Most coaches can relate to a few of the comments below, most parents may be able to also associate in a different context:
Are we there yet? What time is lunch? When are we finishing today? Can we take a break?
How many more runs are we doing? Do we have to go full suit? Whens inspection? What time is pickup? ...and the most resonating recently: Can we have our poles Back?
We don't currently have any athletes from Mont Cascades on the team however both Martin and myself have strong roots at Cascades. I grew up racing Nancy Greene and U14 at Cascades before moving to the Zone/NCO ski team and Martin coached Nancy Greene (I may or may not have been an athlete of his at the age of 7) and he continued to work for their race program eventually heading the program before moving to the NCO U16 team as their head coach. After a 4 day break over Christmas the athletes were less than impressed when we continued our pole-less balance act. At the end of a 3 day stint at Mont Cascades on the 27th, 28th & 29th of December we painted the hill with some blue and red and gave the athletes their poles back to start doing what they love: bashing poles.
MSM alumni on the team consists of 3rd years Ben Beaudoin, Becca Cook, 2nd year Nora Fripp and 1st years ALexis Boivin & Jillian Lynott. We have moved into a GS block where we (much to the athletes demise) took their poles again - and they can anticipate that this cycle will continue through the rest of X0mas camp. We are at Mont Ste Marie for December 30th and 31st and return on January 3rd and 4th, 2014.
Today was a very special day. Our U16 athletes were very privileged in that they got to spend a few hours ski around with USST member Abby Ghent and MSM local, NCO alumni, current CAST member Dustin Cook. Both Dustin and Abby appreciate a longer ski so it was very fitting that they got to ski some GS with us.
Pictured from Left to Right, top to bottom: Lake K-M, Nora Fripp, Nicole Clarke, Rebecca Cook, Abby Ghent, Abby Thomas, ALexis Boivin, Hunter Watson, Jillian Lynott, Ben Beaudoin, Michael Power and Dustin Cook.
Take a look at the video below of Tiger Woods. We were hopeful that Dustin and Abby had this effect on the athletes. Turns out they did. Such an amazing opportunity. It's funny how much pressure they felt to perform and how much confidence they had in the visual picture that both these stellar athletes put on for them and how quickly they wanted to copy it. Hopefully the visual sticks.
For the session with Dustin & Abby - the athletes got their poles back :) The athletes are beginning to understand (especially with a longer turn) the importance of our slow fundamental work. We are very happy with their patience and very excited to see all their work pay off in the racing season.
Over the course of the Christmas break the gang heads out to our local ski hill affiliates. We often join forces with the other U16 programs in the region and train collaboratively. Our plan of going back to some basic fundamental training to make use of what is available in Ottawa (which is usually minimal) at the time of year has worked out very nicely.
We have a larger group of Ontario athletes from Camp fortune this year on the team. Nicole Clarke, Michael Power, Lake Korte-Moore, Hunter Watson and Nicholas Caves have come to the NCOST from Camp Fortune Ski Club. We spent Thur.Dec 19th & Fri.Dec 20th at Fortune working predominantly on stance and balance. It was very interesting to see the big and fast athletes ski on the same runs as the beginners doing some very beginner drills.
Ben Beaudoin wearing only his left ski pictured above with a young free skier on the lift that services the easier terrain at Camp Fortune.
...We continued the same exercises a littler deeper into the Outaouais while at Vorlage on December 21st & 22nd. We have a 2nd year athlete Abby Thomas who calls Vorlage her home hill. To give our readers a little perspective at this point we are on day 3 & 4 of skiing with no poles and continuing with the same 3 drills: Lots of Javeline skiing (inside ski up and crossed over the outside ski), One ski skiing (natural balance & risk taking), A range of snowplow exercises as well as some skating drills to engage a lot of lower joint activity.
Madeline - pictured above was recruited on the bunny hill at Vorlage and took a kind interest in the athletes. She was really curious what the "batons" were that the athletes were using. Each athlete received a third of a gate shaft that some chose to decorate with multi coloured duct tape. They also use it to maintain a strong upper body position (hand height and lower and upper body separation.
Below is a summary of some of the tactical information (sequencing of movements) we discussed with the athletes while engaging their minds at slower speeds. It is very important to us that the athletes develop a solid platform and then begin to sequence their movements. We setup different environments to challenge their balance and test their balance skills.
The top of our last a.m. SuperG session. Some big gains made in SG this camp, especially for the youngsters.
The team is off with Marty watching 'Catching Fire', the 2nd movie in the popular Hunger Games series at the Cineplex in Sunridge Mall, Calgary. I am at the Starbucks enjoying some peppermint tea in an attempt to digest the feast we had at Montana's (It is all you can eat rib night on Wednesday). We arrived in Calgary at around 4:30pm after another hairy drive on the unpredictable 93.
We are very pleased with how the camp went. Other then the 10 day cold snap we were blessed with great weather and at bare minimum the cold yields great hard snow. The athletes are skiing very well. They are confident, competitive with each other and very committed to their improvement before the real racing season begins. The shootout ended very dramatically. On the girls side Abby, who had the lead after the GS DNF'd in both her afternoon runs. Rebecca stepped up her intensity in the slalom and took the girls side of the shootout. Jillian was a very close 2nd place and Nora and Nicole also failed to complete their morning/afternoon runs. On the boys front Hunter had a 1.6 second lead going into the slalom. His lead was obliterated by Big-Ben in his first run of slalom where Ben evened the playing field. Ben continued his domination in the afternoon by increasing the margin by another 1.5 seconds. First years Lake and Nick were not too far behind the pace completing both their afternoon and morning runs. Michael Power - skiing very well in sections was unable to finish the course giving him a DNF result.
Becca was more willing to share her prize with the gang... Ben on the other hand he enjoyed his winnings solo....
ShootOut winner Ben enjoying his dessert
prize
Ben has a personal tradition that every time he goes to Montana's he plays a trick and says that it's someone's Birthday... His target - Marty!
We will return the vans first thing in the morning tomorrow and then head to the airport for our 10:25am flight. We are expected to touch down in Ottawa around 4:15pm.
“When the game is over I just want to look at myself in the
mirror, win or lose, and know I gave it everything I had.”
-Joe Montana
1st year U16 athlete Jillian Lynott attacking the GS
Still a bit balmy here in BC's interior - on the better side of -20 degrees this morning (is there a better side to -20?) Forecast is warming up conveniently for our soon approaching departure. The athletes competed in the GS portion of the NCO annual shoot out today...
Here are the results of the athletes (best morning + best afternoon run) going into the slalom portion tomorrow:
“I may win and I may lose, but I will never be defeated.”
-Emmitt Smith
Ladies
1st year U16 athlete Nicole Clarke getting after the GS
on Oldtimer.
Men
1. Hunter Watson
2. Ben Beaudoin +1.79
3. Lake Korte Moore +5.32
4. Nick Caves +7.1
5. Michael Power DSQ
Marty and I found this video of Elizabeth Goergl in a World Cup GS hosted here at Panorama in 2007. It is on the very track that the athletes are competing and training on tomorrow. At around 18.0 seconds is where our athletes starting point is and they have skied the remainder to the bottom in GS & SG at this camp.
“Winning and losing are both very temporary things. Having done one or the other, you move ahead. Gloating over a victory or sulking
over a loss is a good way to stand still.”
-Chuck Knox
The bib draw for the slalom portion of the shoot-out is complete. We look forward to what tomorrows results will bring. Our schedule has us skiing the slalom shoot out in the 3rd session of the day and we will ski Super G bright and early in session #1.
“Competitive toughness is an acquired skill, not an inherited gift.”
“Make sure your worst enemy doesn’t live between your own two ears.”
– Laird Hamilton
This weekend the athletes up here at Panorama took a well deserved break. Battling long days and cold weather for the last week the athletes earned some rest time. We finished up nice and early on Friday, athletes had Saturday off and half of Sunday. The break from the cold weather was very welcomed, however throwing ourselves back into "the frozen abyss" as the athletes refer to it was quite shocking - for everyone.
“The mind is the limit. As long as the mind can envision the fact that you can do something, you can do it, as long as you really believe 100 percent.”
– Arnold Schwarzenegger
The athletes have been introduced to several new things on this camp. Especially for the newer athletes to the team. We have done a lot of yoga related exercise, timing in training runs, we have quizzed them on recent and past alpine ski history. They have done some relaxation and breathing techniques we have also talked to them about practicing visualization to enhance confidence and increase their visualization accuracy especially for inspection purposes as well as positive self talk and the power of a strong, mature young mind.
Please take a look at the video of Marcel Hirscher as a 16 year old (the same age or just a year older than the athletes on our U16 team) - he exhibits great talent, with that comes a very passionate, committed and mature young mind.
“Your biggest opponent isn’t the other guy. It’s human nature.”
– Bobby Knight
LKM waiting patiently for
his Huckleberry breakfast
On Saturday the athletes met us at the van at 8:30am we drove into town for groceries to make due for the remainder of the camp and the popular Valley Breakfast at Huckleberry's. Pancakes, Eggs, Bacon, Sausage, hash-browns, taters, french toast, eggs-benedict filled our plates, but not our stomach's. This group is full of generous eaters and there were many that could have gone for round two. We were back up the mountain by 10:30am in time to watch the Mens WC super-G and Womens WC DH.
We have discovered 2 really great live streaming sites to watch coverage of Alpine events: Eurosport (UK - Chemmy Alcott is a phenomenal commentator - it may very well be her English accent) SportLemon (streams from Eurosport and other portals as well)
“If you can believe it, the mind can achieve it.”
– Ronnie Lott
This was the scene for the ENTIRE day on Saturday 10:30am - dinner
Tomorrow we start the GS portion of our shootout. Athletes will compete in 2 runs of GS in Marty's set and 2 runs of GS in Kat's set. Their best 2 runs, 1 from each set will count toward their final GS result and be combined with their SL result to reveal a shootout champ. Please see the bib order below from our draw at dinner time...
WOMEN
1. Nicole Clarke CFSC
2. Rebecca Cook MSM
3. Jillian Lynott MSM
4. Nora Fripp MSM
5. Abby Thomas VOR
MEN
1. Nick Caves CFSC
2. Ben Beaudoin MSM
3. Hunter Watson CFSC
4. Lake Korte-Moore CFSC
5. Michael Power CFSC
Results from Day 1 to be posted tomorrow.
“You can motivate by fear, and you can motivate by reward. But both those methods are only temporary. The only lasting thing is self motivation.”
As promised mother nature delivered another crisp & VERY cold day. The athletes battled well and are very deserving of their day off tomorrow. By request we will have a team breakfast in Invermere, buy some more milk to get us through the next 4 days and then venture back up the mountain where the athletes will spend the rest of the afternoon doing homework.
We should have signs like these in the Nation's Capital and the Outaouais
As promised I figured out most of the technicalities needed to put together this 'mashup' video. Some video format converting, song selections and slow internet have made watching this masterpiece come together extremely enjoyable. Enjoy Folks!
The deep freeze...
No, unfortunately for my sake I am not referring to a McCain deep and delicious frozen dessert - The food choices most recently have been of a warmer variety (tea, coffee, hot coca) also some of our dinner choices have been spicier in nature (butter/curry chicken, fajitas and chili) since mother nature decided to introduce us to her cold hearted temper.
Groomed terrain, as we like to refer to it 'perfect corduroy'
just beautiful!
The benefit of the freezing weather means that the snow stays very hard and sets up very well for minimal course maintenance. The drawbacks of this weather are the snow is very slow, and the athletes get cold quickly and have to go inside often. Marty and I took advantage of this situation today. Because the athletes were going to have to go in, we looped often with them and had them do full suit runs.
Today it was this cold.
The athletes burned up a lot of energy this morning working very hard in Super-G (in skin suits) and then transferring that intensity to their first few runs in the GS this afternoon. Super G can be very exhausting for the younger athletes especially who are being exposed to higher speeds for the first time. As coaches it is important to be patient and setup environments that are conducive to building confidence. We worked them very hard today with a combination of the cold weather, 6 SG runs and then a full 40 gate GS on old timer (just short of the NorAm start). Their GS is benefiting from the speed training as all the athletes are getting more comfortable going faster. Below please find a little mashup of their skiing over the past 2 weeks.
Please stay tuned for a mash up of the athletes skiing so far this camp. We are very pleased with how far they've come, some within the camp and others within the years we've had them on the team. Next week we put their work to the test with the NCO shoot out in SL and GS.
NCO shoot out (for those who are unaware): A race day simulation with timing at the end of the Panorama camp where an official bib draw and rules meeting is held the night before, and the overall winner receives recognition.
Jack Nicholson poses as 'Jack' in 'The Shining - 1980'
frozen.. like we were today, and likely tomorrow..
A few more swear words than some would care to admit were
thrown around this morning as we entered the, to put it lightly, soul crushing
abominably freezing abyss. As if a whopping -22 degrees Celsius wasn’t bad enough,
Super G was the chosen discipline.
We had the pleasure of training with the
CHUOH University ski team (originating from Japan) this morning before
switching to our GS skis.
“The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra.”
A shot of "Old timer" our SG and GS playground today provided by
Panorama found @panoramaresort on twitter
A tricky delay exit and a very well shaped bottom
section proved difficult to finish for some, however successful and very fast
skiing for most. We then proceeded to a cardio workout in the Panorama gym followed
by a delicious sundried tomato & shrimp alfredo carbonerra (curtosey of Coach
Kat), and a quick round of dish washing ski trivia. The girls are just about
finished cleaning every single last dish in the kitchen (not because they beat
us but because their cleaning skills aren’t nearly as good as their trivia
skills – we’ll take what we can get). The rest of the team is off to prepare both
pairs of skis for a presumably long and hard day tomorrow mimicking exactly
what we did today. Please find below a few videos and some photos of some of the best doing
what they do helping us to reach our goals and inspiring us to keep on trekking
through the cold.
Here’s Ted ripping some GS on the Sochi Olympic
run last year. Never gets old and makes for some great motivation…
Here are some photos of us boys. The authors of your blog tonight ripping in the cold today:
U16 BOYS tearing up the GS course on 'Old timer' this afternoon in session 3
