Sleep, eat &
train in Europe
I am writing this from my hotel in Ramsau Am Dachstein,
Austria. I am here with the rest of the junior and U23 team who have qualified
for Worlds in Liberec, Czech Republic.
The last few days have being quite exciting but also very
different since it is my first time in Europe. For a cross-country skier, while we are
preparing for a competition, there are 3 very important things we think about:
Sleep, food, and training. During the last few years of training I have gotten
into a routine that revolves around those aspects. It seems though that coming to Europe has
completely thrown me off my regular routine and the adjustment is not as easy
as you would think.
Sleep. It all started with an 8 hour flight from Toronto to
Munich, Germany. It was the longest flight I had ever been on and honestly I
was a bit excited about the free food and movies. The flight departed at around 6 so I had been
told to try to sleep as much as possible on the flight because when we arrived
in Munich we would not be allowed to sleep until 8 that night (Austrian time
which is 6 hours later). I was already pretty tired so I didn’t think this
would be a problem. So after keeping myself awake until the free food came by,
which consisted of chicken and “couscous” that looked more like fish eggs, I
dozed off. Unfortunately my eyes did not
stay closed for very long and by the time we arrived in Munich I had about only
2 hours of sleep. Keeping my eyes open for the rest of the day was, let’s just
say, a bit of a challenge. Luckily our
beautiful ski in Ramsau helped take our mind off our sleep deprivation!
Skiing in Ramsau
Food. We are eating
at our hotel and I am not going to say that the food is bad, I will just say
that it is... different. I soon discovered that their favorite flavors are
butter and salt, and lots of it! I have yet to search the amount of people in
Austria with clogged arteries but my guess is that there are a lot! I have nothing negative to say about the
breakfast except that I find it a bit odd that they serve fresh vegetables,
meat and cheese. Other than at breakfast, it is very rare to have fresh fruit
and veggies. Most of the vegetables are pickled.
Training. The skiing here is amazing! We can ski right from
our hotel and the trails are always perfectly groomed. It has snowed a lot
since we got here but for some reason there are still tractors spreading snow
on the trails- what service! Unfortunately,
the mix of lack of sleep and altitude (about 1100m) definitely has an impact on
my energy level! If you’re planning to come to Europe to train anytime soon,
here is a little tip: ski really really slowly.
The whole Canadian U23 and junior girls team at the world cup stadium in Ramsau
Thanks for reading J
Katherine
