October 15, 2011 – SkiTrax welcomes rising Canadian star, Jesse Cockney, as a new blogger. Cockney had some standout results last season the highlight being his 6th place finish in the men’s 1.4km classic sprint at U23 Nordic Worlds in Otepaa, Estonia. Cockney will share his thoughts and impressions with readers as the season unfolds…

That Time of the Year

The racing season is creeping forward but autumn is here right now! Shorter days, colder mornings, and a whole lot more training is standard fare for cross-country skiers each fall and so far this year has stayed true to that standard. Living in Canmore and training with the Alberta World Cup Academy, we take full advantage of the wide variety of paved trails, provincial highways, and of course the mountain running trails throughout the valley as well as in Banff National Park.

The past two weeks have made for some fantastic rollerskiing and running as the team put in a block of big hours and a bit of altitude as well. When I was a junior at the Academy, we were putting in days with six hours of skiing, thankfully we’ve toned that down and our days of big sessions this fall were 4-4.5hr stints. Blue skies and lots of variety made for super easy workouts and plenty of time to chirp coaches and teammates about our new favourite pass time – fantasy football!

The idea behind this block of big hours and altitude exposure was to do our best to mimic the training conditions that some of our teammates were experiencing in Utah with the National team. Following this block of training, we headed to Whistler for a short but very high intensity camp at a lower altitude.

We’ll only be in Whistler for only six nights but we’re going to fit four really hard workouts rollerskiing and ski striding in that time. I’ll try to snap more photos this time compared to our earlier Whistler camp this summer – these are busy camps with lots going on everyday.

Next up is some time on snow; the Canmore Nordic Centre is planning to unveil the early season snow loop…Frozen Thunder very soon! Until next time, thanks for reading!