.: Ski XCOttawa.ca :: Skiing in Ottawa and Gatineau Park

Perrianne Jones - The Making of a Champion: Headed to the Haig
By:  Perrianne Jones   (2006/07/14)

RSS
Perrianne Jones is a member of the National Ski Team, originally from Almonte and currently training in Canmore. In this series of articles she shares some insight into her life for Fresh Air Experience. Reprinted here with permission.

Headed to the Haig In just a few short days my teammates and I will pack up our skis, sleeping bags and swimsuits to go to one of our favourite training locations: the Haig Glacier.

The Haig is not far from our home in Canmore and conveniently all of our gear gets flown into the camp in a helicopter. (It's about a 15 minute flight from the Canmore heliport). We drive up into Kananaskis country to a trailhead where we run about 23km along a scenic trail and arrive at what is now called the Beckie Scott High Altitude Training Centre.

Once at our base camp we settle into what will be or new home for the next week. The accommodations are quite luxurious considering their location. There are three glacier buildings (huts). A kitchen/dining room/ common room, a sleeping dorm, and a small hut for the coaches and glacier staff.

To give you a better idea I will outline what a day looks like for me on the glacier:

 

6:30 am Wake up and use the facilities (burning toilets…this way they don't have to fly any waste out)
6:45 Eat breakfast consisting of oatmeal, boiled eggs, fruit salad, yogurt… I heard our coach say they ordered 30 dozen eggs for our camp, that sounds like a lot of eggs to me!!
7:15 Start hiking up to the glacier (where the snow is and we ski!)
8:30 Ski for a few hours on a freshly groomed 4km loop courtesy of the "glacier dude" (Haig staff)
11:00 Drink some recovery drink, maybe eat another boiled egg and start hiking/boot skiing down to camp
11:45 Go for a chilly recovery soak in the creek (this creek is being fed by the glacier and is extremely cold)
12:30 Lunch Time! Sandwiches, soup…and boiled eggs?
2-4:00 Nap Time…zzzzzzz
4:30 Workout #2, usually a short run and some core strength
6:00 Dinner
7:00 Dishes, and time to watch the Tour De France…on the satellite tv (I told you it was luxurious)
9:00 Brush teeth and pack it in, ready to start up again tomorrow.

That's all for now, I'll let you know how it was in a few weeks.

Haig Glacier

Previous articles in this series...

 
Interesting Reading. . .
Interested in supporting XC Ottawa or advertising on our site? Email: info@xcottawa.ca.
© Copyright 2001-2006, www.xcottawa.ca. All Rights Reserved. Contact us before re-publishing anything seen here.