A Day in the Mind of Rj pt2 - The Vision

Welcome back. Here again to try to turn some regular thoughts from my mind into words. I hope that if you are deciding to read this you can open your mind and read it full and through, and who knows, maybe by the end of it you'll have a different approach to something in your life. So lets get to it.

Lately the most common concepts running through my mind on a regular basis are "big picture" ideas. Beyond my athletic career, beyond my education, beyond my social circle, beyond everything I currently am associated with. I have always had this big picture vision of changing the world, I have always wanted to do something of worth to make the world a better place. Over the past few years I have truly recognized that making a real difference is something I am determined to do. What has thrown me off I realized is that throughout my life, when I told people that I wanted to change the world they have not taken me seriously. Whether it was a friend, family member, teacher, or whoever, people never really registered that I mean it. Over this past year I have learned a lot, enough to help me finally put the big vision into words and the beginning of a plan. It has been a huge step forward for me to finally be able to put some of my ideas from over the years into words.

The first concept I am very passionate about is channels - communication channels to be specific. I believe that communication is one of the most influential components of change. That can be for the better, or the worse. Throughout my life I have recognized this but almost refused to admit it. Because I wanted to make real change but my communication skills were very weak and I never had a voice of enough strength or value to really share my opinion or thoughts on the world. For so many years I felt pretty useless, my head was jam packed with ideas I wanted to share, goals, dreams, and morals I stood for. All due to my weakness in communication. But what I have realized over the past few years is that being strong with communication doesn't necessarily have anything to do with words. We as people have the ability to communicate through channels. For me, that channel is my skiing. When I first really committed to skiing it was purely because I enjoyed it and was curious to see where I could take it, and no matter what, loving sport and being passionate about it will be the core purpose. But over time it has evolved into far more than that. With my racing and training, I want my message to be displayed thought that. I want to take the ideas I want to represent and demonstrate them though my athletic career. I want to be a live demonstration that if there is something that people want to do, that it can be done. Regardless of their current situation or personal ability that if they put the work in they can be great. I want to show the underrated power of passion. To show how by chasing your passion you can change your life and the lives around you in a positive way. I want to make people recognize that they don't have to alongside societies definition of successful to build something great themselves. That you don't have to be the best at something to make that something worthwhile. I want people to see all of this in my work throughout my career, beyond just the physical and material value of sport. When I am out training and racing as hard as I can, this is what I want people to see.
A common expression I have been seeing people throwing around is, "Don't focus on anyone else, work on yourself" or something along the lines of that. This is a concept that I agree with, but I do not think people are delivering it or interpreting it in the correct way. A lot of people have taken the expression and built upon it as only doing things for themselves, only pursuing goals for themselves. I do not believe this is the way this mindset was meant to be interpreted. They idea of this is that if you have a goal or dream to fulfill that you need to take time to invest in yourself to achieve it, but it does not mean you have to do it for yourself. In fact I believe it is important to have others intertwined with your goals. To explain with example ... many people claim they need to only focus on themselves and cut everyone else out because they want to be rich and buy nice things vs. someone needs to focus on themselves and cut people out so they can be wealthy and support their family, peers and the less fortunate in the future. At the end of the day, both people are still rich, but one saw the opportunity in things beyond materialistic values. The clear difference is that yes, if you want to achieve something great you have to invest time in yourself, cut others out, give up certain parts of life - but that does not suggest that the end goal must be for yourself (and a very important point, the goal does not necessarily have to include money whatsoever, just a simple example). The misinterpretation of this mentality is one of the fundamental factors of the unfortunate expression and reality, "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer." I think it is very crucial that goals, big or small, involve more than just ourselves. Now I am not suggesting that you have to be completely selfless and only work for others, but if we can begin to use improvements within ourselves to help others around us, I really believe that we can make real positive change.
I have become very familiar with this concept as I have thought of my vision more and more. Because as much as my goals are individual, they are not just for me. I have an endless list of goals that I want to see fulfilled, from improving my writing, being more open minded, improving my skiing technique, getting fitter, winning medals, inspiring people, and changing the world as we see it in a positive way. The big difference being that I have goal I want to accomplish IN my ski career and IN my life, and I have thing I want to do WITH my ski career and WITH my life.

Now it is clear that at this point for me skiing is my focus, and I understand that it may be difficult to see how individual sport goals are for far beyond the individual athletes. So allow me to explain. My goals for my ski career are all over the map, super specific to extremely vague. But as soon as you put a label on someone, people around begin to associate you with what they think matches that label. For example every athlete knows the one of the classic questions, "do you want to go to the Olympics?" - of course, who doesn't want to go to the Olympics?! (for those who genuinely do not want to go to the Olympics, apologies, that is totally okay.). But my point is that people immediately label athletes with the Olympics as their goal. And the vast majority of people want to go but that is a heavy pressure on a lot of people who may just want to enjoy sport for what it is for the time being. This "goal labelling" can be applied to anything, say a kid loves to produce and make music and people start comparing them to some famous musicians/producers. Now while that kid may be inspired by those musicians, they may also just want to make music for the sake of making music, because they are passionate about it and the future of it is not relevant to them while they are comfortable in their element. And the people who associate certain labels with goals are not ill intended, they are simply associating things together in which they are familiar with. But this connection is on my list of goals to shift and change. People need to understand how deep the layers of passion are, far beyond any materialistic value.

I think a lot of this quick connecting the dots mentality comes from our education system. When I look at the education system we have made and look at my school experience, I see an extremely flawed process. And I believe it is extremely relevant to the issues I talk about and the other ones we see day to day. For myself, I found myself usually being the quiet kid at the back of the classroom daydreaming about other things in life, or questioning my worth in societies system. I had teachers tell me that with my work ethic that I would not accomplish anything of significance in my life, and whenever I questioned why things were the way they were I got a simple "because that's the way it is". When I got out of high school I thought it would be different, that I would enter a place where teachers and professors have a more opened mind, but throughout my first year of university is when I really realized that the system is so flawed. In my first year psych class we spent an entire lecture discussing how there are countless amounts of different kinds of thinkers between creative and analytic - and with that creative and analytic tests. We discussed in an entire other lecture about how a tiny fraction of creative thinkers can succeed on an analytic test. Discussing how creative thinkers are usually intelligent and analytic thinks are usually intelligent but are not necessarily creative. At the end of the unit the professor explained how the education system is terribly out of balance and how we have created an analytic testing system from elementary to high school to post secondary - and it only accommodates a fraction of students that go through it. And then how we lose an abundance of creativity through the years of schooling and sometimes even turn creative thinkers into straight analytic test thinkers. Then he simply reminded us of our 100 multiple choice test the following week and everyone in the class just walked out like nothing had happened. I was stunned, just trying to comprehend how the prof can literally study this data and then just talk about it and dismiss it as a simple list of facts to memorize. It is beyond me.

From how I see it, I think the largest gap in the system is how young people are taught. There is a huge underemphasis on passion in the education system. We are told to do well in school so we can get to university or college and get a job to work for the rest of our lives until we have a family, retire, and die. It seems like a really negative way to look at it but I believe it is an undeniable fact. And I feel like not a whole lot of people talk about it because most people are okay with it, which scares me. I know many people that are going to university not because they want to or know what they want to become, but because they are either pressured into it by their parents, or they are pressured into it because it is what most people do after high school. And a lot of times people who decide to take a few years off or just decide to not continue with post-secondary, are often given a subtly hard time about not going off to school. When really it takes more courage to veer away from the system than it is to simply go with it. I speak of this with a strong opinion because the more I reflect on my university experience, the biggest thing I learned is how the system is faulty and how lost people are (including myself) even though they are supposably "pursuing an education and a future". The forward progression is how we teach. I believe that teachers are the most powerful people on the planet. Throughout a teachers career they have the opportunity to talk and engage with hundreds of young creative minds, and are literally working with the future of the world. I believe in it enough that I changed my program and intertwined it with my big picture goals beyond skiing. It seems a little ironic to follow the system I don't really like for a few more years to change it down the road .. but that's what you have to do sometimes, it's all about progression. The mission of helping people find their passions and open their eyes to their potential.

As I skim over everything I have written I recognize that it may not make a whole lot of sense, I am still working on the whole making sense of what makes sense in my head... But to summarize the vision I have goes far beyond any individual goal any person can set for themselves. I was hesitant to write about my life vision but what I have realized is that if we don't share what we think we can bring to the world, people settle like they are now, people may have these massive visions but they just don't express or pursue it because everyone around them lays low and follows the stream. The way I see the very core of any dream is simply pure enjoyment for whatever the individuals passion is, whether it is skiing, hockey, basketball, running, biking, painting, playing guitar, singing, writing, exploring, or anything else. The core of my passion for skiing is that I love skiing and have so much fun with it. But simply loving to do something isn't enough to wakeup at 4a.m. to go rollerski in the rain, or to go train for hours in +30 or -30 degree weather. I along with any other serious athlete will tell you that from experience that is not fun or enjoyable. So there must be a bigger reason then purely just loving the sport. My vision is to represent an idea, to represent those who aren't as privileged to have the opportunity that I have, I find myself getting frustrated with my ongoing chronic pain injuries that I have had for the past 2.5 years - and it is frustrating - but there are people who would do anything to simply have a capable body and the support I have from my parents and peer group I have to do what I do. When I look at it like this I understand that there really are no excuses for not at least trying your best. I want to represent these people, the ones who wish they had the opportunity to do what I do, I want to represent the quest kid sitting in the back of the classroom wondering if he/she has a bigger purpose in life. I want to show people how a normal kid, from a normal family, from a normal neighbourhood, with normal kid problems can put in the work and become something phenomenal. I just want to show people that if you just go try your best, awesome things will happen. I don't know how else to explain it other than that I want to show people how much more meaningful life is when you live it with passion.

I think I am going to cut it there. There were a few more things I really wanted to write about but I don't want to get my concepts mixed up and I figure it may be getting slightly lengthy. In fact I think I may have already repeated the same things a few time within this blog - I hope you can make sense of it. Regardless if you made it this far thank you for reading. The fact that my view on the world means enough for you to take part of your day to read is humbling. As I have mentioned before, I am not trying to convert anyone to my ways of thinking, simply writing what comes through my mind and hoping others can keep theirs open to what I have to say. I hope you enjoyed.

Keep it real,
Rj

roll the clip

So the 2015/2016 season has come to a close. What a season. This year as a whole has undoubtably been my strongest, most consistent one yet. Full of accomplishments and big lessons that I know will help me in the years to come. 

The racing wrapped up with Nationals a week ago in Whitehorse. Nationals is probably one of my favourite events to compete at. Best part about Nationals is that it's the grand finally to the year, everyone is just throwing down as hard as they can, no one is focusing on races after it, or on a totally different plan for the week, there's no real exterior factors - just racing. I had a decent week of racing for myself, I can confidently say I gave every race 100% and more, and in some, the results came through as well. Kicking off the week strong with a 2nd place finish in the 10km classic gave me a really positive outlook going into the week. I have never had issues pushing beyond my limits in races, but what I have struggled with is pushing hard and holding my technique. In this race I think I made a big step in the right direction, my technique wasn't exactly dainty towards the second half of the race, but it was an improvement. Improving, one race at a time. 

The middle two skate race (15km skate interval start & 1.2km sprint) reminded me that although I have a long way with my skating, I still have worlds of work to do. I have improved my skate technique to the point where I am quite confident while skiing at a comfortable pace, but once I being to tire or rush it falls apart rapidly. Despite falling apart at the 4km mark of the 15km, I still managed to grit my way to a 6th place finish, which I was satisfied with. I was less than satisfied with my sprint, getting bumped out in the quarter finals was a bit of a letdown. But at the same time I learned I need to work on holding my speed better through technical sections, improve transferring power, and most importantly that the 2 minutes I spent racing that quarter final was a lot of fun. 

15km skate (photo: Jim Hawkings)

15km Skate (photo: Jim Hawkings) 

The week of Nationals wrapped up for me with the 30km classic mass start. Now although I do not tend to get upset over results, or let it get to me, I was pretty disappointed with 4th place. 4th is an extremely respectable position to earn at Nationals and I do believe I had a great race, but the 30km classic was a race that I genuinely had wanted to win since I was racing in the Juvenile Boy category. Especially this season I grew extremely hungry to cross the finish line first in this particular race, or at least earn myself a medal. I always make myself focus on effort and technical accomplishments before results, in training and competition, but this was the one race I allowed myself to solely focus on a result for. The race consisted of a 1km loop, followed by 4x7.5km loops (which I think may have been questionable longer than 7.5km, which is awesome). My race plan was to ski with the group for the first 7.5km loop, but once it was done go push the pace at the very start of the 2nd lap and try to make a break. The goal was either, Option 1: everyone calls my bluff and lets me go since we still had over 20km to go, or Option 2: everyone starts pushing the pace and it turns into a really tough 30km. It ended up being option 2 and it turned into an awesomely gutty race. Myself along with the others in the lead group continued to push the pace for the remainder of the race, then Antoine made an impressive steady push that we the simply could not match (see lap times and results for the race here http://zone4.ca/results.asp?ID=8169&cat=4082). I was bummed that I did not have the snap to keep the pace for 7 more kilometres, but I can make excuses until my hair grows grey and skin wrinkles, but at the end of the day it came time to perform and I just did not have it in me on that day. As disappointed as I was when I crossed the line without a medal, the day was not lost. A special shoutout to my teammate Kieran who had an amazing performance on that day. When I spoke with Kieran about my race plan the days leading up to the race, how I was going to try and break after the first lap, he simply responded to me, "I'm going with you." He decided that no matter how hard he had to go he was going to hang on the the leaders for absolutely as long as he could. And that's exactly what he did. By the time I crossed the line, took my skis off and turned around in the finishing pit I saw Kieran barreling down the finishing straight. Despite me being a baby and mopey about my race, this made me so happy. The guy finished 7th, which is stellar. Kieran is arguably one of the most underrated skiers in the country, trains a lot of quality hours and has also helped me become a better skier too. It was awesome to see a lot of handwork finally come together.

Team amped for each other

Out of the gate (photo: Jim Hawkings)

Top 4 group, final lap (photo: Jim Hawkings)

It was so awesome to see such a gutty performance lead to such an awesome result. There needs to be more of this in racing, not being afraid to absolutely wreck yourself. And when you do wreck yourself, you just keep going, never letting up. That is how you get better, in skiing, in any sport, in anything. What this day also taught me is the importance of a team, a true team. Had I been alone I probably would not have thought of the day as a success. But seeing the team have a sweet day was awesome. Another S/O to Finn who pulled off an epic 4th place in the super competitive Junior Boys category, despite breaking a pole. Being able to feed off of the teams success was amazing. And with that, Nationals was over, the season had come to an end.

I am now realizing is truly how awesome of an opportunity this whole process is. As I reflect on the season I am realizing how unique and cool it is, and how privileged I am. Like most people starting university, we question whether it is worth continuing something like skiing full-time (or any equivalent of sport, art, hobby, any kind of passion). Now seeing what I was able to do this year made it unbelievably clear how worthwhile it was. Getting to travel the country - the world, to ski. And just recognizing how much I enjoyed skiing as a whole, the racing, the training, the friends, family, everything. Awesome. I feel like I am already living the dream, but I know that it will only get better. 

The biggest lesson I learned all season, is how much I love racing. How much fun the whole thing is. There is something so exciting about the simplicity of having a start line, a course, and a finish line - and the fastest one to get there wins. The idea of fun really clicked this year. People tend to misunderstand fun as some sort of specific section of life, but fun is so many different things. For example I can guarantee that mid-race, when wheezing for air and everything hurts (a lot), it's not a whole lot of fun, mostly just painful. But when you cross the finish line knowing you did the best you can do, that's fun, it's incredibly fun. Do I take skiing seriously? Yes. Do I want to be great? Yes. Do I have a big vision I want to see fulfilled? Yes. ... But when you break all of those down - It's fun. Training is fun, having dreams is fun, being with friends is fun, racing is fun. Being the best you can possibly be - is fun. 

Looking back on the past year as a whole, it is difficult to single out a simple focus on just skiing. Most of the biggest lessons were through skiing, but for lack of a better explanation, a lot of life stuff happened. From my perspective, the season was one big battle between me and my mind. As I have explained in posts before, coming into the season I had no idea how things were going to play out. Alongside that I had a lot of people doubting me, some were convinced I was quitting skiing, and some people were just kind of mean and kicked me down in my social life which made getting started difficult. Although this shot me down an emotional rollercoaster in the fall and winter, it made me tougher than I have ever been before. Mentally, emotionally and physically. It pushed my threshold on how badly I wanted to be successful, in fact I almost quit a few times. But it all just made the vision so much clearer. If everything always goes your way there is no real way of telling whether you are doing something you truly love doing, but when exterior factors to your passion push and pull on you, but at the end of it your goals and vision are still kept close to you, that is how you know you are doing the right thing. I came here on a mission, I put the work in, and I proved a lot of people wrong. I didn't move to Ottawa because it made sense, or that it felt perfect, nor did going to school here grasp my attention that strongly. I took on the challenge for two reasons, one, I needed time to live away from home and learn life skill and take care of myself ... but most importantly I came here to represent an idea, the simple idea that if you want do something just to go out there and try and achieve it. That there are no secrets to fast skiing or great things in general. I trained alone all fall and winter, and spent my entire winter of training around a 1.5km flat groomed loop - alone as well. It sounds cliche, but don't let other people persuade or convince you of something you can't accomplish. If you want to try something, and you believe it can work, just try. Succeed or fail, by simply trying something makes you an infinite amount more successful than those who quit before they even took the first step. I often look back on my successes and try to imagine myself had they not gone well, if they had not worked out. And I make sure that I understand that I am proud of both. Proud of the core risk and effort I put in, regardless of outcome. 

Now... what's the next step? I feel like I have made my point, I proved that you can move away or whatever and with the support of the right few people and work ethic you can still be great. I hope that the idea I attempted to represent sinks in with at least a few people, and that they can create their own paths as well down the road. With that, my job here living in Ottawa is done. I am moving home for 2016/2017. The program at Team Hardwood is really coming together, and we have a lot of work to do. Time to go back to Barrie and get ready to crush it in my last year as a junior. I have never been so ready. It feels like we have come a long way with the team and myself, but we are just getting started. The past few years have simply been the trailer to this much anticipated movie. I hope you've enjoyed the trailer, but it's time to roll the clip. 

See you May 1st,

Rj 

The World Juniors Experience

I recently returned from my first World Junior Championships, what an experience. As I left off in my last blogpost, the team was in Seefeld, Austria doing a mini-camp before heading over to Rasnov, Romania for the races. Seefeld was a pretty stunning place, the photos truly do not do it justice.

Start of the trails

Rest afternoon exploring Innsbruck 

Innsbruck 

Unfortunately I found myself pretty tired and riding the border of getting sick, so I was not able to put the hours in I would have liked to in Seefeld to prepare myself for the races. It was a good lesson not to underestimate how much big travel days can ware you out. None the less it was an amazing short stay in Seefeld but after 5 days it was off to Romania for the races.

Travel day flex, croissant munchin'

Before our arrival we had been informed that there is essentially no snow in Rasnov (or any cities i Romania it seemed), but when we arrived we arrived it was still a little shaky to see that there was actually no snow on the ground asides from the semi-setup course and the odd patch in the valley. Due to the lack of snow we were not allowed to ski on the track until one day before the races in order to preserve the track. This meant altering our routine of pre-race training and adapting to the conditions, thus roller skiing and running were the best alternatives. Although it was less than ideal, it was a super good experience to learn to adapt to the unexpected, and just to make the best of the resources we had. It was also key to remember that everyone was in the same boat, seeing all of the other teams doing the same rollerski route as us and all around similar preparation.

On a positive note the accommodation was super cool, there were 3 main hotels and a few smaller ones with one common dining hall. It was the whole worlds community staying at the a resort on top of this mountain range, pretty neat.

Stadium a few days before race (photo: Jenn)

Stadium on first official training day (photo: Jenn) 

Busy stadium (photo: Jenn)

Considering the major lack of snow and warm conditions, the organizers did an amazing job building the course. Always seeing trucks loads of snow being brought up the mountain on the days before the races. The loop was 2.5km, an awesomely challenging, dirty 2.5km. The training day was super cool, the course was open for 2hrs, one for the women and one for the men. So when we were pre-skiing it was just packed, every country was out there testing skis and doing their pre-race work. Just to be skiing around this small loop with some of the best young skiers from around the world was a super cool sensation.

Team Jackson

The first day of worlds was the sprints, since out of the 5 junior men on our team I certainly was not the strongest skate sprinter (for those who do not know, each country is allowed a team of 5 but only 4 may participate in each race). It was nice for me to watch the first day of racing and just focus on my next 3 distance races. The next day was the 10km classic and was quite evidently my best race of the week. Although my result wasn't a flashy one (46th) I am super proud of this race, maybe one of my favourite races to look back on. I was ecstatic to finish as Canada's top Junior Man for the race but more important it was just such a gutty race. The course was super wet, muddy and incredibly slow, and to top it off it was blistering hot, +18 and sunny, or something ridiculous like that. It was 4 laps of the 2.5km course and my race plan was to go solid on the first lap, push and build the second, and give it everything on the third lap and then hang on for dear life on the 4th. But by the time I was partway through the first lap I could already feel my body wheezing and seizing, it felt like I had ran 20km through the sahara desert. I was already pushing my threshold and I was at the 1.5km mark of a 10km, it was safe to say my race plan was going a little bit off the tracks. But after my first lap I just accepted that this was going to be ridiculously excruciating, that next 7.5k is going to hurt like none other, and that I'm going to look like a absolute wreck on skis, but that it was all going to be awesome. By the time I completed my 2nd lap I honestly did not know if I was going to finish the race, I was 5km in and my vision was already fading, and I could not hear anything other than myself grunting in pain and gasping for air every stride. But then going into my 3rd lap I clicked into my zone that I cannot really explain, I couldn't even really think, all that I could do is tell my body to take the next stride, I do not even remember the 2nd half of the race all that clearly .. it is a pure guts and hammer zone, nothing else matters. All I remember is it being a super deep dig and the words repeating in my mind, "stride, stride, stride, don't be a baby, stride, stride, stride". When I finished it was a pretty awesome feeling, to have completed my first world juniors race and to have put out what was probably the hardest effort I had ever pushed. It took me a while to come back to earth but when I did and saw that although I was 46th, I was less than 2.5mins off the winner and less than 30s out of the top 30. To my this was extremely inspiring. Yes 2.5mins is a lot of time, but it is not something that is unattainable, we are all just juniors and there is still so much space to grow and develop.

(photo: Angus Foster)

ow (photo: Angus Foster)

The next race was the 15km skate interval start (changed from mass start skiathlon due to lack of snow). It was a race that I was really looking forward to, but things just did not come together for it. I believe that it was a solid race, but I was a just slightly off form and struggled to work the transitions and flat sections. But I learned a lot from this race, but the big one was at this next level of competition, if you aren't on form or you have an off race, you get dropped. It was a real wakeup call to really emphasize that every stride, every push, every effort made in the race counts. 

The day after was the final race of worlds, the 4x5km relay. Going into worlds this was probably the race I was most excited for, there is something about racing together as a team that takes skiing to a whole new level of fun. Unfortunately, none of us were on form - at all. The four of us all struggled pretty hard. I wound up anchoring the relay and was feeling pretty confident about it, but it was then I learned just how hard you can die in a race as short as 5km. I was closing the small gap between us and the German team member for the first 2.5km, I felt quite strong. But when he accelerated into the second lap, I hit an unbelievably hard wall... in a nutshell I lost a lot of time and it was a very long 2.5km to the finish. We are 4 very strong skiers and made a great team, and I do not think our result was not an accurate demonstration of what we are capable of. 

It was somewhat annoying to recognize that I wasn't racing at my best when it was time to show what I had to the rest of the world, it was frustrating to know that I was racing faster and felt stronger in Canada than I did at World Juniors. But none the less it is all part of the experience, it was my first World Junior Championships and as a stated in my last blog, part of being a good skier is being able to show up and perform at a high level whether you feel great or terrible ... and it is something that I definitely need to keep working on, especially at the international level. A work in progress, a goal to strive for. 

The more I look back on the experience as a whole, the more I realized I learned from it. It important to remember how cool it was. And how there is no shame in not being a top dog at worlds. Worlds is essentially all of these countries selecting 4-5 of their top juniors, and throwing them into a race, these people are no joke, it's the real deal. Seeing how results played out it makes me ask the classic question, what makes some of these Scandinavian countries so much stronger, consistently, than us. Seeing them there made me realize that they are just people, they aren't super humans, so what makes them that couple steps faster? 

There is likely an endless list of reasons, but lets reflect on it. My coach Ron made a very strong point in this discussion, and that is how skiing over there is extremely popular, thus a lot of talented kids are introduced to the sport. Just like how in Canada we have so much talent going into sports like hockey. Another point which is sort of related to this, is the depth of the fields in places like Norway. There are so many people racing at every level there, from what my teammates told me, and by looking at results, yes there are insanely fast skiers there, but there are also rather slow skiers there. The difference is there are hundreds of skiers in-between covering every level of competition. In Canada, if I was say, 2 minutes off the leader in a 15km, I would probably end up 15th or so in my category ... if I were 2 minutes off the leader in Norway I would likely end of 80th or something ridiculous.  When racers grow up in that kind of environment, they learn that every motion they make counts, and if they back off ever slow slightly they will fall out of the top group. They are always pushing to stay at the top and improve. In Canada a lot of people can ride pure talent and stay at or near the top without a huge need to continuously push themselves. Now it is not that I don't think our top skiers are at a low calibre, I still truly believe we are capable of seriously competing with the top skiers from Norway, Sweden and other countries, but where the issue lies is that instead of having 10-15 people in a category of 60-70 that could contend for a podium on any given day, we should have 50 podium contenders out of a category of 150+. 

Now it is an idealistic call, and is absolutely easier said and done. But there are many different ways to accomplish this. In the Canadian ski community, we lose a lot of skiers from Gr. 12 to post-secondary. Almost half the field of that age quits skiing. The reasoning behind this is the system we currently have in Canada. We have 3 training centres which are advertised as the best way to pursue high level skiing in Canada, AWCA in Canmore with no real option of going to school, CNEPH which works great for people who speak french - but for those who do not would have a very difficult time going to school, and NDC Thunder Bay which has lake head university - but for many athletes who may have school as a priority before skiing at that time in their lives wouldn't select this option, or may just genuinely not want to go to Thunder Bay. So we have 3 training centres, with about 15 athletes per team, it is a clear issue as to why our numbers drop when people graduate high school. In my opinion people are quitting skiing way before this point in their lives, people are quitting skiing long before that as 13/14 years olds. Young athletes see those three options as the real ways to pursue high level skiing, so they either realize they aren't going to make the training centre standard, or they already realize at a young age that they want to go to a certain university and none of the training centres suit them. So they accept that they are going to continue with skiing with their club until their last year of high school, and then stop skiing and move off to university. To fix this issue we need to put an emphasis on accommodating the larger population of the ski community and invest in clubs and teams that can support high level skiers and accommodate their attendance of university in different cities across the country. There are no real secrets in fast skiing, I think to summarize our issue in Canada is that we are looking for the "seconds" to improve our skiers with high level treatment at the peak of our athletes, when we really should be looking for "minutes" and go to roots of the issue.

(going to stop my mini-rant there, could write a full blog on that ... maybe I will another day)

All of these factors that separate fast skiers in Canada to the fast skiers across the pond is likely not something we can fix for skiers that are my age and older, it is something that has to be fixed for the next generation of skiers. So looking forward on my career, all I can do is continue to work and do everything I can to get faster. I still believe from the bottom of my heart that I can catch the people that are the top dogs right now. And I'll just keep working until that becomes a reality. So to the top juniors in the world right now, thank you for inspiring me, but be sure to check over your shoulder occasionally, Rj is coming.

The pace has been set

Apologies it has been so long since the last update, the combination of school and race season has had me pretty busy. But now that I am comfortably ahead on the whole academics thing and the back to back race weekends are taking a small pause, here's an update from my last post.
So I believe the last time I left off I was wrapping up fall training and doing some final preparations for the race season, so lets talk about how things have followed.

Back in November, and early December, I had no idea how the season was going to go. In my last blog I mentioned how my fall training was slightly sub-par, but I was still confident with the work I had done in the training season. With that said, training on my own for almost every single workout, I truly had no idea how I would match up to anyone else. I pushed all of my intensity workouts pretty much to perfection, but I still had no idea how fast everyone else would be when it was time to actually race.

With that said, I was a combination of super nervous and super excited going into the first races in Canmore. I did my best to put results out of mind and just go race, go remind myself how to truly push the limits and get back into racing. And despite only having just over one week on snow prior, the races went quite well, some awesome efforts and a lot of fun getting back into the feel of racing.

Crossing the line - 15km skate mass start

10km classic interval start 

Canmore was a pretty wicked trip, beautiful place, awesome skiing and racing. Although one of the best parts was the spontaneous trip with the team to Lake Louis for a day of awesome downhill skiing (two days prior to the races). At first I was hesitant about going real downhill skiing for the first time, two days before the first Noram of the season, but now I am quite happy I did. Not only was it a phenomenal time, but the descending skills I learned from it have transferred over quite well to tough descents on the nordic side of things.

After Canmore it was back to Ontario for the first set of university exams, and even worse, back to no snow. There was a pretty dull few weeks before the next set of races (asides from an awesome 5 day family trip out to Silver Star B.C.), and unfortunately found myself in a bit of a trough ... just felt like I couldn't get into my rhythm in not just training, but just lifestyle in general. Was dealing with a bunch of life stuff that had me feeling like I was just running around like a chicken with its head cut off, felt like I was slightly lacking in purpose, super confused.
The plan for skiing was to head down to U.S. Nationals on new years day for a few races before heading up to trials. But with the instability of my routine, I was debating in my on just staying home for a little longer to figure stuff out and passing on the trip. At this time I was quite unmotivated and the vision was just super blurred.
But evidently, I made the trip. It consisted of much hesitation (which I kept to myself) but I took the approach towards the next step of the season as a search for clarity. I felt like I needed to chase a target that I could find the drive I normally had. I decided I needed to qualify for one of the trips to Europe at trials, A: World Juniors, or B: Junior B-tour. And to be ready for that U.S. Nationals was the best way to prepare. The races in the states were great to work out some kinks, it was primarily just awesome to put on a bib again and go race, not knowing the people beside you, and just racing for the sake of racing. It was awesome.

After U.S. Nationals, we were off to Thunder Bay for World Junior Trials. I was kind of heading into trials with a split-mind state of mind. Part of me was super focused on the mission, get those spots to Europe. The other part was just excited to race, to put on a bib and leave it all out there. I think for me this was a great combination to have going into the weekend, the perfect balance of focus and fun. For those who don't know the selection process of World Juniors, there are 3 races at trials, and if you win one you get a spot on the team, and they then select the next 1 most consistent person. I wound up 10th in the sprint and 2nd in the 10km classic interval start. On the last day the planned 20km Skiathlon was cancelled due to the -25ish temperature. I was pretty disappointed when we found out, I was not sure if my results from the past two days would be enough to qualify me a spot on the team. Then after about an hour or two, I got the news, I had be selected to go to Worlds Juniors. When coach Ron told me, it took a while for it to sink in. I knew I was capable of doing it, but knowing and doing are two very different things. In my mind I just kept repeating to myself, "you're going to world juniors ... you're going to worlds juniors? .... you're going to world juniors." It was crazy to reflect back on the season, in the beginning where people thought I was quitting skiing and were just filling with so much doubt in me, then putting them in the back of my mind and just pushing through until I made it, until I proved them wrong. And to get to that point was crazy, so rewarding. At the same time I have taken the time to still recognize that World Juniors does not define how successful I will be as a skier, it is more of a personal landmark. Earning this qualification was more for myself, to motivate me and support the ideas and concepts I stand for.

Team cheer - no one is too cool for team spirit 

10km classic grind

After the eventful weekend, there was a weekend off from the Noram circuit, but then the week after that it was off to the Mt. St. Anne Noram, and Easterns weekend after that. Through this block of time school got a little bit crazy (complete chaos). I felt pretty mentally zonked going into this next block of racing, just from school work and other busy life logistics. But what I have come to learn through all of this is that part of being a great skier, athlete, or just successful person in general, is the ability to just show up and perform. Regardless of exterior influences, I knew I just had to show up, put on my skis, and perform at my highest level possible. I think this a crucial skill to bring together, but also an extremely hard thing to do. A concept that Ron talks to us at hardwood is the idea of flipping the switch. That we should learn how to be either completely relaxed, and then be able switch right into race mode shortly before the race begins. This took me a while to figure out, but I believe I am beginning to understand it. I know a lot of people (including myself) who get extremely tense and stressed the night before and morning of races, and we underestimate how much energy this takes out of us. This season I have been trying not to engage into race mode until very shortly before the start. I have my race plan, I know what I am going to do, then I put it in the back of my mind and continue along without a thought of the race specifics. Once I head up to the start-line, that's when I bring it all back into my mind. This approach has helped me keep relaxed before races but also during races, it prevents me from getting ahead of myself, helps me hold my technique and pace myself better. This came together quite well at a few races, Mt. St. Anne was a solid weekend of racing, but things really together or Easterns. Easterns weekend I simply not able to just focus on the races, even if I had wanted to. I would race in the mornings, but then in the afternoon into the evening I would buckle down on essays and study for/write midterms. This was perfect practice for switching my mindset in and out of race mode. I was ecstatic to be on the podium each day of the weekend, especially on the last day, in the 20km classic, where I took my first Noram victory as a Junior Man and to be top 15 in open men. This may have been one of the best races I have done result-wise, but also effort-wise, technique-wise, and tactically. A lot of components really came together. I owe a lot of credit to my team. Although I moved to Ottawa, there is a reason I still ski for Team Hardwood. We are one of the best teams in the country. We have athletes racing in the midget category, to athletes my age, to alumni racing for training centres and beyond - all working together. When I was racing I had a roaring crown cheering me on all over the place. After races I had many people comment on how intense the team was and how adamant they were about supporting me and the rest of our teammates. This reminded me how I don't just race for myself. I race to make the people who support me proud, to inspire people (not just for skiing, everyone), and just have a super positive impact on the communities I am involved in.

little man, big hug

Team victory

Podium

Return of the Jackson

This blog post is being posted much later than I intended, apologies. I am writing from Seefeld now for a mini-camp sort of deal before we head over to Romania for World Junior Championships. I am beyond stoked. I have not made any claims or really put much thought into a result I am shooting for, top 40, top 30, top 20? I have no idea who these skiers are from around the globe, no idea how fast they are, what they can do, how hard they have trained, what their goals are. But what I do know is how fast I am, how much work I have put in, and how hard I can push myself. So going into worlds I promise no result. What I do promise is to go out there and give it absolutely everything I have, find a new level of pain, redefine my limits. I promise to give an effort worth remembering ... and who knows, maybe a result worth remembering will follow. Currently 10 days out from the first race for me (8 for those who are doing the sprint), I will be ready. The pace has been set, now lets go do what we do best.

Rj