We sent Tim a toque ...

In case Tim forgot what Downtown Nordic was about, we included some instructions ...

Drammen Sprints

The world cup made it's way to Norway this week with a classic sprint in the city of Drammen on Wednesday.

Here is a video of the women's and men's finals.  A couple of the men went with skate skis and double-poled the fairly hill course.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DGwGm8SZ24

Where did you ski this year?

Where did you ski this year?  I want to see if we can come up with a list of where all of the blog readerrs have skied this season.  I know we have readers from around the country and also around the world.  Tell me where you've skied this year in the comments section.

I'll start with my list and then just post any additional spots that you have skied.  Here goes (in order of when I skied them):

Windsor Park Nordic Centre, Winnipeg
Wildwood golf course, Winnipeg
Canmore Nordic Centre, Canmore, Alberta
Birch Ski area, near Roseisle, Manitoba
ABR trails, Ironwood Michigan

Green Acres Recreation area, near St. Paul, Minnesota
Trapp Family Lodge trails, Stowe, Vermont
Pinawa, Manitoba
City of Lakes Loppet trail, throughout Minneapolis, Minnesota
Birkie Trail, Wisconsin

Buena Vista trails, near Bemidji, Minnesota
Mount Evergreen trails, near Kenora, Ontario
Falcon Ridge trails, Falcon Lake, Manitoba
Burwalde Woods, near Winkler, Manitoba

OK People, now what additional areas did you ski ... I want to hear from everyone!

I'll make a new post with the entire list next Saturday.  Let's see if we can get to 50 ski areas for the readers of this blog.

You can enter a comment by selecting "Anonymous" from the drop down menu in the comments section.  If you want to type in your name as well, that's great, but no requirement there.

Where did you ski?

March 11th edit:
9 comments ... nice.  We're now up to 41 places we've skied this year!!  Keep 'em comin.  Here are the additional places so far:

Adam Lake
My Back 80 acres
Lappe (Thunder Bay)
Cantley, Quebec
Wapiti Nordic, Grande Prairie

Riding Mountain
Callahan Valley, BC
Peter Lougheed Provincial Park (Alberta)
Grand Beach
Bitersweet

Mantario (lakes, to the cabin)
Assiniboine Park
Lasalle River
Parents back 40 in Glen Robertson Ontario
Birds hill park

Trans Canada trail from Falcon Lake, and all around Betula Lake area

My back 0.00057392acres

Mount MacIntyre, Whitehorse Yukon

Camp Arnes, MB
Camp Morton Prov. Park, MB

Lake Winnipeg
My back lane (downtown)

Banff townsite trails
Chateau Lake Louise trails
West Hawk Lake trails

Kincaid Park, Anchorage, Alaska
Churchill Parkway, Winnipeg

Another Video

This is a great all-around video, but the thing you need to check out is the few seconds of Devon Kershaw training for double-poling in the gym at 1:13.

Welcome to Downtown Nordic's summer training program :)

Riding Mountain Loppet

Downtown Nordic leading at the Riding Mountain Loppet last Saturday:

"No, you lead.", "No that's OK, you can lead", "No, No, you're doing a great job leading" ....

Johan Olsson wishes he was as good as me:

Downtown Nordic ... dominating a trail near you :)

Turtle Mountain Provincial Park

You don't need to head too far west to get some mountains .... check out the trails at Turtle Mountain Provincial Park:

A message from our Southwest Manitoba correspondent:

These are the Lake Adam trails in the Turtle Mountains; 40km of groomed trails. 6km from the trailhead there is James Lake Cabin which is free to stay in but must be reserved through the Boissevain Natural Resources/conservation office (sleeps 12) the best hills are on the trails beyond the cabin. 

Tim 3rd at the Saskaloppet

In case you missed it ... Coach Tim finished third in the 55KM event at the Saskaloppet in La Ronge!  (I like the name -- will the Whiteshell Club consider renaming their event the 'Manitoloppet'??)

It was a close battle and unfortunately Tim succumbed to the dreaded "bonk" near the end of the race.  Luckily, we had someone video tape his dramatic finish and collapse so we could post it here for your enjoyment.

Tim is the one in the red toque and with the ponytail sticking out the back.

Congrats Tim!

Johan Olsson

Johan Olsson skied one of the greatest 50K classic races of all time yesterday at the World Championships.  He broke away early in the race and managed to hold on for the win.  (photo courtesy of fasterksier.com)

The closing minutes are captured here:

http://youtu.be/Ugno3OAcK8g

He also has perhaps the best skate technique of anyone in the world.  Check out the slow motion of his skiing 40 seconds in on this video.

http://youtu.be/1prVVPHkxEY

Downtown Nordic is currently in talks to sign Johan Olsson up for our club.  We just have to finalize how much he will pay us.

Using your hips to initiate power in skiing

We'll talk a bit about this at Tuesday's practice.  If you carefully watch his hips ... you'll see that they start the motion in both the power phase and the recovery phase ... remember the whip analogy
.

Ken In Tights

All season long, Coach Tim and I have been threatening to cut Ken from the club ... that he wasn't trying hard enough and that he was on the bubble of being cut (hence the nickanme Bubble Boy).

On Staurday, Ken achieved his season long goal of racing the Sleeping Giant Loppet in Thunder Bay.  Nice work Ken!

Shannondale

Theses pictures are from last week's Shannondale Fun Day (courtesy of club member Steve Biggs).  Shannondale is located just west of Morden.  It's a fabulous set of trails (with some good size hills).  Perhaps condiser trying out the trails before this winter is over.

Dave Lumgair, the guy that runs the place, is a ball of positive energy.  The last time I saw him, I said "great day for a ski" and he replied with a big smile "it's always a great day for a ski!".  That is my kind of guy.