Ski Trivia Recap

 Hey Team, 

Thanks so much to everyone who was able to attend the ski trivia night! 

In addition to some trivia questions, we also watched some videos to talk about tactics (mostly in sprint heats), and technique.

If anyone is interested in watching the videos on their own, here are the links: 

This race is at Lillehammer, which has a great hill for watching striding and transitions. Specifically, we looked at the clip from 17:10 to 17:20. This clip shows Parmakoski's striding technique, as well as Bjoergen and Diggins. Who do you think has the best striding technique?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjAcuH-WxF4&ab_channel=SkiingGuy

The clip below is from the Seefeld Team Sprints in 2019. This is a great video to watch to talk about tactics. We specifically watched the last leg of the men's sprint from 55:15 to 57:45. Pay close attention to the top of the hill! I recommend pausing the video whenever a tactical move is made - Why did that skier choose to do that? What do you think the result will be? What would you do in this situation?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eH6HEgyyurU&ab_channel=SkiingGuy

This video is from the Quebec sprints in 2019. The course is pretty long, especially for the women (1.6km), and so it is interesting to watch the tactical decisions made! On the sprint day, it was pretty warm out (above zero), and the snow was quite soft. Knowing this, how would you approach the heats?

We watched the first two women's heats, and the first heat of the men as well. Again, try to make predictions about the result of skier's tactical decisions! For technique, watch the sprint to the finish between Caldwell and Parmakoski at the end of the 2nd women's quarter final. What does Caldwell do differently? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ou_HbTIxV6g&ab_channel=SkiingGuy

Watching ski videos, especially sprint heats and mass starts, is a great way to learn more about racing tactically. Remember that race tactics can be very individual, so yours may not be the same as your teammates! Try and take into account your skiing style - what are your stronger techniques? do you excel at uphills or downhills? do you prefer sprints or distance? All of this will play into how you race your race. 

If anyone has any questions about the videos, race tactics, or anything else, let me know! I am happy to go over any of those things, or to give a recap of the session.

Happy Skiing!

Coach Madi

New Year, New Update!

 Hey Team! 

I hope that everyone enjoyed some time off over the holidays, and that the New Year is going well so far! 

Given that unfortunately we are unable to meet as a team in-person, I thought we could continue with some more online sessions. These sessions will be more game-based and interactive to change things up a bit! 

Our first virtual get-together of the new year will be this Sunday, February 21st at 4pm. Come prepared to answer some ski-related trivia!

Here is the meeting link: https://meet.google.com/onn-iyvt-tqc

We will be using Kahoot for the trivia for those who are familiar! 

Happy Family Day Everyone!

Nutrition Workshop Follow-up

 Hi Team, 

I hope that those who were able to attend the nutrition workshop found it beneficial! For anyone who would like to review or who was not able to attend, here is the link: https://georgiancollege.webex.com/recordingservice/sites/georgiancollege/recording/898e7e09fde745549a14dc5f8a94ef1a/playback

It may prompt for a password, which is: zK83yg5j

If anyone has any problems accessing the presentation, or any questions, please let me know.

Hope you're all enjoying the colder, snowier weather!

Nutrition Workshop November 28th

 Hi Team, 

Just a reminder that our nutrition workshop is tomorrow at 1pm! Please try to sign in a few minutes before 1pm so that we can get started on time. Here is the link:

https://georgiancollege.webex.com/webappng/sites/georgiancollege/meeting/download/e7a3c834e13d29e9c27b0f2b12d0ee49

For those who are not able to attend, a recorded version of the presentation will be available afterwards. 

Looking forward to seeing you all tomorrow!

Team Update and Upcoming Workshop

Hi Team!

I hope that everyone has had a great November so far, and has been enjoying the balmy weather! Here are a couple of updates for the next while:

1) Winter Camp: we have our fingers crossed that we will be able to hold a Winter Camp in December, likely on the same day as the Yuletide Blast (to be scheduled), if it runs. As with the Fall Camp, we will send out a plan in the next couple weeks, and continue to send out updates about COVID cases and public health guidelines concerning the camp. 

2) Jackets! Don't worry, we haven't forgotten about the jackets. We are hoping to be able to distribute them at the next camp (Winter Camp). If the camp doesn't run, we will find an alternative method of distributing the jackets - either way, we promise you'll get your jacket!

3) Exciting news! In planning for the last couple workshops, several athletes indicated that they would be interested in a presentation about nutrition. Our next virtual workshop will be on Saturday, November 28th at 1pm. We will have a guest speaker: Greg Eskedjian, a nutritionist from Mind to Muscle in Barrie. If you have any questions or comments about nutrition that you would like to hear about, please send me an email so that Greg can address it in his presentation! Coaches and parents you are welcome to submit questions as well, and to attend the workshop!

Zoom information will be posted closer to the presentation date.

Stay safe and healthy everyone, and see you on the 28th!

Coach Madi

SOD Virtual Workshop #2

 Hi Team, 

Thanks so much for everyone who came out to the virtual workshop today! I hope that everyone had a great Thanksgiving/long weekend as well. 

Here is a link to the slides from today: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/14ey8Gi_4Kk-YzZWSISHyg0b1PfHgeH-o?usp=sharing

We covered some race strategies and race plans, as well as a teensy bit of nutrition (more to come at future camps!). If anyone has questions, please feel free to shoot me an email and I'll do my best to answer! 

Information from Online Workshop and Photo Contest!

 Hey Team, 

I apologize for the delay in posting this - it's been a crazy week so far! 

Here is the link for the slides from Sunday's workshop: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yuR1k8YXBYM1ZIRitQpCsbPHKytekQrV/view?usp=sharing

- My reading notes (more or less what I was saying) are at the bottom of each slide in the 'notes' section. If you have any questions feel free to send me an email and I can give you a refresher! 

Here is the link to the yoga that we went through afterwards as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eC_KukvZ_Co&ab_channel=BohoBeautiful

For those interested, the channel is called BohoBeautiful, and the woman who runs it has tons of great (and short) yoga videos for all sorts of different imbalances or inflexibilities. I have used the video for tight hips (the one we did on Sunday) frequently in the past - it's a great way to stretch out your hip flexors, especially since a lot of skiers tend to be really tight in that area.

As well, here are the results from the photo contest! Thank you so much to everyone who submitted, it was great to see the ingenuity and adventure that went into finding new sports and making new practice areas during the pandemic.

Here are the top 3 submissions: 

Throughout the pandemic, tracks have been closed - but that was no obstacle for Erik! He and his dad cut a 400m track into their hayfield so that Erik could still keep up his running - great ingenuity!

In order to keep things interesting during the pandemic, Adeline found a new sport - track cycling. What a cool thing to have the opportunity to try - and look like a pro while doing it!

Thomas gave a great submission for two of the contest categories - a new sport and with a pet! This new game 'spike ball' look super fun...it may even make an appearance at our camps in the future!

____________________________________________________________________________________

We will continue to monitor the situation with COVID cases and send out updates for the fall camp accordingly. In the meantime, please feel free to email either myself or Scott with any questions!

Coach Madi