Hi everyone, Graham here, checking in as we drive down to Park City for our annual fall training camp. The camp is always one we, as the BSF Pro Team, look forward to, not just because we get to go down to Park City and train, but cause it means we are getting that much closer to the race season starting. For those that are unfamiliar with our annual Park City camp, it's quite a unique camp as it is one of the few times when the vast majority of the professional cross-country ski circuit in the US is in one place. A time when almost every National team member, as well as domestic Pro Team’s congregate in one location, and that is pretty special and something unique to the US. For us, the training camp is quite simple; it's a good opportunity to have a week of more focused training with other skiers who are at the same level or better than us; a good opportunity to push yourself a little bit in some of the intensity sessions, as well as catch up with some friends during some of the easy sessions. The week is capped off with some exciting roller ski racing at Soldier Hollow, where you get to do a check-in to see how the shape is looking. It's a very exciting and fun week to say the least.

While going on a training camp is really fun and seeing friends that you haven’t seen since the end of last season is exciting, it is also important to remember to have an objective for the camp. For me, these objectives can be broken down into three categories: first is technique goals, for me, coming to this camp allows me to ski behind some of the best classic skiers in the world. While my classic technique has come a long way, there is still room for improvement, and I would like to utilize the access that I will have to some of the best skiers in the US to my advantage. The second is playing around with my fuel that I’ll be using on my day-to-day training sessions. For some background, over the last year of training, like so many other endurance athletes have hopped on the train of high carb intake during training sessions. However, for me, it has been some trial and error finding something that doesn’t make my stomach hurt or feel like it's gonna explode after a training session. So my goal with this camp will be to get my stomach more used to the high-carb intake so that it can handle it during the race season. For this camp and I have gone the route of making my own drink mix, which is just multiradxon and fructose (the fructose is Gatorade for flavor). I’ll report back later if this new drink mix is successful! The third is testing out the body in the races at the end of the week. These races are useful for a variety of reasons, as they allow you to practice your pre-race routine, but also allow you to get many of the pre-race nerves out of your system so that when race season comes around, you have the confidence to attack those races. In addition, it allows you to get some very good L4 efforts in and race behind people whom you might not normally race with.

Now, will I be able to achieve all of my objectives exactly how I want to, probably not, but the important thing is that I have those objectives on my mind as I’m going through our training camp in Park City. As the camp goes, I will make adjustments as needed here and there. It should be a fun camp, so stay tuned to hear more from us as we get closer to the season.

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Graham out