October 16, 2014 (Park City, Utah) – For the last dryland training camp of this summer our team went to Park City. We were joined by some American skiers and Alberta World Cup Academy guys. We have used Park City for an “altitude training” camp quite a few times over the past years as the rollerskiing, running and especially mountain biking in the Deer Valley area is just amazing. It would be very hard to find better trails anywhere else, plus the short drive to Soldier Hollow or Salt Lake City for running or rollerski intensity for for some “pumping” (strength) makes it almost perfect location.

Excellent rollerskiing © Ivan Babikov

The team rented a very nice house at the Alpine ski area, Deer Valley, just above Park City (2,400m above sea level) and were able to do most of our training just out of the door. Training volume wasn’t too crazy, about 24-25hr a week, but at that altitude it feels hard enough, believe me.

Training in Park City © Ivan Babikov

This time we spent almost three weeks training away from home, a bit longer than our usual summer training camp, but it went by pretty fast. Of course, training and recovery time made the days go by pretty fast, but we also had a lot of fun with our free time. Most of my teammates are crazy about NFL fantasy, so there was a lot of yelling and “high fiving” on the Football nights. On the day off we even played “Flag Football” and I must say it’s much harder than it looks like on TV.  Have to mention the board game Settlers of Catan which also took a big chunk of our evenings (if there was no football on TV of course).

Tor Arne (TA) cooking up a storm © Ivan Babikov

Our coach Tor Arne (TA) also stay with us, and cooked us a BOSS (LOTS of pancakes, bacon, oatmeal and eggs)  breakfast every single morning, to make sure we have “enough fuel” for an upcoming training day. Hard to beat that. THANKS TA!!! Also huge thanks to our ski tech Joel Jacques, who was taking care of ALL our training equipment, bikes, rollerskis, poles, sport drinks, recovery drinks, nutrition bars, and of course for driving us to training locations. RESPECT.

Another successful training camp © Ivan Babikov

That was another successful training camp, we managed to stay healthy and injury free throughout those three weeks, and came out of it not too tired and much stronger. I’m happy to say that I’m very satisfied with all the hard work I’ve done this summer. With the ski season soon upon us there is not much time left until the first race, just enough for the last “tune up” on the snow. Luckily in Canmore we have a project called “Frozen Thunder”. The Canmore Nordic Center saves snow from last winter and makes about a 2km lap for us to ski on around mid-October. It’s one of the few places in the world with cross-country skiing that early. Not going to lie, I’m looking forward to skiing and racing – should be a fun season.

With all of that over the past month, at this moment I’m just happy to be getting back home soon – I miss my wife and kids a lot by now. So stay tuned, and cheer for us during the upcoming season.

Ivan