Hello everyone!
Lauren here, checking in from the van en route to Canmore, Canada. So far, (only 2.5 hours in) we’re off to an interesting start. Just outside of Helena, MT, a pheasant flew right into the side of the windshield. However, it is a Sunday and most auto body shops are closed. So, we carry on hoping to get it fixed in Canmore. On another note, it is Mariah’s birthday so we are trying to celebrate her the best we can while driving!
We’re headed to Canmore, Canada because every year in late October they roll out around 2km of snow that was stored underwood chips from last season. The Canadians call this Frozen Thunder. Frozen Thunder offers an opportunity to get on snow early and ditch the roller-skis. This is great because by the time November rolls around, I’m personally quite over roller-skiing. The ability to get on snow early offers the benefit of getting through the transition from roller-skiing to snow-skiing a bit before the season officially starts in December. A few of the big things that we can’t practice/simulate as well with dryland training include classic striding and the balance required on snow. Another big thing we’ll be able to work on is skiing in sloppier snow because it hasn’t been that cold. Although it isn’t as much fun to ski in sugary snow, it is great practice for spring racing. We hope that the temperatures dip down and some natural snow surprises us!
Before leaving for Canada, we’ve had some great training in Bozeman. A couple of notable workouts include a team sprint time trial at Crosscut’s new roller-ski track with MSU. There’s only about 800 meters of pavement at the new track so we had a two-lap sprint. The loop is pretty flat which made for really good practice of V2 sprinting. Prolonged V2 is definitely not one of my strengths so it was great to push myself. We also did one more time trial this past week, a classic 10km up Hyalite. If any of you have been up Hyalite, you know that it is a long gradual grind to the top. It was a really hard double-pole and double-pole-kick grind! Both of these workouts were really great workouts to head into our week on snow with on-snow time trials with confidence in our shape and pushing ourselves.
Follow along for more updates from Canmore!
