July 24, 2009 (Canmore, AB) – We’re excited to announce that top Canadian XC skier Alex Harvey will share his thoughts, impressions, and escapades at skitrax.com in our new Skier Blog section re-launching soon along with other exciting news as we countdown to 2010.

Harvey had a great season last year stunning the xc ski world with his fabulous World Cup third place finish in the 50km Classic in Trondheim, Norway and has strong potential to medal at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics next February.

Harvey’s current blog is about his recent first attempt at triathlon during a break from training on the glacier near Canmore, AB… “I put 120 hours of training in my body during the last 5 weeks and most of that load was over 1,700 meters. I could write about what the last week looked like, glacier, Canmore, Lake Louise, Canmore but you can read the last two updates for that. The real kicker of the last week was actually a race. A triathlon!” – keep reading and check out Harvey’s personal blog in English and French.

Canmore Triathlon
I am sitting on a plane between Calgary and Toronto and the movie just ended up, so I figured it was a good timing to write something! My body feels tired and that’s exactly what was planned! I just completed the biggest five weeks of training of my life. Straight up.

I put 120 hours of training in my body during the last five weeks and most of that load was over 1,700 meters. I could write about what the last week looked like, glacier, Canmore, Lake Louise, Canmore but you can read the last two updates for that. The real kicker of the last week was actually a race. A triathlon!

Tri1
We started talking about that triathlon at the first training camp of the year in Vernon, B.C. at the beginning of May. Since then, the main discussion topic during our workouts has been that triathlon! I can’t say enough about all the smart talking that went around during the last three months!

So there I was on Saturday morning, in my wetsuit, tired, stiff from the training and still half asleep because I woke up at 5:30am to get ready and set the transition box by 6:30am.

At 7:15am we got the talk about all the needed information on the triathlon. Then McMurr arrived – eyes half opened: Hey guys, I slept thru my alarm!

I couldn’t help cracking up laughing when I saw his facial expression saying that. Especially since the day before he told me he wanted to arrive before 6:30 to set his transition box!

Then I warmed up running with Devon and I swear I haven’t felt that stressed since the start of the relay at the Nordic World Ski Championship in Liberec last February! I guess Devon felt the same as he ripped the bottom part of his wetsuit while he was getting in it!

Shortly before the start, I made sure that all the ‘’friction’’ areas of my body where covered by the awesome and very amazing Body Glide.

After a quick swim to get used to the weird movement that swimming is for me, I lined up at Quarry Lake beach and waited for the gun to fire.

To my surprise the start was uneventful. No, I didn’t get my swimming cap ripped off my head and after 30 sec, my goggles were still sitting right in front of my eyes.

Good.

I swam OK and got out of the water in 15th position, no too shabby for the Alberta Championships! I got into my bike gear real quick, putting close to 30 seconds on Devon and off I went on the saddle.

Tri2
The bike, as expected, was my favorite part. With my MTB bike racing background, I was able to catch a fair number of riders and grabbed the 3rd best time. As I put my runners on I was sitting in 4th place, 20-ish seconds down from 3rd.

At that point, I strongly believed in my chance to catch that guy. Unfortunately for me, my legs were soaked in lactic acid and running a 10K on the Canmore Nordic Center roller ski loop isn’t exactly the easiest way to get rid of that stuff. So the race went a bit backward from that point and I ended up in 5th but still managed to stop the clock with the 3rd best running time.

Tri3
Devon, who started the run over 4 minutes down on me managed to run a sub-33 10K on that demanding and slow course to finally overtake me with 1km to go. I didn’t even react, just because I couldn’t. At that point, I was way deep into survival mode!

All in all, I am very satisfied with this race – after all, this was my first triathlon and I was cooked from all of the training that was done prior to it. It was also a great long and intense workout.

Tri4
The day was topped with a 70s inspired – strongly inspired – party with all of my teammates from the National Ski Team. It was a blast! I am heading home and will have a super easy week to recover from all of that tough training and come out of it much stronger!

Ciao