(Video at bottom)

As tough as it is to get motivated for a three week spring camp only a couple short weeks after a long season, this camp has been pretty spectacular.

Trees in Nakiska

We spent the first week in Nakiska really slowing things down and going back to basics (which is pretty much the theme of the camp). Lots of drills, slow skiing, and drill courses. After a weekend off in Banff we moved up to the Sunshine Mountain Lodge, right in the heart of Sunshine Mountain. Ski in ski out, no complaints from this guy, even if it is a bit ‘Shining’-esque! We spent the second week getting into real gates in GS, but still taking things slowly and focusing on skiing, not going fast. I even did slalom (stubbies) for the first time in I can’t even remember how long (sorry, no video, nobody needs to see that!). I ended the week with the speed group, getting 27 runs of gliding and GS in before lunch! Productivity at its best.

6:40am sled to the top of the mountain.

The views up top are incredible, especially first thing in the morning.

We just finished our first day of the final week up here and it was another good one. 7 runs of gnarly, minute long SG, followed by 12 DH runs on the glide track, all before 11am. Looping around on sleds for most of the sessions gets a lot done, and is, hopefully, getting my arms ready for beach season. Haha. But seriously, it’s tough on the arms. The last 3 days of the camp are looking like more of the same, with some sunny, hot weather on the docket. Bring it on!

Sitting on the frozen throne at Goat’s Eye Mountain.

Below is a video from training last week. As mentioned, no slalom in there! But a few glide runs, and a couple GS runs to get an idea of what things look like up here.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AQQwakDSAo

Since my last post! Honestly, I struggled to find the motivation to write anything during the last couple months of the season. After a great first half of the year, it was tough to give up speed completely and focus solely on GS for the second half. So rather than force something down on the blog, I chose to leave it alone and focus on other things!

Hopefully I haven’t lost the interest of too many people after such a long hiatus, but I’ll be back to regular broadcasting here from now on. Also, the long, long awaited (for me at least!) design refresh should be coming in not too long.

Before I get into what I’ve been up to lately and what’s coming up, check out some photos from a few of theWorld Cup races (both good and bad!) I did this season. All photos courtesy of and Copyright Agence Zoom.

Cool angle from Sölden.

Sölden.

Beaver Creek SG.

Val Gardena DH

Val Gardena DH, crazy angle!

Alta Badia GS. Childhood dream come true to race that puppy!

Val G DH.

Alta GS.

Got the nod about a week ago for GS at World Champs in Schladming! This will be my first World Champs race and as can be expected I’m pretty excited/nervous/pumped/all of the above rolled into one. I’ve spent the last week in Austria training GS with the likes of Hirscher, Neureuther, and Dopfer, to get ready for the race. Two more days of prep and a day off before the race on Friday!

Schladming

I’ve mentioned CAN Fund a few times on my blog already, mainly because my main sponsor, Eric Sprott of Sprott Private Wealth, has been a huge supporter and monetary contributor to the Fund.
But to refresh your memory and explain the new initiative: CAN Fund is a non profit that raises money for athletes across Canada and with less than 400 days to the Opening Ceremonies they have created a fundraising page exclusively for our sport. So my teammates and I are inviting you and your contacts who love Alpine Skiing, Ski Cross & Para-Alpine Skiing to become a part of our Olympic journey by supporting us through CAN Fund.

This fundraiser starts now until June 3, 2013. With every donation you receive a tax receipt. You can donate by clicking on the link below which will take you to the  Alpine Skiing, Ski Cross & Para-Alpine Skiing CAN Fund Fundraising Page. With your donation you will be directly supporting the skiers who applied to CAN Fund. CAN Fund gives each recipient up to $12,000 a year and the money is given right to the athlete.

DONATE online: http://my.e2rm.com/personalPage.aspx?registrationID=1707850

If you’ve never  donated to amateur sport, this is a very easy and extremely direct way to do so. CAN Fund makes the donation process painless (literally 2 clicks + your info), so if you’ve been looking for a great way to support our Canadian Skiers, look no further!

Talking about crashes of course! Towards the end of my unsuccessful and fairly short Euro trip after New Years, I fell inside skiing GS, caught my tip in the snow and wrenched my leg around painfully. Luckily the European medical system is pretty kick ass and we got in for an MRI a day after the fall to see if it was anything serious. With the symptoms and pain that I had, we were expecting a torn meniscus, but turns out it was ‘just’ a bone bruise on the top of my tibia, and a strained ligament in my ankle. Good news as far as bad news goes!

After some convenient timing brought Abby and I together for a day in Austria, I hopped on an earlier flight than originally planned to go home for some rest and physio. I spent the four days at home doing a couple hours of physio/rehab stuff each day at Santé Universelle, which is a truly great trio of clinics in Gatineau, Hull, and Aylmer. Big thanks to Marie Claire for helping me out!

As for now I’m back in Colorado prepping for the NorAm GS races coming up in a few days. I had my first day back on snow today, which went way better than I expected! While skiing I couldn’t even tell that I was hurt at all! Walking however is still pretty dang painful (riddle me that?!) but as long as skiing feels good I’m happy!

Really neat ‘anti gravity treadmill’ at Santé Universelle. Running at 40% of your bodyweight is WAY more fun than at 100%!!