Andrew Stewart-Jones

My Season Part II

2010-05-12T14:11:00.000-07:00

It’s been over a month since my last ski race, so I should have had enough time to reflect on it to publish something on the second part of my season. The problem with waiting so long, is that you always think of a certain way that you should talk in your post and because you spend so much time thinking about what to write, you sometimes end up with too many things on your mind and get a bit more detailed than you expected. Here is my best attempt at grounding all of my ideas and making a comprehensive package for you, the reader. So here goes...

After the Fis race in Stowe, at the beginning of February, there was a large gap until Nationals. Just over a month where I would be doing nothing but local races. I would have loved to have flown to the Midwest and done some Supertours, or even better, gone to Europe. Europe of course, was out of the question and Supertour races would have been difficult trying to find support, as club support was non-existent for such a far away set of races. Ultimately, I decided to stay at home and work my training the best I could so that I could peak for Nationals in Whitehorse. In a nutshell, Nationals was a bit disappointing. Me and my brother Patrick put together a solid sprint relay race in a tough open men’s field to finish seventh, then there was the 10km classic race where I finished 2nd junior, in what felt like a pretty average race, although I was very happy to get my first ever Nationals podium! The most disappointing race was my 15km skate race. The first two 3.75km laps went really well, I felt awesome and in control, but I really suffered in the final two laps, and I wasn`t even tired. I realised afterwards that I hadn`t had enough for breakfast and I ended up bonking really hard the last times around. I finished 5th junior, thoroughly frustrated that such a dumb mistake took place. My skate sprint sucked, but I was saved by the rounds, finishing fifth again and my classic mass start race suffered from wax that was slowly wearing off, compromising my technique and causing me to fall back again to fifth. My goal for Nationals was to win a race and finish top 3 overall. Because I was consistently top 5, I finished 2nd overall, but I never came close to winning a race and was a bit disappointed by this. I was lucky enough to be able to share my first time in Whitehorse with the rest of my family, as all six of us took a vacation up there. My dad was waxing our skis, my mom was spectating and giving feeds and me and my three siblings were racing! To top it off, all four of us won an individual medal!

Pulling out the beast at the 10km race in Stowe, where I finished 2nd

Leading places two through five in last race of Nationals in Whitehorse

I decided that the best way to get back after a disappointing Nationals was by doing well in the last races of the year, the Super Tour Finals in Fort Kent Maine. Only a couple of days home from Whitehorse and we were on the road again driving eight hours to Maine. Our first race was an 11km classic race mass start! It started with a 1km lap, which featured a 200$ prize for the first across this marker, followed by three 3km laps of a totally glazed (picture skating rink) course. To make matters worse, there was a 180 corner about a hundred metres in and I was seeded pretty far back (about halfway through the 100 skier field). As predicted, the race started really fast and the field spread in no time. I worked hard every lap, gaining places and ended up finishing in 27th, and third junior against some really fast Americans. Honestly, I was pretty happy just to stay on my feet, as there were falls all around me, threatening to take me down! The next day we were scheduled to do a classic sprint. My sprints this year have been a bit disappointing as I have always qualified really badly. Fortunately, I pulled out my best sprint of the year and qualified 26th in the Open Men category! I was not expecting to advance as I had both Torin Koos and Len Valjas in my quarter, but my goal was to gain some places. I had a great heat and ended up 4th which although was not enough to move on, made it so that I finished 18th overall and again third junior!

11km "sketch fest" in Maine

Finally, the last day was a short skate race pursuit start based on our two previous races (bonus seconds were awarded for the sprint) to make the three race series a Mini-Tour. Although only 6km long, this skate race featured a difficult climb of about 130 metres over a 1km section, going up an Alpine hill, Tour de Ski style! I started number 20, just 8 seconds behind the first junior. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my best race and fell back to finish 29th overall and 5th junior. Looking at the results, most of the Canadians did not do very well in this race and I think that we were all a bit tired from our Nationals.

Reflecting on my season, I realise that there is lots to learn about the mental approach to racing. Out of the 20 high level races that I did this year (includes Super Tours, Nor-Ams, Nationals and Quebec Cups) I finished 12 times on the podium and 18 times in the top 5. The two times I didn`t finish in the top five happened in the three first races of the year, meaning that I finished in the top 5 in every one of the last 17 races of the year. After the pursuit race at World Junior Trials, I really put things into second gear. I started working harder during races and was able to push myself and get into the race “zone” much easier. I found that no matter how bad I felt that morning or had slept the night before; I was always able to push my hardest and achieve good results. I am not claiming to be the most focussed or mentally tough skier, because I know that I’m not! What I can say for sure is that I significantly improved my focus and threshold ability during races compared to past seasons. Consistency has been improved significantly this year thanks to improved focus. I honestly think that what separates the best skiers in the world isn’t necessarily just speed, but more so their mental abilities, their ability to dig deep and desire to win at every occasion. I know that I have come a long way, but I also know that I still have a ways to go if I want to achieve my full potential.

Andrew

A book I highly recomend, it has helped me a lot this season!

p.s. I was very happy to be presented with Male Athlete of the year by Ski de Fond Quebec as well as Athlete of the year by Nakkertok ski club, I am truly honored to win these awards!

Holding my Male Athlete of the Year Award at the end of year banquet.

The Big Run, TEMBO Fundraiser

2010-04-29T17:42:00.000-07:00

Well, I figure it’s about time that I update my blog. I can imagine how there must be hordes of people wondering about my run, so I better give them an update. Here goes

The night before I spent a couple of hours organizing equipment and, more importantly, looking over many of my dad’s “toilet paper” maps, which were maps drawn on thin paper depicting many trails unknown to most people, which he drew on for the past 15yrs updating them whenever he found a new one. Needless to say, I didn’t understand any of them, but luckily he got me some real orienteering maps that I could use for my trip. I found a couple of options and decided I would wait until the morning before deciding on which one to take.

Supplies for the run, had to fit all this in my pack

The morning of, I woke up a bit early, but set about preparing for “our” trip as quick as possible. I indeed said “our” trip because two “friends” (although I’m not sure if I can call them that anymore) had told me the night before that they wanted to run at least a good section of the run with me. I got the call that morning that one of them couldn’t make it, using an excuse of some sort, saying his legs were tired. Unfortunately (but Predictably), I got a call from my other friend with the same answer, about ten minutes later, although he didn't bother with the excuses. It looked like I would have to attack this beast solo. After some small setbacks, I made my way to P17 in Wakefield, where I began my excursion at 10:30 in the AM. A friend kindly lent me his GPS watch to track my distance. It included other geeky, but somewhat useful features such as pace (shown in minutes per km) and heart rate.

Picture at a friends house, just before the run

Starting out of P17 I took a left turn at the first junction and then again at the next, taking me up to Brown Lake Cabin, which I had visited on several occasions as a young-ling. I took a left at the Cabin, ran up a hill on a seldom used road that was slowly returning to its natural state and then hung a right, diving into a narrow wooded trail not long after. I followed this trail for a significant amount of time, not too sure where I was until I finally popped out onto a country road. I ran along this road until it connected to the 105 highway and then ran along the highway, up a hill, decided I should go right onto a road called Cross Loop. I followed this road until a point where I had to cross a field. After crossing the field I was back in the Park, and simply followed a snowshoe trail until I got to Healey Cabin, which is right beside Herridge. At this point I had covered 12km over about 1hr 20min. I ran from Herridge to the tip of Lac Philippe on trail 50, where I could keep a good pace, thanks the trails width and flatness. From Lac Philippe, I headed straight up to Lusk Caves and then to Lusk Cabin.

Trail behind Brown Lake cabin

Coming off of Cross Loop road I crossed a small field before re-entering the woods.

Healey Cabin

Trail 50 to Lac Philippe

Tip of Lac Philippe

At Lusk Cabin I stopped for a quick lunch and then headed down trail 54 to a road used as campsite access in summer. I then ran along this road to Taylor Lake. Once at Taylor Lake, my watch read 28km exactly. I had calculated that taking the shortest route back to P17 from Taylor was about 12km. So in order to do 45km, I would need to find an extra 6km (to be on the safe side). I decided to continue on the far side of Taylor and run up a trail/overgrown road in the direction of Lac de la Valise and continue until I got to the Mud Lake Lookout. The problem with this route, I realized shortly after starting it, was that it was all uphill. It ended up taking me nearly half an hour to do just over 3km to the lookout. On the way down my legs ached a lot and were starting to feel the mileage.

Lusk Cabin on Lusk Lake

The last two photos are views from the Mud Lake Lookout

The last twelve kilometres or so passed somewhat uneventfully. From Taylor I made my way to P19 via several different trails, without once running on roads. I finally went from P19 to P17 on trails 51 and 53. I found this last 7km stretch the most difficult of the whole run. My legs were really stiffening up and the consistently slight incline of the trail made it so that I was expending a little more energy. I ended up walking at a couple of places to make it easier. Finally, with 1.5km to go I put down a blistering (well not really...maybe for the end of a near 6hr run) pace varying between 5.5min/km and 4.5min/km. I emerged from the woods moving my legs feverishly, feeling like I was trying to outrun a grizzly. Across the field and to the car, I had made it. Success! The crowd goes wild, wooo!

Ha ha, well not quite, no one was in the parking lot, but I could always imagine... Funny enough, I didn’t really feel any satisfaction with finishing; I just wanted to get home! For those wondering, the final readout was 47.9km completed in about 5hours45minutes. I will post a graph of my heart rate and distance on my blog as soon as I can.

I want to thoroughly thank everybody who donated to Project Tembo. My original goal of 300$ which I thought was a bit “enthusiastic”, turned out not to be. I managed to raise 522$ in funds for TEMBO! For the people of Tanzania, this means a lot. These funds pay the total fees for almost three years of high school for a Tanzanian girl (in Tanzania high school lasts four years). When used for small business loans, this is enough money for three women to get a loan of 150$ each. This money can buy up to 13 goats or 36 hens and 18 roosters for small business start-ups! It was great to be a part of such an awesome project and I am happy that with your help I am able to do a difference for the people of Tanzania.

p.s. here is a link to the Gatineau Park map, in pdf format, where you can find my route. Look for Lac Philippe and just head up a bit and you'll find P17. After Brown Cabin the trail I took goes to Brown and Carman Lakes and then to Cross Loop Road before heading back to Healey (the trail isn't on the map) http://www.canadascapital.gc.ca/data/2/rec_docs/3414_SummerTrailMap.pdf

47.91km, done!

2010-04-26T16:07:00.000-07:00

So today I did my run, and managed to complete 47.91 km, a couple more than the 45 I set out to do! Time was 5hr45min. I will post some things tomorrow, including pictures and hopefully a look at some graphs from my GPS/HR monitor, but tonight I will take it easy and do my best to recover.

Check back soon!
Andrew

Project TEMBO Fundraiser

2010-04-24T13:26:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Welcome to my blog for first time visitors and welcome back for those who have already visited! The goal of this project is to raise money for the Tanzania Education and Micro Business Opportunity (TEMBO) registered Canadian charity. Founded in 2005, the goal of Project TEMBO is to provide educational and small business opportunities in the rural Longido (pop. 7,630) and Kimokouwa (pop. 3,600) areas of northern Tanzania. This is done through funding projects such as financial support for the training of teachers, tuition for girls to attend secondary school and start-up financing for small business initiatives.

Secondary school in Tanzania costs 250$ for the first year of tuition, while the average per capita national income is 280$. Evidently, many families cannot afford the “luxury” of sending their kids to school. Project TEMBO focuses specifically on funding for girls, who only account for about 5% of those attending secondary school.

Women in Tanzania have limited rights and few opportunities for employment. Many of these women wish to send their children to school, but lack the funding to do so. Project TEMBO gives these women the opportunity to have economic independence through their small business initiatives. TEMBO will give a maximum loan of 150$ to these women which they will then use to buy animals such as chickens or goats, whose produce they can sell for profits.

As a part of an initiative to raise money for TEMBO, I have decided on running 45 kilometers on Monday, April 26th. I will be running this distance in the Gatineau park and will be carrying a GPS unit with me in order to make sure that I have run the full distance. Having never run 45 kilometers before, I am indeed challenging myself! That being said, I have been training lately by doing short runs of 1.5hrs maximum to get a feel for the running legs after the long ski season. I am very excited to be running for such an awesome charity and look forward to sharing my experience with the world. Thank you everyone for your donations,
Stay tuned for more updates,

Andrew Stewart-Jones

p.s. here is a link to the TEMBO website: http://www.projectembo.org

Eastern Canadian's NORAM and Stowe Eastern Cup Carnival

2010-02-08T08:02:00.000-08:00

Eastern Canadians NORAM

Since I was young, Eastern’s has been my biggest race next to Nationals. Deep fields served as an indicator for results to come when March rolled around. Now that I have graduated to the NORAM circuit, I have realised that there are much more competitive events than Eastern’s, but no event is quite as awesome. Not only did this race take place on trails that I know better than any other circuit, but this race had unbeatable organization. It’s hard to think of a way that this event could be improved. Despite the rain earlier in the week, the courses were in very good shape, grooming was perfect. Nakkertok put in a huge temporary waxing building made of SIPs and put up a tent for lunch that was provided with registration. The volunteers were very nice and did a great job. It seems that every job was overlooked by several volunteers, which meant that things flowed very well and that there were no delays. Also, on Friday the crew decided to delay the races by two hours off the bat because of the cold. This meant that skiers didn’t have to go to the race site early only to be sitting around for hours, through numerous delays. Prize money was given to Open and Junior categories and instead of medals; skiers won more useful items made of pottery in the form of mugs and plates. All in all, the event was amazingly well done, thank you all of the volunteers who made things possible.

Eastern's Stadium

Racer looping through the stadium

Volunteers at the finish line

SIP waxing building, erected with Eastern's in mind

Inside the SIP building

Nakkertok Waxing tent, a very busy place

Gatorade after the finish

Now let's talk about the racing!
The first race was a 10k individual start skate. My goal for this race was to win the junior category. I started the race off hard, as usual and felt pretty strong during the first 5k lap, the second 5k felt smooth and I felt like I skied this part a bit better. I crossed the finish to find Graham Nishikawa finishing right behind me. He had started 1min 45sec behind me and it never crossed my mind that he might have caught me. My results were good at first glance, I finished first junior and sixth senior in this “NORAM cup” (field was much weaker than a typical NORAM thanks to many athletes being in Europe during this time of year). I realised that my second “smooth” lap compromised my performance, as I was in fourth after the first lap, but finished in sixth, so I was passed by two guys during the second lap who both finished within four seconds of me. I hate being at the losing end when times are close, luckily the next day was a mass start, which gives a better fighting chance is these tight situations.

Here I am, hurting hard during the skate 10k

I had decided to take part in the Open men`s 30k classic event instead of the Junior category 15k for two reasons. Reason 1 is that nationals is a 20k mass start classic, and so the theory was that if I could do a 30k, then I should have no problem doing a 20k (I still feel like 10k’s are my best event) and reason 2 is that the 30k was a FIS race and the 15k was not. I felt great the morning of the race, tested my skis, and then proceeded to the start. The race began at a leisurely pace and the lead pack stayed together for one and a half 7.5k laps. Somewhere on the second lap, Nishikawa, Greer and Butler pulled away. Although I felt really good, I decided to play it conservative and not try and stay with them. Instead, I skied the next two laps in the “chase group”, which consisted of me and Karl Saidla.

Karl leading me over one of the hills

We switched up the lead but Karl led most of the time. I was feeling really good and super fresh until the third lap, when I suddenly hit the wall about halfway through. I suddenly felt all tired and a bit hungry and after Karl dropped me I had trouble keeping focus. Up the last big climb, I had a lot of trouble. I was moving at a snail’s pace and was passed by Etienne Richard like I was standing still. Over the top I was seeing colours and was a bit disoriented, a few dumb moves almost cost me a fall. By the time I finished, Etienne had made 35 seconds on me over about 2.5k, but I still finished 6th Open, the same as the day before. After crossing the line I quickly gorged on banana`s and oranges and proceeded to eat some tasty lunch. Overall, I had a good race and, although I bonked had during the last bit, at least now I know that I will need a gel or two during a race this long. Drawing on the positives, I have never had a weekend where I have done this well in races back-to-back. Usually I have a bad second race because I have trouble recovering from the first. Also, both races I scored sub-100 FIS points, which is a good sign of my form.

Lead pack still together coming out of the stadium after the first lap, photo courtesy of Marilyn Scriver

Open men's podium, I'm the tall guy on the left, photo courtesy of xcottawa

All photos courtesy of Ian Austen http://gallery.me.com/iausten#gallery, except when indicated.

Eastern cup race/University Carnnival

The next weekend we headed straight for the States for races that promised to have some very good competition. The weekend consisted of two individual start 10km races, where the first day was a classic and the second was skate. This was actually my first time racing outside of Canada, as well as my first time crossing borders with the new passport system. Luckily we made it through without incident and continued on towards Stowe and the Trapp Family Lodge. The Friday we pre-skied the course and settled down at our accommodations, which was a 45minute drive away in Burlington. Now, we couldn’t believe how cheap everything was in the states, whose exchange rate is pretty much even with ours. Apart from race registration, which was a Hefty 42$ per race, things were much cheaper than in Canada. Our hotel rooms were 45$ per night (separated two ways) and the Italian restaurant we ate at had athlete sized servings at pretty much exactly half the price of a standard East Side Mario’s!

For our first day of racing, a late start time promised some time for sleeping in, at the race site things were relaxed and I proceeded to the start with the promise of some awesome skis. Out of 200+ starters in open men, I started 83rd, it seems they started the faster skiers somewhere in the middle. I began my race with some powerful double poling, and was a bit shaky on the first downhill (It is rare to have a ski race start by going downhill), but up all three climbs on the first lap I was able to push hard and splits on the second lap showed me well ahead of my competitors. I caught Karl Saidla on hill two of three and stayed behind him for the first half of the last hill, something I quickly realised was a mistake as I went to pass him and gained nearly 9 seconds on him between the start of the second part of the climb and the finish. It was a very tough effort and I did not know what to expect, I knew I had done well, I just wasn’t sure where I finished. They announced the top ten before the results were posted and to my surprise, I had finished in 2nd place! I was very excited, it was amazing to do so well in such a deep and competitive field, proven by the fact that my brother finished a close 35 seconds behind me but ended up in 18th place. This meant that competition was very fierce. It was my best race so far this year, but I think that much credit goes to the wax techs who gave me absolute rockets under my feet. After a podium, where the prize was a chocolate bar, and no medals or cheques, we quickly headed back to the hotel for day two.

The skate race did not go as well as the classic. I started hard, but was a bit tired in the upper body, not to mention I had nagging back pains which both played a part in slowing me down on the long one skate sections. I felt a bit tired on the steeper climbs and ended up finishing in a disappointing 24th position. On a better day I could have come in the top ten. I was about thirty seconds behind Etienne and Steffan, both of whom I can beat on occasion during a skate race.

Overall, it was well worth the trip down south, I had lots of fun racing new competition and am looking forward to more US races this year. Stay tuned for some photos in a little bit.

Until next time.

2010-02-01T10:40:00.000-08:00

Post-Trials update

Here’s an entry about my season up to this point, starting from World Junior Trials, which took place in Valcartier, Quebec. I’ll begin with the pursuit.

Coming into this first event, I felt a bit of pressure. I knew that if I won this race I was pretty much guaranteed a spot on the World Junior team. The Valcartier courses are real tough and the pursuit was no exception. Not only were the facts and figures of the course intimidating, but skiing the course you could just feel that the race would be tough. We did 2.5km laps, four classic and four skating and what made the course so hard was that each lap only had one climb, you spent half the lap going up and half going down, no rolling terrain. This meant that you had to hold a hard effort for a very long time before you had the chance to recover. If you started a lap too hard, you would pay for it dearly at the top of the climb.

The day of the pursuit, everything felt ok. I warmed up and then moved to the start. Off the start, I was in a good position, in the top 6 or 8, and just cruised up the hill. The first downhill was somewhat sketchy, and on one of the corners I was forced to take an inside line, because of the traffic, which forced me to smash through an overhanging branch face-first, luckily, I stayed on my feet and made it to the bottom, still in the top group. It was on my third lap that I started to feel that this wasn’t my day. I was gapped slightly by the lead pack over the climb, but caught back up on the downhill, only to be gapped again on the flat after a badly timed feed. I lost nearly 30 seconds on the leaders on the fourth classic lap. Through the exchange and I was hoping things would feel a bit more fresh on the skating, but as I started off, I realized that my body would not have any of it. I lost over two more minutes to the leaders in the skating section and finished in a miserable 11th place. I was frustrated because I knew I could do better, I could’ve been on the podium… To top it off, I got a written warning for not marking either of my skis before the race. I somehow bypassed ski marking without realizing it.

Teammate Steffan Lloyd takes the win in the pursuit. Photo courtesy of Peter Lloyd.

The next day, things were looking better. Although I didn’t feel any better than the day before, I knew that I had a serious chance of winning these sprints. My qualifier was a bit slow, I realized that I hadn’t warmed up enough, but I was still in tenth, only a second off of second, so not bad. A glazed track and a short course made for some very intense heats, but I managed to stay out of trouble in my quarter and semi and qualified for the A Final. The final began, and I found myself in third off the start, which I held almost the whole race until the last uphill, where I wanted to make my move. As I started to work my way up, the skier in front of me tripped up, and blew my speed. I went to pass him on the left, but it was too late, Joey Burton had already sneaked past and claimed the win, and I had to settle for third. As disappointed as I was, I told myself that all I needed was another podium to be in contention.

Quarter-Final carnage during the sprints. I'm on the far left, in the blue. Colin Abbott takes a spill.

I lose my speed as the skier in front trips up in the Final. Photo courtesy of Peter Lloyd.

Sprint podium. Photo courtesy of Peter Lloyd.

We took a much needed day off and were ready for the last day, an individual 15k classic. I felt the best of any of the days for this race. I started the first 5k lap hard and caught Zach Holland, who started 15 seconds up, by the end. Zach pulled away on the second lap, but I limited my damages and was still just up on him, according to the splits, at the start of the third lap. This last lap was very hard, I was redlining going up every hill, my technique was falling apart, and I had to resort to much shorter, choppier kicks than on the first laps. I knew that Zach was slipping away, and on the final climb of the course, I was told that he was fifteen seconds up on me. I made a final push over the top of the hill and worked every corner of the downhill going into the stadium, but it was over, I had been defeated. I collapsed across the finish line. I never remembered going so hard during a race before.

With two podiums at Trials, 3rd in the sprint and 2nd in the classic, I thought I had a good chance at making the team. Unfortunately I was not selected because of my first distance race. If you average out my CPL for both distance races, as per the criteria, I ended up well back (sixth to be exact, they only take five), and since the criteria cannot be bent in any sense, I was out of luck. Being so close to making it, I had never been this disappointed about anything before. After the verdict, I told myself that I would show the office drones at CCC that I deserved to make it, I would train better and be in peak shape for Nationals. I decided to turn this disappointment into an
opportunity. This negative energy would fuel my motivation towards the next events.

Since trials I have been doing a lot of volume and a couple of small races. This last weekend was Easterns, which I will update in my next blog post. From now on I will try to be more consistent with my updates, until next time.

Austria! Part 2

2009-10-27T16:47:00.000-07:00

During our three “off” days we had to find other things to do to keep ourselves entertained. We ran about an hour every day, and besides this, we were free to do what we will. My first step to freedom was bringing my naps from under an hour to an average of 2+hrs every day. I would also spend more time eating, although I would eat the same amount, I would do it slower. Also, me, Colin and Steffan found a cool pedal bike that probably weighs about a hundred pounds, that you can pedal both backwards and forwards and still coasts!

Looking down at Ramsau from the top of a chairlift tower

On our first off day, we went to Salzburg, which is about a one hour drive from Ramsau. We stayed there for a couple hours, which was enough time for me to find some cool beer mugs to take home to the family. We also saw a majestic-lookin castle, and found some garbage cans hidden in the walls, awesome!

Super garbage can

Castle

By the time we got back to the skiing, I was feeling refreshed and ready for another five hard training days. The first day of training I started off with an easy two hour ski and went up from there. The most I skied was about 2:45min on the second last day. For this day, the weather was absolutely perfect and nothing beats being one of the last athletes to leave the glacier. It felt great to ski through the slushy snow, sun beating down, and hardly another athlete in sight!

The crew, getting ready for another day of skiing

Drying clothes on the deck

One of the afternoons we skied down the roller ski track in Ramsau. This was my second time skiing the track, and I can tell you that it is really fun. The track is, in my opinion, the perfect width and the pavement is perfect. The downhill’s are intimidating at first, by you quickly realise that you can keep a lot of speed around the corners because of how banked the corners are (yeah, banked corners, you better believe it!). There's a good video of us on youtube going down the track. Eventually I'll learn how to post videos, but for now you'll hyave to find it yourself...

Another afternoon during a run, we climbed a steep ridge and got a great view of the landscape. Here are a couple of photos.

Me climbing a sketchy cliff

Colin climbed to the top of this lttle peak and got a pretty nice view

The last day of skiing I put in a solid two-hour effort, knowing fully that it would probably be at least a month before I would be skiing on snow again. That same day we packed up all our stuff by 2pm, loaded our bags into the vans and headed off to Munich, where we would be spending our last night. Munich was nice, but I’m not much of a city person. We had a good time trying to figure our way around the Subway system and caught up with the Thunder Bay athletes for some time, which was fun. The next day we took our 8hr, direct flight at noon. Check out the photos of our meal!

Lastly, I would like to make a couple shout-outs. Firstly, a shout out to Colin Abbott who is really awesome to hang out with and had a bunch of really great movies and, more importantly, some sick tunes to share with us the whole time. I would also like to make a shout-out to Steffan for putting up with my snoring and a shout-out to Alex for all the free Red Bull. Finally, I would like to thank all the other athletes for making this trip so much fun as well as all of the coaches and waxing staff.

I’m out,

Andrew Stewart-Jones

Parting Shot

Cool offroad scooter, tires are 7 inches wide!

Austria! Part. 1

2009-10-15T17:52:00.000-07:00

Austria is a really cool place, there’s no denying it! This being my first time to Europe, everything felt a bit different at first, a bit strange. Arriving in Munich at about 4am local time, I was just about ready to go to bed after being awake for over twelve hours. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be another seventeen hours before I could get a good night’s sleep.

Jet lag is not very fun, this being said, the 5 hours or so that we spent waiting in the airport went by rather quickly, as we slowly saw the morning crowds come in buying breakfast with not so much coffee, but full half-liter glasses of beer! Welcome to Germany, difference number one, beer for breakfast! We opted for a small grocery store and bought some bread, Steffan (Lloyd) managed to find the closest thing to a jos Louis in Europe within the first minute and ranted to us about how good a deal it was for a half kilo package of them. The rest of the crew showed up at about 9 am and an hour later we were on the road heading to Ramsau Austria, a three hour drive away.

Team Sweden was here

Roads in Europe are narrower, speed limits are higher and the drivers, more aggressive. Difference number two, driving. This made me quite reluctant that I was not the one driving us to Austria. The drive went by uneventfully and we made it into Ramsau after about a half hour of sickening mountain roads that almost made me puke. We disembarked the van wide-eyed to the scenery that was before us; beautiful green pastures dotted with cows, sheep and even Bison, surrounded by evergreen trees and topped off with huge mountains in the background. Swiss style houses seemed to be the only style of home that existed, and dotted the countryside everywhere. I was looking forward to staying here undeniably!

View From our house

The first day we went to our house we were staying in to drop off our stuff and then did a short 45 minute run. Supper was eaten quickly and we made it to bed by 8:30. I slept perhaps the best 10 hours of my life and woke up, still partially jet-lagged to an amazing breakfast of fresh croissants, bread, fruit, nutoka (nutella look alike), and, strangely enough, meat and cheese. We quickly got on our ski clothes and packed our bags with water and food, we embarked into the nine-person vans we were using and sped off up the winding mountain roads to the base of thecable car. The cable car ride takes five minutes and climbs 1km vertical, from 1800 meters to 2800 meters. The ride is far from comfortable, as they manage to find a way to stuff 70 people into the small car.

Cable car up

Preping for the ski

Once arrived at the top, we got out to some beautiful weather, as the sun was just coming over the surrounding mountains. We walked about 5 minutes downhill until we made it to the ski track. Conditions the first day were far from ideal; the snow was black coloured and made for some dirty skis. The plan for the camp was to ski five days on the glacier, then three “off” days and then another 5 days of skiing.

The plan was to ski around 2 hours every morning on the glacier and then another hour to an hour and a half of training in the pm. Unfortunately, I skied a bit long the first day (2h15min), not to mention my heart rate was averaging about 150+bpm. This set me back a bit for the rest of the week and I found myself craving the off days by the 3^rd day of skiing. Luckily, I managed to pull through and finished the fifth day at an all time low. I had made it through the week and the rest days were upon us! Yes!

Greetings world

2009-09-18T09:11:00.000-07:00

Hey, what’s up blog world? After months of deliberation, I have decided finally to start up my blog. The goal is to keep you people as entertained as possible about what’s hot and happenin in the ski world. To that end, don’t believe everything you read, for entertainment factor, there may be exageration! Ha ha, I’ll be trying to keep things as real as possible though, so stay tuned…