A return to racing

It's been great to be back racing! Conditions in the first two world cups have made it difficult to find my prior to injury form. Zagreb with +10celcius weather caused the course to fall into shambles after a few racers. Times got slower with every runner, and only a few made the second run from outside the 30 (highest being Lars at 36).

We were excited to arrive to Adelboden and see some ice on the course. It proved to be not what we expected and also fell in bad shape with hard jagged ruts which you would barely see due to heavy snow and wind. When only 37 of 70 best skiers in the world make it to the finish in the first run, you know you there's something up. Of those 30 that got to run in the second run, only 20 of those made it to the finish. WOW! Congrats to Mike Janyk for being so cat like out there finishing in 7th place. Best result for the slalom team this year, well done!

The sad note of the day was seeing teammate Julien Cousineau go down. Things are not looking good. He's on a flight home back to Canada for a full diagnostic of his knee. Speedy recovery my friend!

We're hunkered down in Kirchberg at the moment. The snow won't stop falling. We were lucky to make it through the Alberg on our drive back from Switzerland, the pass was closed due to avalanche danger shortly after we made it through.

Happy 2012!

I've arrived safely in Europe. We were welcomed by a few feet of snow over the first few days, then by a couple of cm's of rain. Conditions for training have been great regardless, thanks to a great crew of coaches and staff with shovels and slipping. I've had two days in the gates.. kindof thrown right into some pretty high tempo stuff and trying to get up to speed with Cousineau, Spence, and White. I've faired well, and think with another two days of training I should be putting in some winning times.

We celebrated the new year with some fine cheese from Savoie before dinner. Merci Yul. Vous êtes trop gentils. (My french writting is poor, so excuse if I went wrong somewhere there)

On my day off today, I toured around where I'm staying in Kufstein. Right across the street from my hotel is this really cool castle. It's worth checking out if you're ever in the region.

Back in Action

some of my first days back, borrowing a 4-wheeler to get up the hill while the lifts were closed at Camp Fortune. I'm now on my flight to europe ! training in austria to start

ALINEment: are you aligned?

I was fortunate to be in Tommy and Lefebvre last week when owner/creator of ALINE insoles was there to explain to me the benefits of his ALINE system. I'm always skeptical about products that offer a miracle cure for your problems, but Gordon was great at explaining the benefits of this product, and was able to show with great accuracy before and after shots of how proper support of the foot while allowing it to move naturally rather than being locked (when all the shock is then taken by the ankles, knees, and hips). Check out how my right ankle was collapsing to the inside as I stood. On the right, it shows how the ALINEment supported my foot and aligned my foot, ankle and knee. Pretty cool. Head into Tommy and Lefebvre and check it out.
aline.com

Knee Injury sets me back a couple of months

After returning home from Europe, the first world cup in Levi cancelled I thought "This is GREAT! I haven't missed anything. These few weeks my ankle and knee will have to recover and have me back and ready for the World Cup in Val D'Isere". Unfortunately, my knee kept clicking and causing problems even after extensive physio and treatment. It was time to face reality and go for the dreaded MRI to figure out what was going on inside my left knee.

They really make it nerve racking in the sense that you leave the MRI clinic with the fate of your knee on a CD, but without an analysis from the technician. That night I figured I would try and learn how to read an MRI on youtube so I could know before I met the Doctor the next day. Turns out I'm not an MRI technician, and could barely figure out where the lateral meniscus was on the 100's of images. The next morning I met with the Doctor. It was a little disheartening hearing the news that I'd have to sit out the first half of the season. A torn lateral meniscus being the culprit. One flap had torn off the back half of the lateral side, two pieces of loose meniscus were floating around from another section, and some Grade II/III degradation of the cartilage. We scheduled in for surgery with a surgeon in Ottawa who's done my knee in the past. He had a cancellation for the next week and I was slotted in.

The arthroscopic surgery went well, no complications. Although you can usually walk out of these types of surgery, I was under strict orders to stay totally off my leg for almost a week. With the help of an ice and compression machine called the game ready, I was able to keep almost all the swelling out of the knee which has made the transition into rehab that much quicker. Its been a week ago today, and I'm now on the bike, doing quad strengthening, and walking up and down stair gingerly. My goal is to get back on skis in just less than two weeks from now. A slow build up of training should have me back up to full speed and racing in Zagreb if all goes well.

Levi Cancelled

Hello. Unfortunately my ankle has been slow to recover. I tried skiing yesterday in severe pain, and threw in the towel. Now that Levi has been cancelled, not worth pushing my recovery. I'm flying home tomorrow to get everything fixed up. Here's a clip from the Canadian Team training in Zinal. My question to FIS, why are you scheduling races this time of year. It's not winter, it costs a fortune for the all the teams to find training this time of year and it's bankrupting our sport. I push that we race in winter. First races should be in December.

Indoor skiing at Wittenburg 2011