August 03, 2011 (Snow Farm, New Zealand) – Cath, the British import/barista/manager of the Snow Farm, is just blasting the early 2000s hit “Beautiful Day” by U2. And I mean blasting it as she cleans up from another stellar lunch up on a high mountain plateau off Cardrona Road #1. It’s early August and for the 8th or 9th time (who can keep track at this point?) I find myself back at New Zealand’s South Island for a few weeks of winter skiing.
I clawed myself away from the Canadian Rockies at their finest on July 31st (read: finally warm and sunny) and packed copious amounts of gear into a travel-worn duffel and flew South. Our men’s World Cup team – four members strong – and three staff traveled from all over Canada two days ago on an ambitious 20+ hours “on plane” odyssey to train our tails off on the skinny skis.
The Snow Farm and the Southern Alps are showing off. This morning’s conditions were exceptional. No wind, perfect grooming on the 40+km of un-crowded trails, sunny skies and temperatures just under 0 degrees Celsius. It doesn’t get any better than that.
I’ve experienced the New Zealand camp numerous different ways. Large group (like 25 Canadian ski racer big), mini-group, various coaches from various countries have joined us down here, famous team members like Beckie and Sara, hell – I’ve even rollerskied down here (don’t ask why), yet this year is a different vibe yet again.
The biggest change is the fact that no North American women came down with either the US team or our Canadian team – so flatulence, profanity, and all around boorishness is at a New Zealand camp high already even after a scant 16hrs in the country. Another change will great us soon – with dire consequences on the raspberry and strawberry jam supply – as a 14-member Russian sprint team and staff is arriving a few days from now, with Justyna Kowalczyk – the outspoken Polish strong-woman arriving later this afternoon to enjoy the great conditions.
What hasn’t changed is our 2011 luck with baggage. Of the seven Canadians down here, we are missing nine bags between us. None of our skis, poles, wax, wax table, some people’s personal duffels, etc… arrived in Queenstown with us yesterday. Thankfully the Yanks have been generous to their igloo-living eh’ speaking Northern neighbors (ie. us) so we were able to bang out a workout on snow this morning.
What’s been up since Hawaii you ask – to completely change the subject and disrupt the flow of this article? Training, training and more training. We came back to Canada and dusted a few more solid weeks with an epically large crew in and around Canmore and up at the Haig Glacier – our World Cup team joined by the entire development team and their respective staff.
Aside from challenges outside of our control (like TOO much snow on the Haig glacier the first week we wanted to head up there), things were good. It’s interesting to train with so many people and it was great to get to know so of the young guns better as well. It was fun, and we completed a lot of quality distance sessions as well as groupzilla intensity sessions out at various Rocky Mountain venues.
After more than a month of big(ish) hours behind me, I thought that I would have some chill time prior to coming down here to New Zealand – but Justin had other ideas, and the party kept on rolling – with a heavier focus on interval training. Babs and I did many a great/hard workout together to make use of the physiological changes that we got training at altitude for the past four weeks.
Which brings it full-circle back to the leather armchair where I am sitting and typing this right now while the 90s/early 2000s rock rambles on, the sun still shines on the peaks out the window and I continue to attempt to keep the old eyes open.
I will enjoy the skiing down here, and we are hoping the conditions remain this good. We’ll have some racing – as in previous years – in two weeks time, and other than that we’ll continue to just live life up on “the rock” as I’ve overheard the Snow Farm named.
Some cappos will be enjoyed in Wanaka I’m sure, and I’ll enjoy putting down some great days on snow. When it’s good down here it’s some of the best-ever skiing I do all year. For serious. Now, I just need my skis and poles and we should get ahead of the impending jam deficit and get Jacques to grab us emergency supplies (why do Russians love red jam so much? I don’t know – but they certainly do) of jam before Russia takes over the place.
Peace,
Dk.