Mountains of Love

Hey team,

We all know you are extremely jealous of those of us who were able to make it out to Canmore this week, so we thought we'd give you a little update on how everything is going thus far.

Its currently 8:15pm out here, we are just mellowing out at Kenny Laurin's chalet in the heart of the mountains after a well deserved day off. Bottom line, Canmore is AWESOME. You would all be soo jacked up if you were here, just like we are. Everyday has been above zero and super sunny, making a ginger like me have to put on sunscreen again! Although it has been warm, the snow out here is really hard packed, so it doesn't get all slushy like it would back east, so waxing hasn't been too much of an issue.

Scott and I got into Canmore on Friday morning, and joined Ian and Kenny (guys from UofT that we're staying with) for the pre-ski of Saturday's sprint course and Sunday's bombshell 10km pancake throwdown. Courses were of course super well-marked, even though we all still managed to get lost due to the amount of trails out here, and it was cool too see some familiar faces chilling out and skiing around the nordic centre, which by the way, is so legit.

Saturday was the team sprint, on a pretty killer 1.2k course. Lots of lactic acid tasting after this baby. Same format as OUAs, Scott led the way for our team, and took it out nice and strong. We kept good positioning through the first two laps, despite the wicked pace of the race, and a super talented field, including two dusters who used to ski for the Olympic team and are apparently "students" at U of Calgary. In the end, I think it's safe to say that the altitude caught up to both of us on the third lap. Scott yukked for the first time after any athletic endeavour and had no vision/couldn't stand upright for about 20 minutes after the race, and I was sucking wind for a good 5 minutes after the race, made me feel like a fat kid playing dodgeball in grade 5 gym class, along with the sweet burn in the legs leading to involuntary muscle spasms. Sounds like fun eh?! We ended up 15 of 18 teams, about 2 minutes back of the winners, so it could have been worse.

After our races, we checked out downton Canmore and headed back to the Nordic centre to catch the open men's and women's finals, which were both barnburners and super exciting to watch. After that, we came back to the chalet and hung out for the evening.

Day 2 (Sunday) was a 10km individ. start skate race. The course was 3 laps of 3.3km. Other than a few extremely short sections, you were either off-setting or tucking the whole loop. No joke. Hills out here forge champions harder than Eden Mills could ever imagine. The duration and incline of the climbs makes the demon and S-climb look like a mole-hill. Again, it was a sweet burn. Crazy to be out here racing with the best of what Canada has to offer, and despite what the results may show, it was pretty cool to finish at 10k course like that in only 30 minutes. It's pretty tough recovering on a course like that one, as even the downhills have your legs burning, and tricky 180 degree turns under bridges and around rocky corners make sure that your head is in the game for the entire race.

Sunday afternoon was pretty sick, we cruised into Banff and hit the hot springs, sporting some classic historic bathing suits, which consisted of a sweet unitard that was soo tight. It also came with a little cotton skirt to prevent our junk from flopping into view of the flocking spectators (most of which were women over the age of 60). In the company of Ben Jones, G-Kilroy and Daphne Haggarty, who also all rocked the historic tighties we were quite the show at the hot springs. After the bath, we picked up Patrick Monette (aka P-Money aka Big Dangler) and we all had a solid meal back at the Laurin palace.

Today was a day off, we got a sweet classic ski in of tomorrow's course, did some waxing, homework, and some frisbee golf. Just winding her down for the evening.

We will post some sweet videos/more posts after our next few days, hope all is well back in Guelph (aka the mud hole aka mother of dusty weather)!!