Sixth camp of our Spring/Summer program and we find ourselves back in Whistler for the fourth time. Our longest dryland camp of the program we are here training for eight days. We started this camp off with a bang, having the older girls do their lactate test and the younger girls with our beep test. We have been introduced to our new program as we ramp up training preparing us for our trip to South America in September. Our days here consisted of two sessions, one in the morning and one in the mid-afternoon. We have gotten to know the trail systems here all too well since our mountain bikes have become our main form of transportation to, from and during workouts. It’s 9km to Athlete Village or a half hour by bike; there we do all our strength training, bike sprints, and gymnastics.
As a whole we’d have to say that gymnastics were our favorite workouts. With two sessions of floor and beam and two tramp lessons we learned how to flip fall, roll, land to be a lot more body aware. On the other side, our least favorite workouts have been our bike workouts. To welcoming us back to Whistler on our second day of training awaited the dreaded Kadenwood hill. We did two sets of hill repeats each about 15 minutes uphill with full out 110% effort. Our other bike workout was our power workout on the stationary bikes. 30 seconds of full out power sprints followed by three minutes of easy spin five times over, it may not sound that hard but if you could have heard us in the gym you would understand our pain! Unfortunately however we do realize it is these kinds of workouts that will push us over the edge and into peak performance shape, so bring it on.
We would like to give a big thank you to the Darlington family for letting us stay at their house this week. Staying together as a team really brings us all together and being located here instead of in Athlete’s Village allows us to enjoy our time off at the beach or in the village. Mrs. Darlington has also been an extra help to us this week helping prepare and cook some of our meals for us. Thank you! We would also like to thank the Leroux and King families for having us over for dinner making our lives even easier!
We have been very lucky to have amazing sponsors this year including Haywood Securities and Okaped. This camp we were thrilled to have received brand new Haywood bike jerseys giving us a real reason to work on our skills! From Okaped we all had a session with Paul Rauhala where we were individually fitted for our custom made orthotics.
This summer has been the first for many of us training at this level of intensity. Being a part of this program has taught us how hard we have to work to reach our goals and watching the older girls has shown us how much harder it’s still going to get. After this we have one week at home before our toughest week yet in Fernie starting August 19th.
By BCWST’s newest athletes: Hallie MacLachlan, Silken Rauhala, Alix Wells, Charley Field, and Emma King.”
Participating as well: Jocelyn Ramsden, Kailee Darlington, Sofi Leroux and Rebecca Bermel.