A quick inspection of Marc and Phil’s room revealed a thriving infestation of diverse types of insects. Fortunately there was nothing else shocking under the beds, just the usual cigarette butts and discarded disposable slippers. Also a welcome surprise was the fact that Marc and Phil’s room was the only one teeming with other life forms, which was lucky because in the ranks of our team they’re among the most capable of living in a bug infested hotel room. Mine housed only mosquitos, which is sort of baffling as it’s a healthy -20C outside.

One curiosity is the beds, they are firm – extremely firm. Personally, it doesn’t really bother me and I have great sleeps but a lot of the athletes aren’t wild about the remarkable firmness of these mattresses.  At one point our head coach Rob walked by and without any prompting told anyone within ear shot to just ‘suck it up’ for a couple days. As I said before though, it was much better than last year and once the first timers got the hysterics out of the way we all settled in and got down to business as usual.

The field this year was deeper than last year with more countries choosing to send their teams to the event, which is nice because ultimately, World Cups really should be very competitive events and this one was no exception with only one week to week finals contender absent.

There was no live scoring, which meant we had to wait until the end of men’s qualifying to know our qualification places. The team all skied fairly respectable runs. I had made a mistake on my bottom air which I thought might prove costly after so many great runs in qualifying and was feeling my back really beginning to seize up. As it turned out I qualified 12^th with teammates in 1^st, 3^rd, 5^th, and 6^th, which meant all 5 canadian men had made it inside the top 12. As it turned out, all five made the cut at every event on the asian leg of the tour.

Finals had a couple challenges to throw our way, fading light and shadows had a major effect on our ability to see the moguls while skiing the course, and contrary to hopes my back was getting pretty painful again. I decided to switch lines for finals and during finals training, trained in a line I’d never skied before. As it turned out it wasn’t for me so I decided to go back to my original line for finals. As has been the case too often this year, I chose to ski conservatively because of my back and course conditions (very similar situation to Lake Placid). This strategy again paid off quite nicely though, and I finished in 7^th place, with teammates in 1^st, 2^nd, 4^th, and 9^th. Which, if you count them up, makes all 5 Canadian men in the top 10. So as a team we’re feeling pretty good about this event and would like to see more days like this as we’re capable of achieving these results as a team week in and week out, especially next season once Alex and Simon return to competition.

We also got the chance to do a little sight seeing around Beijing which is a very rare treat for us. I particularly enjoyed this as I’m a history fan. I’ll let the pictures do the talking though!

We also had a night in SF on the way over there! Gotta take advantage when you have a spare hour or two in a city.

Deer Valley has a few rare traits that make it a rather unique stop on tour. The accommodation is spacious and the course is challenging but not too difficult which is a nice change of pace from the number of very easy courses we see in a season. There’s also the spectators who show up to watch the event. This is a pretty rare occurrence in our sport and after all the work we put in, it’s always nice to have a few people show up to cheer us on who aren’t our immediate families. Last there’s the lights, there’s always something about skiing under the lights that adds to events. It may just be another World Cup, but Deer Valley feels like a much larger stage than most events. There was no way I was going to miss coming here two years in a row.

It was awesome to ski under the lights on a course as great as Deer Valley’s. The scoring didn’t exactly go my way in the singles event and I finished 18^th but that’s all part of competing in a judged sport. I was skiing hard again without too much back pain and that felt really good.

Duals day saw me nearly explode skiing out of the top air in qualifying, but luckily I managed to hold it together and qualify 11^th. My coach and I discussed what the plan would be for finals and decided to ski the first run and then make a decision on whether to keep going based on how my back felt. I chose to ski the first run because this event went with a 32 qualifier format and I wanted to at least assure my 11^th place for the Grand Prix points it would bring. Unfortunately I fell in my first dual and lost. Not only did I fall, I actually fell into the other line and nearly hit my opponent but luckily just caught the tails of his skis with the tips of mine and he was able to continue as though nothing had happened.

Clearly this event did not go as well as I would have liked, but just feeling like I was beginning to be able to compete again allowed me to walk away feeling pretty good about the week.

Upon arriving for the first day of training, we found out that four groomers had become entangled in the finish area and that training would be delayed for several hours. This picture turned up after a quick facebook search and definitely added to our amusement and bewilderment.

When we finally did get on the course to train the conditions were less than ideal with the mercury reading +1 and rain pouring down. That night the temperature would drop to -25 and the wind would pick up to a brisk 50km/hr. Of course this kind of dramatic temperature change results  in course conditions where skates might be of more use than skis.

The next day there was a mountain wide power outage and training was once again delayed for several hours. We didn’t find it quite as humorous the second day in a row but were finally able to get out and train after a long wait.

The day of the event saw me facing a course that my skiing background in western Canada did little to prepare me for. However, I do have one or two World Cup events under my belt now and had if I’ve learnt anything it’s that no matter what the conditions are – everyone has to ski the same course. With this in mind I mustered some discipline and skied a very conservative qualifying run.

My goal was to simply lay down a clean, error free run and I managed to restrain myself from skiing too quickly. I managed so well that I skied a shockingly slow 26.80 seconds (my slowest world cup run by a long shot). But the strategy paid off perfectly and I qualified tied for 8^th.

In finals I kept this strategy in mind but unfortunately didn’t ski quite as cleanly and finished in 9^th.

This event ended up being noteworthy for a couple reasons. For one, every competition day is different and it pays to be able to vary your approach to each event and adapt to changing conditions as needed. Secondly, because of this I was able to get a result that I might not have been able to in the past. I’m not from the east and icy courses are definitely not my strength. Being able to go out and compete on one is something I was less capable of doing in seasons past. After all the time and work invested, it feels good to see a marked improvement that doesn’t come directly in the form of results or scores but something to move forward with.

My run in finals

Everyone is different so I doubt there’s any truly universal miracle cure for jet lag. But everyone gets jet lag and I’ve had enough of it to discover a thing or two about what works for me and what doesn’t.

First and foremost, you have got to fight the urge to sleep when your body wants. This is easy for me when I’m heading to competitions or training camps but very difficult when I come home. When I come home from Europe or Asia, I generally have at least four or five days off and therefore no need to be up at normal hours or asleep at normal hours. Coming home from China in 2011 was a prime example of this and I paid for it with the worst jet lag of my life. I was sleeping for four hours in the afternoon and four hours in the wee hours of the morning every day – I was a mess. Fight to stay up at night and force yourself to try to sleep until a reasonable hour in the morning – this may be my single biggest piece of advice.

Exercise is key. For the first three days after skipping a few time zones, try to get some exercise every day. It will tire you out physically and help you sleep through the night. It will help you get your appetite for appropriate meals at appropriate times back on track as well. This one is really a no brainer if you ask me.

If you have a long flight, it’s most likely you’re taking off late and arriving early (especially going west to east). What does that mean? If you can get a decent sleep on the plane, you’re waking up from a lengthy sleep to the beginning of the day. This can really help to prevent jet lag from gaining traction right from the start and is one thing I try to always be on top of.

Also, while you’re flying, drink some water, but avoid excessive amounts because otherwise you’ll be making routine bathroom trips. If you must drink alcohol, avoid beer and any more than a small amount of wine for the same reason as excessive water and try to stick to the strong stuff instead. More input = more ouput, and everyone hates going to the bathroom on an airplane.

At the end of the day, no matter what you do, your first couple nights are likely to be tough. But I’ve found sticking to these simple strategies really stops the jet lag at just a few days rather than hanging around for several days.

At most events we get two days of pre-competition training, but because Ruka is the first event of the season we arrive well in advance to get some extra training days and get used to the 10 hour time difference. The course is about as big as the mountain and is very well lit giving it a very imposing impression in the dark afternoon. The course was particularly challenging this year which is a welcome change from the slew of relatively easy courses we see during the season and training was mostly business as usual. The biggest positive we saw was that I was skiing about 1.5 seconds under the ‘pace time‘ for the course which, at around 11 m/s is some very fast skiing (we usually shoot for just over 10 m/s to compete for a spot on the podium) the biggest negative is that my consistency was dropping because of this, naturally if you ski faster it will be tougher to stay in control.

This picture was taken during one of our afternoon training sessions.

Unfortunately on competition day I did my best skiing during the pre-event training and then proceeded to lose control and blow out of the course during my qualifying run. This was obviously not the start to the season I had hoped for and was understandably frustrated. Fortunately my teammate, Mik, skied great and won the event so that made the day a little better. However, there are few things I dislike more than sitting at the bottom of the course, sometimes it’s a blast, but it’s always better if you know you’re going back up.

The day after the event we were right back in the gym for a lower body workout, normally it can be kind of hard to get motivated the day after something as emotionally charged as an event, but a bad performance always gives me motivation to grit my teeth and get through a workout. A good performance motivates me as well, but not with the same kind of intensity.

We remained in Ruka for another four days and after a disappointing race I was eager to move on to the event in Meribel, France. After 2 1/2 weeks in the dark of Ruka, the grey light of a cloudy day in Geneva was a little painful on the eyes but we got to take a tourist detour in Annecy which is a rare luxury for us. Being a bit of a history nerd, I love the old buildings in places like Annecy so this stop got me particularly stoked.

After my disappointing performance in Finland, I really just wanted to put down a run in the duals event in Meribel. I simplified my approach in training and focused on just skiing consistent runs. Admittedly this was much easier on the course in Meribel as it is one of the easiest courses we will see all season. Come competition day I felt confident and ready. My qualifying run didn’t go exactly as planned and I had a little trouble on the bottom air when I changed my mind on what trick I was going to do mid-jump and opted out of a back cross into a back layout. It may be time to finally accept that deciding what jump I’m going to do while I’m already in the air is not the best approach available to me. Regardless of this hiccup, I managed to qualify in 14th position. Clearly this is not an ideal result, but making finals despite not skiing an error free run is a welcome boost in confidence any day.

My first dual in finals was against American Jeremy Cota, I have tremendous respect Cota’s talents and really wanted to have a good run to give myself a chance to win the dual. So naturally I mis-timed my start and smashed the start gate – probably the worst way to start a ‘good’ run. Fortunately I recovered more gracefully than the last time this happened and was very happy with the rest of my run. Unfortunately I didn’t ski the better run and was eliminated but it felt really good to be happy about the way I skied and to have a decent event to build off. 14th is not the result I’m looking for and throughout the season results in the low teens will be seen as disappointing, but it was good to be in finals again and even better to ski a great run against Cota, regardless of the result. It felt great to be under the lights again and to ski the first run of the year I’m proud of. Most importantly, it felt great to really have fun skiing and competing again.

Now I’ve got just a few days off to recover from some bumps and bruises accrued the last couple weeks and I’m really looking forward to resuming the season in Mt. Gabriel, Quebec in January!

“There’s a kid in all of us”

That’s what they say, well as a kid what I really wanted was a speedometer in my goggles and I’m quite confident I’m not the only one. So now that Recon has made that a reality, it’s pretty much a childhood dream come true for everyone who spent their weekends terrorizing their local hills as children. Imagine having been able to compete with your friends to see who got going the fastest… so many victories lost.

Of course this is exactly the kind of oversimplification Recon Instruments probably hates as their MOD and MODLive units are not speedometers. In fact they are GPS micro optics displays for goggles which is still sort of an oversimplification as these tiny units are capable of doing an unbelievable amount of things. Features include but are not limited to timing, jump stats, vertical/elevation/distance/temperature tracking and averages, navigation, buddy tracking, and of course, speed. Technology like this makes my inner child rejoice as well as my outer athlete and my outer skier.

As an athlete I find this technology extremely exciting due to the fact that it will allow me to have instant access to such a diverse amount of real time information that is highly relevant to performing at my best. However, as a mogul skier there aren’t an abundance of stats to be quantified (besides wins) and when I consider other sports, there’s almost no sport I can think of that wouldn’t benefit in some way from this technology. That’s huge for athletes everywhere. For myself, to be able to know how fast I was coming into a jump, and how long I was in the air for is very beneficial information. To perform at this level you need to be going just as high on your jumps as the best guys do on theirs and this gives me a tool to quantify, compare and track progress to that effect. The HQ is the perfect companion software to the unit itself as it allows me to see all my data on my computer and even upload it to the HQ online site so that I can both access it from anywhere and allow others to see my data. Perhaps most exciting of all though is the fact that this technology is just getting started, there’s no telling where this is going to go, but it’s certainly very good for me and athletes like myself around the world.

On the other hand, as a skier I find this technology extremely exciting because it’s something I’ve always wished I had, but it’s also so much more. Being able to see how fast I’m going is great. But to be able to see how far I’ve travelled both in terms of kilometres and vertical is amazing as well. The buddy tracking system that is featured on the MODLive is also very cool, because lets face it, I am tired of my hand freezing off while I try to phone my friends on the lift. The jump stats and other data mean not only can you finally PROVE to your friends that you’re faster than them, you can also prove that you’re jumping higher and skiing farther – of course, it would be an understatement to say that I am competitive so maybe that just really appeals to me. The HQ online community allows you to connect with all the other users who are uploading their highlights so you can really get a feel for how you rank among a large sample of skiers. You can also see how your numbers compare on the same runs or check out runs from across the planet and connect with other users.

Recon Instruments has produced an amazing product because there really is something for everyone. Just in my personal situation I find it tremendously appealing both as an elite mogul skiing athlete and an avid skier of all trades (mostly powder, though). What I’ve written here is really just a brief overview of the features I like and find useful, if you’re interested in this technology (or just like really cool things) I really recommend checking out their website for a comprehensive breakdown of what this stuff can do: http://www.reconinstruments.com

This season I had a couple incidents drive home the importance of strength training and the role it plays in injury prevention.

At our training camp in New Zealand I suffered a minor knee injury that I thought little of other than that it’s the sort of thing that happens in the due course of being an athlete. A little strained posterior capsule, a little popliteus strain so on and so forth. However this injury refused to go away and actually became worse as the camp went on. I didn’t miss much training as a result and the pain wasn’t dire, but these are the kinds of things it’s best to take care of and put in the rearview mirror (so to speak).

Although I had been receiving regular treatment in New Zealand, when I arrived home I followed up with my physio in Whistler for further treatment. Upon inspecting my knee she observed that “I was lucky to have my MCL intact” and that “if the muscles around your knee weren’t so strong you would certainly have torn [your MCL]“. This statement really floored me, I had been so close to probably losing my entire season and didn’t even know it. Of course my MCL was fine and my knee was just stiff for about a month or so. My physio went on to explain that the muscles around my knee had all tensed to support the joint and prevent a major injury and this strain was what I was now feeling. I’m sure she could see the gears turning in my head and she concluded with the classic “aaand that’s why we do dryland”. Not the last time I’d hear that.

A couple months later our team was in Ruka, Finland training in advance of the first World Cup of the season and in one of my runs I somehow lost my balance a little and then caught an edge and was fairly certain I had just punched a one way ticket to a major face smash at the very least but somehow I managed to stay on my feet while I shot off to the side of the run. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt so incredibly compromised during a mogul run without actually falling and the fact that the course was reasonably bullet proof only added to the scare.

“Whoa.. did you guys see that?” was about all I had to add to my nervous laughter as I came to the bottom wondering if that had been as bad as it felt. My coaches both laughed nervously as well and said that oh yes, they did see it. My strength and conditioning coach just laughed and said “aaand that’s why we do dryland”.

Here’s the close call in Ruka…

Basically, these incidents have given me a lot more motivation to be diligent and disciplined with my dryland programs while I’m at home during my time off. I’ve never minded doing the heavy lift days but the day in, day out attention to detail required to follow a full time dryland program can be a bit tedious at times and it’s these kind of reminders that make you think twice about cutting corners.

In a nutshell, I think that’s really what it comes down to, if you want change implemented widely on a large scale, your chances improve dramatically if the change is easy to make and requires little effort. Enter biodegradable Chocowax ski and snowboard waxes. My close friend and former mogul skier/current freerider, Yosuke Hamazaki, has spent years working to develop this proprietary blend of ingredients to create a ski wax that is both environmentally friendly, and still performs. I’m also no expert on the matter of the chemical composition of wax, if you want to know more about the ingredients that make this wax special, check them out here. What I can tell you with confidence is that this wax works. Using exclusively Chocowax products, I was one of the fastest competitors week in week out and World Cup and Noram events throughout last season. In addition to that, I used only 3/4 of one bar of the wax last year so you get some pretty good mileage with this wax which is really nice if you’re like me and don’t like waxing your skis every few days. The honest truth is I would absolutely not use this product if I didn’t feel it performed at the level required for me to compete for a place on the podium.

Incidentally, the name is no random selection, this wax smells amazing! Just the other day I was waxing my new skis in TMC freeriderz and heard several people walk in and say “ooh, it smells like chocolate in here”.

So to summarize; it works, it’s fast, it smells great, it’s available in several different blends for various conditions and it’s environmentally friendly. With no apparent downside, the only potential challenge is finding this product. Checking out the website is probably the best place to start, unless you live in Whistler in which case I suggest dropping by TMC freeriderz in the St. Andrews building across from the movie theatre and Earls.

Here’s an example, this is a dual against Guilbaut Colas who was World Cup Champion this year and undoubtedly one of the fastest skiers in the world!

This is a graph showing my power output vs. my heart rate and underneath a graph with my power output vs. blood lactate levels

The red line indicates my most recent test and what I see when I look at the graphs is that I didn’t do quite as well as in May but compared to all my other results, it’s quite competitive. This is mainly due to a slight knee injury this fall that prevented me from training as much as I would have liked to. Our next test will be in May and hopefully by then I will have remained healthy and can set a new line even lower than the one last May.

This next set of tables outlines my testing history for aerobic fitness including the incremental lactate test, the beep test and the box jump as well as my leg power tests and the wingate. It seems like a lot, but I promise I’ll keep it brief.

When I got these results I was pretty pleased, all the numbers I’ve circled in yellow are new personal bests. In the ‘Peak Aerobic Power’ column, I’m really excited to see this number go up as I’ve actually gotten heavier in the last year but am producing more power per kilogram of mass which means it’s an efficient gain. To see three straight pb’s across the board on my leg power numbers is excellent as well, I had a battle with tendonitis that dragged on for a couple years and really interfered with my ability to lift heavy weight and gain any power. To see four straight rounds of testing come and go and see 46.1 cm’s appear on the result sheet every time for depth jump gets pretty frustrating. Lastly the Wingate, this is an all out 30 second sprint test, so to see my 5s Peak power take a substantial jump while my average power over the entire 30 seconds tied my previous personal best was a really good way to end testing.

So, with a busy weekend of fitness testing, interviews, boot fitting, doctor and physio assessments, and media training behind us, we took a quick drive down highway 97 to Penticton. We arrived at the beachfront motel which would be our home for the coming weeks and were pleasantly surprised – it was much nicer than motels of years past. Last year we were in Quebec at this time and had absolutely zero luck with the snow and spent the entire camp in the gym. Apex Mountain, however, usually has enough snow on the ground prior to opening to allow us to build a jump site and this year was no exception, in fact we had some of the best pre-season conditions I’ve ever seen at Apex in the past 6 years. Our coaches worked hard and built a great jump and the camp progressed quickly and smoothly with a morning gym session followed by a short day on the hill consisting of hiking up to the jump, hiking 12-15 jumps and then heading back down to Penticton for another gym session in the afternoon.

After a small period of  ”getting up to speed”, the quality of my jumps rose to the level expected of me and I put down some volume at that quality before heading home.

In addition to that, I also got the opportunity to try out the Recon Instruments “MOD” and “MODLive” devices in my short time there. If you haven’t encountered this new product yet, I really suggest taking a minute to check out their website because what they have produced is very exciting and they’re only just getting started. After training I came home and using their HQ software I could upload my day and see how fast I was hitting the jump, how many times I hit it (it’s not as easy as you think to keep track) and a wealth of other valuable information – the amount of things this little device can do is unbelievable.

What really excites me is the prospect of trying out this technology on a real World Cup course and being able to review my data after a day of such training. Myself and the others who will be starting the year on the World Cup circuit enjoyed an abbreviated camp in Apex due to the fact that we will find ourselves in Finland again shortly to train before the first World Cup of the season which takes place on December 12th in Ruka.

Apex