Since I sat down and wrote my previous blog I have been a very busy athlete. Between training full time in the gym for next winter and trying to catch up with friends and family, and trying to enjoy the summer it has been pretty non-stop.

Over the past few months there have been some common questions that people ask me about training and just life in general as an elite athlete. So, I thought that this would be a good time to answer some of those questions and maybe clear things up a bit about what it is we do.

For the past few months I have been training hard in the gym along with the rest of my teammates. We basically have an 8-week block between our on-snow training camps, which is used to focus solely on our fitness training.

Our trainer will write our program and it will change and progress throughout the 8 weeks. In that time I will spend some of it training at home and will also attend some training camps in Ottawa.

The western athlete's on the Alpine Women's team will meet our training in Calgary for 1-week blocks. During these camps where we meet with our trainer we will continue the same program as at home but it gives us an opportunity to come together as a group.

This naturally elevates the intensity of the training and brings us together to push one another. I have currently just finished up my third and final week of training in Ottawa and will now be spending a few weeks at home with my husband in Collingwood.

Our training is pretty regimented; we have two training session per day which includes both cardio training and weight training and then weekends are off. It is also very important for us to do a lot of core strengthening and plyometric work.

This leads me into one of the common questions I get from people and it usually goes something like this, " so do you get time off now?" The answer there is definitely no! The nice thing about summer is that I do get to spend a little more time at home but I wouldn't call it time off. In the last month and a half I have been to Ottawa three times for 1-week blocks, spent a week in Whistler training and visiting family and friends and have had 2 weeks in my home in Collingwood. My time off will come 3 days prior to leaving for our ski camp on July 29^th. We get our real "time off" in April for about 3 weeks. In those three weeks I sleep like crazy and watch movies!!

Another common question I get asked to me is, "are you on a special diet and are you allowed to drink." Well that one is pretty simple, no we don't have special diets and yes we can have drinks. Obviously though we are smart about what we eat and when we eat certain things. After really hard training sessions in the gym and on snow it is important to get the right nutrition into your body to keep your energy levels up and to help with recovery. And then I usually tell people that we are in a cold sport where gravity is our friend – so bring on the desert!!

My final common question has been related to the Olympics. With 2010 just around the corner everybody wants to know if I am on the Olympic team, or they want to know when our trials are. In Alpine skiing every race we enter is different from the last. Our Olympic criteria is based on our results in World Cup events during the season of the Olympics and the team will be decided probably only weeks prior to the games. I am hoping to make the team but I need to be on my game and racing fast in the 09/10 ski season. Right now my main focus is to train hard, stay healthy and to try and win a World Championship Gold next ski season!  

So there you have it, I hope that helps clear things up a little and now you know a little more about the life of a ski racer.