My week in review....

Who cares about my week??!!  Well for those of you who may be new to my blog, I care about my week and that is why I write here.  My musings may not be logical, the spelling may suck, but guess what I know what it is about and 2 months from now and 10 years from now it will make me smile, so there you have it! This blog might not make any sense and I love it!
This week was a combination of lazy and WOW!  I skipped my pool workout on Wednesday in favour of leaving my carcass in bed for an extra hour of sleep.  The beauty with my tiny little head is that I do not feel one little bit of goilt for doing that.  It is off season and I am base training, I do not need to obsess about every workout and the performance at this point.  I am not a pro, I am dong this for the health and for the fun of it.  In 3 months when the training is important, it will be a really tough day for me to miss a workout, so while I can do it I relax!! 
Then Thursday AM, I stayed in bed again.....Yeah, lazy dude!  Skipped my morning yoga practice in favour of staying wrapped in my coccon.  WOW it was nice! 
Thursday evening was go time!  No more being a slug!!  I went out to LULULEMON to lead a community run and to work with one of the girls that I am helping to train for a 30k race in the spring.  It was a great run.  We ran the first 5k at a normal to slow pace, then came the fun part.  We went from a 5:30'ish pace to a 4:30'ish pace for the last 3k.  Consider it a good warm up and then an opportunity to test yourself under  little bit of a load.  I love those kind of runs.  It was a tough one, a little snow on the ground amde the footing treacherous so I had to pay attention to every step.  When we sped up at the end, the girls were screaming for me to slow down.  But, human competitive nature is amazing.  The faster they ran to keep up, the faster I ran to get away from them.  For both of us it achieved a goal of a speed workout while keeping it real and fun.  Over the coming months I will increase the warm up distance as well as the speed on the back end.  It will ideally make all of us faster in the process.
Following the run was a great yoga session that I was able to lead.  As some of you know, I am a big believer in the benefits of yoga for athletes.  Last night I was able to deliver a workshop in yoga for runners and skiers.  It was a wondferful 1.5 hour interactive session of discussion and practice to learn what muscles we use, how we use them and how yoga helps us in our athletic development.  I was not certain how hte sessoin would go as most there were yogis and want to practice.  It went great!  It was an opportunity for me to share my passion for both the sports I play and hte practice I teach, as well as a time for athletes to learn how hte poses benefit them and how they can continue to use yoga as a training tool to enhance their performance all year around.
After an awesome week, come Friday. The best thing about Friday is that it is hte day before skiing!  It is supposed to be crazy cold this weekend, but that means the snow will be fast and the ability to fly will be great!  I hope you have had a great week and that you have plans for the weekend that will bring a smile to your face!!

This weeks ski tip:

If you watch a skier who looks out of control, notice where their skis are at teh end of the run??  they are 45 degress across the hill and they are skidding for dear life to try and slow themselves down at teh bottom of the arc.  Think about this?!  Try and skid a bit at the top of the arc before your skis are heading down the  hills and picking up speed.  As you flatten your ski at the end of the prior turn, and recenter your balance, you are now in a perfect position to control your speed.  Rather than rushing to try and get your skis turned around in the new direction, take a moment and relax.  Now, begin to slowly turn your skis so that you are skidding a bit at the top of the turn.  Imagine that you are sideslipping diagonally, this will help you establish a platform on your new edges slowly and in a balanced manner. As well it is helping to control your speed before your skis are heding in a downhill direction half way through the turn.. As a result, this allows you to move into the bottom part of the turn in a controlled manner and not have to skid for dear life to slow yourself down.  YOu may even find that you want to increase edge angle on the bottom part of the turn to build pressure and speed becaue you are in control of your skis instead of reacting to fear!
So, at the end of one turn you flatten the ski and rebalance yourself.  Establish a platform on your new edges and begin to sideslip diagonally to come to a speed that you feel confident that you can manage the rest of the run under control, then continue to turn until your skis are facing across the hill again and you are moving at a speed that makes you smile.  Skiing under control is what brings the adventure to a new high.  Try this and see if it works for you.  It is quite fun!
Happy skiing and dont forget a beer or two at the apres ski adventure!

Cheers!