For the past 4 weeks I've been out in the Alps preparing for the winter campaign. This was my longest block of summer training I've ever done, so I was aware that I had to make every second of it count on and off the hill.
Summer training is always important because it gives us time to strip everything back down to basics without worrying when the next race is, and make the small adjustments that help to find that extra tenth of a second. Its simple and sometimes really tedious but I also know it's essential, all those hours of looping on the flatter slopes taking things back to basics will sure help at some point next season. It also gives us a great opportunity to blast some fitness whilst reaping the rewards of altitude.
For all the above things to happen however you need to find a glacier with some snow, something that France has found hard to provide this summer due to their biggest heat wave in decades. This forced our original plans to spend 2 weeks in Tignes to be switched with Malcolm Erskine pulling an inspired last minute rabbit out of his hat to find us accommodation and training lanes in Les Deux Alps instead.
However before all that we had a fitness week in the not so snowy Les Houches. It was great to go back to our winter base for a week of fitness because its genuinely a second home for some of us. It was brilliant to get the opportunity to work with Steve Cooper from Sterling Health and Fitness who put together a fantastic week where all our sessions were purposeful, challenging and beneficial. It was awesome being trained by someone whose life is sports performance and has the best up to date knowledge of the science behind it.
We started off with some general cardiovascular conditioning; hiking, running and cycling. It was great to get out on the bikes with Laurie and also enable us to crush some metres on our Make-a-Champ sponsored hike.
Alongside the weight lifting sessions and the stretching we were able to do some really cool actives like rafting. It was such a good laugh especially as it was flash flooding the night before and the rivers were at an annual high making it even better. For adrenaline junkies this was a fantastic experience.
As the fitness week concluded we packed up the vans, waxed up the skis and rolled out to Les Deux Alpes. The short & mid length weather forecasts were pretty suspect so it was essential we made sure we were fully prepared for long days on the hill and maximal intensity while we had the access to training pistes.
It was a great week and a excellent opportunity to do some good work with Dave Morris. We had lot of time just to re programme skills and refine the basics. The FIS group all split off to help out a coach with another group, the idea being as well as doing the exercises yourself you could relay information and demonstrate them, therefore consolidating our own knowledge. It was a really great week to just be able to loop round with some of the new and fresh talent coming through BSA and not have to worry about the pressures of racing.
Unlike a lot of the photos I'd seen conditions were very good, the Deux Alps piste crew had done a cracking job of making sure any snow was spot on up high where the training lanes were and we worked in perfect snow every day until around 11am. Yes it meant taking the train up to the very top and another half hour longer before we got to train but when you are awake at 5:30 time just becomes a blur anyway.
We were working a lot and getting our alignment square in the hips and once getting that strong position the pressure can start to be built into quicker turns. We managed to get lots of video footage which helped us really analyse where we can improve. Dave has a sharp eye and can pick out even the finest of errors in the basics, which really helps us understand what's going on.
We moved onto the second week where Salt Lake bronze medalist Alain Baxter took over coaching duties. Which was great as we had a slalom lane all week. It was interesting getting coached from someone who had achieved at the very highest level because there is a mentality where by everything can be done better and improved upon. There was definitely a great ethos in the FIS group that week and everyone knuckled down, never settling for a "good" run and always pushing for more. Even though we had a training lane with gates up we still made sure we were working on our basic positions and muscle tensions but this time we were concentrating on line and timing too.
It was a solid week of progression for me personally. Slalom is the weakest of my disciplines, however I know I can perform so much better than my points suggest. One of my early season goals is to put some respectable scores on the board and then build from there. At present my woeful start positions are killing me, courses are trashed before I've even started. Early scores might just give me the freedom to go race as hard as I want in search of lower points and would contrast to last season where injury meant I was scrambling around the April slush looking to minimise FIS point damage.
The week with Alain allowed me to develop good discipline with line and timing whilst adding some decent levels of consistency. Only coming out 2 times in the whole 3 weeks of skiing was a big confidence booster because i knew the line was there or there about on every gate.
At the end of the week we had a BSA combi head to head which was really fun for all involved! Laurie Taylor beat me to the line in a close final which saw him take the BSA FIS Men's Cup home aka (Super U medals).
After the week of skiing was done it was time for the childrens group to leave for home which meant we had a BSA awards evening/skit night. It was a really cool idea from new coach Lyndsey Strange which eventually led to me, Charles Rankin and Euan Robertson singing "Let It Go" from Frozen. Let's just say none of us will be auditioning for The X Factor any time soon! All in all it was a great laugh and some well deserved prizes went out to some great people, so well done for all involved. Team 2 - we absolutely have to win next year (you know who you are).
After Deux Alpes we headed straight out to Zermatt for a final few days where again the conditions looked a bit suspect. Despite sharing a great camp with the younger racers, it was great to have just the FIS guys there as we could really get the best training in for us with Natalia and Lyndsey. We were also introduced to our first Canadian racer after our new coaching team took over. Jeff Frisch was a great lad who skis off 6 points in DH (ranked #36 in the world) and 10.6 in Super-G. He was great in showing me and Laurie how the pros do it and we learnt a lot of secrets that week from a top guy. It was also great training next to the Canadian women's team ladies, not least because our breaks on the top of the course were regularly eye catchingly brilliant. The already impressive natural scenery was certainly enhanced when Marie Michelle Gagnon arrived.
On a more serious note it was brilliant final few days skiing. I put together some really good GS turns and the glimmers of a promising start to the season looked like they were starting to take form.
Throughout the camp I was inspired by something one of the BSA coaches said to me in the opening days of training - "You know how to make one world cup turn, you've just got to make 60 of those in every run." No one can pull off 60 world cup turns every time but the point is persistency and consistency. I feel like during this camp, especially now in slalom, I have started to develop the ethic of consistency in my skiing. Perhaps not nailing every turn but certainly within line and movement patterns. The discipline is there and so is the will and intention to execute this.
It was a brilliant four weeks where I improved just about every aspect of what I do.
Hopefully from the platform we've worked hard to put down we're ready to go again and build on my technique both in October and when the season starts.
