saying right now.

Our Vancouver contingent is leaving us tomorrow, so for the last two races it'll just be Harris, Alexei, Jamie, Robert and me. I'm just about ready to go home myself. It's been a really long trip, but there's only two more days and races left. Ok, the girls are packing up their things and getting ready for their morning flight, but I gotta go to bed to get some much needed shut-eye before my long race tomorrow. Good night from Oberried.

France: Day 8 - Skate sprints

Today we had skate sprint races. I was really nervous in the morning. There was a lot riding on this race. Without getting into too many details, there are 12 spots on the Paralympic team, there are 13 of us competing for those 12 spots at these World Cups. And the way we secure our spot is by being close to the winner's time in any race. By virtue of being very short, sprints are usually the easiest type of race to get closer to the winner's time. So that's why today's race was very important to everyone.

In the prologue, I started just behind Anna-Mette, a B-1 (totally blind) skier, and just ahead of my teammate Courtney, who is also competing for one of those 12 spots. I caught Anna-Mette on the second uphill just as it was curving left and levelling out. My guide, Robert, told me to scoot by her on the right, but at that moment she also decided to move over to the right and blocked Robert, who was ahead of me. I saw the opening on the left and just went for it. As a result, I ended up going down the hill in front of Robert untill he caught up to me. He was very happy that I took initiative there though. We ended up 12th out of 17 and advanced to the quarter-finals. I was last in my quarter-final though, and ended up being 13th overall. I got World Cup points though, and according to my dad, I should be about 80% of the winner's time. I'm happy with that. Colette and Mark got bronze today, Everyone got points except Mary and Charles.

If you're interested, results as well as more information about this World Cup can be found here.

Tomorrow is a day off and biathlon training for the long biathlon race the day after. So we're all going to take it easy. Beacuse it's a day off, the organizers were throwing some kind of a "soiree" and "rock concert." We were going to go to it, that is, untill the guys somehow misunderstood our plan and drove off without us. So now, all us girls are stuck here, and that's why I have time to update my blog. We even had a free drink ticket each! That's ok, we figure tomorrow the guys are going to get the silent treatment in the morning. We won't talk to them at breakfast, though something tells me they probably won't notice.

Well, that's probably enough for today's entry. Here's a little photo of the day for you before I go. I took it just after the race this afternoon. You can see the clouds right over the valley.

France: Day 7 - Biathlon Sprint

Today was our first race of the series. It was a 7.5-km biathlon sprint (don't ask me about that logic). This consists of 3 laps of 2.5 km with two shootings.

The good news is I shot clean - not a single miss - today. The not-so-good news is I got pretty darn close to having an asthma attack on pretty much every hill. The race course looked deceptively easy, but actually wasn't. Those longish gradual hills got me every time. So I had to pace myself over the whole race in order not to get over that fine asthma attack line. Everyone seemed happy with my race though. Even if I did come in 11th and second last. I guess I was expecting better, but they weren't. I didn't get any world cup points, but I was only about 40 seconds behind Robbi, our best Canadian. She didn't shoot very well today and had a bad race.

Tomorrow is a skate sprint race, which means we have a prologue or qualifier in the morning with an interval start. And then depending on the size of the field (number of competitors), we might have heats and then semis and finals. 

I just found out that for tomorrow's race, it's whoever gets world cup points in the qualifier advances to quarter finals as long as there is a field of more than 12 competitiors. So keeping my fingers crossed and thnking fast thoughts. But before then, it's bedtime for me. I'm pretty tired. Oh, here's a pretty Bessans sunset for you before I go. Courtney took it out our window with my awesome camera.

Good night from Bessans!

France: Day 6 - Official biathlon training and opening ceremonies

Today was official traiining for the biathlon race tomorrow. Robert and I skied the course in the morning and tried out as many of the rifles as we could. There are 10 Eko rifles in all set up at the range. Rifles 1 and 2 weren't working I guess, but they are supposed to be tomorrow. On official training days, we're supposed to try all the guns to find out if there are any quirks to certain ones that we should know about. On race day, the official fills the lanes starting with 1, so we don't get the choiice, but it's still good to know what kind of gun you're shooting.

It was cold in Bessans this morning, -18, but I thught that, compared to the Ottawa -18, this was a walk in the park. The only thing was that the snow was really slow, so even going easy meant you were working hard. The course seems really nice though, mostly all gentle or short uphills and no crazy downhills. Tomorrow the B-category athletes (blind) start at noon, so by that time, the snow should warm up a bit, and it's been snowing all evening, so that should speed things up as well.

This evening was the Opening Ceremonies. Only two people from the "A" team showed up, but most of our crew was there. It was really neat and fun. First they had a parade, in which only Andrea, me, Robbi and Brian participated from our team we're not really sure why. Mary would have none of this monkey business and so she joined us as we were walking by. Everyone was led in by children from the area dressed in traditional costume. This is us after we walked in.

That was followed by some welcoming speeches. Then, after the World Cup was declared open, they said they were going to light the flame. This was done by having a whole bunch of alpine skiers come down the mountain with torches. It was really cool even though all I could see were some lights moving down the mountain. Here they are standing in the street afterwards. They skied right into the street!

Then, they announced that they had "une autre surpris" for us, and next thing we knew, there were fireworks lighting up the night sky! It was like Canada Day in the winter. What an effort for such a small place! At the end they had some traditional dances of the region performed by some adults and some little kids. Of course, our Mary went out to dance along with them! They ended up sweeping Andrea along as well, and there she is wearing my new media jacket. Haha try and find her!

It was a fun evening, and I was very glad I went even though I've got a bit of a sore throat today and am trying everything to make sure it doesn't develop into a cold. This is Andrea, Mary and me on our way back from the festivities. My camera battery was just about dead, so I think that's why things are a little blurry.

Oh don't worry, I will charge it tonight. I know how much everyone loves my pictures :).

Good night from Bessans.

France: Day 2 - Settling in

My time adjustment is not going very smoothly. I couldn't get to sleep for about two and a half hours last night, so today I'm going on about 5.5 hours of sleep, off of 6 hours the night before and off of maybe 3 the night before that. So, of course, I'm very tired, so I apologize in advance for the quality of this post. As a result, I continued to take it easy today.

In the morning, Mary and I went for a nice walk around town and went into all the stores. I got to pracitse my French some more, and it was really fun. We would come in to one of the thousand sports stores in this town, and Mary would say to the owner "Bonjour!" then whisper to me "How do you say 'I am'?", I'd tell her and she'll go "Je suis canadienne." and the store owner would get all excited and start talking to us, and then I would take over and ask them all kinds of questions about the region, etc. Among other things, I learne today that Bessans is where Beaufort cheese is made, and that only about 350 people live in the village. I also fulfilled all my souvenir requirements on this little shopping trip.

In the afternoon, we got assigned our wax hut at the race site and got it organized. Then Harris and I went for a nice slow skate ski. The snow here is very cold, so it's pretty slow and it makes you work. Still, we had a fun ski, even though we were both pretty tired. No sleep and altitude are not the best combo. Harris took this picture of me when we found a nice view and took a little breather.

All right, I'm off to bed to try and find some sleep tonight. Good night from the French Alps!

France - Day 1: We've arrived!

So we're in France. And it's beautiful here! We're staying in a little village called Bessans. It's in a valley framed by spectacular mountains. The skiing is really fantastic: there are tons of snow and it's groomed almost to perfection with deep straight tracks. It's not as warm as you'd expect it to be in Europe and the snow is pretty cold, but that's just how we Ottawa skiers like it.

We arrived at around 2 in the morning and slept in till around 10, so that we can adjust to the time change quicker. The time difference with Ottawa is 6 hours. Amazingly, we took no wrong turns on our way to this tiny little hamlet lost in the French Alps, and the only thing that slowed us down was the weather. It snowed in Switzerland, rained at the border and then was dry for the rest of the way until we got here, where it was also snowing.

So today we just took it easy: went for a nice slow exploratory ski in the afternoon, settled some admin questions about our stay here while practising our French, and had supper.

Now's it's just about time for bed, so that we can get up at 7 and get started on anothe day of adjusting to the time change and altitude. We're at almost 2000 metres here. For now, this is our only goal: take it easy and acclimatize.

Good night from Bessans!

A busy couple of days

This weekend we had time trials up in the Gatineaus to get our heads and bodies back into racing mode before Europe. Saturday's time trial was a 6 km classic, and we had a great turn-out of young and less young Kanata Nordic racers. It was awesome to see all the kids participating. My time trail was a little too relaxed, as I later realized. I started out too conservatively, even though the distance was very short, and I should have gone all out right from the start. But that's why we do these race simulations, so that come race time, we'll know exactly what to do. So my Saturday's time was a little slower than I would have liked.

Today's time trial was for biathlon, and only Alexei and I participated. The total distance ended up being almost 15 km, and we shot 4 times. Both Alexei and I shot reasonably well: 80% for and slightly higher for Alexei. But I was very happy with my race and my result today, as I was only about 4 minutes behind Alexei even though I had to do an extra small loop while he was shooting. So our times were very similar all things considered. That's a super positive experience to take with me to the World Cups!

On Friday my parents, Robert and I got to meet CTV's Carolyn Waldo, a local sports reporter and Olympic champion. She interviewed us at Mooney's Bay Park and took footage of us skiing. She was especially interested in the "whole family" aspect of our training and of how we all support and motivate each other. Meeting Carolyn was really special. She conducted the interviews with great professionalism and enthusiasm. The story will run sometime before the Paralympics. I will post when I know more. This is my parents, Carolyn and I after the interviews.

Alright, I'm off to bed. Have to get an early start on packing for Europe tomorrow morning. Good night!

A little training update

Our European tour is fast approaching, and as a result, my coaches, my guide and I have stepped up our training. Since recovering from my Holiday-time cold, I've been doing lots of volume (longer skis) and  more intensity (harder skis). This increase has been taking a bit of a toll on my body though: I was really tired all of last weekend and Monday.

I had an amazing training session yesterday though thanks largely to having a back and leg massage a few hours before my workout. My quad muscles had been getting tired and stiff really easily during workouts lately, so my massage therapist performed Active Release Techniques (ART) on them yesterday. He explained that, from constant use and rubbing together, the muscles making up the quad group can get stuck together and not work properly. Using ART can help separate the muscles thus making them slide across each other and perfom their functions as they should. And what a difference that massage session made! I was able to go up the Pink Lake hill in the Gatineau Park, about a 7-minute uphill interval, five times without my quad muscles giving out on me as they had been. I encourage all athletes reading this to use the services of an ART-certified massage therapist. If you don't know one in the Ottawa area, ask me for a recommendation.

This weekend we have a couple of time trials planned with our Kanata Nordic coach, Harris, in the Gatineau Park to test ourselves before we head out for the World Cups. We were considering going to a race a few hours away, but thought better of it, what with the risk of getting sick and over-tired from travelling right before our big trip. I've got two more workouts planned for today as well, and I should be heading out for one of them as I write. So, I shall bid you good afternoon from Ottawa and head out to Mooney's Bay!