The Summer of 2012
It’s been a busy summer hence the lack of updates. With so much to talk about I’m going to do my
best to paraphrase my recap and stick to the highlights. First off, if you don’t know by now I’m part
of a new team this season, the Alberta World Cup Academy (AWCA) based out of
Canmore, AB. Yep, that means not only a
new team, but a new town in the west too.
One thing is constant from last year, I am still a member of the
National Senior Development Team (2nd year now). The season begins May 1st so I’m
going to start off my recap thereabouts.
Bend, Oregon
After dragging the body out of lazy April and back to an
athlete’s reality with a few runs, bikes and visits to the gym, I flew to
Calgary to meet up with the AWCA team before driving to Bend, Oregon for some
early season skiing. I have never skied
in May before and to be honest I wasn’t sure I was ready to strap the boards
back on so soon. The sight of snow
changed that quickly. A mix of warm
spring skiing and fresh snow, mid-winter conditions were well received by us
athletes during our stay in Bend. Aside
from skiing some highlights from the trip include an incredible run in Smith
Rock State Park and a team baseball game that managed to draw a few spectators.
Thunder Bay, ON
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| Smith Rock State Park (I didn't have my camera with me so I had to steal these photos off the internet. We started our run along the river below the cliffs, not too shabby!) Below is a picture of the rock formation "Monkey Face". When we ran by below it there were people slack lining from the cliff across the void to the mouth. Craziness! |
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| Jess excited about the fresh white stuff at Mt Bachleor |
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| Skiing in May! |
Home again home again.
After an epic amount of travel (13.5 hour drive from Bend to Canmore
followed by flying out of Calgary to TBay) I made it home to pack up my life,
play a few rounds of golf and visit friends and family. The day came, June 6th, when I planned
to start the drive west in my new Matrix*…surprise surprise, I wasn’t done
packing. Those who know me well probably
would have foreseen this. On June 7th,
out I stepped into a foggy warm morning.
With the matrix loaded down, Britt and I hit the TransCanada to start
our Canmore bound road trip. It was a
long drive. The gale force winds and
driving rain through the prairies were not of assistance. Eventually, we rolled into (cue the
harmonious soundtrack) the town of Canmore.
*Exerpt [I bought a used Toyota Matrix in Ottawa this
spring – first vehicle with my name on the ownership!]
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| The Matrix riding low |
Canmore, Alberta
My new home. I’m
living downtown with roommates/teammates Russell and Chris. We
have a small fenced in backyard backing onto a shallow river with a dirt trail
along its bank. Our place is one of the
Mountainview Estates townhouses located across the street from Safeway, perfect
for hungry athletes. We even have a
single car garage to store our hoards of outdoor gear. All in all, it’s a great setup for us. A few trips to Ikea in Calgary and the local
thrift store and the place was more or less furnished.
Nelson, BC
Not long after settling into Canmore life I was on the road
with AWCA for a training camp in Nelson.
This small BC town impressed me with a great main street strip, scenic
views of Kootenay Lake and a good Mexican restaurant to top it off. We only stayed a few days, however we did
complete two epic workouts. The first
was a striding workout up a mountain involving 2 long zone 3 efforts with some
short hard efforts inbetween. Try as we
might the mountain conquered, we never reached the end of the trail or any sort
of summit. The next day I celebrated my
24th birthday with the longest road ride of my life. I completed the Silver Triangle, a 216km loop
including two mountain passes, in 6 hours and 40 minutes with an average speed
of 32.32km/h. When I rolled into the
parking lot at our motel one of my teammates joked, “Somppi you’re looking
rough” and indeed I was. Completely
spent, covered in sweat, grease, spilled coke and sticky power gel I
smiled. A birthday I will remember for
the rest of my life.
Heart of the Summer
I spent all of July training hard in Canmore. We did two stints up on the Haig Glacier to
put in some high altitude volume on-snow training. The first trip up with the National Ski Team
was something of a rock star style camp if that’s possible in cross-country
skiing. We took a chopper up to the
glacier, as opposed to the normal 2+hour run in, and crust skied under blue
skies and a bright sun. The perfect
weather held out for the entire 3 days and we finished the camp being
photographed by journalists before boarding the chopper and flying out. It felt too good to be real.
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| Beauty days up at the Haig Glacier with our friendly mountain goat |
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| The Canadian Men's National Ski Team (I'm on the far right) |
I must have pinched myself too hard because the next trip up
was a reality check. Day one we hiked in
during the afternoon, the groomer broke down in the evening. Day two we skied on partially groomed tracks,
it was ok. Day three we skied on
ungroomed tracks in sluggish conditions.
With no possibility of the groomer being repaired, we ran out a day
early. We finished up the big training
block with a mini-Tour style testing weekend before taking a week off from the
daily schedule. Cresting the top of
Spray Lakes road in the 7.5km uphill running race felt like a real achievement
and was a great way to cap off the training period.
Golden, BC
The highlight of my rest week was a weekend getaway to
Golden, BC. On our way to Golden, Britt
and I did a day hike around Lake O’hara, one of the most beautiful places I
have ever been. In the amphitheater
there’s a 360 degree mountainside view…I’m not going to attempt to describe it
and pictures don’t do it justice, but trust me, it’s good. The only downer was I stared at the cakes in the store before starting the hike and when we arrived back at the store they were all
gone…bummer. Anyway, on to Golden we
went. If you end up in Golden sometime I
recommend the milkshakes and salmon at Apostoles Greek Restaurant. I had them, they were delicious.
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| Britt running the Alpine Circuit above Lake O'hara |
The next day I did a 3 hour mountain bike
ride on the Moonraker trails and down the CBT Line to town. The best parts: a fast windy descent on the
“Moonraker” and stumbling onto the Canyon Creek trail to stop short of a
gigantic canyon. The bad parts: getting
lost twice, once attempting and failing to find an alternate route back from
the Canyon Creek trail involving less climbing and once taking a wrong turn off
the CBT Line to end up at the river bank in the wrong spot, again involving more
climbing to get back on track. After a
much needed lunch from Overweighty Foods, Britt and I drove up to Cedar Lake to
check out the rumored rope swing. I had
watched some YouTube footage of the swing in action and decided I had to go off
this thing, however seeing it in person was a little more daunting than in the
video. Britt and I were contemplating
which knot to hold on to when some presumably local dudes showed up and gave us
the inside scoop. After watching a few
of them go flying off the swing unharmed I climbed up the steep hillside, up
onto the platform and gave it a go. I
let go of the rope and felt myself climbing higher into the air still. My jaw was wide open as I seemed to hang in
mid air for a moment before plummeting to the lake’s surface and promptly
smacking my jaw shut from the impact.
Aside from the initial scare that I had chipped my tooth, it was
awesome! I did one more adrenaline pumping swing before calling it a day.
Whitefish, Montana
The AWCA descended on Whitefish in August in search of a new
training oasis and I would say it was an indisputable success. The average day involved morning and
afternoon training, each time jumping into Whitefish Lake afterwards to cool
off from the 30 degree sunny weather. The
paved climb up Big Mountain provided an awesome spot for rollerski interval
sessions. Training highlights include a
rollerski up the breathtaking Road to the Sun followed by a mountain trail run
down from Logan Pass (a continental divide) and a 10km road running race where
PBs were had all around. Highlights from
life outside training? Renting a kick
ass boat and doing some wake surfing/wake boarding while pumping beats, the
Piggyback BBQ’s amazing smoked ribs, Loula’s famous huckleberry pie, and the
local ice cream shop where a split single scoop (actually 2+ scoops of ice
cream) in a fresh waffle cone cost $3.50.
Of course there were some serious games of Catan to be had as well.
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| Trail run with the AWCA boys with the "Road to the Sun" below us. |
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| A view of Whitefish Lake from the balcony of our accommodation |
Thunder Bay, ON
To cap off the summer I took a trip home to visit friends
and family while doing a few regular TBay summer activities. I spent some time on Lake Superior at Britt’s
camp – lots of saunas, swimming, bridge jumps and tennis, went fishing with my Pops,
utilizing his refined setup (check out the picture below), fit in a round of
golf with good friends at FWCC, caught up with old friends (shout out to the
Five Mile boys!) and took a walk around the newly constructed Marina. It was great to fit in an interval session at
Ouimet Canyon with the TBay centre crew too!
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| My Dad and I caught our limit of walleye in 1.5hours at an undisclosed location near TBay |
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| Down at the Marina in front of TBay's Sleeping Giant |
Now it’s on to Autumn with the last hoorahs of summer
waning. The NFL season is upon us and my
fantasy football team is gearing up for domination. With the ski season approaching it’s time to double
down the focus and get ready for an exciting year of ski racing!
If you managed to make it this far, thanks for reading!
Michael
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