Volume

According to the Oxford Dictionaries online, the definition of volume most relevant to my usage of it in this blog is "an amount or quantity of something, especially when great". When it comes to training, volume (i.e. zone1 training) is great for a number of reasons. Volume is great because--if you are training properly--it will make up the majority of your training hours, a great, a vast, amount! Volume is great because it will always guarantee a certain amount of improvement: as my coach says: "you could complete only volume training all year long and, when the snow flies, you would still be a bit faster than last season". Volume is great because volume workouts are so much fun!!

Hangin' out at the top of the access road to Norquay after a 4hr rollerski. From left to right: Yannick, 2 Alberta Ski Team guys, Seb, me, more AST guys.

View from Norquay: that's Banff down there.

I mean, in a volume workout you could cruise along through pristine boreal forest, letting your mind wander as you fall into the steady rhythm of diagonal stride or one skate. In a volume workout you could scramble along fallen logs, over boulders and up scree slopes on your way to summiting a mountain pass--a ribbon of singletrack winding its way up, up, up through the alpine vistas. In a volume workout you could lose yourself (quite literally) in dense pine forest when the trail you were supposed to be following turns out to be less of a trail than you had expected. Add some variety and you can make every volume workout a new adventure!

For me, volume has been the theme these last two weeks; I even happened to experience each of the three scenarios that I detailed in the last paragraph!

Now, with so much volume to cover it would be hard for me to give a synopses of all of it, so instead I’ll detail just one workout, debatably the funnest workout, that we did right in the middle of the two week block. Turn the clock back exactly one week...

Monday July 15th. Wake up at 7:35am. At 8:20am I have eaten my daily oatmeal packed some après-training clothes and some snacks, laced up my Speedcross 3s and I’m out the door. The meeting place today is the boat docks (there are actually no boat docks at the boat docks, interestingly enough). Hop in the van at the boat docks and it’s off to a “surprise” destination for training today! I like surprises. ETA to the surprise? 30min. We arrive at the trailhead locked and loaded; turns out the surprise destination today is Buller Pass: a trail that will take us up into the alpine terrain, with a total ascent of just around 700m vertical.

Now, from here the jog can be divided into 3 sections:

1st section:

The defining characteristic of the first section is wash-outs. Wash-outs and fallen trees, to be more precise. Thanks to the amazing flooding we had a few weeks ago, the beautiful Ribbon Creek trail, the trail that we would be following up towards the pass, had been more or less ruined by it’s namesake creek--whose valley it followed. This basically meant that the first part of the jog required some awesome ninja skills for fording creeks (read, slipping on rocks and falling in creeks) and sweet balance-beam log crossings. Segment one ended after about an 1:45, when we got to a picturesque waterfall and started going up more steeply.

2nd section:

The second section was between the waterfall and the summit. 15min or so down the line after the waterfall, we hit the section of “trail” that Mike had mentioned at the start of our hike, when he told us to “make sure you have at least 3 people for the chains--one to go for help, one to comfort and one to die in agony.” Fun. The chains lived up to my expectations in the form of several lengths of chain drilled into the side of a cliff so as to give some form of safety hold for what was basically the closest thing to rock climbing you can get to without actually rock climbing. Thankfully we made it safe and sound.

At the top of the chains we ran through some more forest, past Ribbon Lake and then up through beautiful alpine meadows spotted with snow (yes, we did surprise the guys behind us with a snowball ambush). Eventually, the alpine meadows (some of the most beautiful terrain I’ve been through) gave way to rocks as we scrambled our way up the last 100m or so of vert. to the summit of the pass! Pretty views and some hail were the main attractions of this part of the run.

Top of the world!! Or, more accurately, top of the pass.

Looking down at the descent. Photo creds to Chris for these last two!

3rd section:

The descent. This made up the last hour or so of the hike and was mostly comprised of super-fun downhill running (I wanna go fast!) through some crazy epic burnt out forests. I had so much fun on this workout that, up until about 20min to go I really didn’t want it to end.... but once we hit just over the 3hr mark in what was supposed to be a 2:5hr workout, my legs started complaining.

Finally, we made it out of the woods, to finish what was one of the coolest adventure runs I’ve done.

Well, hopefully that give some insight into what a “typical” volume workout with the Academy is like! Jump back in time to the present and I’ve just made it through a rest day and am ready to finish up the last hard week in this four week block of training. For those of you interested in numbers here are some stats from the last two weeks:

Week 1 total: 22:44hrs

Week 2 total: 21:05hrs

Number of 4hr workouts: 3

Number of workouts: 19

Average z1 heart rate: 139

Mountains climbed: 2

Cycling races watched: 1

Washing machine loads: 2

Awesome scree slopes descended: 1

Majestic elk seen: 2

Sun burns: 2 occasions

Sunscreen bottles exploded in backpack: 1 (this sucked)

Eggo-style waffles eaten: 12

Hours of sleep not including naps: 130

Clif Bars eaten: approx. 22

Number of naps: not enough (you can never have enough)

In whatever volume workouts you may encounter, remember to Dream big, people!

Dinner and a Show

With all this new moving to and living in Canmore stuff going on lately, I've been doing a lot more cooking than I had been doing while living at home (surprise surprise). With not too much blog-worthy stuff going on for me this last week, coupled with the fact that everybody likes good food (right everybody?), I am doing things differently for my blog post today. Today I will give you a typical culinary day in the life of Zeke--complete with recipes and entertaining dialog!! Watch out Master Chef!!

Speaking of food... a fantabulous Omelette I made the other day! Got enough veggies?

As a high-level endurance athlete, it is very important for me to spend a stupid amount of time eating, and, to be picky about what I am eating from a nutritional standpoint. Unfortunately (surprisingly?), for an athletic male of my age, I am really not a huge fan of eating (it's kinda boring!). With these facts in mind, I choose recipes that don't take too long to make and I like to keep stuff not too one-sided (for instance, I wouldn't eat just chicken with curry sauce for supper). Just like in life, I try to go for variety.
But without further todo, I give you a typical day in the life of Zeke: from a food perspective!

Wake Up

Breakfast:

-Just over 3/4C Water
-1/3C Quick Oats
-1-2 Tbs Brown Sugar
-Bit of Cinnamon
-3-4 Tbs Yogurt
-1 Apple
-1 Banana

Cut an Apple in half. Eat one Half; Chop up the other half.
Make Oatmeal.
Add brown sugar+cinnamon+yogurt+chopped apple to the oatmeal.
Enjoy.
Eat the banana by itself.

Morning Workout: Eat 1 clif bar every hour if the workout is 2hrs or more. Drink 1 big waterbottle full of water+drinkmix for each 45min-1hr of workout.

Lunch:

1 Can Tuna
Pinch of Salt
Sprinkle of Pepper
1/3-1/2 Onion
1 Clove Garlic
1/2-1 Tbs Olive Oil
3/4 Tbs approx. Lemon Juice REALLLLEMON!!!! (said to the sound of the powerthirst guy saying "real lightning!! I do like real lemons)
1 Tomato
2 Bagels
A few green leaves
1 egg
A few knives of butter

Smash the garlic clove and cut up the onion into squinkly-little pieces. 
Drain can of tuna; take Tuna+Salt+Pepper+Garlic Clove+Onion+Olive Oil+LemonJuice and mix them up real good. Take the knives of butter and apply them to the bagels; put greens on your bagels; put your mixture of the above ingredients on the bagels. Cut up the tomato and put pieces of the tomato on your bagels. You're done! Enjoy the savoury tast.
Eat the rest of the mixture with some green leaves.
Fry the egg with a knife of butter and eat it.

Nap: Nothing is eaten here.

Snack:
2 Eggs
1/2 Cup Olive Oil
1 1/2 or 1 1/4 cup of sugar
1/3 cup milk mixed with 2 teaspoons lemon juice (or buttermilk if you have it)
3 bananas
Pinch of salt
1tsp Baking Soda
1 3/4 C floor (I use half white half brown)
A squig of butter

Cream Cheese

Mash Bananas. Mix bananas with all the above (except Cream Cheese!!!!), in the order above. Use your squig of butter to butter a bread loaf pan. Pre-heat oven to 350; Place stuff in oven; cook at 350 for 30min; turn down to 325 after 30min time elapses and cook, checking every 5min, until you can stick a knife through the loaf and pull out the knife without stuff sticking to it. Cheers.

Cut a few pieces of the banana bread and eat it with Cream Cheese. Be happy.

Maybe eat some yogurt or nut mix too.

Afternoon Workout: Same deal as morning workout.

Reco (recovery) Drink:
4 Tbs CCC Chocolate Recovery Drink OR 3Tbs Powdered Milk (preferably whole milk powder)+a bit of sugar
3/4 tall glass of milk

Shake or Stir real well to mix. Either option is quite tasty.

Ice Cream:
$5

Use $5 to purchase a small tub of Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream from your local food place. Eat half of it and save the other half for a later date--best to keep it in the freezer unless you want an ice cream drink.

I eat desert first.

Supper
2C green lentils rinsed and drained

8C water

1Tsp salt

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

1/2 C Brown rice

1/3 C Olive Oil

6 Onions

/////

Tomato

1 to 2 garlic cloves

1 Tbs Lemon Juice

3/4 Tbs Olive Oil

pinch of Salt

Bring water to a boil on the stove; add lentils and rice; turn down heat to a simmer; let simmer for 30+min, adding water to the mixture as needed (add more water to make the rice/lentils softer and make the cooking time longer--add less to make 'em al dente. I like them al dente).

While the above simmering is going on, chop your onions into slices and sauté them with the Olive Oil in a pan until they are a nice goldenish colour, and a bit squishy in consistency.

Once all that is done, add stuff together with the cayenne pepper and mix it up.

/////

Chop up tomato; smash garlic. Add Tomato+Garlic+Lemon Juice+Olive Oil+Salt and mix well. You've made a taste salad.

Serve the Rice/Lentil stuff with the Tasty Salad and BOOM! Instant hunger annihilation! I really like this meal.

Show:

Watch any Lord Of The Rings movie, any Tarantino movie, Ice Age (has to be the first one), Hanna or Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.

That's the "and a show" part.

NightTime Snack:

More banana bread and cream cheese, some nut mix and some yogurt.

Goodnight.

There you have it!! Hope you enjoyed my food journal blog! It was kinda time consuming to create--and now I'm hungry!! 

Thanks a bunch to my awesome mom--a couple of the above recipes (among many other good things) I got from her!

Dream Big, People!!

P.S. If you have any amazing recipes you'd like to send to me, feel free to send them my way! If I receive any recipes--and if there happens to be one that I like--I will post it on my blog in the next couple weeks!!

Go With The Flow

I have to say: I really don't like the expression "go with the flow". The top definition on Urban Dictionary is to "not push against prevailing behaviour/norms/attitudes"--an ideal that was definitely not prevailing when anyone accomplished anything on any level of importance! I prefer to think more along the lines of non-conformity, because the path of least resistance is seldom the right one.
The only time that I see "going with the flow" as having any idealogical value is when it comes to avoiding stress over events that you have no control over. As a ski racer, and as a fairly high-strung personality, I find that stress is a bad thing. It tires you out, it makes you forgot things that should not be forgotten (like the ring of power), it makes you think you have a concussion when you actually don't (haha), and, it makes you perform below your potential in ski races.
One thing that I've learned over the years is that if your pole tip comes of in a race, if it dumps 2ft of snow when you're supposed to go for a bike ride, or even if you're plane is about to leave and you are stuck in security--don't stress! When you can't change the situation it's better to just "go with the flow" and come to terms with the circumstances rather than work yourself into a tizzy stressing over things.

Coincidentally, this past week has, pretty much in its entirety, been a lesson in coming to terms with and adapting to adverse circumstances!

Last Monday I departed for my first training camp with the World Cup Academy--a road bike focused camp in Nelson BC! Nelson is a pretty cool place, and not exactly what I expected it to be; the first thing I noticed when we arrived was how humid and rain foresty-like the terrain was.

This person on our wall in Nelson is not prepared for adversity--demonstrating a lack of outdoors knowledge by snowshoeing with no pants

After checking into the motel, getting groceries and a solid nights sleep, day 2 went perfectly according to plan and I went to bed looking forward to our solid 150km road bike ride that we had planned for day 3! But when we woke up on day 3 we were greeted with pouring rain, so in favour of not being cold and wet for 5hrs in the saddle, we found other ways to get in our approx. 5hrs of training that day (rollerskiing, running, weights). 

View of the North Shore of Nelson from a sweet lookout Seb and I found after our weight workout on Tuesday

Seb: admiring the view from the lookout and striking a majestic pose

"No worries", we decided, "we will bike part of the route we'll be taking for the drive home on tomorrow and get in our long bike ride that way." But the pouring rain theme continued on day 4. When we heard in the morning that Canmore was in a state of emergence due to flooding we decided to book it back home ASAP before the roads got closed down. 

Stupid rain

"I Got Swagg" on our ride home. We found some snow in the pass we were supposed to ride over

Through the Rockes we drove, arriving in Radium Hot Springs right after the road that we needed to take towards Banff got closed. At this point it was 3pm in the afternoon and we were all feeling a bit groggy from the driving, but instead of giving up and crying in the cars, we took hold of the situation! It was no longer raining so we hoped on our bikes and rode for 105km north to Golden BC (we actually rode the distance in 2hrs 55min--a time that somewhat impressed me) where we spent the night, ate some fairly cheap food (pizza and ice cream) and were happily surprised when the roads opened; just in time for us to drive back to Banff the next morning. But the adventure was not over yet!!

Arriving in Banff we found that the Trans-Canada highway was closed between there and Canmore--our only route home--due to the highway being pwned by crazy water. With only the approx. 20km ride between Banff and Canmore left, we hoped on our bikes and rode down the closed highway back to Canmore! After the previous day's 100+ km ride this 20k one would've been a cake walk--but I decided that to make it a challenge (and because I didn't want to leave my stuff in Banff) I would ride with my 50ish lb duffle bag on my back. And it dumped rain the entire time. 
It was uncomfortable.

This intersection near my place in Canmore is usually not a lake

And so we all made it back home to Canmore safe and sound but were greeted with flooded basements and lakes where there were none before, upon arrival. Three days later the ground water levels are finally going down and stuff is getting back to normal. What a crazy week!!!

Dream Big, People!!

Get to the Choppa!!!

Yesterday was my first by-myself-workout in Canmore that was longer than 1hr15min. I think that in general people prefer doing workouts together, so it might seem strange when I tell you that, honestly, some of my funnest (yes, I said funnest) workouts have been by myself! When you train by yourself you have no distractions--you can focus on going at exactly the right pace, you can focus on technique and you can have some time with your own thoughts. I like these traits. I like them very much.

Yesterday's skiwalk/run ranks right up there in my list of awesome by-myself workouts...

With only 2hrs of training time yesterday, I was faced with the conundrum of wanting to do a fairly epic run but not having enough time to do it in. That's when I remembered that there is a heli pad, and a sweet ruined building, partway up Lady Mac--which is one of the picturesque mountains around Canmore (they're all picturesque). With the goal of reaching the helipad etched into my consciousness, my skiwalking poles in hand and Smooth Criminal stuck in my head for some unknown reason, I departed the trailhead in a flurry of zone1 paced footfalls.

As I climbed past the 45min mark, a battle was being fought in my mind between the voice of reason and the voice of hammertime:

Voice of Reason: "yikes, you're nearing the halfway mark and the helipad isn't in sight. You got one clif bar to go on and only 2hrs of easy training to do today. Better ditch the helipad idea soon and turn around, in favour of training smart."

Voice of Hammertime: "pffff!! Bad idea! How lame would it be if you turned around at some unrecognizable spot?! Hell, why even stop at the helipad? Climb the whole mountain! Zone4 baby!!"

After these thoughts had been playing for a few minutes I ran into a climber coming back down and asked him "how far to the helipad?" "Hour and a half" he said--a figure which astonished me at the time and still does now.

With the disappointing thought that I might end up turning around before I reached my goal closing in on me, some cold weather decided to close in too--and it started snowing. Most people would probably see this as the sign to turn around, but I like snow so I saw it as a sign to through caution to the wind and keep marching.
At this point things started happening fast. First I saw a mountain sheep, then I took out my phone to take pictures and got it all wet from the snow, then I heard thunder rolling in from the distance but decided I wasn't gonna turn around just yet, then the snow stopped, then I kept climbing. About 2min after all of this crazyness I ran into two hikers coming down. Upon asking "how long to the helipad" they replied it was right over the next rise!! Hurray! I sprinted the last few hundred meters up through scree and snow from last Winter. 

down comes the snow! Can you spot the sheep?

Up up up I sprinted, enemy fire raining down around me, heavier than the snow from earlier on, and Arnold paying the them back in kind with the 50 cal. mounted on the blackhawk--all the while yelling "GET TO THE CHOPPA!!!" Clearing the last few strides I just managed to grab onto the rope later as it took off!!

Okay, that last paragraph is a bit of an exaggeration. Replace that scene with a vision of me climbing the steps to the helipad as the snow/rain/thunder clouds cleared in a most divine fashion--yielding a spectacular view of Canmore and the bow river valley spread out hundreds of meters below my vantage point!
After I enjoyed my clif bar, explored the ruined building by the helipad and took way to many pictures of the view, I jogged back down the mountain, at a slightly excessive pace for a zone1 workout, back to the trailhead, and then the rest of the way home, through town.

cool pine trees on the way back down

All this in just two hours :)

Here are the numbers for the workout:

Climb time from the trailhead: 1:09
Descent back to the trailhead: 33min (wow! less than half the climb time!!)
Total workout time: 2hrs exactly
HR min: 94bpm
HR average: 141bpm
HR max: 171bpm (this was actually on the way back down)

*I've included most of this hike's photos below, for your viewing pleasure!

Dream Big, People!!

yikes... pretty steep slope

close up of sheepy

let it snow!

looking down the trail from the sheep viewing point

goin' up!

nice view!

the trail came up this ridge

bow valley

top of the ruined building

the helipad

into the depths...

inside the building looking out

looking towards Mt. Grotto

"no fires"  "no entry"  Good thing I exited from this doorway

follow the snow to find the trail back down

the tree line

ominous view from the helipad

apparently para-gliders jump off here

I want to keep going up...

3600km

First Monday blog-day!! Yay!

Stop. Hammer time. Yannick and I made it almost to Banff on our Sunday rollerski. The waterfall was pretty

As most of you who follow my blog know, I am now living in Canmore Alberta and training with the World Cup Academy (one of Canada’s top, if not the top, xc ski training centers). But let's back track a bit: why did I decide to make this move?

To simplify my motivation for this big change in scenery down to one sentence (something I’m not sure I feel comfortable doing, but will do anyway): ‘It’s because I have big goals.’ This year I want to qualify for World U23 Championships (they are in Italy!); a couple years down the line I want to be making the podium on the World Cup and in 2018 I want to qualify for the Olympics!

"Yikes! sounds ambitious", you say. "How are you gonna achieve all that?" As with most destinations, figurative or not, the end of “the road to the olympics” or, more accurately for my case, “the road to international success in skiing” can be reached in more than one way, and, to make things even more complicated, some routes may be better for certain individuals than others--so I can’t just be like: “looks like Lenny did 500hrs of training here, a camp in Maui here, this amount of intensity here and he’s really fast now!” And then just try to copy exactly what Lenny did these last couple years, ‘cause what made him fast might not be the best thing for me.

So coming off the end of the race season this year I was putting a lot of thought into how I could get to where I want to be in my sport in the most efficient fashion. With this in mind, I came up with a list of what I thought I needed to do to be faster next season (improve efficiency, improve strength, improve classic sprinting, have faster peers to train with, etc...). Upon reflexion, I realized that I could achieve most of my training goals at home or in Canmore--which is cool, but which didn’t help my decision making process at all!!!

Finally after lots of pointless worrying and lots of thought on the topic, my decision came down to this: I have trained at Nakkertok for 8 years. I have developed an awesome support system in the Ottawa region, I have great facilities to train at, and I know I can get faster working at Nakkertok with Kieran as my coach. But, in Canmore I have new training partners (who also happen to be some of the best skiers in Canada!), better facilities (ice baths, mountains, a rollerski treadmill, a glacier...), and a better coach to athlete ratio. On top of this, I will get a new perspective on high-level ski training, a more focused environment, not having to drive EVERYWHERE (a 2min jog to training rather than a 20min drive is a sweet change) and some cool new trails to explore.

When I realized that things were going to work financially, I decided that Canmore would be the way to go. Even if it’s not a perfect fit for my training style, I know that it will be an awesome learning experience. And as far as being ‘a perfect it for my training style’ goes, things are looking pretty good so far! Since my arrival I’ve:

1. -Finished 13hrs of training
2. -Went for 1 AWESOME mountain bike ride 
3. -Completed 1 30min rep of awesome hill climb running
4. -Finished more than 50km of rollerskiing
5. -Almost finished 1 tub of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream!

And I didn't even have to drive the 3600km Cantley-to-Canmore door-to-door distance.

Dream Big, People!!!

A funny tree

View of the town mid-trail on our awesome mtb ride

View of my clothing at the end of our awesome mtb ride. My white mtb shoes are no longer white!!

Cleanin' the bikes

Hello Goodbye

Goodbye Ottawa,

I have lived in the Ottawa/Gatineau region for the past 8 years of my life--and what amazing years they were. At first, I missed my friends in North Bay Ontario, but then I joined Nakkertok ski club, I studied at two universities, I completed my great 8 Piano, I got to work at Fresh Air Experience Ottawa, I got injured snowboarding and I became intimately familier with the terrain of the area as I ran, biked and skied all over it. Most important out of all my experiences, though, were the interactions I had with the people of the region.

You guys welcomed me into the community and have supported me like family as I grew as a skier and as an individual. Now, as I make the transition to life at the Alberta World Cup Academy in Canmore, I can say that without your help I would never have been able to take this new step in the pursuit of my athletic dreams. I am missing and am going to continue to miss all of you until I am back in Ottawa again. In the mean time, rock on.

Hello Canmore,

I gotta say, I really didn't think I had a chance of making it here after I came up with a preliminary budget, for the season, in April. But it looks like I've made it--at least, that's what I'm guessing based on all the big mountains around me! After just one day in Canmore so far, I'm feeling pretty excited about the upcoming training year (not that I wasn't feeling excited already!), and do I ever have a lot to do between now and my first races in December!

As I embark on year two of my blog I wanna make a commitment to you, my readers. I feel that it will be nice to keep people at home up to date on my adventures, and with all sorts of cool ski training/life experiences coming my way I'll have a lot of cool stuff to write about! With this in mind, it is my goal to update my blog, on Monday, at least every two weeks from now to next April. As always, I'll try to keep stuff interesting (none of that "went skiing for two hours. It was a good workout" or "Today I raced and came 1st. I am happy" type blogging here!), I'll add a new song to the "playlist" page on my blog after each blog post and I'll put up cool pictures! My first blog post will be this Monday and I'll try to detail some of my thought process in deciding to come out here to train, as well as some of the things I've done during my first few days out west. Should be sweet.

To sum up, check back here on Mondays, have a good summer and Dream Big, People!

--Zeke W.

On flows the river of time--and on flows this river in Canmore too!