Today was a travel day to Silver Star, B.C. the site of my current training camp. I have been to Silver Star once before in the fall of 1997. Back then we didn�t have much snow, but it was such a cool place that I didn�t mind. This year there was no snow problem though as the area got a storm last week, dumping over a foot on the trails.
The day started off fine but went down hill fast. I flew from Minneapolis to Salt Lake City then caught another flight to Seattle. In Seattle I found out that I had only 30 minutes to catch my connection to Vancouver�after scurrying through the airport I made it to the gate with five minutes to spare. I only wish that my luggage would have had the same luck. At the Customs in Vancouver none of my bags made it and I found out that they would not arrive until the next day. So much for skiing tonight�. So instead of crying I picked up and moved on to my next gate in my marathon travel day. There I met Dan Campbell and he humored me as I vented about my lost luggage before we caught our last flight of the day, one to Kelowna.
After arriving in Kelowna from Vancouver, Dan and myself caught a ride up to the mountain. We were happy to see that the further we drove up the mountain, the more it had snowed during the day. Life got better as we arrived at our house that we rented for the 2 weeks that we are staying here. This place is great; hot tub, fireplace, spectacular view, and skiing right out the back door. This is not our typical accommodations for our training camps.
After a long day of traveling it was time to go to bed, no matter that it was only nine o'clock....
It�s a bad feeling when you wake up and look outside and see tons of snow, but know that you can�t go out and play in it. Since my skis weren�t due to arrive until at least 10 am, I was relegated to having a long breakfast and doing some dryfire drills with my rifle. I was lucky enough to have Dan take my rifle on his flight so at least some of my equipment made it to Silver Star.
Around noon I decided to call and see what the status of my bags were. Much to my enjoyment, no one knew the faintest about where they were. But my day got better when I was flipping threw the channels and I found the Viking/Cardinal game. I grabbed some prime real estate on the couch and watched Randy, Chris and Daunte dismantle the hapless Cardinals. And low and behold after the game my bags showed up and I was able to go skiing. Finally!!!!
I packed up my backpack with dry clothes and hiked down to the trailhead to get in my first ski of the fall. Danny and Andy had already skied in the morning and they told me how nice it was. As always the first few minutes of �real skiing� (read: Not Rollerskiing) was a little awkward, but it didn�t take long for me to get the feel back. The snow was fast and the temp was in the mid 20�s, what more could a boy want? So I skied for a little over 2 hours then headed back to the ranch for dinner. All in all I call it a good day at the office.
A near tragedy was narrowly averted today in Silver Star. The day started normally enough with a morning run before breakfast, but soon turned sour. At breakfast, as I was making oatmeal, Danny began to make coffee. He added water and coffee grounds to the coffee maker, but when he tried to turn it on, nothing happened. Needless to say, there was an eerie silence as both of us looked on in stunned disbelief. How could this be happening to us? Thoughts of abandoning the camp crossed my mind, but soon cooler heads prevailed. Danny quickly came up with several backup plans for having coffee, like boiling it in a pot or using the french press, and I quickly realized that the camp could still go on.
Lucky for us Chris Gadacz arrived the night before and he took on the all important task of fixing our coffee maker. After several minutes of nervous anticipation, Chris got the machine working again. I�m not much of a religious person, but I admit that I spent those minutes praying that the coffee maker would work�God bless Chris for his efforts.
After the crazy events of the early morning, I was more than happy to just go out for an easy ski. Danny, Andy, Chris and myself hiked down to the trailhead and began our morning workout. We skied for about two and half hours then headed back to the house for a little lunch. By the time I arrived back at the house Chris had the fire going and hot water ready for hot cocoa�life is good. After lunch it was off to bed for a well deserved nap.
The afternoon consisted of some dryfire drills and a run before dinner. As I made it back to the house from my run, Piotr was just getting in. I showed Piotr our place and he was more than impressed. Shortly thereafter the boys showed up from their afternoon ski and we all sat down for dinner.
The morning started as every other morning has started, with a morning run and breakfast. Luckily for us the coffee maker actually worked today. I�m glad because I don�t think that I could handle the stress that I endured yesterday with the coffee maker fiasco!!!
The workout this morning consisted of a little video analysis of our ski technique (I was perfect of course) and some lactate analysis. Piotr brought a portable lactate analyzer so that we could monitor how our bodies are responding to the training. For some reason when Piotr poked my finger with the lancet to get a blood sample, it would not stop bleeding. (Note to Self: HE WILL PAY FOR THAT!!!)
The nice thing so far about Silver Star (besides the abundance of snow and fantastic views) is that the weather has been good to us. Everyday so far it has been in the low twenties when we have gone skiing, which as far as I�m concerned is perfect. The only problem (if you can call it a problem) is that it�s foggy here a lot. Today was our first day of using the biathlon range for combination training (the combination is skiing and shooting with an elevated heart rate) and guess what? It was foggy�.real foggy at times.
Piotr made the claim that it was �Contrast Sensitivity Training�. At times it was impossible to make out the targets. The visibility was about 40 meters. Problem is that the distance from the shooting line to the targets is 50 meters�So today was slightly challenging. I shot pretty good at times, kinda poor at others. All in all it was an ok day shooting.
The plan this morning was to ski for two and a half hours (maybe 3 hours if I felt good). I look forward to finishing this mornings workout because after it is done I will have an off day. Sadly today marked my first crash of the year. I wasn�t really paying attention on this one downhill and I got caught in a rut. The next thing I knew, I was laying on my back in the ditch. After a small amount of cursing, I was on my way again.
Well I received my new skis and boots shortly before I came to Silver Star and I didn�t have a chance to break in my new boots before Sunday. I really like the new boots, but they have caused me to develop a large blister on my right arch. It has been growing every day and today it really began to bother me. I had hoped that I could ski for 3 hours, but after about 2 hours I was getting pretty tired. Normally 2 hours of skiing isn�t that bad, but the combination of the travel, being on snow for the first time in months and the altitude have been somewhat hard on me. But like I said, tomorrow is an off day so I press on for another half hour then change into some dry clothes and head back to our base camp. I guess that I was more tired than I originally thought, because after lunch I figured that I would take an hour nap. Well, over two hours later I woke, and was still pretty fatigued. But it was nothing a cup of coffee couldn�t fix.
Thursday
Today was our first off day of the camp and it is kinda needed. After I finished yesterdays training I was fairly tired. I slept in this morning then had a leisurely breakfast. Spent the next two hours trying to get logged in and download my e-mails from work with only moderate success. After a while I decided that it wasn�t worth it so I walked to Bugaboos (a bakery in downtown Silver Star) for some coffee and a snack. This gave me some time to work on some things for work and write this journal entry. Shortly after I finished my mocha, Danny and Andy arrived. I�ll write more later�.gotta go shoot.
We have been here six days so far and up until now the skiing has consisted of mostly long slow distance skis. I haven�t really done any higher intensity workouts. Part of the reason for that is that I crashed rollerskiing the week before I came here and my ribs are sore from that experience. The main reason though, is that when I first get on snow I spend most of the time going easy so that I can find my �skiing legs�, besides the season is long and it leaves plenty of time to do hard workouts.
But today its time for some hard skiing intervals with shooting. The plan is to do about 8 loops of about 4 minutes in length ending with shooting. I have been shooting well lately, so I was looking forward to the workout. Soon though, I was wishing that I was back at the condo laying on the couch. The skiing went better than expected (I have never really felt good at altitude, today it felt like sea level), but I couldn�t hit anything prone. Standing was ok, but I had some really bad prone�below is a list of my penalties (if I�m going to put down the good workouts, I might as well put down the bad one):
P S P S P S P S
3 0 1 2 3 1 4 1 =15 misses
Even a �shooter� such as me has off days, so I didn�t really worry about it. Maybe I was tired?�maybe it was the combination of all the hours training and altitude?�maybe it was the gun?�possibly someone was messing with my rifle�maybe something else�but whatever it was I was happy to go home, have lunch and forget about it. Tomorrow is a new day�
For the afternoon workout Piotr wanted us to work on our downhill cornering skills, so we were going to take the lift to the top of the mountain and ski down. It�s a lot of fun to come down (not so much to ski up), so I was psyched for the lift ride, but as Danny and I sat at Bugaboos before the workout having coffee, I noticed that the lift wasn�t running. Piotr thought that the lift closed at 3:00, but really it closed at 2:00. Disappointed at not being able to ride the lift up, I skied around for a half hour down low and then headed back home.
When I got back from my afternoon ski, I was surprised to see that Cosmo had arrived. I chatted with him for it was time for dinner. At 8 o�clock Andy and me went down to the Putnam for our massage appointment. After a few minutes of trying without success to find out where exactly the massage therapists were, Andy and myself stumbled upon their room. Many thanks to Kate for an excellent massage�.plus it was way overdue.
After the massage I stopped by to see Grant Ernhart (who had arrived today also) on my way back to the house and after chatting with him for a while I arrived at the house around 9:45�and it was time for bed. Another day gone before I knew it�.
Saturday
I awoke to about an inch of new snow in the driveway. Finally!!!�it hasn�t snowed anything measurable since we arrived. We really need about 3-4 more inches for the biathlon area to be in good shape. The biathlon area is down lower than most of the trails here so it gets the least amount of snow.
I decided that today I needed to make up for yesterdays pitiful shooting performance. We have a running wager that the person with the best shooting percentage overall for the camp will get dinner paid for by the losers. I have no intention of losing, but after yesterday I am definitely in last place. So today is �move up� day�and before the workout I told Danny that I was gonna cut into his lead. Early on I shot pretty well, but I ended missing 5 of my last 10 and I think that Dan kept his lead on me�.but its only a matter of time before I make a real move�.
There is a large steep hill on our way back to the house and today I really didn�t want to ski up it after the workout. We had been training for about two hours already so when Piotr said that maybe we should take the Meadow loop, I said �fine��I should have known after yesterdays mix up with the lift that maybe we shouldn�t listen to him, but like lemmings to the sea we pressed on. Well 15 minutes (and several kilometers of climbing) later we ended up near the trailhead. I was just about to curse him when he apologized and said; �maybe that wasn�t the best way��yea ya think?
Arrived back at the house just in time to catch the last half of the Michigan/Ohio State football game. The maize and blue got a big lead in the second half and then held off a late charge by the Buckeyes to close it out. Can someone queue up Hail to the Victors?�..
That night Dan, Cosmo and myself headed down to the Saloon for a little pool and liquid bread. On our way there we noticed some of the locals partaking in a strange and somewhat dangerous way of killing time. It basically involved a car and a sled and some rope. It was quite a sight to see as a car sped by us pulling the sled with some hooded guy screaming from the sled. We cheered the hooded bomber on as sparks flew on the way down the hill.
After taking on some of the cross country skiers in pool and having a couple of drinks we headed home.
Sunday
The plan this morning was to ski for about an hour and half then head back to watch the Vikings play. It was such a nice day and I was feeling pretty good so I ended up skiing for two hours. I headed back to house and found out that this Sunday we weren�t going to see the Vikes, as sadly, they were not on any channel we have. So as the next best thing we got to watch the Lions play the Giants. After watching the game I took a short nap before the afternoon workout.
In the afternoon we went down to the range for a little prone shooting practice. The workout started poorly as I missed 3 out of my first 5 shots. After that I only missed two out of the next forty five, so all in all it was an ok day.