After a spending a week smelling the sweet wafting smells of burning poop and hand sanitizer, playing every card game known to man, and living above the tree line in a moon-like environment, I am home from skiing on the Haig glacier.
The glacier was awesome this year. We had perfect weather, great skiing conditions, and awesome food (thanks John and Joel!) the entire week.
I went into this camp a little leery. I have never made it through a glacier camp without getting sick and I was worried that this trip up would be just the same as usual. I had to hike in while the rest of the team ran because of my continual hip problems, but on my solo journey through bear country I had time to think about what I wanted to take out of this week. I knew that Mike (my coach) had a tough week set up for all of us and was expecting me to bring my game face. I knew that the high altitude would be hard on my body both on and off my skis. And I knew that I would have to step up all my recovery techniques to be able to pull through the week. That said, I also knew that I had an amazing opportunity to pull my training together on snow. I was going to go skiing in July! That’s cool.
The altitude does funny things to my body. It obviously makes my heart rate higher as my body works harder to obtain the needed oxygen. I find it more difficult to sleep and stay hydrated. I also have a problem eating enough food to make it through the night which means that I have to bring a snack to bed that I pull out around 2am.
The first few days of skiing were amazing. I skied my first ever 3hr ski on the glacier and made some huge improvements in my technique work. I immediately noticed that my heart rate was easily 10 to 15 beats lower than last year on the glacier. I have been working hard to bring my fitness level up and waiting for this to happen and it was so exciting to see that all my hard work this spring has paid off.
But, it wasn’t until the 4th day up there that I made my biggest accomplishment. In the core workout, the afternoon after my second 3hr ski day, I opted to do one more set of the core routine with the older girls on the team. It seems like a tiny little thing that anybody could have chosen, but to me it was big. It meant that I was feeling healthy enough to handle a little more, but it also meant that I was stepping up to the plate. I decided to push myself a little harder, to take one more step closer to my goals this year. Then after the core I did 12 pull-ups without stopping! That is the most that I have ever done in one go and that was after 4.5 hours of training that day! I was pumped. While I pushed out the watts on the stationary bike for my cool down I could feel my heart pumping and all of a sudden I realized how pumped I am for this coming race season.
I made it through the entire camp without getting sick and now I have one more though week before I get a nice rest. This week will probably see some tough days where I don’t feel my best, but as Mike says “You will have to travel through the valley of death”. It’s all a part of training.
I don’t think that I have ever felt this excited about racing. I am 100% in this year. I want to race, I want to compete at the best of my abilities, and I want to have fun out there. I am excited about my progress already this year and can’t wait to jump right back into training tomorrow and bust out some tough intervals. Bring it on!
The glacier was awesome this year. We had perfect weather, great skiing conditions, and awesome food (thanks John and Joel!) the entire week.
I went into this camp a little leery. I have never made it through a glacier camp without getting sick and I was worried that this trip up would be just the same as usual. I had to hike in while the rest of the team ran because of my continual hip problems, but on my solo journey through bear country I had time to think about what I wanted to take out of this week. I knew that Mike (my coach) had a tough week set up for all of us and was expecting me to bring my game face. I knew that the high altitude would be hard on my body both on and off my skis. And I knew that I would have to step up all my recovery techniques to be able to pull through the week. That said, I also knew that I had an amazing opportunity to pull my training together on snow. I was going to go skiing in July! That’s cool.
The altitude does funny things to my body. It obviously makes my heart rate higher as my body works harder to obtain the needed oxygen. I find it more difficult to sleep and stay hydrated. I also have a problem eating enough food to make it through the night which means that I have to bring a snack to bed that I pull out around 2am.
The first few days of skiing were amazing. I skied my first ever 3hr ski on the glacier and made some huge improvements in my technique work. I immediately noticed that my heart rate was easily 10 to 15 beats lower than last year on the glacier. I have been working hard to bring my fitness level up and waiting for this to happen and it was so exciting to see that all my hard work this spring has paid off.
But, it wasn’t until the 4th day up there that I made my biggest accomplishment. In the core workout, the afternoon after my second 3hr ski day, I opted to do one more set of the core routine with the older girls on the team. It seems like a tiny little thing that anybody could have chosen, but to me it was big. It meant that I was feeling healthy enough to handle a little more, but it also meant that I was stepping up to the plate. I decided to push myself a little harder, to take one more step closer to my goals this year. Then after the core I did 12 pull-ups without stopping! That is the most that I have ever done in one go and that was after 4.5 hours of training that day! I was pumped. While I pushed out the watts on the stationary bike for my cool down I could feel my heart pumping and all of a sudden I realized how pumped I am for this coming race season.
I made it through the entire camp without getting sick and now I have one more though week before I get a nice rest. This week will probably see some tough days where I don’t feel my best, but as Mike says “You will have to travel through the valley of death”. It’s all a part of training.
I don’t think that I have ever felt this excited about racing. I am 100% in this year. I want to race, I want to compete at the best of my abilities, and I want to have fun out there. I am excited about my progress already this year and can’t wait to jump right back into training tomorrow and bust out some tough intervals. Bring it on!
The camp. We hike all the way up to the top left-hand side of this picture to do our skiing! 
Practicing some lunges to the line. Hopefully by race season this will be a little better!
The AWCA team!
