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

Perianne Jones - The Making of a Champion: No Pain, No Gain
By:  Perianne Jones   (2006/10/28)

RSS
Perrianne Jones is a member of the National Ski Team. Peri is from Almonte and grew up skiing with the various local ski clubs. She is now living in Canmore (AB) where she shares a house with Olympic Gold medalist Chandra Crawford. They should be a deadly duo at Vancouver in 2010.

In this series of articles she shares some insight into her life for the Ottawa ski community on the Fresh Air Experience website, and reprinted here with permission.

We arrived back in Canmore from the sunny south a few days ago, and things have hardly been what I would call relaxing. After a long travel day (and night) I flopped into my bed at 2 am and finally got some rest. The last few days have been easy in terms of training, but there are lots of other things to be done, laundry, housekeeping and general catching up on things that have been deserted for the last month.
Today we did one of my favourite/least favourite workouts of all time: 5x1min ski striding up a hill all out. For your benefit I’ll elaborate a little on this one…

Why we do it: Doing short hard intensity after hard training produces a testosterone spike in the blood, and helps speed up the recovery process.

Why I hate it: The first time I did this workout I was on the junior team, and couldn’t finish it, my teammate lost his breakfast, and all in all it was a pretty miserable experience. Basically my brain associates this workout with a lot of pain and suffering.

Why I love it: I am an athlete after all, and as a rule most of us love a challenge. The feeling of accomplishment after the last interval is fantastic, and it’s never as bad as I think it’s going to be.

So if you feel inclined try this out. Scope out a steep minute long section on penguin (or another hill) but penguin is one of my favourites. Do 5x1min ski striding, taking 5 minutes or so in between, and have fun!

Embrace the Challenge!

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.