The 2012 conclusion.

This most likely will be my final note for the 2011/12 European winter. I’m slowly making my way back from Turkey jumping from country to country as I head south. The World under 23′s are over. It was an absolute amazing whirlwind of a trip and three months sailed by so so fast. With the U23′s being over its time to touch down into reality again and get back into the Uni/training way of life. As always the trip was crazy with highs, lows and a few new P.B’s. I feel could spent hours telling stories especially Turkey and all the things that happened there in 10 days or so.

Phillip, Mark and myself with attaché Ahmet Ozan Yılmaz, aka Ozzy. Waiting to check in our gear

However I’m not here to rag on Turkey but to talk about skiing but more importantly racing. These last few days have been a very good learning experience for me. I can now clearly see where the bar is set and I have a fairly good idea on the requirements and sacrifices need to reach that bar. I guess all that is needed now is time to put into practice all these ideas I have and wait and see what happens.

Everyone attempting to checking there baggage into just three check in counters.

I have had a fairly frustrating European season. I feel I showed so much potential but never truly was able to test it due to my terrible run with illness and injury. That being said I was in the best form my circumstances allowed for U23′s and I shouldn’t complain. The racing was tough and it truly showed me where I was at with my skiing and what I need to improve on now.

Looking out of the mountains surrounding Erzurum.

The door for bigger and better races I feel is now wide open and all I have to do is walk through it. I hope to achieve this in the Australian 2012 winter.

I have crossed a few goals off my list but in turn have written more down always aiming a little higher. I have been looking forward to coming home so that I can build a huge foundation block of training and start to creep closer to these new goals.

With the end of a trip comes the need to thank a lot of people and organisations! Firstly to the Birkebeiner Nordic Ski Club, thank you so much for the support and help! Every season you have support me and encouraged me onto bigger and better things, so thanks very much!

To my largest sponsor the University of Ballarat, thanks for all the help getting me over to Europe every season and putting up with me skipping the odd class to go to ski races in Australia! To the coaches and wax techs of the Australian team, thanks for all the time and effort you put into me and my skiing, day after day!

And lastly to my family and friends who always support me and who’s amazing emails and messages gets me through the rough day!

Until next time.

Train hard. Rest easy. Live for the moment.

Skiathlon.

So the Under 23 World Championships are done for another year. Today was the 15 km skiathlon, which is actually a 30km race. The first 15 km is classic and then you change skis mid race and then do 15 km skate. I’ll admit I have some mixed emotions in some ways it was a good race for me, I’ve never worked so hard in my life or pushed so hard. On the other hand I’m left feeling a little empty which I’ll explain why a little later on.

So as usual we woke early and went for our morning but unlike other morning where we have tab outside we went to the gym instead and did it on the treadmills. Recently quite a few athletes have been chased by wild dogs and one American was bitten, not to mention we live on the side of a huge hill and it’s either straight up or straight down so it’s hard to take it easy.

Warm up was a little tough to focus and get charged for the race I was feeling a mixture of tiredness and nerves. Mass starts are always extremely chaotic and at the first few hundred meters can make or break your race. Also you don’t know what the race leaders will do, if they’ll steam out hard from the start or I’d they’ll take it a little more easily and then do a hard attack for the finish. I was hoping for the latter of the two, which meant I could hang on the back for longer.

Before the race even started things were an absolute mess. Each racer has a bib, a leg bib and then a transponder on each ankle, which match the bib number of the racer. Some how the people distributing all the transponders had messed a few up and bibs and transponders didn’t correlate so this had to be sorted out. After a 5 minute or so delay we all jogged out to our allotted grids in the start line.  Here was the next little stuff up however it worked in my favor. They had mucked up the back of the start grid and I was starting in front of people that were ranked better than me. We didn’t really have any time to sort this out because 30 seconds later the gun went and we were off.

Start of the Skiathlon.

Out of the blocks all was going well and I was sticking to Andy Pohl the New Zealander whom we have been helping wax. Around the first corner things were going from intense to total shit storm! I’m not entirely sure how it happened but there was a 8 man mile up in the middle of the track. I thought I could squeeze past it all and was in the left track next to it but as I passed the mess one of the racers was trying to untangle himself and stuck his ski out across my track. I had nowhere to go with athletes being all around me so I was forced to ski into it. Luckily for me the racer that had just struggled to his feet and was blocking my track was not balanced well and as I hit the ski I knocked him completely off balance and he fell back into the mess of bodies, poles and skis. Not my best or nicest moment but racing is racing and I guess that’s just how it is.

So for the first lap I was on back of the whole pack but as the second lap went the groups fractured and I found myself slowly losing contact with the bunch. I should say that the laps have changed from the 15km and that we were doing 4 laps of a 3.75 km course which removed all the flats that was in the 5 km loop.

In laps three and 4 I was just chasing I knew a lot of athletes had pulled out already and I was just trying to keep within contact. This week I’ve been either just in front of or just behind of the Brits so I was keen to beat them today and one of their skiers was also slipping off the back with me.

I was starting to lose a little grip and as I got more and more tired I found I had to really focus on good technique to keep grip on the hills. I was fairly happy when the last lap rolled by and I skied into the change over zone just 10 or so seconds behind Platty of GB. Normally when you change skis for the first kilometer or two you ski like a muppet with skis and poles going everywhere. For once this didn’t seem to happen to me I transitioned well into the skate and found I could close the gap to Platty slightly on the first hill. On last hill of the 5^thlap I was truly starting to hurt with my legs in serious pain! My lungs were holding out still but I was hurting. Into the descent I was finding tucking hard as my legs were hurting so much. On the last part of the descent I was so tired that when I was handed my feed from Team mate Mark Pollock I couldn’t grasp it and I dropped it. I was pretty worried about not taking in any fluids as I made my way around the stadium but soon my mind was taken off my feeding problem due to the Officially standing in the middle of the course waving the dreaded red flag.

Artistic shot of the finish area.

I mass start races, depending on the quality of event they have what we call the lapping rule. Myself and Platty were pulled just as we had started to make our second lap. The reason for being pulled was that the considered the lead pack to close and that we would of interrupted the flow of the race. The two extremely frustrating things about this was: One we still had a good few minutes up our sleeve and could of easily made one more lap and two, In theory the only three races that have the lapping rule is the Olympics, World Cup and Senior World champs not juniors or U23’s. The rule was brought in last night when some of the Russian coaches complained.

Any way, all a little frustrating but in the end just means I have to ski faster. On two positive notes this race was actually my best out of all three coming 58^th out of 72. Also going through the time of the 15 km I worked out that I was averaging 2.9 minutes per kilometer, so there are lots of positives I just have to work on them a bit more!

 

Train hard. Rest easy. Live for the moment.

 

 

15 km classic.

So again I’m sitting in the bus trundling towards the tracks. It’s between race days now the 15km was yesterday and tomorrow is the skiathlon (30km). We are all off to test skis again and to try and get our bodies turning over again.

So race day began again early with us rising and heading out for a morning run. Things went a lot smoother this time, no fires under generators or busses delayed which is a first for the organizers. However I should mentioned the poor old Great Brittan (GB) team now have had two busses break down on them out of four race mornings, so I don’t think there to impressed with the organisers.

Quality Turkish cuisine...

So testing waxes and warming up I was feeling good perhaps a little tired but still fired up and keen to race hard. As always the skis had perfect grip and awesome glide so thanks again J.C and Fabian!

I was off 9th and I had two GB skiers in from of me that I know quite well and a Greenlander who also has his skis waxed by us starting 30seconds behind. The race plan was to go out strong but nothing crazy and slowly build into a mean pace for the last lap. The course has six climbs in it per 5km lap, two that are steep pinches and then two medium length hills with two very long striding hills at the end.

Not the most flattering photo but all i could find so far. i think its at the start of the race.

The first lap I was feeling ok, but started to question how I was feeling when Karl from Greenland closed the 30 second gap quickly and was only a few seconds behind. However the last part of the course was where the two massive striding hills were and with a little technical advice yelled from coach J.C on the side of the course I found a strong rhythm and was able pull away from Karl and in the end put quite a bit of time into him. The second lap was hard, I was trying to slowly build but the altitude was starting to take its toll and my body was starting to ache. I was able to capitalise on the long striding hills and was given some good splits, being up on the Brits in front of me whom I was aiming to beat.

However I was burning a lot of energy on the pinches. The third and final lap I was still holding good technique and glide through out the course and as the last two hills came I tried to give it everything I had leaving everything out on the course. This for me was probably the weakest part of my race. I felt I just couldn’t “throw down” and just go nuts on the last few kilometers like I normally can. I found myself gasping for breath and having to drop my rhythm back into the previous pace that I’d been using. On the top of the final main climb again coach J.C appeared and as always he knew exactly what to say and as he ran beside me throwing life and limb on the line (he was so focused on yelling at me that toward the end of his sprint he tripped and did a spectacular face plant!) With J.C’s words ringing in my ears I tried to lift again and I held the pace over the top and into the decent. With only one more climb left in the race I tried to carry my momentum into the last hill and went crazy over the top  and into the final circuit of the stadium and into the finish straight. This ended up being was one crazy big double poll interval and then all of a sudden it was over and I was done.

Phil on the left and me looking like i'm about to face plant at the end of the 15 km.

The race was fairly good for me I’m satisfied with it but not ecstatic. I was really hoping to produce a PB and I was close, getting the second best point of my career to date but still I feel frustrated about the lack of zing I had in my last lap and my inability to let loose like I’d planed.

I’m learning so much from all these races and watching what the winners do differently and seeing where I went wrong. I think next season if all goes to plan I’ll be a completely different racer but we’ll just have to wait and see if I can make the changes I’m planning.

For the time being

Train hard. Rest easy. Live for the moment.

U23 World Champs Sprint race report.

So I hope this will the first of three race reports to come from the under 23 World Championships. The sprint is now done and dusted and I’m writing this sitting on the bus heading to the race venue to test skis for tomorrows 15 km interval start. We have a day between each race to recover and retest skis as best we can before the next race.

 

Busses at the race course waiting to take athletes home.

 

The U23 boys plus Andy Pohl (NZ) waxing skis in the cabin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yesterday started fairly early for myself and Phil, rising at 6:00 am and heading out for a early morning run to get the body turning over before breakfast and the sprint. For once the transport was fairly organized, only being 5-10 minutes late. When we arrived however it was rather apparent things at the race tracks weren’t so smooth, as smoke and flames were clearly visible at the bottom of the the huge diesel generator that powers all the wax cabins. So feeling a tad nervous that a 60L odd diesel bomb could go off any second we headed to our wax cabin (which is also one of the closest to the generator). In side wax tech/coach Fabian informed us that in fact the Turkish organizers had lit the fire on purpose to heat the diesel because it kept freezing due to the chilly temperatures and instead of putting an anti freeze additive in to the fuel an open flamed fire was concluded to be much more practical…

 

The diesel generator and its little problem below...

So warming up I was feeling a little nervous about throwing down against some of the monsters that have come out of the woodwork for the WC (as you’d expect). I was also feeling nervous about the course, especially the first climb out of the stadium which could easily make the last 2 minutes or so of the race absolute miserly if you blew up on it.

Recently I have ha a lot of advice from past skiing legends and coaches on the up coming races and one view they all share is simple.” It’s just another race and I’ve just as good a preparation for these race as the others so go out there and give it your all”.So with these words in mind I calmed down a lot in the start pen and just relaxed and focused on the race. I wasn’t ranked very well at all so I was at the tail end of the starters.

Out of the start gate I kept it fairly calm and controlled, building up as I headed towards the first hill. As the hill started I tried to drop it back a gear an then floor it. It worked surprisingly well. I crested the hill feeling the lactic a little in my legs but they weren’t cooked. The first descent is tough. It’s not technical but you don’t get to rest. You need to keep working all the way to the corner which signals the start to the second climb or your time just blows out. Around the turn and half way up the hill were the Aussie coaches and juniors pumping me up. With this bit of motivation I tried to unleash over the first half of the hill which is also the steepest. It started off well but very very quickly I began to scramble as my legs filled with lactic and my lungs screamed for more oxygen. Over the top of the last hill and around the hairpin that then turned into the descent into the stadium I was deep in the hurt box. The last 500 meters were a lot of pain as I tried to lift my tempo to the finish.

The sprint race was always going to hurt but I didn’t think it would hurt as much as it did. In the end I beat my rank but it could of been a much better race. I have definitely had betters sprint races this season.

I’d like to thank the junior lads for coming out and cheering and as always the wax magicians of J.C and Fabian who gave me rockets for skis! Also a shout out to Phil Bellingham who managed to get the lowest FIS points of his career to date so well done!

Time to get off my phone and test some skis.

P.s Sorry for the lack of race photos Fabian’s camera broke and we didn’t get a replacement in time.

 

Train hard. Rest easy. Live for the moment.

Turkey.

I consider myself a fairly well travelled young man. I have been to wealthy countries like America and less fortunate ones like Hungry. However in my all my travels I have never come across such a rare and unique country as Turkey.

On our arrival here into Erzurum we managed to get into bed at 1:30am after an expected arrival of 10:30pm that night at the athlete accommodation.

My first cup of Tea for Turkey (last year this didn't go so well for me).

The general population and volunteers always mean well and are extremely polite and friendly. They always want to help us as much possible and make sure all we have to do is train and rest( sounds pretty good I know). But we seem to run into a little bit of a snag when they try and do everything for us but they never have any clue about what you are trying to achieve. A classic example was the first morning we went skiing and our two coaches were trying to set up our team wax room, placing benches and waxing tables where they wanted them. Our Turkish attaché however felt the need to stop us from setting it all up and wanted to do it all for us(He’s a nice guy that means well just does things differently to us). Or the other classic one was the Sunday morning when we booked the bus to get us to the race course (which alone is a 1.5 hour drive) for 9:00 and didn’t leave the hotel till 10:30.

Callum Watson who has a quite a famous reputation for hating the place has even more of a reason to hate it after getting food poisoning the first night he arrived and has been in bed all day (but on the mend and should race last two races).

Out running. Over looking Erzurum

Athlete accommodation.

In many ways our arrival here could not be more different from last time. Last year it was a few days before we even saw any snow, where as it’s been pumping down non stop since we’ve been here. We have had a few skis out on the race course and it all looks pretty good and I’m keen to do the distance course. It is very hilly with very long striding up hills and almost zero double pole which suits me well.  The sprint, which is, tomorrow on the other hand will be interesting. It’s a fairly long (1.6km) course with two tough climbs in it. To make things interesting out of the start is quite a long straight through the stadium and into the major climb. This doesn’t sound that bad but not cooking the goose to early the sprint is very important so it will be some tough racing tomorrow. That’s all from me I’m in for an early rise tomorrow.

Will keep you posted.

 

Train hard. Rest easy. Live for the moment.

 

Livigno (the freezer of Italy).

So our final training and acclimatization block has finished at Livigno Italy and im sitting in our hotel room in Zurich before we head to Turkey for the U23 World Championships.

If you’ve been following any news on Europe I’m sure you would of seen that at the moment there have been some huge cold cells across Europe. In Campra we started to experience those cells but at almost 1900 meters you really get hit by the cold. The warmest it’s reached was around -4 with the coldest morning hitting -33.5. The training was good, but brutal. At such high altitudes and cold temperatures, the body doesn’t handle hard, long training sessions well. So it’s been either short and sharp or very easy cruises as we got used to the conditions. In many ways the brutal temperatures are great preparation for Turkey. Last year for World Uni games we experienced -35 temperatures so it quite possible to that cold again!

On a morning run looking back toward Livigno. River frozen in the foreground.

Training for a major race is actually a lot of fun. Because we are trying to peak now we get a lot of time off from training while we recover. Because of this extra time off it means we get to relax in cafés, cruise around the streets of Livigno shopping or plain old lying about in the apartment sleeping and playing card.

Seeing as the team consists entirely of guys now we thought we’d spend our valentines day a little differently this year. Most of the team, along with the Great British ski team had a rest day so we all met up and went ice quad biking. We have spent a fair bit of time with the GB team in Livigno, having had a pizza night along with some training sessions. It’s been great spending time with a few new faces and quad biking with them was no exception. It was great for everyone to relax and forget about training and racing and instead just argue over who had the best crash or drift. (Phil easily took the cake for best crash managing to crash into the back of Alex “Jagi” Standen and breaking the back off Jagi’s quad bike. Callum on the other hand seemed to find a little more grace on the ice, drifting through the corners like a seasoned rev head (possibly due to the fact that under all that lycra Cal is in fact a huge rev head!)

Not sure if it would be an upgrade or a downgrade from the Blue Box.

 

Perfect day out on the trails.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

During our stay in Livigno we actually moved location to higher up on the hill. The reason for the change was just that we were unable to find accom for the whole time block, not us just trying to get a little more out of our altitude training. We have recently had a bit of a team 500 (card game) tournament and last night Phil and myself battled against Coaches Finn and J.C for the title. Phil and Myself in the end proved to crafty for Finn and J.C beating them and taking the title (and the One Way racing beanies)!

 

So we ill head to Turkey tomorrow morning, arriving at our hotel around 8pm (local time) in Erzurm. The whole team is in good spirits and extremely keen to race (or at least I know I am!) So keep tuned for some more updates hopefully coming soon!

Train hard. Rest easy. Live for the moment.

The start to the final voyage!

So I wasn’t completely honest with my last blog, I  did do one race this weekend (or an attempt of one) I started in the 10km classic which originally was a 15 km race but due to the huge winds and frigid temperatures (-18) it was shortened.

So I started out well with good grip and rockets for skis (big thank you JC and Stevie boi!) and felt good apart from the fact it was freezing cold! Fairly quickly however I started to loose grip as the super cold, abrasive snow, cut away at my wax. With this lack of grip came the scrambling and herringbone to try and get up the hills. With my lack of traction I kept slipping which caused a lot of jarring in my lower back. Normally this is fine but I have had some really annoying back issue ( I suffered a small hemerige in my lower back in AUS) and around the 6km marker my back just gave out and my race was sadly run. It was fairly frustrating because I was feeling good and my time splits up until then had been good. Ah well the joys of racing.

In the end it’s a mixture of my fault and bad luck. I have exercise for my back but haven’t done them recently because my back has been fine, an giving me no trouble. In a lot of ways I’m glad it has happened now and I have 2 weeks before the world champs to fix it and to make sure it’s strong and 100%.

Super chilled air hugging the peaks around Campra, Switzerland.

The Weight Equation.

So I guess this is the part two of “Chasing the Unicorn”. The reason for the sudden change in writing style is due to the lack of actual race reports. It seems for this European winter I am to sit out every second race weekend (not ideal!). However with this being said it has give me a great chance to sit back and look at myself, as an athlete and try to piece together some of the things I do right, and some of the things I drastically need to change. Obviously the first I need to change is staying healthy, so I can write about how I went in my weekend of races and not that I spent it in bed recovering from illness.

The Second most important thing for me is the “Weight Equation” if you look closely into any of the Red Group (top 30 ranked skiers) you’ll notice a few things they have in common. The first is that they all are extremely cut, ripped, shredded, huge or just plain old fit. You couldn’t find an inch of fat on any of them, even the tall men (195cm+) are lean mean xc machines.

The second thing that they all do is that they play to their strengths and know exactly what best suits them. The tall and chunky athletes (in the upper body) use their height and extra double pole strength to their advantage in a sprint for instance where they can out power their shorter opponents. Where as the shorter athletes use their shorter limb levers to turn over quicker creating a phenomenally quick tempo. Whatever body type they are they have become amazingly good at playing to that strength.

Giving a new meaning to "throwing it down". World cup Sprint finals.

For me the “Weight Equation” is hard to find and something for certain I’m still looking for (another Unicorn).  At the last AIS camp I had the fifth (don’t quote me on that) lowest skin folds to my knowledge. Out of 12 odd male athletes this sounds pretty good but mine were 52 millimeters from 7 skin fold sights, which makes an average of 7.4 millimeters. The lowest was 36 millimeters or 5.14 millimeters.  A good distance athlete is always in the thirties, where as sprinter are often a little higher up on the scale (but realistically not that much).

What am I then? A sprinter or a distance skier? Well if you’d asked me a year a go without thinking I would of said sprinter. My height has always been a massive benefit for me. However in the past few months building up to this European season and while I’ve been over here I have done a lot to improve my distance skiing and without question now it’s far better than my sprinting ability. Genetically I’m a distance skier and when I was younger I just didn’t recognize or accept it. I am trying to embrace the distance way of life now, however the required 30 odd skin folds is a rather painful thought.

The shredded monster and the man to beat showing his stuff at the AIS. (And The Orange top is to hold a Accelerometer).

This for me this is a fairly major hurdle to navigate. If any of you have ever had dinner with my parents, one thing is certain. There’s always seconds! Now overseas there’s another problem for me other than mental restraint. Uni student tightness, I’ve had to shrug off the notion that I need to get my monies worth at every meal. To let others get seconds (and thirds) while you sit and silently cry on the inside. Realistically you should be feeling no sympathy for me here, I’m complaining about having only one serve of some delicious German cuisine rather than two. But keeping up vigilance is something that I seem to struggle with over here.

As for playing to my strengths I feel this will simply come together when I tackle the weight issue and become a much leaner version of my current self. As this happens I’ll (hopefully) have the same amount of power but with less mass and same goes for my heart and lungs. The same strength and volume but less area it needs to be pumped too.

Anyway, never let an athlete get sick, they then think they’re a philosopher of sport and that’s just scary.

Train hard. Rest easy. Live for the moment.

Chasing the Unicorn

It’s amazing being an athlete and how we lose sight of things. How some things are so so important to us and other things we take entirely for granted. A classic example would be travel. The other day we drove through three different countries, across some amazing mountain passes and through breathtaking valleys. I didn’t take a single photo. I just wanted the journey to end (granted it was 7 hours). I’d seen a lot of it all before and hence it was put into the realm of mundane. Compare me, the athlete to the year 12 student say, who’s been trapped behind a desk and all they want to do is escape and explore the world. They would have used up an entire photo card, snapping away crazily.

On the other hand the athlete is only as good as there last race. And to race fast you need to have your body and mind at 100%,  when either breaks down it’s generally catastrophic and can make or break a season if the illness is not managed well. For the year 12 student a snivel and a cough is nothing if they’re lucky it might mean a long weekend and a extra sleep in. As athletes we never go out sightseeing or doing the tourist thing. We just call that “dead miles”. And when I retire I’ll need to revisit everywhere I’ve been to properly be able to appreciate it. Because we need to either be training hard or recovering.

The athlete training.

Athletes refueling

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why am i writing so philosophical (or as good as I can be). Simple… My body is breaking down again. (not impressed!) It’s amazingly frustrating being an athlete and getting sick. It’s like a builder breaking all his tools. It is an amazing conundrum that still is out of reach of most athletes. How’s much training is to much? How much rest do you need to off set that training. And does that athlete have the energy, will and drive to get to that perfect mix. Each year some athletes hit the combo perfectly and if they’re good they’ll remember that combo to become successful athletes. But for other athletes this is their ultimate unicorn. Their uncatchable beast. A beast I feel I’m yet to even sight. Once again for me it’s back to he drawing board (realistically bed).

I hope to have a few days of solid bed rest and still be able to compete in the distance races for this weekend in Campra. Fingers crossed.

Train hard. Rest easy. Live for the moment