Nationals Day 1

Training Day

My races are Tues, Wed, Fri, and Sunday so today was a day to ski the courses a few times, tweak the new ski leg and take it easy.

The day began with a solo drive to the Callaghan Valley, gave me a great chance to get some thinking in....  complicated times right now for the Jones Clan.  We are homeless (unless you count Maple Leaf storage at Park Royal), we are completing a huge reno on our house, I have my most important races of the winter approaching, and we will be staying in three different places in the next three nights....  complex.  Under control though...

Anyway, Whistler Olympic Park was jammed with hundreds of very fast skiers.  I parked right beside Chandra Crawford's Toyota Prius - how did I know you may ask...  well her name was plastered on the side - she must be sponsored by a Toyota dealer or toyota itself.  Chandra, for those of you that are unfamiliar with X-C ski racing, is an Olympic Gold medallist and the face of Canadian X-C.

So I chilled in the car putting together my new leg, then after a 20 minute battle to get it into the boot (I asked for it to be tight) I hit the trail.  Right away I knew it was WAY better.  The edge was rock solid and never seemed to slip...  in fact so much so that I was concerned I was always on edge (which would be bad... one needs to lay the ski flat to go fast on downhills.)

After an hour or so I had concluded that the KASL was damn near perfect except for the perma-edge problem.  On the way home I called Michael to report my findings (and ask how to fix the one issue.)  He provided me with a super-simple explanation as to why the problem was there (my installation was out of alignment...).  Tomorrow I should be 100%.  

My day went steadily downhill after a delightful lunch at Crepe Montagne with Sacha and Aia (Mattias was ripping up the tube park with his buddy Finlay).

I will make a long story short by saying that 40 minutes after lunch I was up to my ankle in water trying to stop my washer from overflowing.  120 minutes later I was at the dump with said washer...  Dryer goes tomorrow.  I also shoveled about 200 lbs of my tenants #@%^ out of the laundry room.  He is in my bad books (though I suspect he couldn't care less.)

Anyway, washer and dryer flipping and squatting is probably a perfect taper workout for the week ahead....  (and spending 2 hours at the laundromat with the wife and kids was awesome too... actually it wasn't that bad, we played Monopoly - Mattias won.)

Sorry, no pics - dial-up access too slow to upload...  Do you remember when connecting to the internet sounded like this?

eeeeiii-shshhhhhchhshh-eiiiiishhhhsheieishhshshh-neeeeiiisheinneniishiishi

I do, because I heard that sound 10 minutes ago...  I'll call it 'rustic' (because we are in the mountains, and it sounds better than "lame" or "Amish" - two other excellent descriptors for dial-up access.)

Tweet this!