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!! :)
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