huit kilometers patin et classic

They actually had much more than 8K, but that was what the woman said when I called Wednesday morning. They got about a foot overnight and then it continued snowing throughout the day, what a relief. Even without snow, camp had been going very well, the team remained very positive and seemed up for anything. However with a few wet inches on the ground in Stoneham our rollerskiing was not looking possible on the park road and running was not going to be very pleasant either. The snow was well beyond what I was expecting when we headed up the hill on Wednesday morning.
We now have about 20K open up at the Foret and a time trial planned for Saturday, should be some great skiing from here on out. Thanksgiving dinner was superb.
I might just leave the photography to Terko, see his post below.
We may even get a chance to ski at Mt. Saint Anne, last I checked they were beginning to groom but planning to open next week. It would be fun to ski there Sunday before leaving if they open.

You just had a near-life experience

Watching Canadian TV the other night, we all thought this ad was pretty funny. It also seemed to summarize our situation pretty well. Here in Stoneham, there's not much to think about except skiing. In a three-story chalet minutes from awesome trails, we spend our time in alternating states of ski workout butt-kicking and a lethargic daze. It's demanding, and it works.

Packing rollerskis was a little disheartening, but we still managed to find some reasonable snow skiing at the resort base, a golf course and a closed access road up the road from Foret Montmorency. After crunching away our ski bases on gravel and pounding the singletrack trails in a nearby park, the snow came. This morning we awoke to a blinding mid-winter whiteout, and instead of slicing our classic skis up cheese-grater style we should be hitting some fresh tracks tomorrow, either at Montmorency or Mount St Anne. Actual skiing is the closest you can get to really being there. In the moment. When you're spending a whole week with one focus, one goal, you can feel yourself getting closer to that moment when everything comes together. When you're not beating your body into mashed potatoes, though, you've gotta recover somehow.

So what do you do in Canada besides train?


Pool in the game room


Mariokart


Get work done (?)


Sleep



Pepper and Bogden continually competing for style points


Scuba Steve's having a better week after (almost) losing his passport and cutting his thumb open falling in a Tim Hortons parking lot


It's blurry, but this is our house pre-snow

News From Canada

Despite my best efforts to disrupt training (a few honest mistakes I'd prefer not going into), the team has managed to put in some quality sessions during the past few days. Despite a notable lack of snow, the ski area and a nearby park have provided remarkably good dryland opportunities. We managed to get on snow at the base of the Alpine area for about an hour this afternoon and roller-skiing and running at Jacques-Cartier Park has been a real treat. With snow in the forecast morale is high.

Star Lake finally comes through again

The Lake effect snow machine kicked some up to southern St. Lawrence County so we went to Star Lake today and skied on the town golf course.  With a little ice underneath about 1 inch of snow sometimes less we had just enough to skate around for a little over an hour.  While it really wasn't good enough to merit the 40min drive tomorrow it was fun for today.

Right now we are willing it to snow more in Quebec.  Looks like a couple inches on the ground currently but snow showers throughout the week and weekend and the temps are forecast to be cold.  Whatever happens with the ski conditions we should be able to get some high quality training in.  

NCAA XC Regionals at SLU

Congratulations Johannah!

Just wanted to mention Johannah's spectacular second place finish at today's NCAA regional meet, hosted by SLU. Together with Wendy Pavlus, she led the way to a third place team finish that hopefully will qualify them to the national meet in Indiana.

The SLU boys also impressed. There were two SLU runners, Ramsey and Kiplagat, in the top ten (or possibly top eleven) and the team placed fourth.

Although we still have some work to do, watching the races definitely got me excited about the up-coming winter.

I'm also willing to take today's SLU results as a good omen for our own season!