So, if I thought I was bad at blogging on the last post, not really too sure what you would count the untimely gap between the last one and this one!
So I got injured whilst racing at the English Champs in 2019. I was gutted, I tore my ACL and meniscus. I had surgery and have been working super hard on rehab and fitness to come back stronger, and my first races back are on the horizon - how did that happen?! Just a massive shout out to everyone who has helped me along the way, I definitely wouldn't be here without you, from my surgeon, physiotherapists, PTs, running coaches, ski coaches, family and friends. Anyway, I'm super excited to be racing again, training has been really productive and I'm grateful for everyday I have on skis, especially at the moment with the pandemic. I just finished a long 9 week training block in Austria. Initially it took me a while to properly get confident and back "up to speed" so to speak, especially over all different terrain and in all conditions but I feel like now things are working well and I'm skiing better than I was before my injury, which gives me a lot of confidence moving into the new year! As for now, I'm back home for Christmas and New Year, and I can't wait to get back out there and back on it. Peace out and stay safe!
0 Comments
Blogging is definitly something that has continually slipped to the bottom of my To-do list... So much so that I haven't blogged for like nearly a year?!! How did that happen?!
I'll start by summerising briefly the 2017/18 season as my best season yet. I made huge improvements in my skiing and although these haven't all come through in results yet, I scored personal bests in all 3 disciplines and almost halved my GS points. I also had my most successful British Championships in Tignes, France, finishing 2nd in the National Junior Championships Slalom and 3rd U21 British in the National Junior Championships GS, and 4th U21 in the National Junior Champs Super-G, helping my club The British Ski Academy win the overall club prize. On reflection of the season, I am really happy with how it turned out and the improvements I was able to make. One thing I have identified that I needed to work on over summer was putting less pressure on myself. I literally have no pressure from anyone, my parents (main source of funding) couldn't care less how I end up at the end of the season, as long as I'm still enjoying it and having fun. So I guess all the pressure I have is actually from myself wanting to strive for goals that are maybe slightly unrealistic. For example, expecting to wake up every day and ski my best slalom ever from run 1. I guess that's partly becuase of the innate perfectionist I am. But I can't forget to be realistic! And so this is something I have been working on over summer thoughout my training. Now, I come up with a daily goal, which can change throughout the session, but I stay focussed on achieving the goal. Skiing is a sport with so many variables. Some days the conditions will be so bad that not even Marcel Hirscher would feel good. I've learnt to believe in myself and my abilities to ski my best on the day day, everyday. Over summer I was fortunate to be able to spend 6 weeks on snow on the glacier at Les Deux Alpes, which was a lot of fun and I was able to make some big changes to my skiing. I was also able to have a lot of time away from the sport and I really really really can't wait for the season to begin and to get back on skis. Only 23 days to go! Hopefully I'll be able to keep you more up to date throughout the season with how it's rolling. But for now, peace out ✌ From mid October to the start of November, I was in Hintertux, Austria, for a solid 3 week block of training. It was an awesome camp and I really enjoyed it! It was great to get more time in gates and be able to work on things in small chunks and work up into a full course. At the start of the camp conditions were epic, blue skies and really hard snow (it was more like ice!). The first few days I was working on keeping a solid upper body and working with my outside ski above the gate, and by the end of the week we were able to train Super-G on a flatish hill so really working on a good tuck position and still being able to work the skis. The second week brought more challenges and a lot of snow, it's fair to say the (GS) courses we set were pretty bumpy! And the snow gradually packed out to the last week where we were training Slalom, and I was really happy with my last run (as it was probably my best) because I felt like I was able to bring everything we had been working on in the camp together. Since then I've had a bit of time at home to get fully ready for the season and head back to the gym. It was awesome to be able to go to Castleford Snowzone with Ravens ski club and get back on skis (at slightly lower altitude and with shorter courses!). Also huge thanks to Alain Baxter for helping make me with my boot fitting! On Monday I head out to Aosta for the season and I can't wait, with the first races of the season 7/8th of December! Bring it on! Last week I was in Stelvio, Italy fro a weeks training with Podium ski, and it was awesome! We had one weather day in the middle, but other than that the conditions were great and we were able to train morning and afternoon, which was intense but perfect for the short amount of time that I was there for. It was also great to be able to feel the improvements that I have been making over summer on my freeskiing coming into gates and although there is still work to be done I feel like I'm on the right track. Consistency was one of the main things that I was working on last season so being able to get a week of solid great training was ideal and my finish rate has definitely improved since the end of last season too! (To be honest, it couldn't have got much worse, I've gone from about 20% to 97%, largely thanks to a lot of work on line ;) ) In 3 weeks time I head to Hintertux glacier with The British Ski Academy and I can't wait to get back to it! :) When I started my blog I told myself that I was going to stay on top of them and therefore not end up having to post extremely long blogs to cover everything that I've been up to. However, the past couple of months have simply been way too busy, but at last I am catching up... :) BSA Summer Camp, Cervinia, 3 weeks, July-August 2017 It was an awesome camp despite bad weather (rain and thunderstorms) although unfortunately it meant we were only able to make it up the mountain for 8 days. The week started off by going back to the basics, working on drills 1 and 2 (snowplough and the 1000 step drill) especially focussing on the transition phase between turns as well as building up our skill base for next season. We then worked this into carved turns before adding in brushes for the transition phase, so the turns can be as wide as you want them to be, with the transition ideally through the brushes. This really helped me to work on my timing and is something I need to do more of moving forward into the season. The days off were spent constructively working on fitness (hiking, lifting, cannyoning, lifting, high ropes, lifting, games, tug of war...) and setting targets and goals for the season. I'll leave you with some of my favourite photos from the camp at the bottom of this post! Straight from Cervinia I went to the west coast of France with my parents for a week of surfing, biking and running along the beaches, and from there I returned to Zermatt with Summit Worldwide to film the kickstarter campaign for their new goggle the "Talisman" (meaning an object that is meant to bring good luck) which comes out in a couple of weeks time. We had an epic 3 days filming, skiing every day with awesome conditions and being able to hike around the Matterhorn every afternoon after skiing was amazing! On one day we got up at 5.30 for the 06.30am lift, skied until about 2, grabbed lunch then headed up another gondola (in shorts and tee-shirts) to film by a glacier lake with the Matterhorn looming in the background. The location was almost too good and we ended up staying there past the closing time for the lifts and so hiked for 2 hours down to get back to Zermatt for 9.30pm, to be rewarded with burger and chips in town! It was definitely one of the highlights of my summer and I can't wait to see the footage, the goggle definitely deserves such an amazing backdrop! At the end of August and start of September I was at BSA's summer camp at Norwich, leading up to the All England dry slope Championships. The camp was awesome and there were so many improvements over the week. A highlight of the week for me was the ski cross style course down the freestyle section of the slope, with more GS type turns over all the different terrain and a couple of jumps! I raced for the first time in 3 years on dryslope (except Esskia races) at the All England and it was so much fun! The Saturday was the All England Championships before the team event on Sunday, and I was chuffed to come 2nd overall and 1st U21... Emily Evans had better watch out because if I'm there next year... I'm coming for that title ;) I raced as part of BSA's team in the team event (Brad Morgan, Laurie Taylor, Jordan Fellows and I, with team manager Fraser Buchan, and house mum Rosy as assistant), and it reminded me why people love plastic, because the atmosphere was great! We ended up in a final with Pendle A, and after a false start in the second race of the final from Pendle A, we claimed the win! I was just thankful we weren't in a final with ravens A (my plastic club) because I used to race for them! Now that summer is pretty much over it is time to look to winter. I go back to snow next weekend, when I head to Stelvio glacier with Dave Morris and "Podium" for a week of training, before BSA's October camp from the 14th of October in Hintertux :) ... I can't wait! The past week was the first stage of my summer training, with British Ski Academy team mate Jazzy Butcher. We managed to cram a lot in, mountain biking, hiking, rowing in the Lake District and then 4 days of drills at Chill Factore (indoor slope, Manchester). It was an awesome week and I feel like I was able to work on a few things from last season, such as keeping my hips in a forward position over my skis all the time (I actually realised how far back I was last season!) and moving my hip in laterally during the turn to strengthen the turn and allow me to create bigger edge angles and turn the skis quicker. Without a coach it meant we were relying on feedback from our skis and body, and a little bit of video. I found this really useful as it gave me time to link all of my movements together and play around to find what worked best for me. Moving into BSA's summer camp my key focus will be on adapting to the terrain and varying conditions, and that is only 2 weeks away! I can't wait! Last week Summit Worldwide released a new ski goggle, which looks amazing! I used their goggles last season and I was really impressed at how the magnetic lenses worked and how cool they were! A huge shout out goes to GLL Sports Foundation for their help and support with gym membership, which has been fantastic as I've been spending so much time in the gym getting ready for next season! Below is a video from the week, I'm the skier in the lighter blue jacket, grey salopettes and purple helmet :) It's been a while since I last blogged, so I thought it was best for an update! Since the season has finished it's been fairly quiet. The first month pretty much I spent in active recovery, and from the start of June I've been working hard on my fitness again, with the first block of training being focused on increasing aerobic capacity. Huge shout out to Conrad Pridy for the awesome program, and also GLL Sports Foundation for all their help and support! I have managed to sneak a few skiing sessions in, firstly racing at the GBR Indoor Series races 1 and 2 held in Manchester (Sponsored by The British Ski Academy and Artemis) and secondly with JR Ski Racing in Landgraaf (Holland) for a couple of races held by Snow Sport England. I was really happy to take 4 out of 4 wins and I had so much fun! I find indoor racing so much more relaxed than Alpine racing, the snow is pretty much always constant hard packed snow and it's usually very flat and short (So you can charge from start to finish). It's great being able to catch up with old friends and not having to travel too far! So even though I don't think anything can beat being in the Alps, Indoor racing has its own advantages :) For the next month I'll be hitting some more gates this weekend in Glasgow for GBR Indoor race 3 and The Scottish Indoor Championships, then back to fitness! I haven't blogged for a while now, it has just been crazy busy! After I crashed in Bormio, I spent around a month off snow letting my knee recover before I headed back to the Alps. I think I had expected to be able to simply pick up where I had left off, and although it wasn't quite that simple the improvements came and I definitely finished the season a better skier than I was before my crash. When I returned to Italy, we had a few days training and a couple of races (I scored yet another PB in Super-G) before we headed off to the British Championships. I was unlucky in the slalom, crashing in one race and straddling in the other, but the Super-G race went much better and I was really happy to finish 3rd U21 Brit in the British Junior Alpine Championships Super-G. After the Championships I headed to Val Thorens (France) and then Madesimo (Italy) for a couple of races to finish the season, where I was super happy to score personal best results in Slalom, with some of my best skiing all season. The end of one season is the start of another and I can't wait to get back on skis! Over the next few months I'll be working hard on my fitness, and I might even do a few indoor races before glacier training begins... Bring it on! I had a mixed Championships, highlights of finishing 2nd Brit in the Slalom race, and scoring my best ever Super-G FIS points, I was using Mountain Fuel nutrition for the first time and it really helped me to push all the way to the line! Unfortunately in the second super-G race I caught an edge in the finish area and crashed into the nets, which ended my Championships. My injuries could have been a lot worse and with the help of Sue Read (Keswick sports physio) I am hoping to be able to head back out to the Alps soon, for the British Championships in late March. I can't wait! I wrote a more detailed blog of the Championships for George Fishers, which can be found here.
Check out my blog on the George Fishers website for an update on how things have been going leading up to the English Championships!
|
AuthorFrancesca Lee Archives
October 2018
Categories |