I will update my blog from the World Cup tour and training around the world.
Wau, we finished last week a ski camp which went like planned – not like the camp before when the weather was really unstable. I can also feel the good camp in the muscles – so much we skied in good conditions in an altitude of 3700 meters.
In skiing it’s most important to prepare yourself physically in a good shape to ski fast but you can’t forget to work with your equipment as well. Many times it feels that you fix and fix, small and even smaller details. Everything has to fit perfectly, specially the boots. For the good “touch” on snow the boots are too small from beginning and they have to be fixed just step by step. This means some tight and a bit painful ski days for feet.
I changed helmet, poles and shin guards this summer too so I even need to try them to find for me the best fitting equipment out of their different models.
No wonder that time feels like flying on the ski camps. Now, after three ski camps everything seems to have found their place really well. Ski testing is of course something that goes on all year round. Continuous ski development drives us forward!
Ski training has started full. We skied the first camp in Stelvio in July. Conditions were so good that we skied all 7 days in a row. It was really effective because we stayed in 3000 meters and in the morning at 6 o’clock we could just walk with boots on from the hotel to the gondola to go up for skiing. One week of skiing was good endurance training for the legs and last days of course the muscles were not any more so fresh. But we could be more than happy about the first camp!
Now we are already on a second camp in Saas-Fee. Bad weather days which belong to the summer happened to be now. Glacier has been closed on two out of three days. Fortunately the weather forecast for the next days is really good so looks like we can ski then five days in a row. If that happens we can be satisfied again. We had a great plan for this camp by skiing four days, having a day off, and skiing three more days. Well, now that plan can be forgotten and we go skiing when the glacier is open. Plan changes are everyday life in this sport. Only thing which bathers on this unstable days is that you have to wake up at 5.30am, make your morning jogging, have breakfast and go to the lift with two pairs of skis, boots and a back bag. Then you just might hear that the glacier is closed for today. You can also not make too heavy physical training because maybe next day you can ski again and many more days as well. This every alpine skier knows and we can not change the weather so there is no reason to get nervous. That’s why we should take all the best out for those good days.
Summer is here and lots of things have happened! Start for the physical training in the end of May was one of the few things which didn’t change. We got a new coach, Italian Christian Thoma, and he already met us on skis in Finland in April. The well known volcano in Iceland made us travel from Helsinki to Lapland (10 hours) by car instead of flying. That was a great coincidence to get to know each others from first moment on.
One big thing for me was the change of skis and boots. Now I go with Fischer and I am excited to go back on skis in July and learn new equipment better and better. It will be lot of testing in the summer which means tens of pairs going through my service man up to glaciers and be tested by me.
Well, once I started to change things then the whole picture has to be perfect :). My website was made new and it was fun to work with new colours and ideas for the site.
There are two things in summer what I don’t change. One is physical training in Rovaniemi and the other one is football. There is definitely everything what I need for training at home and my team has started the football season really good. I would just need few more hours every day and some extra days in a week. Then I would play even more football…
One World Cup season is over again and it feels as weird as always this time of the year. Itís been a long season and next race will not be earlier than October. Still I will be busy until the end of April. There are few PR events to be done as well as a very important period considering the next season. This is the best time for training and ski testing in Lapland and we will use it.
My season was bit of a roller coaster. Some races we won and the next one we were not in top ten. Overall the season was pretty good - Last season was just so excellent that you can not always make the same even if everything has been done well.
See you in Lapland!
One month long race trip was nice to finish in Cortina. It was great to be successful even if the body and mind was already pretty tired. Once again I was confused to realize that the feeling in the morning doesn't necessarily tell the result for the day. Over the years Iíve been successful after very different "pre feelings". Good results depend on so many things and you can not really control them all even if you wanted to.
I just had a week of rest and easy physical training at home. I feel again ready for skiing. Olympic clothing is fitting well and all the paper work is done (hopefully) so now itís time to focus on sport. We will make a training camp in Austria for one week and then itís about to travel over the Atlantic!
Lot of spectators and a night race makes the atmosphere different for athletes and people watching the race. We could have more night races!
A race day like this is pretty long with all the preparations etc. ñ at least for me. We can sleep longer but latest at nine I am having breakfast. Before the lunch around noon I go for a run and wake up my body. The race started at 5.30pm but we went up already at 2pm for warm up runs and inspection. Second run started at 8.30pm and was finished one hour later. Finally we were having dinner at the hotel after 10pm so the day was long. During the race I donít like to eat too much just some sandwich, bananaÖ In the evening the body gets food but itís little confused about late dinner and all stress during the race.
After a night race we were back in our normal rhythm straight away. We had a good GS training in Reiteralm the next morning. Now itís just about keep going for the next races in Maribor in the weekend.
My holiday is about to end and tomorrow I travel to Austria for races. It will be a tough race month but I am more than ready. I had a break from races over one month but I also had good training. I got nice Christmas so lets enjoy of the races next four weeks :)
It turned to be October already and in the North it got cold like winter would be on its way. It's not the same with middle Europe. We just had one week camp in Pitztal and itís still pretty warm. Thanks to clear nights we anyhow had the best camp for the season - sunny days and hard snow conditions.
Glaciers their selves donít look good at all at the moment. In many places you can not ski the lower parts or lower lifts which usually works this time. There just isnít any snow, only dark glacier ice. Under these circumstances we can be even happier about this camp. We were also lucky to catch the week without too many teams so it was easy going in the lifts.
It's going to be a tough winter again but we saw in Sölden that summer training was not bad and we have worked right with the team. Levi race is soon and great conditions in Lapland give us possibilities for a good preparation for the home race. From tomorrow on we will train in Lapland and it will be lot of slalom turns to be done in next two weeks. Itís good because in October we focused on GS. Slalom has also worked fine in the late summer trainings and if needed we can use days from morning till the evening to find race speed also for slalom :)
Our third ski camp has started in warm conditions. In one way it's nice that you can still enjoy summer down in the valley but would be better for skiing to have little colder. 0°C level is now over 4000 meters during nights and with some clouds the slope doesn't freeze enough. It would just need a clear night or even better is minus degrees over a night on our training level 3500 meters. So we had few softer days on snow but now again great hard conditions!
These weeks are pretty busy on glaciers. Holiday time brings lot of clubs and junior teams as well as national teams on skis. Well, at least we will not freeze on a lift line :)
First ski camp is just about to start in Zermatt. On Friday 17th of July we take the gondola up to 3800 meters and start with GS turns. I had over two months without skiing but it went really fast. I had instead a good period of physical training and it feels well balanced in the body so I am ready to go on skis. From now on time will fly and soon weíll be in Sˆlden for the season start!
In June and July I train mostly at home and these are the months for regular routines of training, eating and resting. This summer I also had time for few summer events in Rovaniemi. I went to see couple of great Finnish bands on open air rock festival. Itís nice to see how professionals do their job in different kind of businesses. To be on your best when it really counts in the music business or in sports has a lot of similarities I think.
8.6.09 Physical training season has started again for real. I skied until end of April and May was my month off. I didn't just lie down but I played football and badminton - sports what I really enjoy and donít even think as a training. From the 1st June on I started scheduled training which means two training sessions almost every day, good rest and food and good sleep. It feels nice to get back in a normal "athletic" rhythm. I can only focus on training and everything else comes then if there is time for anything else.
Finnish and Lappish weather in the summer is just great for physical training - you can always train any time of the day and it wonít be too hot. Hopefully itís not too rainy either.
