October 25, 2011 - Park City and Whistler Update

Peri and I trained it up during a sweet altitude camp. Many a three hour climb was enjoyed on rollerskis and on foot and our team was joined by the Quebec training center crew and Louis Bouchard which is always a great addition.

Two of the most fun guys to ever ski... Babs and Lenny.

A nice surprise from coach DeNys

When not playing the guitar and singing tons of Ray Lamontagne, M. Ward and Fleet Foxes, Kershaw has been blazing it up this fall and looking good in his custom Oakley world champ glasses.

After a laundry stop week at home the team was off again, this time to Whistler, BC for low-altitude training. With the generous and much appreciated support of CCC and our sport psychologist Sharleen Hoar, a Women's Retreat was made possible. The World Cup team (Peri and I), Development team (Alysson Marshall and Emily Nishikawa), and Callaghan Valley Training Center (Olivia Bouffard-Nesbitt, Kajsa Heyes, Adrienne Underhill, and Michaela Howie) got together to spend some time pre-camp working together on creating a World Leading Women's Team and supporting each other to be our best. It was really cool.

Sharleen Hoar challenged us to be our best and let us all stay at her
awesome cabin in Whistler.

Hitting up yoga and lunch at the incredible Aura restaurant in the
health oasis of Nita Lake Lodge was a fun highlight.

The chef came out to describe each incredible dish. Salmon cooked sous-vide to perfection with fennel pollen and Turkish olive oil, among other unreal dishes were much enjoyed by us. Alysson Marshall describes the experience well in her blog here.

And now what? After all this great training with awesome people in fabulous places, it's time to hit the start lines world wide. Nov 1 I leave for Sweden where my first race will be a Scando cup on Nov 10. My first World Cup race of the season will be Nov 25th in Kuusamo, Finland and I'm already planning my training to be my best for the three skate sprint world cups in December... Germany, Switzerland and Rogla will be my best pre-Christmas chances for good results and I'm fired up to put all the hard summer training to work and hit the road with the World Cup Team.

Thanks for checking in and please keep an eye on me on twitter where I'm @chandracrawford and updating all the time on the happenings of ski life.

Thank you to my family, friends and major sponsors Cross Country Canada, Best Buy, Birch Hill Equity, Cold-FX and Agnico Eagle for making my ski career possible.

See you on the trails,

Chandra