Masters Training – Canada

• 15 January 2011
• Catherine Bibbey

In early December 2010 I traveled with the family to Sun Peaks in Canada (http://www.sunpeaksresort.com/) for an early ski holiday. My oldest son was working as a ski instructor at Sun Peaks so a trip to Sun Peaks offered the opportunity of seeing him (his first time alone overseas), having a family ski holiday and getting in a bit of ski training. I had been told in March 2010 about 5 day race camps that were run for masters at Sun Peaks early in the season. In June 2010 I made enquiries with Sun Peaks and they forwarded me information on these camps, the relevant website ishttp://web.me.com/gearup3/Gear_Up_Masters_Ski_Race_Camps/Home_Page.html. The contact person is Jim Gear (j.gear@rogers.com) and he is very approachable and friendly. The rates for each camp was CAN$410 plus taxes (NZD634) and this looked pretty reasonable when you looked at what you got. 

This year I am told it will be C475 plus tax.  The plan is that the first camp from Monday Nov. 28 to Friday Dec. 2 and a second camp from Monday Dec. 5 to Friday Dec. 9.  The second camp will run concurrently with a camp for younger racers age 7 - 14.  They will be separate camps with separate coaches but parents will be responsible for their children for the evening hours.  Participants can attend the second camp without having any children involved in the camp

Last year in the first camp there were only 5 in the group and our coach was Edith Rozsa who spent 7 years in the Canadian team and competed on the World Cup circuit. Can you get any better than that? As well as being a great coach Edith turned out to be an all round nice person. In the second week there were more people doing the camps and we had two coaches Edith and Anne Marie Le Francois another ex world cup racer, great coach and all round nice person.

While the snow in some parts of Sun Peaks was a wee bit sparse, being the beginning of the season, the snow (on the dedicated race hill there “OSV”) was in great condition (better than you ever get in New Zealand in peak season actually).  Some of the great condition was attributed to the fact that the Austrians had been training there in November and I understand that the base had been injected etc. Whatever they did it was good – not a rock or a real rut (as we know them) in sight.

In the race hill we trained on (OSV) there were 3 lanes which we usually had booked for the early or late morning session. The race hill was closed to the general public when people were training on it (and clearly marked as being closed).  The access lift was run at 8 o’clock so that people training could get up to the race hill.  If you missed the 8 o’clock start you had to wait until 8.30 to get up another lift which provided access to the race hill. On some days the access lift ran earlier. Usually I made that lift.  One day I made the lift but had a bit of first tracks powder skiing as my warm up (told the group I slept in!).

I won’t bore you here with the structure of the camp as if you go to the website the structure of the camp is pretty well set out as are the coaches’ qualifications. What I can say is that the practise courses that we had, particularly at the end of the week, were pretty substantial well set courses.  In fact the practise slalom and GS courses were longer than most courses we normally race on in New Zealand.   In addition, there was a lot of emphasis on videoing you in your training. At the end of training every day, and this training normally finished about 1.30, you had time to grab a bite, get yourself organised and go to the Calhity Lodge where the group that you were in sat round and watched the video of that day’s training. Each person had time to discuss their video with the relevant coach. Having only seen myself on small snippets of video in the past I found this extremely useful.

Never having been in a race camp before I found the 5 days gave you time to really focus on what you were trying to work on and see yourself improve.  Usually when you have one day training here and there, you get something different proposed each day to work on. I found it particularly useful having the same coach and one or two things to focus on and actually watching the progression through the week. I would like to think that at the end of the 2 weeks I had made some progress and comparing the video analysis from when I started to when I finished it was obvious I had progressed.

I do not think you would have wanted the training in each day to be any longer than it was.  8am to 1.30pm on the snow was a good amount of time.  In my view we had as much gate training as we could safely cope with.  Video usually went from 2-3pm.  In addition we all enjoyed a group morning tea session and cinnamon bun (often shared as they are famous and huge in the Sunburst Café at Sun Peaks).  You certainly got to the stage at the end of each week where you were doing these full length GS courses in the training and they were hard work. After maybe 6 runs down the course you could see why even the top athletes limit the runs they do through full courses in their training. In this regard I note we did have a talk on one day from one of the young woman in the Canadian team (daughter of one of the coach’s assistants) about how she structured her training which I found particularly interesting.

There was plenty of opportunity to socialise with the group at night and the one organised dinner on the Thursday night was a lot of fun.

Because I was there for the 2 weeks I did two lots of the course which was good for the fitness. I must admit, however, I was pretty weary by the end though and if I had been offered another day of ski training after the last day, another course the next week or even a run through that monster GS course one last time I would have declined.  When you get to that stage you really feel like you have got value for money and got something out of it.

Another good thing about the course was in each group there is usually one or two very experienced masters skiers (actually highly qualified instructors as well) who help the coach and as well as being great company they are good to watch (in terms of getting it right) and also helpful in their comments and feedback to you. Their role is to help the coach and learn a bit themselves.  Everyone chips in and helps with the course setting up and taking down but this was not arduous or difficult.

The weather during the 2 week period was pretty good. We had days where the light was very bad but given the race course slope (OSV) has got large trees on it either side the visibility was never so bad that you couldn’t train. A couple of days with the slalom training the video analysis wasn’t that great because you couldn’t see that much however in the course you could always see 3-4 gates in front of you. The terrain was also pretty predictable and there were no unexpected lumps in the snow to worry about. The coaches were pretty particular about slipping the courses and everyone does their fair share of slipping so we never had any ruts of any significance.   This is also helped by the good grooming and  snow quality.

There was also another group of masters training there with a French Canadian coach and they seemed to be having a pretty good time as well.

Even without the masters training Sun Peaks is a very easy place to ski with ski in ski out and everything you need in the village (outdoor heated swimming pool, ice rink, bars, restaurants, shops, bottle store and mini supermarket).  The Cahilty Lodge which is ski in ski out apartments/hotel accommodation in the centre of Sun Peaks village offers amazing rates to the masters skiers both in relation to early season training and the training before the Nationals (as it is in the low season for them)http://www.cahiltylodge.com/.  Most of the masters stay there so it is pretty social as well.  As I said that is where we meet to watch our videos.  There is also a ski tuning area in the hotel.

In addition there was always the travel agency that is a sponsor of New Zealand masters (http://www.divefishsnow.co.nz) which deals with the Cahilty, gets good rates for lift tickets as well (I think) and can arrange airfares and transportation.

If you do go to Sun Peaks it is not the place that you need a car because there is a shuttle from the airport to the ski field (about 3/4th hour’s drive) and once you are in the village everything is there.  There is a shuttle that runs through the village but I don’t think this starts until mid-December.

For more information look at the gear up website, email Jim or contact me atc.e.bibbey@xtra.co.nz.