August 9, 2010 (Canmore, Alberta) – The athletes with Thunder Bay’s National Team Development Center are not ones to rest on their laurels. They’ve had three heavy training camps so far this summer, and things are just getting going for the team. I had the chance to catch up with my former team yesterday, as they were busy preparing for their Haig Glacier camp, which starts today (Monday). They even let me have some of team member Jimmy Gunka’s birthday cake!

The team’s training season kicked off in early May with their annual Boot Camp. Having been a four-year member of NTDC, I can attest to the rigor of this annual early-season kick in the pants. The camp is typically five days of measured track workouts, strength testing, sports labs and far too many unprepared blisters, all at a time when a lot of ski racers are just returning from somewhere sandy and tropical locales. It’s a definite shock to the system, and as second-year member Chris Hamilton says this year was no different.

“We did a lot of testing in a really short amount of time. It was pretty intense.” One thing was different this year, however. NTDC is a great program, and its flexibility is what gives it strength for many athletes. This can sometimes lead to a somewhat fractured start to the season for the team, with athletes away pursuing jobs, summer school or just getting in some extra solitary training time. This year, the goal was to have a more focused, cohesive team from the start. “I think this was the first year in a long time that the whole team was in town for Boot Camp,” says Hamilton.

Next up on the docket was another staple on the Ontario ski camp calendar, the Lake Superior Ski District camp. NTDC has always had a strong presence at this camp, providing valuable mentoring and role models for younger Ontario skiers. Having NTDC athletes at the LSSD camp also gives the up-and-comers something tangible to strive for. A lot of NTDC members, past and present, were at one time the same kids who were enthralled at these camps as they listened to one of their idols explain the basics of one-skate.

Scott Sullivan, now in his second year with the team, was one of those up-and-comers when I was in Thunder Bay. Now he’s filling those same shoes, and fitting into them very comfortably. “It was pretty cool,” says Sullivan. “We did a workout with the kids every morning of the camp. We worked intervals with them at Lappe [Nordic, one of two local ski-racing sites] on what will likely be the sprint course [for the Junior World and U23 Trials]. We also did the annual ‘Top of the Giant’ run, which was great.” That run has always been one of my favourite workouts, and as I listened to these guys talk about their summer I couldn’t help feeling a bit nostalgic.

Since the LSSD camp the team has maintained it’s theme of outreach and finding new training partners. After a few weeks to recover from LSSD the team packed up their van and headed to Wisconsin for an intensity-based camp. And what better way to get the competitive juices flowing than by testing themselves against one of the USA’s strongest development teams, CXC Vertical Limit? Erin Tribe described the camp, saying “We met up with CXC and did a couple workouts with them. What was really nice was being able to have other girls to train with. We’ve really been trying to connect with other people as we go, whether in Thunder Bay or the Wisconsin camp, or now out here in Canmore.”

Sullivan is equally excited about the prospect of working with CXC and others like them. “I think it would be really good to work more with them. They’re only four hours away, and it’s nice to have other racers at our competitive level to work with.” According to Sullivan, the Wisconsin camp had only one major downside. Someone stole their van’s mascot, an eye-patch wearing grill ornament named Skeletor. Anyone with information regarding the disappearance of Skeletor is asked to contact the team’s athlete representative on the board of directors, Harry Seaton. In exchange for Skeletor’s safe return, the team is offering a loaf of homemade banana bread and will not press charges.

For the new athletes on NTDC, having a structured, supportive team is also very important. Amanda Lee is from Strathcona Nordic, in Courtenay, BC. Finding training partners in the community was always a challenge for her. She says the biggest benefit she’s seen with NTDC is having other athletes to rely on.

“It’s really nice having a strong team. The lifestyle’s also taken some getting used to, with day to day training taking on a whole new priority, but it’s nice to not have to do workouts at 6pm after school.”

Andy Shields, of Waterloo Nordic, in Southern Ontario, agrees with her. “Having a strong team is probably the best perk. Of course, having access to great sponsors doesn’t hurt either.”

Dudley Coulter is the third of three new additions to the team. He’s a local boy who grew up racing for the Big Thunder ski club in Thunder Bay, and he says he loves being part of a team he got to watch and admire every day over the years.

From talking with the three new-comers, and the rest of the team, it’s obvious they’re excited about their upcoming Haig camp.

“The focus will be on big volume,” says three-year veteran Harry Seaton. “We talked with Eric [Bailey, the team’s head coach] and decided that we wanted to do our annual Haig camp a little later in the year. The plan is to use this camp to help manage the transition from rollerskis back to snow so we can capitalize on what the technique work we’ve done so far this year.” When these guys say big hours, they mean big hours; the biggest of the year in fact. Seaton’s target is 26 hours over the week long camp, and the others are all around that bull’s-eye as well.

“After the Haig we’ll be heading home for a month or so before taking off to Austria. We’ve got a three-week camp scheduled for September 20th in Ramsau at the Dachstein Glacier where we hope to continue smoothing out the transition between asphalt and snow.”

Looking around the room, I can see eyes grow wide at the mention of Der Dachstein. The glacier, in Ramsau Austria, is a favorite training site for many of Europe’s top ski racers. Getting to crowd the daily gondola ride and rub elbows with the likes of Petra Majdic and Bjorn Lind seems to stir these athletes as much as their impending trip to the Haig does.

The energy in their hotel room is thick. As I finished my cake and got ready to leave, conversation turned to the three-hour hike into the glacier facility, and (for the benefit of the newbies) the likelihood of encountering a bear or worse, Peelix the goat, who likes to frequent the Beckie Scott High Altitude Training Center.