Its snowing... Wow!

Check out this - Mt Hotham predicting snow!

Just thought all my Northern Hemisphere Friends (and some Australian ones) would like to know that it is snowing here!!

I'm getting excited and trying to sleep lots now and get my body right.

33 days until our Queen's Birthday opening of the season!

Sending anticipatory smiles!

Hitting the Wall

On March 14th I hopped off the plane at Tullamarine to be picked up by a smiling mother. She always seems to be rather relieved every time all of her children and safely back inside Australian borders. I promptly jumped full throttle into life as a full time student.

To be totally honest, life as a full time student kind of blows in comparison to the life I led this summer as an athlete. Sitting at a desk really doesn't compare to flying down the slopes and squeezing in a work out is just so much more difficult. Though, getting back into the social scene in Melbourne is always a treat. This year I was lucky enough to have a gorgeous birthday dinner shortly after my return, the perfect chance to sit down and actually talk to long lost friends. In addition to all this I had started work at a pub around the corner, The Cricket Club, which was the perfect job - not too stressful and great hours. I am organising the snowboard portion of racers for Melbourne University and was also helping coach the St. Hilda's College 1st rowing crew!

Perhaps a little too much and as Good Friday rolled around I came down with what seemed, at the time, like bad tonsillitis, but a week and a blood test later turned out to be Glandular Fever. Thus the past week has been all about lying on the couch and afternoon naps; study and exercise have ground to a halt. Chocolate was not a great feature of Easter as nothing seemed to taste at all like it should, much to Mum's chagrin I was constantly saying, 'this taste's like vomit' - it was not her exceptional cooking just my silly taste-buds! My body seems to be losing any muscle mass it ever had. I'm not looking forward to feeling well enough to start working back on my body condition - it's going to hurt!

I guess this is a kind of karma for taking perhaps a little too much on. Hopefully after a few weeks off work and the gym I can keep up with my study and get a whole lot better. Fingers crossed because the Queen's Birthday Weekend, the opening of the ski season, is only six weeks away!

In other news I was very humbled to receive a Friends of the Sports Association Scholarship from the University - this is going to be significant assistance for the Australian winter coming up. Also, I am beginning the search for sponsors in the hope that next Norther-winter I can be a little less reliant on Mum and Dad.

Don't share water bottles with anyone!

Red Mountain, BC

I was pretty excited to be ending my time in Canada by a trip to Red Mountain, BC. I had heard a lot of good things about this little resort. This piece of advertising pretty much sums it up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7Z0MBLHF20

To tell you the truth, Red did not disappoint. We got up on Friday morning for some pre-training riding on a reported 6cm of fresh snow. It felt like so much more. I teamed up with Thomas one of the 16 year olds on the team and we spent all morning hiking a little hill to get freshies and cliff drops a plenty. Unfortunately for me I had one pretty awkward moment where I realised I was perched right on a frozen waterfall with no where to go. The locals had some pretty helpful advice to yell from the chairlift, 'Just send it', 'Go for it', 'Do it'. I took my time in the public arena to get to down a little lower by sliding on the ice and then went for it. Very comical I'm sure from the chairlift. It definitely wasn't graceful!

Aside from the amazing free-riding we were at Red for a couple of British Columbia Provincial Series races. The course was long but the features were not huge meaning that it was a good chance to actually ride on the course. Though, I did my best to fall over the wu-tang at the start in as many different ways as possible. Apparently one of my front flips over the feature in front of a few girls I was training with was pretty spectacular - I nearly landed it.

On the Saturday I qualified fastest by over a second which should have put me in a good position to take the win. Unfortunately in my semi-final when winning by about 50 metres coming into the last burm I decided to throw myself into the stubbies, this ended my chances of winning the first race. VERY ANNOYING! I was definitely not consoled despite destroying the other girls in the consolation final.

Sunday was another solid day of qualifying, this time my time put me in front by 3 seconds over the next female qualifier. Surely I could keep myself together for this final race of my season. I won the semi easily and was feeling good going into the final. I picked the right gate and pulled out first. However, I thought I needed to make it just a bit more difficult for myself and take just one more fall over the wu-tang. This put me far behind with a lot of work to do in the next 1 min down the course. I caught 2 of the girls but couldn't catch the girl in first place. 2nd definitely felt like 1st loser in this race but I guess it's part of the sport. I've just got to work out how to actually ride to my potential in racing, definitely a challenge for the future.

Please stay tuned for photos and video from the race. I have some funny ones of people taking themselves out.

Oh and in other exciting news, a new FIS points list came out (this is how athletes are ranked against each other, gaining points depending on what races they do and how they do in them). I'm currently the highest ranked Australian!!!! Pretty happy with that small achievement and it puts me in a good place for next season.

I'm spending my last week in Steamboat, CO, my body is slowly recovering from all the hits it has taken and I'm starting to feel ready to get back to Uni. It has been gorgeous and sunny here with a really great powder day tomorrow. I'm home on Tuesday and looking forward to catching up with everyone.

Sending smiles from sunny (and delightfully warm) Colorado.

Beach biceps anyone?

I got to thinking whilst reading a sport biography of a journalist, Bill McKibben, who decided to take a year off life and train like an elite cross-country skier. He wasn't a talented athlete but he put in the miles and actually did some pretty decent races by the end of the year. McKibben mentions at numerous spots in the book, Long Distance, about getting up and eating his 'oatmeal' (aka porridge) to get ready to train/race/face the day. I also eat porridge every morning, as I'm sure many other winter athletes do - it seems to fill the stomach just perfectly. So my thought was how would the Winter Olympics fare if there were no porridge? Would there be a mass strike? Would the athletes fall half-way through their races? I'm not sure, but I am sure that I wouldn't have been able to train nearly as hard this winter without my hearty bowl of porridge every morning.

We work out at the Bill Warren Training centre, home of elite nordic skiing athletes, ageing masters, groups of enthusiastic young up and coming cross country skiers and the occasional dung bell lover.  This week a new rather scrawny but very serious guy has started attending the gym. He wears all black, all the time and has a wonderful collection of dog tags. I'm not sure that I have seen him do anything except arm work and sit-ups. This makes all the athletes doing actually functional work-outs giggle, but I feel like it is a good warm up for getting back into the Melbourne University Gym - home to a large collection of 'roid-addicts and men seeking those perfect pectorals.

Here are some photos from the gym:

Deciding how much pain to go through. Adam was advocating for more rather than less. I was not so sure.

Dead lifts

Lat Pull Downs with a view!

I'm not sure if I'm laughing or screaming at this point.

Nate - Happy it is time to stretch and the work-out is all over!

Another cross-country training group - I'm not sure if they actually go to school???? No wonder Canada excels at winter sports

That is where I hang out a fair bit. It is a great gym, usually very quiet and with every activity to test agility and balance that you can imagine!

Oh and here are some shots from the walk home...

The Canmore Nordic Centre

The blue sign points to our dirt road & the Grassi Lakes Recreational Area

'The Spray' aka our home in the woods. Note the Christmas lights, very festive really!

So this is my last post from Canmore. This Thursday I am off to my 10th resort for the winter, Red Mountain, BC for two provincial races. It should be fun to get some really good racing in at a lower level of competition. Then Monday I'm starting a rather protracted journey home via the US again.

Sending smiles for the last time from Canmore, tomorrow is looking like an epic powder day so it is a very big grin really.

A week off in sleepy Canmore

After the hurly burly of the trip in the US it was a bit of a rude shock to return to the house in the woods, just out of Canmore. Luckily I was eased into the week off with the pleasant treat that Ollie, Mikey and Paul, 3 Australian friends were staying in Banff after a month in Steamboat. So on Monday morning after lifting weights for the first time in a month, Nate drove me over to Banff for a sleep-over.

Here are some photos of us loving life up at Sunshine on the Tuesday. There was a fair bit of snow and lots of smiles to go around!

Paul and Ollie getting REALLY excited in the Gondola

The children (Mike and I) playing in the Gondola

We can just fit in the frame with Jackets/Helmets/goggles etc!

Mikey and I enjoying a beer at Trappers on the hill, much needed at this point!

Once I had run out of fresh clothes, uch to the boys amusement, I hitched back home. It was time to settle into a routine of gym-time, walking to and from the house, and reading a recently delivered text-book on Patents. Oh the joys of getting back into athlete-life and uni!

Mikey and Ollie had a hotel-less night so they came to the Spray to stay! I showed Mikey the sights, that is the frozen waterfalls which are invariably covered in ice-climbers and the mountains and woods around the house. Then we settled into a night of pizza and a few drinks. It was lots of fun to share my little piece of the world with friends from home, so thanks for coming to stay boys!

This week we have begun training again. There is a little course at Lake Louise to work on a few things and lots of fun (and big) jumps in the park. My body is starting to feel good again, though lifting weights is really a rude shock after all that time on the road and all those chicken nuggets!! It is great to have a few more weeks of training before one last race and heading home.

The big news today is my feet are frozen and struggling to defrost, they don't seem to like this Canadian cold very much...

Sending frozen smiles from Canmore.

Getting it done at the US Grand Prix - The Canyons, UT

Our final race on the tour was the big one - the US National Championships incorporated into the US Grand Prix at The Canyons in Utah. This race had a real World Cup feel with hospitality for the riders (eg free food!) and lots of media. The course was bigger than anything I had ever seen: even bigger and scarier than Steamboat. However, I had a feeling that I was going to be able to deal with this one a little better, I was sure that I could stay relaxed and focussed with my new found zen! Training and competing was a little later here, with the girls going after the boys, so each morning I spent some time having fun riding in the park. This certainly helped me loosen up for the course.

With two training days Adam and I decided to break down the course into the 'top' to the big sweeping burm 4. This included 2 nicely built wu-tangs, 3 winding burms into a decent step up and then a funky rhythm section of 5 rollers shaped like a camel that were spaced so that the boys could double into it and out of it but for us ladies it meant some seriously loose legs!

Looking back to the start from the top of the second wu-tang

See that big sweeping burm way down there?! This is the 'top' section.

I totally conquered my goals for Day 1, managing to get more aggressive and balanced through the start. Adam filmed us and some of the better riders which was great for comparisons sake. Although I may have achieved my goals, comparing myself to Lindsay Jacoellis riding the burms made me realsed there is a long way to go!

Day 2 of training, the official training day was all about getting the middle section sorted. This was a long and rather flat roller section with a couple of larger step up jumps which I struggled to clear for the entire competition. However, I was hitting things, and I also started rolling through most of the lower jumps section of the course. I was pleased that I started riding the burms better, it is trickier than you would think to carry your speed through them!

Day 3 was for qualifications. Adam was not completely happy with me racing as I hadn't ridden off the step down until my final training run. However, I managed to convince him that I was up to it and did compete which I was pleased with. I was not the worst and fell pretty neatly into the cluster of Nor-Am riders - though there was a large gap to the world cup ladies that were competing. It was a pleasing day, however, I was disappointed that as so many girls pulled out my 12th place wouldn't let me progress to finals, only 8 being taken.

Here is the lower section of the course...

The start is way up above were you can just see the top of the red fencing!

And here are some photos from the bottom on finals day... it was pretty fun just being there, eating lots of food and drinking a couple of beers!

Nate struggles at life...

Justin chatting to two brothers who managed to take each other out in the quaterfinals, they were in the lead at the time. Bummer!

Happy Australians Amanda and Jarryd

Cam not sure if he is happy after leading Graham Watanabe and crashing in his heat

So that's a wrap of our time in Utah learning more about Mormons and the entire trip around the US. We celebrated on the last night with a stupid dare (mostly my own fault) that I couldn't eat 50 Chicken Nuggets - they are only $9.99!! God Bless America. For the record I managed to do it in 16 minutes, and was left feel fairly sick and sorry for myself - and $20 richer!! But I guess as always... when in Rome...

I'm back in sleepy Canmore now for a few weeks of training before a couple of local races and heading home!

Sending exhausted smiles from Canmore.

Being a not so steezy park rat in PARK (rat) CITY

With a few days to kill before our on course training begins on Wednesday I knew I couldn't sit about in the apartment without getting way too stir crazy, so today I headed out to Park City Resort for a day in the Park. This place was no joke, there is a serious park here!

With two lines of medium jumps and one larger set in the park, hundreds of rails, boxes and other jibs and a fairly decent pipe I was happy with my reduced price ticket which only gave access to the park chair. Aside from feeling fairly inept in my park riding abilities and my outfit was definitely not up to current fashion standards (tight pants, tall t's, tucked in pants to ski boots, it was all the norm) I had a great day getting more confident hitting larger lines of jumps and riding a few rails too.

Here is a view of the 'Kings Crown' Park on the ridge. The afternoons mission? I think not, these jumps are massive, 80+ft!!

Park City itself is a fairly ritzy resort town, though the urban sprawl around it is certainly not that classy. We are staying almost in the parking lot of a large outlet shopping centre, ahh the serenity.

The competition here is set up a little differently to the other Nor-Am's as it is a US Grand Prix race. The course is likely to be fairly challenging. We will have two training days and then qualifications and finals are on separate days. Finals day will include concerts, lots of media (this is televised on NBC in a week or so) and lots more noise than we are used to. With a World Cup standard field I will be very much focussed on how I ride the course rather than expecting any results.

Check out my new helmet/goggle combo post steamboat!

Sending smiles and steezy park rat vibes from Park City, wish me luck!