May 28, 2011
Firstly I’d like to give a shout out and welcome the team, new members and old, back to Whistler! I’m super excited to be part of this awesome team; it’s going to be a good year! Team: (Newbies) Martin Schrama, Colin Abbott, Colin Ferrie, Stefan Sander-Green, Jeff Kerkovius, and… (I guess you could call us the veterans now?) Adriene Underhill, Geoffrey Richards, Michaela Howie, Jeff Wood, Kajsa Heyes and myself! Also our great coaches are back for another year: Chris Manhard & Graham Maclean! To note: there are 3 Jeffs and 2 Colins! We are going to have to find some good nicknames.
As our rest month came to a close, the month of May marked the beginning of a new year for cross-country skiers all over the country: the last competition now seems like a distant memory, we have started our new training plans, and the slate is wiped clean so we can look forward to a fresh start for the upcoming summer training months and the 2011-2012 competition season.
After spending my rest month at home in Morin Heights with my family, I flew back to Whistler and jumped right into training, starting with our first training camp up at the Callaghan Lodge. To my bewilderment, we found ourselves to be skiing on a 4m base of snow at the end of May! Ridiculous right? I had never witnessed anything like it, and let me remind you, we were not on a glacier. I was extremely happy to be able to delay clipping into my rollerskis a little longer by spending a week in Callaghan Country; we put in lots of hours on perfectly groomed trails: what a treat! When we weren’t out skiing we spent most of our time:
1. Making and eating food.
2. Sleeping
3. Entertaining ourselves by playing cards, ping pong, and pool.
It was extremely relaxing because for the most part there was no electricity, hardly any cell service, and no wireless Internet… we had to make our own good old-fashioned fun!
All in all it was a great camp in a beautiful setting with copious amounts of snow and a great team of people! 
Callaghan Lake - Attempt to make Martin
look the same height as the boys.
More than enough snow
Callaghan country is beautiful; even more so on a sunny day!
Last day of camp ends on a high note.
