Hey!
So obviously the frequency of my blog posts has died down a bit since World Juniors, but I’m still alive!
So after World Juniors my results took a little hit for a bit, for the 3 weeks that I was in Germany my regular training got a bit interrupted and my performances thereafter were a bit compromised because of this. Nonetheless, I still managed to get quite a few good races in during the later part of the season. My classic races never seemed to go quite as well as I would have liked, but my skate races were all pretty good. At Nationals, the skate individual start race went very well. Similarly, the hill climb race at Fort Kent went really well, and I managed to finish just 8 seconds behind Andy Newell. Other races, like the skate race at Stowe, the skate and classic races at the Orford, and the races at Rimouski, were good races as well.
I also had the opportunity to be a forerunner at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic games. This was a really awesome experience, to be able to be so close to the athletes, watching the races so close, it was awesome.
So now the season is over, I took a bit of downtime and I’m back up and training again. I applied to go to CNEPH, and I was accepted, but I decided to stay here to train. I was already being coached in a way I knew worked for me, I had school here, and I have a home and a girlfriend here, so I decided to stay.
So I’ve slowly gotten back into training. In April, I took it easy for a bit then started trying to get a nice strong base in strength, so I would go to the gym 4 times a week, all the while getting my biking and running legs back. Starting in May, I began my training back in full, lowered my gym workouts to 3 times a week and started getting some longer zone 1 in, with a couple tempos from time to time.
I’m also planning on doing some pretty intense things in the near future. I’ll probably end up going on a canoe trip soon, as well as going on a 24 h adventure race, funds permitting.
I'll probably be updating a bit more often than I have in the last little bit, so stay posted!
If I get the time in the next little bit, I'll post some pictures of my exploits!
So this last part of my World Juniors trip didn’t go as well as the first two. We arrived back in Hinterzarten after a particularly uncomfortable ride over. We trained here for a couple days, skiing the courses and relaxing. Life was good.
On Thursday, 4 days before the sprint, I was part of the sample group for drug testing. I have never had a blood test before, so I didn’t really know what to expect. Turns out its quite a lot shorter than a pee test, all they do is take a bit of blood, super quick. After all of our 6 person sample group had been tested, we were waiting around to be cleared to leave. After a bit, the only people who had not been cleared were Jess Cockney and I.
Then the bad news came. It turned out, both Jess and myself had hemoglobin levels over the racing limit. And while Jess was just a little bit over, I had gone quite a bit over.
For those who don’t know, here’s a little exerpt to explain what hemoglobins are. Hemoglobin are the little proteins that chill on your red blood cells and allow them to carry oxygen to your cells. Obviously having high hemoglobin levels is advantageous as you can get more oxygen to your cells faster. Your hemoglobin levels can vary quite a bit as well. Things that can make your body produce more hemoglobin include high volume training, being and training at altitude, dehydration, and, of course, performance enhancing drugs like EPO. In our case, our previous altitude training in Livigno, along with my being insufficiently hydrated before the test, probably contributed. However my hemoglobin levels are probably also quite elevated naturally.
So what are the consequences of having high hemoglobin levels while still having clean, normal blood? Well it isn’t considered a doping infraction, but what you do get is a 5 day ban from racing. At the end of those 5 days, you can retest and if your hemoglobin levels have gone back down, you can race. Otherwise, you can’t race for another 5 days. This kind of thing happens relatively often – 10 other juniors at this race also received this ban. If you have Hgb levels that are naturally high, then you can be exempted from this rule by showing, with multiple tests, that your Hgb levels are high. But I had never had my blood tested before, so there was nothing I could do.
So this sucked quite a bit. I would for sure miss the sprint, and possibly the rest of my races as well. None of the people I spoke to were very optimistic that I would be able to lower my Hgb enough, as I was quite a bit over. For Jess it must have been horrible – he had been brought on this trip to only one race – the sprint. Unfortunately the sprint was the first race, and his 5 day ban would not allow him to race.
I’ve always thought that if you don’t dope, if you don’t cheat, then you have nothing to worry about. Apparently not.
So then I had 5 days to lower my Hgb levels before I get retested, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to race. The fact that I was no longer at altitude would lower them for sure, but not by enough. Short of donating blood, the only thing you can do to lower your hemoglobin levels is to stay extremely well hydrated. So that’s what I did. For the 5 days following my test, I was drinking so much water that I was uncomfortably hydrated most of the time. I was peeing about 4 or 5 times an hour. It wasn’t too much fun. Meanwhile, I also prepped for my other races, assuming I would be able to race them.
This sprint race came and went, and my teammates did fairly well. It sucked not being able to race.
Finally the day came when I could be tested again. They took the blood, and then I had to wait a couple hours for the results of the test. Those were some long hours, waiting. Finally, the results came in – both Jess and I had retested under the limit, and were cleared to race. Not all the news was good, however, as the results of the test had come in too late, and I wouldn’t be able to register myself in time for the individual classic race the next day. So once again, I had to sit out a race, and once again, it really sucked. I did take some pictures however, you can see them here: http://picasaweb.google.com/steffanis/WJCClassicIndividual#
Patrick and Zach hammering in the Classic race. Both performed extremely well, with Patrick in 31st, and Zach in 24th.
Joey also did outstanding, coming in 25th
Andy in his first lap.However, things didn’t go as well as I planned. The race started off well, I moved up in the pack, and I was fighting for positions. Then my body started slowing down on me. It was a horrible feeling. This was probably the most important race I’d ever done, and my fitness was just not there for me when I needed it. While my cardio felt fine, my muscles were just feeling really tired. This is the worst type of fatigue, because no matter how hard you focus, your muscles just don’t respond in the way you know they can.
People would pass me, and there would be nothing I could do about it. Usually you can pick up the pace for a bit, but I didn’t have any power in my body to do things like that. Before the classic was even over, I was just racing to finish. By the skate leg, my muscle were seizing up on me while I was skiing. It was really not a good race, and I know I can do a lot better. I finished 70th out of 81 people who finished, and out of 102 people who started (one fifth of the field dropped out!)
Andy Shields took pictures of that race, you can see them here: http://picasaweb.google.com/steffanis/WJCPursuit#
Zach, Joey and just hidden behind, myself, after the first lap.
Holding on in the classic leg
Patrick in the skate leg.
The team relays were a lot of fun to watch, although we didn’t do quite as well as expected. In the women’s, we got to see an amazing finish by the anchor from Finland, passing 3rd place with 200 m to go, and almost catching Norway for the win. In the men’s, Norway and Russia were battling it out for the majority of the race, with Finland in 3rd and Germany in 4th. On the last leg, the Finnish anchor did an amazing first lap, catching up a good quarter minute or so on Norway and Russia, then gapping them by that again. After this, however, he hit the wall and, unfortunately, moved all the way back to 7th. Norway outsprinted Russia very definitely at the end for the win, and Germany got 3rd. Quite an exciting race.
You can see pictures of that race here: http://picasaweb.google.com/steffanis/WJCTeamSprint#
The start of the women's relay, with Daria Beatty starting for Canada
The men's relay start, with Joey Burton starting for Canada
Joey Burton (front, left) in the men's relay after one lap
Andy Shields, anchor for the men's relay, after his finish. He was pretty dead.The following video was the theme song to the World Junior Championships this year. It's in German, but I find it to be such an awesome representation of the skiing lifestyle.
I found this video to be completely awesome. I even got a picture with the guy who made it at the last race!
