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Wednesday, January 30, 2008  

Tues. 29th January, More from the Cold Zone

COLD ...we in NZ do not understand the concept behind this word; at minus 20 yesterday the team lasted about 20 minutes of training only. As Antoine said, races are usually cancelled at this temperature, but now we have all experienced what this feels like, we understand a bit more about the word COLD. There were many layers and head and face warmers, and of course Mittens, but still the chill creeps in after a while, especially as you work up a little sweat. It is with great thanks to Peter Soundy from Peak Projects that we are all managing at all in the cold as the puffer jackets he gave the team have been a god send. Thanks Pete!

Anyway today, it is positively warm in comparison as I left the house at minus 14 in a light snow storm... not the large fun fluffy stuff we seem to see in Wanaka, but tiny annoying bits that feel like grains of sand hitting your face. Consequently, we can see no sun today so we may review our training plan to a trip to town and the post instead.



On days like this, the cafes here in the village just fill up to bursting as there is not much activity going on in the snow for folk, and here at 'Bean To Cup' I am sampling the most delicious hot chocolate i have ever tasted..its like liquid chocolate, but you need the extra zing 'cos of the cold. Despite the chill, the team still headed out last night for a game of 'Shinny' at the pond [that is Ice Hockey, and they have really taken to it; they work up so much warmth, they lasted a good hour down there last night so are getting great fitness]. This actually corresponds to the large amounts of food they digest, as frequently we make enough food to feed 20, even tho' there are only 13 of us; thank goodness for bulk buying here at the superstores. Cereal comes in 2 kg boxes and tortilla chips bags are as big as a 3 kg sack of spuds!! Its great to see them all happy, fit and well tho' so it is money well spent.



I leave you with todays thought from the walls of the cafe...

"We can not direct the wind, but we can adjust our sails". Anon.

posted by Nordic NZ  # 5:07 AM

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Tuesday, January 29, 2008  

24th to 28th Silver Star and surrounding nordic areas

Hi again from the chilly north....outside temperature at 8 am today read -21.4, we are going to dress warm and not do much outside today!! Even the locals say this is a little chilly for this time of year and Katie reports hearing the weather of the cold Arctic Winds blowing our way for the next few days. Amazingly it is still sunny and clear skies, with the odd snow flurry as we drive about.





Saturday we headed for Telemark nordic area past Kelowna, for the BC cup skate sprints and we managed some podium places, Mark in 3rd for Junior Boys and Samantha, in 2nd for Junior girls, again for details go to the http://www.zone4.ca.

Yesterday we travelled north by 2 hours to the Overlander club to ski a Loppet at Skate Lake, weather was sunny and a light -8 , with the odd flurry later in the day. Most of us did the minumum 10 km, even Me on Classic, and the hard outs went for 30 and 50km!! Guess who, Anna at 30 and Mark and Antoine did 50!! Fantastic effort too with placings in the top 5, see Overlander CLub for results, not out yet, check later tonight. Antoine showed us what it is like to 'hit the wall' as an athlete as he said he had to stop at 40 kms for 10 mins and couldn't even think straight! Boy did he look pale when he arrived in too. So today is a quiet day and tomorrow night we will have a training session with the Silver Star club juniors. Later in the week some are going to take in a hockey game in Vernon and we are planning a trip to Slmon Arm club too, if we can.

Tomorrow, we celebrate Mark's birthday here too, so there is a bit of fun in store.

Thats all for now, touch base in a few days.

Smiles from the cold, Liz.

posted by Nordic NZ  # 8:28 AM

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Friday, January 25, 2008  

22nd to 23rd Jan at Silverstar Resort, BC

We are all finally relaxing into our new lodging, with star features being the hot tub on the deck and the ski trail passing our back door!!

The team did a good work out yesterday with classic training down on the Silver star trails, preceeded by a friendly inter-team night game of ice hockey on The Pond, which is literally 500 m from our house. It is a lovely little area where you can ice skate and play hockey and go Night Tubing, just amazing! 

Jeni and I took the Meadow trail and did a 4 km ski to catch glimpes of some local wildlife, so far just a little chip munk we think, altho word out in the local news is that just up the road a black bear came out for a visit about 3 days before our arrival! Apparently he woke up early in the season so we dont want to see him again thanks! Also forgot to mention in Whistler, at the Body Shop in town, a little Bob Cat strolled in for a visit there too... enough of animals, and back to the team.

Wed. night was also a chance for some of the team, including John Hogg, to join Nat Anglam and Ben Falconer for a quick fun race down the road a bit, at the Sovereign Lake trails, bringing home a bag of sweets and a bit of wax as their prize. Apparently their attendance doubled the numbers attending so it was a very low key thing altho the trail circuit was challenging enough. We have yet to visit there in daylight as it is about 3 km down the hill from this village and we didn't realise there were so many trails right here at the village. Thursday and Friday will be prep training days for races at the Telemark Field which is the trails closest to Kelowna, and more in the BC cup series so watch this space!

I leave you all with this quote on the wall above me here at the internet cafe and wish you all well and thanks, Liz Conroy

..."Live a Good Life, and in the end, it's not the years in the life, it's the life in the years" Abraham Lincoln.

posted by Nordic NZ  # 8:34 AM

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Monday, January 21, 2008  

Monday 21st Travel to Silverstar via Lilloet and Cache Creek

Departed early from whistler for 9 am start to a crisp sunny day, travelling north on a smaller winding mountain pass road with the most amazing scenery.



Thought road would be just a bit snowy with sand on top, which it was but was a bit surprised to see road signs for 2/3 of that bit of road saying 'Avalanche area - no stopping'. Not much traffic on that road and after Cache Creek we headed for Kamloops and the big highway 1 for a short while then turned off to Vernon and arrived at Silverstar Resort in early evening with big full moon and lots of fun to be had as all found the hot spa waiting for us - with temp of -12 to chill us as they all took turns soaking, a hot dinner was made.

Everyone very well and in good spirits .... this little village is just so enchanting with all the bright Victorian style and paint finishes.

posted by Nordic NZ  # 9:54 AM

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Sunday, January 20, 2008  

Sunday 20th Callaghan Valley Olympic Park

Team have just raced last 2 days and coach is very pleased with them. Light snow and calm on Saturday and beautiful sunny and -6 only on Sunday; Saturday was a Classic Sprint and Katie and Sam both made it into B final races, today, it was Sarah and Samantha, Mark and Matt's turn to shine with placing in top ten for their Skate races.



For results go to www.zone4.ca and look at any of the BC cup #2 results. Catergories are as follows:
Katie and Sarah = Midget Girls
Anna = Juvenille Girls
Sam = Junior girls
Boys = Junior boys

posted by Nordic NZ  # 9:41 AM

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Sunday, January 13, 2008  

Week at Whistler 13th to 19th Jan 08

We are skiing as much as we can at the Olympic Park site at Callaghan Valley .. comments so far include "just amazing course and snow conditions", "love the skiing here", beautiful scenery to ski to...



You will all understand what we mean when you see the winter olympics here in 2 years time as now most of us have skied on parts of the olympic trails; I even headed off and did 1.5 of the Biathlon trial but there are many undulations and as you know hills are not my strong point [yet!]. I am to improve over the next few weeks though.



The team are all getting into a routine of skiing, playing and each pair of them, taking turns at cooking us a meal with delicous results. We are all well feed, and well shopped too!!



The team are good at hunting out bargins, here in Whistler and also in Vancouver [the girls favourite shop was called Skinny, where they all have anew wardrobe, Plus MEC for all our snow boots, and for the boys ...defintely 'Cows' in Whistler- a specialty icecream store where they have been known to have one treat and then go back to try another within half an hour!!]

posted by Nordic NZ  # 9:38 AM

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Friday, January 11, 2008  

ARRIVAL 11th & 12th January, 2008

Hi All, We arrived safe to Vancouver after our cosy 13 hour flight on Air New Zealand direct flight; the food was great and actually quite filling with good choices too. The new seating is surprisingly generous and the individual TV's gave lots of choices for the team to entertain them selves on the flight.

the team leaving Queenstown airport...


We had a nice stay at the tidy, altho cosily appointed rooms at the Ywca. The team just loved arriving in the airport, as did I with a tear in my eye too, to the beautiful airport building with lovely things to see along the way to the customs, we were going ok but had a delay with Matt and Andy in a que for a chinese flight so there was a hold up there and finally got out the other side to see smiling Antoine waiting for us all.

We loaded up the car and all the rest of us took of on the 40 min bus ride., thru lovely Vancouver. Folk are very nice and chatty here, Meet Yvonne who is kiwi that has house at Whislter to get the key, and she menetioned there is a land line at that house so will text it thru or email it tonight so you can ring us there all this week if you want.

We then sorted the cars and are getting a big twin cap ute with a big tray open boot to fit all the bas, on 4wd and also keeping the other 7 seater, so will look at getting chains.

Next was a trip to Sears Mall and the Food court where we ate a late lunch early dinner as it started going dark at 5 pm!! Fell happily into bed after 9pm and up with the birds today for our departure by land to Whislter via more shops at Squamish for supplies.

Smiles all round from the team, not too cold here yet at 9 degrees in Vancouver last evening, but heading for Whistler today with minus 4 on the board....

Bye for now, Liz and the Team

posted by Nordic NZ  # 5:54 PM

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Sunday, January 6, 2008  

Half marathon photos...

A few photos from our fund raiser half marathon at the Snow Farm on 3rd Jan. 2008... more>>

posted by Nordic NZ  # 4:13 PM

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Count down to Canada ... 1 week to go!

Well, it is getting seriously close to departure now, bags are
getting packed and snow reports checked. Last minute travel plans are
being tidied up and all the team are humming!! Antoine and Shawnda
have already departed our shores and are catching up on a little
'Aloha' sunshine, surf, and mountain climbing!!... while we bask in
the beautiful summer of the central lakes region.

It was near 30 degrees yesterday so we will remember this fact in a
weeks time as we head north into the mountains of Whistler with 40 cm
of snow and -17 degrees!!

Thanks to all our supporters for continuing to buy raffle tickets ,
phone us with paying jobs and generally get excited along with us.
You're just Great and we appreciate it!

Keep and eye out on the pages as we hope to keep an update of the
tour every couple of days when we can get wireless reception so watch
this space for more news.

Thanks, Liz Conroy, Team Manager, Jnr Nordic Development Team.

posted by Nordic NZ  # 10:16 AM

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