September 13, 2012 (New Zealand) – Here’s what you need to know about beards. A) They can be pretty nasty (especially when partaking in winter endurance activities – goobers tend to get lodged in there). B) They are itchy – even past the itchy stage. C) They are ideal habitat for stray food and well, in my case – D) They look both ridiculous and just straight up bad (although I look straight up bad a vast majority of the time, so let’s just say “they don’t help me look better.”).

A few days ago, I recently returned from our yearly pilgrimage to New Zealand. If you feel like you’ve read those words in my blog before – you probably have. Every summer we trek down there to enjoy the Southern Alps winter, hanging out at the premier southern hemisphere cross country center – the Snow Farm –  and bust our asses for roughly three weeks of specific ski training.

New Zealand is a camp I always seem to look forward to and as a lover of skiing, to be able to ski every summer is just so amazing. The change in environment always blows me away: one day you’re swimming in the Bow river, training without a shirt on (sorry for those of you that had to witness that on the roads/trails around town – my excuse – it was such a nice hot/summer!) and next thing you know in only 32 hours of sitting squished like a 1930s contortionist attempting to weasel their way out of a 50cmX50cm box – you’re there. Hopefully you made it there with all your bags, only a slight headache, a hefty dash of jet lag, a pinch of constipation and only minor back problems. The thing is – and jokes aside – it’s worth it. I can’t really explain it. I know it’s a long way to travel, I know I left behind one of the best summer’s Canmore’s ever had – but that feeling I get when I strap on those skis for the first time up there in the Pisa Range, look to Harvey, Lenny and Babs – tell another offside joke, blink multiple times in hopes that’s all it’ll take to erase the epic travel fatigue out of my eyes and start to skiing together under some gorgeous Alpenglow bathing the Southern Alps all while yelling and whooping in celebration of total psychedness – I mean, it’s pretty sweet. Ok, it’s bananas.

Aside from the above mentioned itchy/dirty face (the result of a “beard-off” I had going with one of our strength trainers – Jeff. I outlasted him. Booya. But who actually wins? I guess that’s philosophical…) this year’s edition down South was a winner. While the snow cover was a bit thin by Southern Alp standards – I found it to be ideal training conditions for what we actually race in – mainly klister/rub ski classic skiing and softer skate conditions. Yep – like every training camp – we trained hard – most days around 4 hours. We enjoyed great skiing, tough interval sessions, great running down in Wanaka (love that town!) and banged out some solid strength sessions as well.

It was strange that we were just 4 of us – but after Maui when we did our first “man-camp” I guess it was a little less weird. I can say that it didn’t take us long this go around to descend quickly into “interesting” meal-time conversations, topics, vocab, and scenarios and you wouldn’t want your grandmother hanging around us that’s for sure. Yet through all the hard training, tired legs, Settlers of Catan games played (our “2012 Monopoly” board game of choice) and days on the road – I feel so grateful and enjoy being on the road with great friends as we all strive to do the best job we can and working well together. That’s what I call “winning (Sheen may have a different definition…).”