Fit and Fun

Last weekend Heidi Widmer, Sarah Daitch and I held the first Fast and Female Fit and Fun event! The idea was to have a mini version of the full day Fast and Female event so that more events can be held in more places each year. Chandra was at the event as well to help inspire the girls.

We did a small talk, Chandra led a warm-up then we split the 52 girls into 3 groups and circuited through 3 stations (biathlon, agility/ski striding, and ultimate frisbee). Chandra finished off the afternoon with an inspirational speech. The stations were all big hits and it was tough for the girls to pick their favorite part.

We were on the front page of the Canmore Leader (here) and there was an article in the Rocky Mountain Outlook (here).



I just came off a rest week (only 6 hours of training!) and I'm getting set for a busy week. The team is doing spring testing so I have a double pole test and uphill skate time trial at the end of the week. My biochem course is almost done and my final exam is on the 30th so I'll be spending a lot of time at my desk memorizing metabolic pathways, enzyme mechanisms and other fascinating things.

Ciao,
Alysson

Spring Update

Sorry for the long silence, I've been really busy and I haven't made time for a blog post lately. I've been taking a condensed biochemistry course this spring so my "get stuff done" energy has been going into schoolwork and my blog has been terribly neglected! My midterm was on Monday so now I have a bit of relief in the school department and I can start working my way down my to-do list.

It's hard to believe but I've already done 6 weeks of training! The new Academy team started the year off with an 8-day training camp at Silver Star. Sovereign Lake groomed about 10km of trails and there was a lot of snow so the skiing was awesome! It wasn't quite the sunny spring conditions I expected as it snowed and was cloudy for a lot of the time but it was good to spend some more time on snow.

The skiing didn't end in Silver Star. The Rocky Mountain Racers team arranged for a groomed loop at Sunshine after the downhill closed so I spent 2 days skiing up there. I picked the best days to go as it was cold overnight and sunny and warm both days. The snow was hard enough that we spent the first half of the workout crust skiing all over the meadows before moving to the groomed track for the end of the ski. Here are some pictures - they didn't turn out very well but you can get the idea.

Looking down on the groomed loop

The thawing lake

I also want to send out a big thank you to the Salmar Community Association for their recent award (you can see the news release here) and Kristi Richards and her Supporting the Dream Legacy Fund. I really appreciate the support!