Sunday, August 16th: Left home yesterday to fly to Santiago, Chile (through Toronto). We arrived in Santiago today and drove up to Valle Nevado where we'll be training for the next 2 weeks. I'm so excited!!
The drive up wasn't nearly as long as the one we had 2 years ago when we trained at Termas de Chillan, but the increase in elevation was substantial. We drove along a beautiful mountain road with switchback after switchback. First, we saw cacti - which is funny when you're going skiing. Then, we saw cactii with snow on their tops. Then we saw some hearty horses, just standing around knee deep in snow. Our bus driver put on some chains and we made it to the hotel at the bottom of the resort where we'll be staying. We are well above 3000 meters in altitude here and the sun is incredibly bright, and brighter still for reflecting off the snow. Now it's bedtime, but we're still waiting for all of our skis and luggage to arrive as they were on a different vehicle that, apparently, missed the cut off time for access up the mountain road. Still, everything looks great and we're all stoked to be here. Should be a great camp!!

July 7, 2009:
Today was the last day of our dryland (i.e.: "not on snow") camp in Whistler. We had some intense days filled with weight training, agility workouts, core workouts, long aerobic road rides in Pemberton, hill climbs around Whistler, interval training and even some yoga. It was extremely hot for nearly all the days we were up there so we nearly all fried out on our road bikes. But it was a good camp! I'm feeling really good and fit, with the exception of an ongoing S.I.J (sacro-iliac joint) injury. Now another 6 weeks of intense dryland before heading to our second on snow camp of the season (the first was back in May at Sunshine Village - my home hill) down in La Parva, Chile in mid-August. I can't wait!! Stay tuned for more updates!