August 13, 2008 (Squamish, BC) – Since when is a rainy day in Squamish big news? Well, until yesterday Morgan Smyth hadn’t trained in the rain once since she got here this Summer. It’s been a remarkably dry and warm Summer season, and the various new arrivals to the program are scratching their heads wondering what all this talk of rain is about. They’ll learn. They’ll learn.

It’s been great having Morgan here this Summer. She’s on a very clearly defined plan from Matt Whitcomb, her USST coach, and she’s totally professional and dedicated in her execution of the plan. She’s a step ahead of Amy’s CVTC crew in her athletic development, but she’s still got a long way to go. Recently she’s been working hard on her V1 technique, and these photos are from a 5X5 minute threshold interval session – pretty much all V1 climbing (with me driving her back down). A good session with some really good technical progress and a soaking downpour to start things off. Can’t beat it.

The busy Summer continues here toward the end of this month. The entire USST will be in Whistler for a camp, arriving August 30th. Morgan will stay through the camp, and then head back East for her pre-season preparations. But she’ll be replaced by Pat O’Brien who’s taking the Fall off from Dartmouth to come out and bang heads with the CVTC boys. Pat’s nothing too special on the national scene – a decent college skier, but he’ll push the sprinters on sprint days and he’ll push the distance guys on distance days, and he’ll be another great addition to the crew out here.

Part of the reason Amy and I made the decision to move out here was that be believe this place has the potential to become the center of a new hotbed of XC development – a destination for racers. With the Olympics coming to town the Sea to Sky region has a strong wind behind it for the next couple of years. It’s great to have the best in the world showing up to scope out the scene. But we want to see the area continue to attract developing athletes as well. So we’re doing our best to accomodate athletes like Morgan and Pat in addition to the Kris Freemans and Dan Roycrofts of the world. Of course, Morgan and Pat are both skiers that Amy and/or I have coached in the past, so we can pretty much demand that they show-up. We’ll see who’s arm we’re able to twist in the future…