All over again

On the way to Aspen
Silverthorne Colorado

The average amount of taping needed for my knee

Well hello!

Today was an important day! Today was my first race back in 19 months (a year and a half)!!! It felt scary and great to be in the start gate this morning! It felt really normal and I was very comfortable about how to get ready to race...it was the actual going out of the start gate that made my heart race. Here in Aspen they injected the GS hill (which means they stuck tubes into the hill and flooded it with water...so the hill was a sheet of ice literally!!) so it was fairly intimidating when in inspection we were slidding sideways down the hill unable to stop! The ice made it really difficult to race on. I believe over half the field did not finish. before my first run I got the chance to watch a tiny section of the course. While I was watching a girl bailed really hard! She put her body through a panel and literally she exploded in a cloud of snow...after the snow cleared you could see that her helmet had flown off and was slidding down beside here. Not the best image to see before your first run! So getting ready for my first run iwas quite nervous. It was a difficult set, girls were going out of the course all over the place, I was starting 34th so not near the front of the pack and it was my first race! In the start I made myself take a second and said " I WANT to do this!" " I want to be here"...haha I think it helped a little! Needless to say I started and just thougth about moving forward and being on the gates. I slipped around a couple gates and went too round as usual but I finished. After the first run I was sitting in 23rd or so position. So I started 8th the following run as they reverse the top 30. Second run was better as I had already done it once! Again I went too round but I finished and skied well despite it all. It was a confidence building day and definately a starting point. I think i ended up 23rd. That may not sound great...are your right is it not the best but to put it in context the field today was stacked! Alot of the girls from the World Cup stayed and raced today. Lots of Europeans everywhere! Oh well! Tomorrow is another day.

Cheers,

Elli

Photos from the road

the usual amount of stuff two ski racers carry around with them...
Eve early morning training at Nakiska
Nakiska morning sky
The bottom of Nakiska
6AM in the morning waiting for a possible meeting with Leonardo Di Caprio. He was staying in our hotel...turns out it was just a joke pulled by our coaches...hilarious that we all feel for it!

pre-season training

Bonjour tout le monde!

So it is time to write. I was reminded today that people actually read my blog and they were curious what I was up to! So here it is.

After Soelden I got to go home for almost three weeks. I trained really hard and was feeling really strong. My initial plan was to go out to Calgary early and get some physio on my knee then head to my friend Kelly's for a great weekend and come back to Calgary refreshed are raring to go for dryland testing on monday and tuesday. However this was not to be! I was supposed to leave on thursday and tuesday evening after an intensive bike sprint workout I got home feeling sick. I have not been sick in over a year. I have not had the flu since I was in Chile 4 years ago. I haven't been as sick as I was this fall sick since I was about 10 years old! I ended up having flu symptoms for a full week!!!! Not only was I unable to leave on thursday like originally planned but I ended up missing testing too! In the week that I was sick I lost 4 kgs!

Needless to say when I was finally able to get out to Calgary I was incredibly tired and energy low...but feeling better!

From Calgary I immediately drove out to Nakiska. Unfortunately because I came late I ended up on a cot. But that wasn't too bad! I did one day of GS freeskiing and felt good afterward but tired. I had a hard time recovering after each run. My second day back I did GS gates down a run called mapmaker. I was quite pleased with how I was skiing when in my second run I pinched my line in too much and ended up going through a gate! I flipped over it and actually landed kind of back on my feet. Apparently it was spectacular! I ended up spraining my proximal tib-fib joint and getting a very minor concussion. I did not ski again that week in Nakiska because of my knee. After three days of lying in a dark room we finally moved locations to Panorama.

In Panorama we were blessed to have an incredible personal chef cooking for us! It was some of the best food I have ever had on the road! mmmm!!! It totally made up for having to stay on a pull out coach...AGAIN! The World Cup tech group was also in Panorama training with us. It was a great opportunity for us to see where we stood against them. It also put things in perspective. I now realize that coming back to snow is easy. Coming back to full on racing is tougher. It requires much more patience and baby steps. It takes pushing yourself beyond the edge searching for every possible tenth of a second to be fast at this level. You can't just ski technically well- like I do! You need that extra umph!

After three days in Panorama myself and two of my team mates were carted off back to Nakiska for one day to shoot a commercial for presidents choice. It was a very interesting experience and made for a very long day. The details that are looked over are amazing! The commercial will be shown in February. After we finished shooting at about 4 30pm we immediately headed back to Panorama.

While I was in Nakiska my team mates were doing a time trial to get spots for the Aspen Slalom World Cup. My two team mates Erin Mielzynski and Britt Phelan qualified. They will be racing their first world cups on the 29th of November! Be sure to try and watch to cheer them and other canadians on!

After 1 day of slalom training down the run Hayfever in Panorama we headed back to Nakiska.

We have since been in Nakiska for four days of training. The first three days we did double sessions of Slalom and GS. It was very tiring but the intensity was very high and it was a good way to break into a more "racing" atmosphere! We are now one day from completing our "pre-season" training. I would say this has been the toughest ore-season I have had. I am playing a bit of catch up and also trying to push myself to be aggressive and take my skiing to the next level. I think it is going to be a great season. I also think it is going to be a long season of learning and relearning how to race more than how to ski.

The day after tomorrow we head down to Aspen . Colorado for our first Nor-Am events of the year. We will be racing GS in Aspen on the 30th and 1st then switching locations to Loveland for two days of Slalom on the 2nd and 3rd. My goal for these races is to ski confidently and to the best of my abilities. I believe the results will come when preceded be confidence and knowing how you want to ski.

Salut pour maintenant!

El

Later is better than never!

Some out of order photos from on trip in Europe....Soelden, Pitztal and Wittenburg

this is the early stages of my bruising from Wittenburg...because it was so icy the gates were coming up faster...the rest is explained by my arm.
Wittenburg indoor skiing. Super icy!
Pitztal after our mini snow storm...with of course a MASSIVE pushy line to get on the gondola!
Just a few of our skis
A walk the day before the snowstorm in the pitztal valley
Soelden-the difference in the amount of snow from year to year
The Devo team! left to right speedy, me, britt, eve, steph, erin. Coaches on the right are Walter and Tim.
Germany by air
After the first day of the snow storm
another shot from the pretty walk!