Austria Days 4-6

Hallo wieder!!

The past two days have been a blur of early mornings, glacier skis and chilly afternoon runs.

The weekend brought a ton of glacier snow with it... along with a ton of wind and a whole lot of rain down here at sea level. Skiing was crazy, we were pretty much skiing in a complete whiteout. It was even hard to see the person skiing beside you or the corner coming up. Pretty cool, but the combination of super strong winds and blowing snow, required some determination and warm clothing. The gondola stopped on the way down yesterday, right in the middle of a cloud. Pretty scary :/

Today, on the other hand, was another bright day, at least on the glacier. We were skiing above the clouds, so we avoided the overcast conditions down below. This afternoon had a core session on tap, we worked on getting mad six packs in a soccer field by the ski jumps. We rounded off the training day with a game of soccer, always fun :) As for our evenings, I just got destroyed at poker, me losing my chips so fast is what gave me time to write this, its a good thing I suck ;)

I'm looking forward to the three afternoons off that we have coming up, it will be nice to see some of the cities around here and break out of the eat, sleep, train routine we have going everyday. My one teeny complaint about the trip so far is how little of the whole country we have seen, I feel like Europe is about more than just training and hotels. But I'm sure those afternoons will help fill that craving!

Gute Nacht!

Michelle :)



Our little cabin on the glacier



Rollerski advice







Core



One of our hotel's bunnies



Trying to learn poker...

Austria Days 1-3

So. Seeing as Austria isn't quite as groundbreaking as the Olympics, but since people seem to care anyways, and I love sharing my adventures, I have decided to try and start this whole blogging business up again, but am gonna keep it to one every few days.

I found out a few months ago that I was invited to participate in a training camp in Ramsau, Austria, a small town near Salzburg. We are here to take advantage of the Dachstein glacier, an awesome ski facility located at 3000 feet on, you guessed it, an glacier. Pretty cool eh?

So here's my account of my Austrian adventure :)

We left Ottawa at night, and transferred in Toronto. We had an 8 hour flight ahead of us, so I figured I'd knock myself out with sleeping pills. Obviously, I went a little too far, because for the next 10-12 hours I found it hard to stay awake for more than 15 minutes. My incredible amount of sleep did at least start the week out well, and I would take too much sleep over too little any day.



We looove the toronto airport!...


... and granola, apparently.

Getting things together took quite a while when we finally landed in Zurich, Switzerland. Our wax box hadn't made it, which reaallyy sucked, and we don't exactly travel light...





We hit up the Mc Donalds on the way through Germany, which was fun. Their specialty seemed to be three massive sausages on a big mac bun. They also seem to feel that in order to truly be part of the franchise, they need to stick Mc in front of everything.



The drive to Ramsau was long... 6+ hours, but soooo pretty. The fact that it went by so fast had me a little concerned, I'm not sure that the ability to turn off one's brain for long periods of time is necessarily a good thing. There was lots to look at though... Austria seems to almost completely consist of super high mountains, green valleys and tiny little villages nestled in between. The houses are all so cute, I just want to hug them.










We finally got here and enjoyed an awesome meal at a near by hotel where we will be eating lunch and dinner. We eat breakfast in our house, which is run by a super nice couple, who try they're best to understand our ridiculous looking hand gestures. They raise bees and we are treated to their honey every morning.





Our second day we hit up the rollerski track. You know you've hit a skier's haven when there is a whole network of trails designed specially for a training method that 90% of Canadians have never even heard of. Despite the sketchy downhills, which I will definitely have to work on, we put in a solid workout.



In the afternoon we ran to the base of a ski jump (one of austria's main sports, apparently) and did core.

Today we finally got to the glacier. It is A.M.A.Z.I.N.G.

You drive 20ish minutes straight up, then jump on a gondola and go even straighter up. The result is tons of altitude, and way less oxygen than I'm used to. We skied for a couple hours around the 10k loop, which is pretty much entirely switchbacks, and then came down for a shower and lunch. On tap for this afternoon is an hour or so easy run, we've had lots of warnings about going too hard during the first few days. Here are some glacier pictures, as well as some randoms I felt I should throw in.













View from our balcony

Lebewohl!! :)

Men's Pursuit. Last day, BYE Vancouver!!

Coming into the exchange pit...


SWITCH...


And heading back out, all in about 5 seconds. Crazyness.



So. Today was my last day up at the World Olympic Park, and what a day it was. Janelle and I started it off with a ski in 12 degree weather... tank tops were the only thing that made the heat bearable. Since we were skiing reasonably early in the morning, we got the heat without the slushy, deep, heavy snow, which was a definite plus. My nose got a sunburn though. Once our lovely ski was done, we took the klister off our skis, a task that we had been postponing all week. After a quick lunch, the race finally started. Today was the 30k pursuit, a 15k leg of both classic and skate. I’m sure most of you saw it, so I won’t go into too much detail, but to sum it up, it was awesome. The Canadians did so well, and that was reflected in the stadium’s energy. People were SO LOUD. There were two giant cowbells in the Swiss cheering squad, a trumpet somewhere near the Norwegians, whistles in the Canada section and loud cheers filling the rest of the stadium. And of course, energy spreads, and so soon everyone around you is shifting from foot to foot, completely absorbed in the atmosphere around them. I really liked how the race was a longer distance than the previous ones, you don’t miss the race just by blinking and you had time to really get into it. And again, we did so well, it was hard to not be super high-strung the whole time. Forerunning is still fun, although I’m getting a little worn out, as is the rest of the group, I think. It shows in our postrunning... we started out the week skiing 7.5k loops, now we cut off at about 400 meters. Not that I mind terribly, I’ve been getting in plenty of good training. I’m just not a huge fan of skiing, stopping, skiing, stopping and skiing again. You build up some crazy acid in the legs doing that.

So this was my last forerunning race, and what a race it was. I’ll be leaving here with another life changing experience courtesy by skiing under my belt, hopefully with many more to follow. I am so grateful that I was chosen to take part in these incredible events; I will remember them for a long time. The motivation provided is incredible. Being an Olympic athlete seems so much more attainable when you spend 2 weeks around them constantly. But you also see what kind of a commitment it is. You see their constant focus, on and off the trails, their determination to get everything just so, so that they can go out and have the best race of their lives. I have been immersed in so much race preparation, it is unbelievable. I have watched the same people test skis for DAYS, I have seen skiers out skiing the course, completely 100% zoned out to the world around them, preparing to race. I even skied past some Swiss guy in the middle of the woods doing tai-chi followed by a short sprint and then repeating this, over and over and over. The Olympics are like some super intricate watch, ticking away for 18 days with the whole world watching. TV viewers, spectators and most volunteers only get to see the pretty numbers on the front, or perhaps help wind it up just a bit, doing their part. I feel like I was given the chance to dance around the inner gears, trying not to jam anything up, while trying to stick my nose in as many places as possible and see everything I could and how it all worked and fit together. I don’t know who gave us the privilege to do this, to eat with the athletes, walk in the waxing zone, or watch from a place that was off limits to even the national team coaches, but whoever it was, thank you so, so, so much.

People always asked if I was going to win a gold medal when they heard I was going to the Olympics. And then I would have to explain, ever so patiently, that no, I wasn’t even racing, that I was forerunning, which then leads to me trying to explain exactly what a forerunner is, etc. Basically, no matter how the conversation meanders, it always seemed to end with the other person throwing me a wry smile and a “Well, if not this time, maybe the next, or the next.” I usually write this off with a laugh, but really, it would be the coolest thing ever, and there is always a tiny bit of me going “YES, YES, YES” . All of these athletes winning medals were once 17 and watching the games from their couches. It’s all about motivation, it got them here, and although there is always a chance it will run out, or be directed elsewhere, as long as momentum carries through, there is really no reason to believe that it can’t be done eventually. If my eyes can tear up watching opening ceremonies on TV where the torch doesn’t rise and a hockey player carries a sputtering flame through the rain in a pickup truck, then I can’t even imagine how great it must feel for the athletes taking part, or even winning medals. This is the kind of legacy the Olympics leave behind, this inspiration to overcome bumps in the road, to strive for excellence and bathe in the glory that is sport and the games, and I am sure that every other aspiring athlete feels the same.

My bag is packed, my skis are travel waxed, my seats are booked and I’m going home. Bye Vancouver 2010, I’ll miss you.

Michelle


Janelle pulling her very best Canadian tourist look






Back of the stands


Some of the countries' wax cabins


Our home away from home away from home for the past two weeks... this and the wax trailer











Ice Inukshuks by the finish line

Day 11: Some Classy Shopping in Squamish

Not too much to report today. I opted for a day of rest and recovery, slept in till 10 and then set out to enjoy the sights in Squamish. We quickly came to the conclusion that Squamish the place of cheap everything. Their main street’s biggest attractions include the Lucky Loonie, Liquidation World, several second hand clothing stores and some department store that was really a pimped out Dollorama. And I admit it, we visited them all. We were on a bit of a mission to find a Canadian flag, but no one had any idea where to find one. My most impressive buy of the day was a Panini and gelato, which were amazing. My knee has been bugging me quite a bit these last few days. Skiing is almost 100% fine, but walking is... unpleasant. So I called it a day after Main Street was done and headed back to the inn for yet another night of Olympic sport watching. On tonight’s menu: Figure skating, skeleton and men’s hockey. Very exciting, hockey was fun, we’re surrounded by some pretty intense hockey fans here. Apparently Petra Majdic, the bronze medallist from yesterday’s sprint race, raced all of her races with four cracked ribs and a punctured lung. That’s quals, quarters, semis and finals, FOUR races, and a podium to top it all off with a punctured lung?!? Either the media is upset that the luge drama has been set aside and have decided to pump up the ratings, or this woman is superhuman. I mean, not to sound like a whiner, but cross-country skiing is HARD, you kind of need your lungs. Form your own opinion, here’s the link:

http://www.vancouversun.com/sports/Olympic+cross+country+Slovenia+Petra+Majdic+determination+grit+wins+bronze/2583221/story.html

The end of my trip is fast approaching; I’m trying to suck as much olympicness out of everything as possible. Two weeks has flown by, and it’s hard to believe that in three days I’ll be sitting in chemistry, learning about chemical equilibrium, or something along those lines. Sigh.
Anyways, time for bed, sorry I wasn’t more interesting today.
Michelle :)

Day 10: Like beasts on a mission... dont get in the way

Men's Final

Today was great. Another early start, we left the hotel at 6:15 to be exact. I am now an expert at sleeping on buses; I can be out in a matter of minutes. I was sitting next to one of the snowmobile camera guys who drives the fancy camera at the pace of the race. He recognized me from one of the media tests we did last week, and we had a chat about how one of his coworkers had crashed one last year at the World Cup. When I asked him, out of honest curiosity, whether his friend had been fired for driving such a pricy piece of equipment into a snow bank, he was quick to tell me, in a voice significantly less loud and me-like, that no, his friend still had a job, and was sitting right behind me. I blame my red face on the heat in the bus, but I was pretty embarrassed. Moral of the story, don’t ask questions about camera mess-ups in a bus full of media.

When we arrived at WOP around 8, there were already people filing into the stadium. Sprints are a big deal, and everything is so close, that it can really be anyone’s race, which added to the already excited and vibrant atmosphere that we have been in the middle of since the beginning of the week. Ski testing is a big deal for us. Obviously not as big a deal as it is for the racers, but we really can’t be slippy at all. One of our jobs, technically, as forerunners, is to ski in and improve the general state of the course. Granted, in rock hard, icy tracks like there were today, there wasn’t really much we could do to make it better, and so our job title was slightly different... whatever you do, don’t make it worse, or heads will roll. So basically, it was preferable to be on walking-up-a-vertical-wall-like-spiderman-but-with-skis-on-feet-instead-of-webs-on-hands sticky klister, than to herringbone and be dismembered by groomers who have been on dusk till dawn schedules trying to get the course just so. They did an amazing job, by the way.

And so once our skis were coated with a generous layer of klister (all the way past my hard wax zone and into my glide zone, actually), we were ready. We headed to the stadium, and were off. The course was a gong-show before the races even started. Half of it was in the shade, while the rest was sitting in the bright 60 sun, and everything in between was corners scraped down to ice. But we made it through, thankfully with no falls, and headed straight to our awesome spot in the stadium. No sooner than we had all picked a spot to perch on the fence, we were back on our feet, the qualifiers had begun. Our Canadians did alright, with 4 of the 8 of them qualifying for the heats (top 30). The crowds were super into it, which made it all even better, with little Norway and Canada competing for the most sound wave occupancy. I think Norway won, it helps when your athletes are all crazy fast.
After quals it we beelined it to the athlete’s lounge, and took in the sites over our bowls of broccoli soup. All the athletes we had just watched move like beasts on a mission were resting, talking on their cell phones, changing, eating and watching other events on the tv. Watching them go through their normal habits, it would be hard to know that there were Olympic medals on the line. But if you looked closer, there were for sure some stressed out vibes going around the room. Many athletes were on their own at tables or in corners, alone with their thoughts and strategies.

Once the heats started, everything kinda became a blur. One heat to the next, we saw some skiers get an inch closer to their Olympic dream, while others gave that inch and lost a mile. Of course, then there were the finals. They were incredible, so many people cheering for so few. I think that that’s the biggest revelation for today, if you will. An Olympic gold is not just an athlete’s dream, but the dream of their country, their coaches, their wax techs, their cheering squad. The accomplishment of one person means so much to so many more. Today I got to witness the power of sport, the reason people keep showing up, century after century, to run around in circles and hit things with sticks. It can all be wrapped up in the look on some Russian technician’s (coach’s? Dunno, doesn’t matter) face as he watched two of his people cross the line almost simultaneously to take first and second and shouted GOLD, at the top of his lungs. Bash the Russians if you want, but that was quite a moment.

After the races I got a bit of a training ski in, the sun was shining and freckles have exploded all over my face, except for my forehead of course, because obviously contrast is so in this season. We went on an awesome ski, getting onto some different trails than what we’ve been on recently, thanks to our tour guide, Thomsen, who lives around here and was able to provide us with some variety.

All in all, awesome day.

That’s all folks!!

Michelle :)


















Women's final


The new female Olympic Sprint Champion