September 15th, 2010 - Training camp in Quebec has been awesome!

I came to la belle province a few days early to do a Fast and Female event and make good on a promise to my ski friends here that I'd come as soon as I could. Luckily our Executive Director at Fast and Female, Marie-Helen Thibeault, is francophone through and through and she not only organized a great event here but also translated my message for the girls to Dream Big, Break it Down and Believe!
Merci a tous qui ont venus.

Intensity camp was a real treat, although I still did 16 hours so the volume wasn't necessarily that low. We did hard workouts every second day, ranging from "speed threshold" on rollerskis which is around 30 seconds to harder uphill running stuff like 4 x 6 minutes and everything in between as well as speed and strength.

I really enjoyed a run around the mountain with most of the Training Center girls (there are five on the development team aged 16-21) and had some good chats about the need to ignite the dream of being Olympians and successful international ski racers in the hearts and minds of young women in this province. They were surprised to hear that I went to the '06 games at the age of 22, and find that with their oldest racer being 21 at the moment they lack that direct contact with the next level. We are working on it together - I'm definitely looking at potential teammates for 2014 here!

Training with Dasha Gaiazova who knows everyone around here from her days in Quebec age 14-19. Peri got a cold partway through the camp but our women's trio has been cranking on each other and doing good teamwork to push each other to new levels.

Devon taking photos during the Pro Tour in beautiful Old Quebec.

Pro Tour was sweet!

And now I'll be back in Canmore for a little over a week before heading to Park City, Utah on the 25th for high altitude camp. Training here is great but the desperately need some paved paths for recreating and training on - it's dangerous being on the busy roads all the time. I'm looking forward to checking up on our new 20 km path from Canmore to Banff. Here my friends Silvia and Mireille Stettler enjoy the path with Cascade in the background.

Thanks for checking in and I hope to see many of you at the Fast and Female all ages event Sept 18th in Canmore. Check out www.fastandfemale.com for details on this crazy awesome fun happening.

Train HARD, rest up, repeat!

Chandra