So I’m back home again after an amazing week in Hintertux.
It feels almost like a second home now.
The week out in on the glacier was a dream week. Perfect
snow and clear skies all day provided us with perfect training conditions all
day, every day. The weather gods even
treated us to 2ft of powder on the final day of the camp so it would have been
rude not to take advantage.
My training was great. Every day I learnt something new and
a lot of credit goes to Sally Bartlett for this. The main goal I set out to achieve was to try
out my new HEAD skis and to see if I was comfortable on them, how they would turn
and what type of new challenges I experience with a longer length of ski.
However these were only minor achievements on my camp.
Happily I learnt how to get more acceleration out of my skis, how to get more
grip at the top of my turns in both technical disciplines and how and when to
adapt my line on a change of gradient on the slope. In addition to this I also managed
to iron out a few problems with my skiing and to refine my technique.
I even managed to squeeze in a few runs of GS down a FIS
length course and felt like I more than held my own on it.
It would have been impossible to do this without Sally’s
hard effort, support and time spent on all of the athletes from Telford Ski Club.
If we weren't working on the hill we were either analysing video of various training
runs, doing fitness in the gym or helping get equipment ready for the next day.
It was a non-stop effort on her behalf and I would like to thank her for her
time and effort. It was appreciated and certainly wasn't wasted.
So October camp has been and gone and now it’s only 5 weeks until
December camp starts, in Alpbach. December camp is always something to look forward
too because you can get some great foundation work done and the first races of the
season appear at the end. The Anglo-Scottish races and I have enjoyed a good relationship
in the past and I still believe I can carry on this form over the New Year
period.
Firstly however I need to continue to train hard with my
fitness before the camp so I can get maximum benefit from each day on the
mountain, making the most of my on-mountain time from both a quality and
quantity perspective.