I don't have alot of time to chat but I thought I'd give a bit of an update since I have been really bad about updating lately (blame dial up internet!)

OK so things went really well during pre christmas racing!

After arriving back from Colorado we did three days of trainng in Panorama. It was bloody cold! It was minus 30! However it was good training when all was said and done. We then went to Lake Louise to cheer on our team mates who were racing the Nor Am speed events there! Myself and Eve used this time to try and get some christmas shopping done in Banff!

We then proceeded back to Panorama for the Nor-Am events there. In the slaloms I came 4th then FIRST!!! I got my first Nor-Am win! One year and three days after my knee surgery! I was absolutely thrilled and shocked by this! But it felt amazing! It is always nice to feel that you are back!

In the GS's I came 10th and 15th. I then had two days off followed by a FIS race series also in Panorama. It was wonderful to see my friends who are now racing the NCAA circuit and to see the younger girls in our sport.

I am now home and just about to leave for Quebec for our next race series! It has been wonderful being at home and has got me energized to go back on the road!

Sorry for the short post...internet is fleeting right now!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Cheers,

Elli

motivation

Here is a little video I made about my preseason training! Enjoy!

Footage taken in:

Wittenburg, Germany (indoor training slalom)

&

Nakiska!

Panorama

We are currently in Panorama! It took us three days to get here!

After my last post a snow storm blew into Calgary and stopped all air traffic. We ended up spending an extra night there. When we went to the airport the next morning our flight was once again cancelled so we took a detour...to San Diego! We were closer to mexico than Calgary which was hilarious! The plan had been to leave from the airport to Panorama but because of how late we ended up arriving in Calgary we stayed overnight there. We arrived in Panorama at about 5 30 pm yesterday. Today we trained Slalom on Hayfever the wc slalom run here in Pano. It was injected but this was NICE injection....it was really grippy. TIm set a really difficult course and we only did four runs. Those 4 runs took us almost 2 hours as we had to go inside each run because it was so cold. It was around -27 degrees. It was cold enough that they delayed the dh start in Lake louise. It was -36 degrees there this morning. Tomorrow we are training slalom again and wednesday we are training gs. Looking forward to it!

Cheers for now,

Elli

On the road again

Hallo

Another day gone by! We are currently in Denver over night before heading back to Calgary.

It ended up being a fairly good few days for me. Nothing spectacular but solid. In the GS's I ended up 23rd and 27th and in the Slalom I ended up 29th and 25th. Although this isn't great it is a good way to start the season. These are also the hardest Nor-Ams of the season as just before there were world cups races here in Colorado so a lot of the European World Cup teams stayed and raced the Nor-Ams. So that means I was racing against some of the best skiers in the world.

Each day I felt a little more comfortable racing and pushed it a little more. Right now I am skiing technically well but I have to work on my aggressiveness and trusting myself to take the straight line. It was great doing this race series and realizing that I am technically as good as anybody. Now I have a fairly big training block to work on some adjustments and getting confident and bam! anything can happen. The exciting thing is the next Nor-Am is at Panorama...a hill I have trained on since forever!! and since I came top thirty each race I gained Nor-Am points so will have a much better start position. THings are looking up!

Ciao for now!

Elli

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!

Servus!

So I am back in Europe! I have been here since the 1st of october and I thought I would wait to blog about my time here till I actually had something to say!

We started our camp in Soelden, Austria. It was absolutely crazy how little snow they had and how warm it was !!! We were only able to ski about a quarter of what we where able to ski the year before! The rest was glacial ice imbedded with ancient dirt! We had to get rental skis to go up the t bar on because it would have absolutely wrecked our skis otherwise! In the afternoons we were able to go and play beach volleyball in tank tops and shorts it was soo warm!! My team mates and I had some great games! This was my first camp back with my team mates. It felt great to be back with them but at the same time I had a hard time at the beginning with how far ahead of me they are. I guess it helps when you haven’t missed 10 months of skiing! They are skiing really well which is great. When they were in New Zealand they were skiing just as fast as the world cup girls...and even beating them. This is great for all of us on the development team because now we know that we can be fast! Now I just need to catch up! It was slightly difficult being in Soelden because of how well I skied there last year. I wanted to ski just like that right off the bat. I had to separate my feelings of how I should be skiing and how I am skiing...not comparing myself and trying to work off what I accomplished in Zermatt instead of trying to achieve what I did last year in Soelden. After 7 days in Soelden we moved to Pitztal.

I was very nervous about going to Pitztal as that is where I tore up my knee last year. We had a day off the first day we were there. The same as the year before. We went for a walk down the valley as it was a beautiful sunny day. Same as we did last year. We were staying in the same hotel as last year. It was starting to feel like deja vu which was really not making me feel great almost as if I was being drawn into a vortex where it would end up the same as last year. Luckily that night there was a wind and snow storm. We were unable to ski the next day. It was really too bad that we weren’t able to take advantage of some time on snow but on the otherhand I was happy that it was different than what it was like last year. I felt relief at the slight difference from last year. We ended up having the next three days off due to the weather which was not great. On our last day we were actually able to get up on the glacier but the snow was too soft to ski gates on. As well the gondola system they have is very inefficient and by 11 30 we had only been able to do 3 runs as the lines were so long for the gondola. Even though we didn’t ski gates there I was actually really glad to go up and be on the glacier.

It made that little nagging feeling in the back of my brain go away! I survived/conquered Pitztal! No need to panic about going there anymore! That felt good! Because of the incredible amount of snow that fell and the prediction that the weather was to remain the same for the rest of the week we decided to bite the bullet and drive to Hamburg in Germany where there is an indoor ski area.

We left right after skiing on wednesday. It is a 9 hour drive ( I am sure it usually takes longer than that as we were averaging 160-180 km/hr in our loaded 12 passenger van!!) It is a good thing autobahns exist! We found out there are areas on the bahn that actually have NO SPEED LIMIT!!! We passed a police car going 170 km/hr and he did not react at all! CRAZY!!! I officially love germany for its roads! We stayed overnight in a place called Hof and continued for the last 4 hours the next day. This is the farthest into Germany I have ever gone. Usually we fly into Frankfurt or Munich and drive immediately into either Switzerland, Italy or Austria. I am actually pretty excited about being near Hamburg. I am hoping we will be able to go look around one day. OUr plan is to have double sessions while we are here in Hamburg. We will ski and then drive back to Munich on Saturday. I think that is is going to be very productive skiing indoors! Lots of runs with good snow! Perfect for someone just returning to gates!

Servus and goodbye!

My return to snow video from Switzerland

Servus!

Things here in Switzerland are “super oder”!!! We are now drawing near to the close of our camp...AND I DON”T WANT TO LEAVE!!! How could it possibly be that we have almost been here for three weeks?!? Not possible! Alas it is, thus I am forced to look back and try and grasp all the non-extraneous information that was stuffed into my empty brain!

I have re-learned a lot about skiing in the past 11 days that I have had on snow! Walter will watch my skiing then make a comment and something that he says usually clicks and I remember that I am supposed to make a clean transition between turns etc.

It is amazing how far you can improve in three weeks. I have gone from snowplowing to skiing (and crashing) gs and slalom gates. It feels incredible to hit gates! I will update again later!

Chus!

Elli

One week

IN one week my life has returned! Skiing truly is the best thing in the world! I have now completed 6 days on snow. It has been very incredible watching video over the past week as I remember how to ski! The first 4 days showed incredible improvement that is very visible on camera. Now I am working on smaller chamges and it is less easy to decipher the differences in my skiing. I am now working on a very early short pressure, moving forward over the ski, and not letting my inside hand drop. I don't think I can remember when I last had the chance to freeski for so many days in a row. It has been a wonderful opportunity for me to improve!

Today we had a day off. My teamate Steph Irwin, our coach Walter Alber and Jeff Frisch all went down to the town of Visp for lunch. It was great to get out of the resort. Zermatt is a very popular tourist destination to say the least. You are constantly surrounded by people here so it was wonderful to go to a non touristy spot! We had lunch at an amazing pizzeria that served real Italian pizza's. Pizza with egg on it is simply the best! After a cappuccino we went and bought chocolate for our talented physio in residence Lili then headed back up the valley to the Matterhorn!

Tomorrow I am starting stubby gates (small rubber gates that are designed for drills). I am quite excited to put my skiing back into gates! Ciao!

Elli

Full Circle

Yesterday was the happiest day in my life-in recent memory anyway! August 13th, 2009 was my first day back on snow in 10 months and 2 days. I can know officially say that I am back on snow!!!!

Getting back on skis was a very interesting experience! It was a little surreal...it felt very normal and at the same time all the heartache, pain and hard work of getting back to skiing was running through my head. It felt incredible to feel so normal! My knee felt great skiing-it wasn't bugging me at all! It was great to not worry about my knee. I am actually skiing quite well too which is amazing! All the visualization I did this winter really paid off! I felt at home on my skis after the first run and today was able to put together some great feeling slalom turns! That being said yesterday we did snowplow drills all day. I never knew how hard it was to do a snowplow "correctly"!! Tough work! I really had to focus on keeping my ski tips together and using gradual pressure to slide the turn instead of having one really hard hit of pressure on the ski. It had to be flowing and over the outside ski...blah blah blah! I AM SO HAPPY!!!! I smiled all day even though I was only snowplowing! Just the feeling of turning and sliding was amazing! I love my sport and could not be happy in where I am at the moment!

Home tomorrow!!

Hey!

Today was my last day in Calgary!!! I get to go home tomorrow! This is such welcome news! We have been having a heat wave here in Calgary and my team mates and I have nicknamed our dorm room the "sauna"...it keeps heat in! There are only a few small windows and no ventilation to be heard of!

Today ws a big day in the gym as I squatted past my max ever! My previous max was 218 lbs in the summer of 2007 and I was only able to do about 3 repetitions. Today I squatted two plates a side which amounts to 225 lbs!!! And I was able to do 4 sets of 7 repetitions at that weight! This is another huge step on the road to recovery...being stronger than ever! YES!

Hope everyone is enjoying the heat wave!

Cheers,

Elli

Gym shots

Shots from the gym!

Sledpulls, boats and Bike Death

Sled pulls summer 2007-first year on the team...now these involve way more weight and we are doing them indoors on a track.

Hello All!

Half way through our second week in Calgary! Only 10 days till we can go home!! YES!

Things are still going really well here in Calgary as far as training goes. We finished off last week with sledpulls (death by sprinting with sleds stacked with weights). Going in Andrew didn't know if I would be able to do sleds as sprinting with weights was not something that i have even got close to yet in my rehab. I decided to give it a try and just stop if it got too painful. I was able to do the entire thing! GREAT!!! Saturday my knee was stiff and where my staple is hurt but other than that is held up! Just one more step in the right direction! Friday night we went and saw a movie and had a campfire in Steph Irwins backyard (s'mores oh yeah!!), saturday we went boating on ghost lake with Cam Brewington who was on the national team last year and his friend Chris Scheele who is ex-Alberta team. We ended up taking refuge for about 45 minutes under a bridge while a thunder storm passed by! The waiting payed off as afterwards the sun broke out and people were able to wake surf! I have decided to take the summer off water sports just as a precaution. I just don't want to take any chances. Being on the water was great...just being outdoors, listening to music and seeing my friends enjoy and challenge themselves made the experience very worth it! Afterwards we had a bbq on the bank of the lake before heading back into Calgary. Sunday we had an incredible beach volleyball game near the university with Cam, Chris, and my teammates Erik Reid, Kelby Halbert, Steph Irwin, Erin Mielzynski, Britt phelan, Eve Routhier, and Toria Whitney. It was incredibly fun to play volleyball again! I played all throughout highschool and would have loved to go further in that sport! it is definately my favourite sport after skiing (well ones that I have played competitively anyway)!

Monday saw us return to the gym and do lactate testing on the bike. Lactate testing has to do with Lactic Acid not lactating for clarification! We ride a bike starting at 80 watts, every two minutes the watts are increased by 25 watts and a sample of your blood is taken to see how much lactic acid you are producing. yes that means every two minutes your finger is getting pricked by a needle- not good for people who have needle phobia's- like me. You continue to go up watts every two minutes until you hit a lactate of 6 (this would be the equivalent of biking up a VERY steep hill ...6 would be when your legs feel like they are going to fall off...they are no longer able to keep rotating your pedals fast enough to keep your bike upright)...AFTER you hit 6 then they increase the wattage every minute until failure..which usually is only a minute or two after you hit 6. This is when they take your max heartrate...yes you read correctly...MAX heartrate....the fastest your heart can go! Mine maxes out at about 205. To compare...the average humans resting heart rate is about 60 and when running gets to about 150. To get back to what we did on Monday (we only had to go to 6 as this was just a clarification of training zones). My testing showed that I had improved! My heart rates went down in comparison to the amount of lactic acid that I was producing! yes! progress!

Tuesday had us doing a strength workout in the morning and 2 times 15 minute bike sprints in the afternoon ( about 200 watts and heartrate about 175-180). It is a really tough thing to try and distract yourself enough to forget how much these sprints hurt..and for how long you have to keep going! 3 minutes into the workout your mind is pleading at you to stop, your legs are screaming as they are being poisoned by lactic acid and it takes all the mental control you have to stop your hand from pressing the button which will turn down the amount of watts that you are doing. It especially is terrible when your ipod runs out of battery...music is the best way to take your mind off of the task at hand!

Today, wednesday, we had to do a 50 km ride. As most of us are pretty tired we decided to try and find a nice flat ride for today. On mapmyride.com we found a great looking 50 km loop out inthe foothills. On the map it looked about the shape of BC. Our plan was to ride the top side of the route (yukon/ northwest territories border heading west) then turn down (making the shape of the BC Coast) then riding straight back up (the alberta border) back to our starting point. It would have been the perfect ride-if we had actually followed the correct route! It all started when as a group we passed a fellow roadbiker on highway 22x. I guess getting passed by 4 young women is not something that the average adult make is used to when roadbiking. This particular roadbiker did not like getting passed! He sped up after we passed him and tried to take off. ony we caught him again. This time as we passed he actually reached out and tapped me on the shoulder. I was a little surprised! It turns out he is a retired roadbiking coach...he used to coach our nutritionalist Kelly-Ann (who is one of the most successful Canadian Road Bikers ever)! For the next 15 minutes he rode beside us giving us helpful tips about riding in a "peloton" and how to properly draft and use hand signals for changing leaders and poining out debree etc. It was actually really cool and funny! He couldn't believe what "big" girls we were. After 15 minutes he road off only leaving his name "papa". It was really cool to ride with him but during our little tete-de-tete we missed the exit which would lead us downwards (BC Coast)! We decided to take a parellel route which would take us to the same place. However, this small mis-step at the beginning of our ride led to problems down the line. As we crossed the bottom of our route we misjudged the distance we had gone and missed our upwards exit (Alberta border). We continued further down the road and ended up on a busy highway way past our starting point. By the time we stopped and tried to figure out where we were we had already gone 56 km and were FAR away from our destination. We ended up riding on a busy highway and crossing traffic on an overpass! VERY scary....to make matters seem worse there were huge signs along the highway reading DANGEROUS GOODS ROUTE...thats a real feel good sign! In the end we rode for 2 hours and 40 minutes and instead of 50 km's we rode 70 km's! 20 extra kms!!!!! Needless to say we were a grumpy, tired, sore, energy low, hungry group of girls by the end! I really crashed after the ride...I slept in the car ride back home!

Tomorrow we are back in the gym and in the afternoon we are scheduled to go play some squash! Exciting! Friday will entail more sled pulls Yuck!

Until next time!

Calgary

Hello all!
Ok! So!

I am currently back in Calgary! AGAIN! yay? yup! I am doing a ton of working out! That is all I say! I arrived on Sunday and have since completed 6 workouts (its wednesday). The intensity of the workouts have been upped and the amount of cardio is down slightley. Only a 40 km ride this morning instead of 80. On monday we were in the gym for 3 and a half hours in the morning and completed an hour bike ride in the afternoon. Yesterday we were in the gym for 2 and a half hours then had a nutrition seminar followed by an intervals cardio workout. Welcome back to Calgary! We are in a new dorm ...it is quite "cozy" shall I say. One thing is for sure....the fridge is not big enough to accommidate 4 female athletes food!

More updates to come!

baby bambi

A little visitor we had for a few hours while I was home. A one day old Baby Bambi who was safely taken back to the forest after some goats milk and a careful hands off policy! If you see a baby bambi do not remove it! This is something we did not know beforehand! But now we do! No harm done! Enjoy!

Home and Calgary...again..and repeat!

Hello!

Being home after being is Calgary for a month was like discovering paradise all over again! Mountains, lakes, Mountain Biking, Horseback riding, Hiking, Canoeing, Consistantly hot weather, my own bed, a car to drive, a free washing machine, good coffee, someone else making breakfast, sleeping in, and last but not least my family! There is alot going on in Heffley lake that I LOVE!!

It felt incredible to be able to see my friends and enjoy all of summers little pleasures! When I was home my teamate Kelly McBroom came and visited me for 5 days. I could hardly sit still! All I wanted to do was show her EVERYTHING! I have tried to describe to my team mates where I live and what I do but nothing really makes sense until it is seen with your own eyes! So having Kelly was incredible! Finally an opportunity to play show and tell!

On her first day we decided to go for a walk before dinner. We brought my two dogs Benny and Jazzy along. half way through our walk we decided to go for a canoe. It was an easy walk over to where we keep our canoe and everything was going well until we got onto the water. Benny is now 15 and quite docile so we brought her into the canoe with us. jazzy being a hyper 2 year old black lab was left out of the canoe on the shore. It didn't take her more than two seconds to decide that we were not leaving without her. As she swam after us she whined non-stop. To the house on the edge of the lake it must have looked like we were purposefully trying to drown the dog! Needless to say, feeling it necessary to avoid having our neighbours call the SPCA for dog abuse I pulled her into the canoe. For the first few mintues she seemed content to rock to canoe as she pelted from one side to the other whining after ducks and other items on the water. Through all this Kelly was taing beautiful scenic shots of Heffley Lake. As we neared the island at the last leg of our little tour we spotted a huge thing of caterpillars dangling off a branch over the water. Kelly being the photographically capable type of person she is leaned in for a good shot of this phenomenon. At this precise moment as Kelly leaned slightly over the edge of the canoe to capture nature in action jazzy decided to rush to the same side of the boat...FLIPPING the canoe!!! Now it must be understood that this particular day, it was not sunny..in fact it had rained in the early afternoon. Therefore Kelly and I were dressed appropriately in Sweaters, lululemon pants and running shoes. NOT the best swimming attire! It took us a good 15 minutes to find both paddles, empty the boat of water, negotiate the canoe away from the HUGE red and black butted water spiders and recommence our voyage across the lake...SANS Jazzy! She had to swim....




That was only one of the many adventures we had while kelly was at my place! It was incredible to have her over! Thanks Kelly!

Hello,

So I am now two weeks into my first dryland training block back with the team! We are in Calgary and have been training at the University of Calgary, at the Olympic Oval. It is incredible how different I feel strength wise compared to just a few months ago. I actually feel strong again. It is incredible, when you are not strong you don't really notice it but when strength is returned...WOW..I feel like superwomen sometimes! So far I have been very happy with my ability to keep up with my teammates in all activities. Before arriving in Calgary I was not sure how far behind I would be and how much I would actually be able to do. I still had my "I'm injured" excuse tatooed to my face. However, now that I am here I have found my "injured" mask sliding off! I can now actually do lunges without pain, i can bike for 2 1/2 hours, I can jump...overall I feel great! With strength apparently comes peace of mind! I hope everyone is enjoying a beautiful late spring!

Cheers,

Elli

Skiing

Since I will shortly be recommencing my ski journey I thought I would post a video of my skiing prior to my crash in Pitztal. This video was shot in the spring, summer and fall of 2008. If you watch you can see that I become a much better skier throughout the summer! I am very proud of what I accomplished with my skiing last year and can't wait to continue where I left off!

Hope you enjoy the video!

Elli

Hello everyone!

Well it has been a long time since I have had a new post!

I have been waiting till I had a bit to write about!

Well, now I do!

In late March my team mate Kelly McBroom and I went to the carribean.

Since we are both recovering from blown ACL's etc we decided it would be a golden opportunity to use up some aeroplan miles and get away from the snow for a while! We ended up going on a 9 day cruise (the deals were too amazing to pass up) and after the cruise we ended up on a tiny island called Nevis to visit my great Aunt who lives there! The ship had 5 ports of call including the Dominican Republic, Tortola, Antigua, Barbados and St. Lucia. It was an incredibly interesting experience between the individuality of each island and our fellow passengers aboard the ship! I don't believe I have ever seen such glutony as aboard our cruise. Dinner plates heaping with dessert, 24 hr buffets and bbq's that lasted all day were the daily theme! The gym aboard the Norwegian Jewel was great, especially for us gimpies who spent several hours in there daily, though in comparison to the size of the ship it was small and in comparison to the amount of passengers aboard it was empty. It had a sign out front that read "the average person gains 9-18 lbs on a 9 day cruise". Gulp. That was a bit of a shocker! Beside the sign was a scale. What a smart was to get people into the gym! Too bad the poolside sun was so appetizing! All in all it was an amazing trip! Sun, interesting people, Aquamarine coloured ocean, palm trees ahhh the life! It was great after the cruise to go and stay with my Aunt Bonnie where it was serene and the ocean was right out of her front door! Kelly and I spent our days with oceanside walks and collecting coconuts, shells and carving calabash! It was over too soon!

Now that I am home, I am concentrating on getting back to skiing! With only about a month and a half to go I am really getting excited! I have dreamed about skiing every night for the past week! I went to Whistler with my parents as moral support as they participated in a level 4 exams. I saw my trainer Craig who developed a new program for me. So all in all things are looking up!

Cheers,

Elli

SO!

I am currently half way through my stay in Calgary and it is going great! It is incredible how fast the body can realign itself! At the beginning of the week my knee wobbled and shook like a leaf when doing single leg exercises NOW however I can feel my leg smoothly moving through its range of motion without..or at least...minimal shaking!! I feel stronger and more stable going down stairs AND.................................I HAVE STARTED LIGHTLY JOGGING!!! It feels incredible!! I have been dreaming of the day when I could run again since October 10th at about 9:31Am Austria time...the moment after this journey began!

Achieving little goals every day has been key to moving forward for me. So although I am in the gym, working really hard and getting really stiff in the process...I am not pushing myself too hard right now with the weights. I have decided that QUALITY is better than quantity. If I want my leg to return to top shape I need to build it correctly and efficiently. This is a lesson I learned last summer when I got up to 173lbs! Sure, I was very strong but I was no longer able to move as fast as I needed to as a technical skier. So, my new motto is quality NOT quantity....do it right the first time and be steady....the results will show in the end!

On to another very exciting topic..My teammate Kelly McBroom and I are going down to the carribean on a cruise!!! We are both recovering from knee reconstructions and both needed to get away from snow and skiing for a little while. it will hopefully be the perfect mental break for us before the summer.

Ciao for now!

Well, another stage of recovery is almost over. Since my last post there has not been much "exciting" progress to report. I am currently in the slow steady recovery phase. I am working on my low cardio range as well as building general muscle strength in my legs.

However, this has finally allowed me the chance to fully reflect (in a fairly non-emotional way) on my life, where it has been, where it is going and my life right now...inbetween. As an injured athlete it seems that you have a past (when you were skiing) and a future (when you'll start skiing again)-life on the road to recovery is a black hole with no meaning but to get back to where you were before. It can become quite frustrating to realize that your life, from other people's perspective, is on hold. Someone just pressed pause. This is a sad concept as I am learning and living so much right now. It may be in a very average way, nothing spectacular, but it is still a important part of my life and my career! This is the part of my career where I am able to figure out what I am made of mentally and physically. After a break from skiing I am now able to look back and know how amazing my life has been. How good I was at my sport, how much I love it AND I can live without it and feel successful. A few weeks ago I helped organize a free community sports event that had about 5000 people show up. It was a very interesting experience. It was amazing to me how much my ability to focus and work hard translated over into this VERY foreign type of work. It was nerve racking but, just like in skiing, you have to get over your fear and just do the work. Thank you to Caroline Boomer and Sukh Heer from Pacific Sport for allowing me that amazing opportunity.

Tomorrow I am going to travel to Calgary for my first real block of training. This is the next big step for me on the road to recovery. I will be working with the Canadian team physio Kent Kobelka every day. It will be great to be in a training environment again! This will be a great way to refocus myself and slowly start the process of being a ski racer again!

Thanks for reading!

Cheers,

Elli