Ontario Winter Games

Wow, would I ever like to be a pro skier! The life of a competitive skier/grade 12 student is a little bit overwhelming sometimes to say the least! Anyway, both are good, I have to say.The races over the weekend were good for me. I learned a lot that I can put in my toolbox for later races in my career. Day 1 featured the pre ski of a sprint course that consisted of a bug uphill to start, followed by a flat section, a steep DH, a hairpin turn, and.... FINISH! My qualifier was pretty awesome, I felt fresh when I crossed the line in 2nd, by .98 seconds. I was happy about this although in a perfect world I would have liked to have won.. Regardless, my trip to the A-final was clear. So, in the A-final there were 2 options, 1.. take it out hard, stay out of trouble, risk getting slung-shot to finish, 2.. Stay in behind, risk getting tripped up, try for the sling shot. Anyway, long story made short I went with option 1. The risk reward factor bit me in the rear however as while tucking, I got passed by Nick Monette. Frustrated to say the least I crossed in second.After numerous attempts to flush the events of day 1 out of my head sleep eventually found me on the second night. Day 2 was good, the race was a 10 km. classic (although it was a double pole fest as it was a very flat course). The ski testing featured some virtually grip-less skies. I decided to throw a little more kick on and go with it. So anyway lap 1 came and went, a relatively easy pace was sustained throughout.. Lap 2 the pace picked up and Carlye, Monette, and myself were left to battle it out for the medals. We were all together for the final 5 km. and at 9.0/10.0 km. Jack made a move on the only hill on the course. Nick and I followed, with me slipping on virtually skate skis in my attempt to haring-bone the hill. I lost the top two and was forced to hammer the last km. By doing this I caught and dropped Carlye and closed to within 1.3 of Monette. Another silver was better than nothing at all but obviously one can never be satisfied with the level that they are at if they are ever going to be successful. Anyway, a load of laundry is calling.. YES, I do do it myself! (Pictures from the sprints are below)

JT.

Quarter Final

Semi 1/4

Semi 2/4

Semi 3/4

Semi final 4/4

Sprint awards 1/2

Sprint Awards 2/2

Some sweet editing of the final, courtesy Jordan

Some sweet editing, courtesy Jordan

Heart rate graph during sleep

Hello again, I thought it would be cool to check out how my heart beats at night so I decided to wear my heart rate monitor to bed.. Not as uncomfortable as you'd think! Below is the graph of last night. I thought t was pretty cool, I hope you think so as well! Later.

JT

Here is the graph, click on it to enlarge it

Update

Hello again everyone, so school is in full swing, which means that hockey is too (which includes the school team and the house league team I play with). And of course the schedule wouldn't be complete without a little x-c running on the side! It's a busy and sometimes hectic schedule but it's my last year of high school and I would really like to go out with a bang and win the male athlete of the year award for the 3rd year in a row.

Since the added recovery and rest has been added to my program for skiing I have been feeling a lot fresher coming into workouts and am really starting to feel comfortable throughout intervals. To add, the weight that I am lifting at the gym jumped as soon as I took a little time off which is really cool to see! All in all things have been awesome for me both in training sessions and in school.. Actually, even in the classroom I'm learning a lot of cool stuff in my Exercise Sci. class which I am thoroughly enjoying.. Sorry for the short update here but I better crack the spine of my Advanced Functions book because those problems aren't going to factor themselves! Later

JT

3000 m. TT

So today we did a 3000 m. TT for the second time this year. (We do one in the spring and one in the fall). Throughout the run I felt fine, but I wasn't happy with the result. You see, I ran a 10.59, 20 seconds slower than my spring time. Initially I was a little put off by this but after having a meeting with Mike I realized that my sub par performance might stem from completing workouts on "half full tanks". So basically the end result of 45 minutes of discussion about my progress was that I have to make sure to approach every set of intervals on a full tank of gas so that my quality stays high so as to get all the benefit out of every workout. Also, if I feel tired or sore from days leading up to workouts I should not be afraid to take time off or skip out on intensity.

So for the next two months I will have this mentality and assess where I am at that point in time. Later.

JT

#1

Well here it goes, the first post from yours truely. Summer has come and gone and now there is a new element to deal with: school. The course load isn't too bad this semester and I managed to work a spare into my afternoon timetable slot so that once the snow comes I can whip up to Gatineau Park before the bridge across the river to the "belle province" as they call it - (I hope I spelled that right) - gets clogged up. As of now though there is no white stuff on the ground and so that means it's all about the roller skiing. In order to enjoy being a competitive skier you have to love the roller skiing because it makes up about 8 months of the season. In my case I love -- well maybe not love but certainly enjoy roller skiing. Recently however, I have felt a little bit slow and tired during the long weekend practices, this is no doubt the result of school, hockey and, right, yeah school! So anyway I better crash for an hour or so before heading to Fresh Air to change up some worn roller ski wheels. Later

JT