.: Livigno

After another long travel day here in Europe I finally made it Erzurum, Trukey, site of the U23 World Championships next week. I was just in Livigno, Italy for a little high altitude training camp to adapt to the thin air and time change, which was organized by the CNEPH. I was with Raph Couturier, Knute Johnsgaard, Alexis Turgeon, and CNEPH staff Vincent Renart. Livigno’s a neat little town nestled in the Alps in northern Italy. Well, we weren’t actually staying right in the town, we were staying in a hotel in the middle of a mountain pass between Livigno and Bormio, Italy. We skied most days down in Livigno and for our two interval days we went down to Bormio to ski, which is a little bit lower in elevation. To put things in perspective, our hotel was at 2,200 meters, Livigno is at about 1,800 meters and Bormio is at about 1,200 meters. We were there for six days, then two days ago we drove back to Munich (about a 5 to 7 hour drive, depending on how lost you get) and took to plane to Erzurum, via Istanbul.

Now we’ve joined up with the rest of the Canadian World U23/Junior Team and today was our first chance to ski the race trails here in Erzurum. We’re still pretty high here though, our hotel is at 2,400 meters, and the race site is at 1,800 meters. The race trails are about a 40min drive from our hotel on the other side of the city from where we’re staying. I like the trails here, they have lots of long gradual climbing, not much flats though...Training is simmering down now, we aren't skiing as many hours as last week. This week is less and hours but with some hard intensities to get the body ready for the races next week. Should be fun.

Here’s a couple pictures from the past couple days: