Snow in July: Haig Glacier Camp

It is amazingly easy to train hard in a beautiful place. 

Sunset at the training center (the Haig is the big patch of snow in the background)

Last week the SVSEF Comp team crew and part of the Gold Team made the trek up to Kananaskis County in Alberta, Canada to snow train on the Haig Glacier. The Beckie Scott Training Center sits on the rocks below the glacer and consists of three buildings: a coach's cabin, an athlete cabin, and kitchen cabin where everybody eats and can hang out. Other than that there are outhouses, a shower, and a helipad, but that's about it. It's about a three hour hike/run into the camp, and once you're on the mountain, you're in the true wilderness. No one else is out there except for an occasional backpacker.

Man, did we pack in the hours this week.  Each morning we would hike 45 minutes up to the glacier (not an easy task, if you look at the picture above), ski for a couple of hours, and then hike/slide our way down. Little Midwestern me learned a new skill: glissading.  When you glissade, you basically propel yourself down the warmed up steep snow patches on your feet (or your butt if you eat it and fall). It's a workout when your legs are already shaky from 3 hours of work. After the morning workout we'd have lunch, crash and nap, and then get up in the afternoon for an adventure run/hike or a strength workout. Then it was dinner time, a game or a movie, and then bed! Up at 6:20 in the morning for yoga and breakfast, and then we'd do it all again.

Mary killing it on a classic ski

Training camps are always a challenge, both physically and mentally.  The toll that around 30 hours of training puts on your body also affects your mind as you reach higher and higher levels of exhaustion. By the end of the week we were all pretty tired, but on the last day we put in an overdistance ski (3+ hours). For me, that workout was a harder challenge than racing is or has ever been. But the reason skiers put ourselves through huge blocks of training like that is to strengthen our minds along with our bodies, and that's what makes weeks like the Haig amazing.

While huge training camps seem daunting, it's also amazing how quickly the hours slip by when you're in the mountains of Canada (or any beautiful place). Something about beauty makes the physical toll seem so much less, because you are so excited to get out and explore, learn new things, and spend some time in a place that few people have gotten the chance to enjoy. So I think that when you finally realize how tired you actually are, it can be a shock. Which is actually pretty cool if you think about it, all of the sudden it's like, "whoah, I guess 25+ hours of training can be sort of tiring?"

Major shout outs go out to Pate and A-ron for being amazing staff, hosts and cooks, and dealing with our, well, bathrooms (they are basically saints). Thanks to the SVSEF Comp team for being serious troopers and awesome tripmates, and thank you to Ashley, Tim, and Colin for the endless support and awesome technique help. The week was a huge success.

The Haig is between those peaks

My awesome host sister Loni Unser and I

Loni demonstrating glissading technique..

The view on the hike down from the glacier

Afternoon adventure runs with Mary and Colin

Snow skiing in July?!

Mary, Colin, and I at the top of the waterfall near camp

SVSEF Comp Team and Gold Team + coaches!

The infamous boat race

Olympians Wouldn't Be Olympians Without a Team

The SVSEF college crew/Gold Team on top of Otto's Peak

Everyone knows that Nordic ski racing is largely an individual sport. When you are halfway through a race and your body is being pushed to its absolute limits, you have to rely on your own mental strength and training to get you to the finish. Sure, there are other athletes racing around you, but in reality, you're out there on your own and you can't turn to others to help you race faster. And I think this is one of the reasons Nordic skiers are a unique breed. We thrive on knowing that our failures and successes are, for the most part, our own responsibility. 

But I think we can all agree that what happens during the races is built upon what happens during training. And what happens during training, happens with a team.  Your teammates, whether temporary or long-term, are the support system that helps you get through the hard workouts, helps you form the memories from the good ones, and shapes you to become the athlete that you are.  They cheer you on, challenge you, empathize with you, give you advice, and suffer right next to you through the long van rides, freezing cold, exhausting heat, and difficult training days. They know what you're feeling, because they've been there, and they are there.

I'm a firm believer that training with and immersing yourself in a team is one of the main ways to train effectively and live happily.  Training without a support system to fall back on can easily lead to frustration and a lack of motivation and challenge, while training with a team pushes you outside of your comfort zone and teaches you the coping skills needed for the moments when you find yourself in the middle of the race with only yourself to fall back on. No matter what age you are or how serious you are about skiing, training with a team ignites the passion for the sport. You can think back to the days you spent chasing down your teammates on the road, trails, and snow, and you know that you've been there and done that, and this race is no big deal.

The Olympic Day kids organizing themselves into teams based on animal noises

I've always admired SVSEF because I knew that its team environment was a strong one, but I never realized just how strong it was until I got here. The group that is training here for the summer is absolutely awesome. They support each other and genuinely want their teammates to become better skiers, which makes practice something to look forward to every morning.

Gold Team! Miles, Mary, Colin, Chelsea, Ben and Me

But not only the nordic team is a tight group, the whole of SVSEF (nordic, alpine, freestyle, and snowboarding) is a team in itself.  This week we hosted Olympic Day, a day of celebrating our past, present, and future Olympians. Over 150 kids from the foundation and from town signed up to play and were put on mini-teams to compete in games such as tug of war, jousting, tricycle races, paddle boat races, penalty kicks, BB gun shooting, and relays.  It was so amazing to see the kids on the teams (many didn't know each other) bond together and work to include everyone in each task. No matter if you were a nordie, piner, freestyle skier, or snowboarder, you were included and valued. And THAT is awesome.

I'm feeling super duper lucky that I have the team I do, because the difficulty of the training doesn't matter when you're doing it with awesome people. Thank you Gold Team-ers (Mary, Chelsea, Ben, Miles) and all the college kids (Sloan, Jesse, Katie, Maggie, Corky, Sam, Adam, Jack, Cole, etc) for making June an awesome training month. I can't wait to see what July holds.

Out on a classic distance ski

Chelsea and Mary battling it out at Olympic Day

Rick Kapala and Picabo Street refereeing the tug of war

Even Colin got in on the fun

Sloan, Colin, and Mary on the way down from Otto's Peak

The view from Otto's peak!

Sloan and Mary leading the way

Up on the High Ridge Trail