girl friday is back!!

jet lag

Well after a 18 plus hour flight home from Vancouver I am feeling the effects of a late Aussie summer. I have come back to days of stinking heat. It has been 38 -40 degrees C that last 2 days which I am finding hard to comprehend after the last few weeks in minus temps. I have not as yet escaped on a bike but will hopefully get out on the weekend. I have some photos from the weekend race which I will post.
Caught up with some of the local crew including the infamous Chris Winn who is heading off at the end of the month to a career on the road in the US.... best of luck to him and the spoils of his sucess (check out his blog!!...worth a read).
Anyway short one as I am rooted!!!


the mad dash at the start which ended with some crashes in the field




The end of lap one and feeling a little worse for wear chasing down a local


The sight in the finish chute was of a crushed man and my heart rate at 195bpm....glad it was over!!!

skiing, racing, snow, snow, snow

Well it has been a busy week with getting organised for the race we had today at Sovereign Lake. We did a 15km race as part of a loppet series for the valley. We managed good results. I slid in after 62 mins of pain getting myself a 16th position in the mens. Tam slid in in 6th in the womens a few mins back on me. It is only a small race with a total of around 250 odd racers in various age groups and distances.
I did manage to win a race the other night, called the Wednesday night whoppet. It cost a twonee ($2). It was a 3 x 1km loop which you had to guess what your overall time would be. I was on the money and had a ball. We dont get to ski at night back home so it was awesome to get out and do it even though it was minus 7. The snow looked like a see of diamonds and one part of the race circut disappeared into the darkness so I was hoping there wasnt any man eating creature waiting for me.
Getting glide has been an issue this week for us as the snow is so dry and cold and the humidity high, but we finally sorted it out. Will post photos when I have some.
See you all next week as we are homeward bound.

Heaven

OK as skiers we all love dry powder snow. I am at Silverstar in BC. I have been here 2 other times (OK I live a charmed life) and it still amazes me every time. We arrived here Sunday for some skiing in the arvo on fresh set trails. It was perfect...sunshine and no wind and minus 2. Then since Sunday nite it hasnt really stopped snowing. 25cms approx has fallen in the last 24hrs which makes the place look like a skiers fairytale. As a nordic skier it is a dream to be here as ski tracks that the best national teams in the world come here and and train on.
We are looking at doing a race here on Wednesday nite..... new experience skiing in the dark under lights and then a Loppet on Saturday. Should be a blast and a bit of pain included.
The place we have rented to stay in is pimping to say the least and the team truck is awesome aswell. Its a brand new ford explorer with all the bells and whistles.....very nice.

Vancouver

Right, I have been in Vancouver for a few days chilling out after a week of hard skiing. Finally got the body back together. Been checking out the sights and doing some retail therapy with the wife. We managed to get tickets to a Cannucks game which was awesome and boy do the fans know how to have a good time. We even saw a guy win a car and 1 million smacko-ronies in a shoot out on the ice. Unbelievable to witness..(not bad pay for 30 seconds of work).
Spent some time in the Yaletown Brewery drinking some of their ales and I recommend the Red Truck Ale. Good food too!
Tomorrow we head east to another location called Silverstar for some more ski time and hopefully a race at the end of the week....(looking forward to it).
Big hello to Mister Sister for the care of the house and fur children and to NZ Gav on the speedy recovery from knee surgery.
Happy riding

Mt Washington

Ski, ski, ski, ski. That is all I have done for the last week. Amazing snow upto 4 metres deep with plenty of sun and a nice temps. Weather has been perfect bar 1 day of constant snow which changes it up a little and makes the place pretty. Tam and I have managed to ski almost everything on offer here to us bar one trail. We even took the chair lift up to a few black runs which were a hoot to come down bar getting geographically mis located at one point. I did manage to root one set of poles one day and a pair of skis. I came down hard and flipped over and then discovered that I had snapped my binding and pulled the top of the ski as well. It was a nice walk back out to a point that I could double pole back to the day lodge. It took a drive down to Courtney (local town) to sort out some new skis for the rest of the trip........not a cheap exercise but hey thats skiing!!!. From here it is to Vancouver and then on to Silver Star for you guessed it more skiing.....its a nice life for some!!



Happy trails