December 2, 2003 – This past weekend was the start to the highly anticipated 2003/04 ski season. The usual questions arise before the first person cracks the start wand and enters into a world of concentration and calculated pain. Will those that were fast last year still be fast? Who is going to come out of the shadows and lay claim to one of those top spots? Those questions create a unique excitement encompassing the premier weekend of the season.

The questions were answered and new ones have arisen only to be figured out by the next set of races to come at Canada Olympic Park in Calgary on December 13 & 14. From my perspective, those that were on top are still in the general vicinity but there are some faces from lower down the list last year that have made impressive gains and shouldn't be counted out. This is something that I like to see in ski racers. One or two bad seasons does not mean it is time to pack your bags. If you have trained correctly and listened to your body then chances are your season will be rewarding. Some of the words that come to mind after my first weekend of racing include: pressure; anxiety; nerves; pain; determination; cramping; disappointment and finally satisfaction! Most of those sound negative right! Ironically I need all of those thoughts and feelings so that I can better my overall fitness and performance. Each one of these elements seem to come in different doses depending of the nature of the race and its importance.

For me this first weekend was a time to test technique adjustments, get a reading on the rest of the field, and evaluate my fitness against the same period last season. In a previous article I mentioned that I was working on the efficiency of both my skating and classic technique. Overall things felt good but during a race is when things just love to fall apart, if ever they will. All my bad habits are not broken fully but they are fading away and hopefully time will dissolve them completely.

My general feeling is that my team skied well as did other teams and there were highs and lows for each individual. The racing was hard and just the treatment needed for those preseason questions!