AST Athlete Journal: Kyleigh McConnell
Hi everyone!
I am writing to you from our place in Kamloops, where we are staying for the Sun Peaks race! My last athlete journal was during Chile, and a lot has happened since then. We’ve been racing all over the Bow Valley, as well as Kimberley, Panorama, and Quebec. Yesterday we drove eight hours to get here, but the ice cream and goat stop at Dutchmen Dairy made it feel shorter! Today we got to enjoy some tech freeskiing on the race run and a couple fun park/mountain laps in the sun. We have four days of racing at Sun Peaks, then we will get to enjoy a day freeskiing at Revelstoke on our way home!
The races this season have proved challenging, with a NorAm field at our first two FIS races, and the extremely challenging ice at Norquay (ice is not one of my strengths), and NorAms in between. After surviving Norquay, and learning some valuable lessons on the ice, the team flew out to Quebec. The travel, as usual, had its complications. We had boarded our flight and sat on the plane for an hour before getting notified that we had to deplane because of the plane crash in Toronto. We unloaded the plane and got the notification that our flight had been canceled. So, two days later, we did it all again and finally made it to Quebec. This meant that we had missed our two days of training on the race hills, and we got to our house at 10 pm the night before our race. We all woke up tired, but ready to race, and we had to fight deteriorating courses due to soft snow. Thankfully most of us had already skied at Bromont and Owl’s head before, so we were familiar with the terrain. The second day of GS, I made flip after the first run which meant a relatively fresh course for the second run. The course was set in my favourite way, straight. I took advantage of the course playing to my strengths, straight and fresh, soft snow, and it payed off. I managed to score by about 17 points! It was really nice to have a strong run and a good score after struggling so much at Norquay on the ice and feeling a little bit less confident.
In between Quebec and leaving for Sun Peaks, we got 3 days of training at Nakiska. After two days of GS on Mapmaker and a day of slalom on Whoop up I am feeling confident for the next couple of races on similar runs, as well as the race on those runs in less than two months. It was nice to spend some time at home, and be back in the gym with Nate and the team. Being at home also means I can spend some time in the evenings playing my guitar, which is too big to travel with. My favourite song to play right now is Maine by Noah Kahan. The warm weather also meant enjoying some walks in the sun!
The team is pretty split up right now, with Gered and Zoe at World Junior Championships (Huge congrats on Zoe’s 10th and Gered’s 19th!!!), Luc is still in Quebec, and Aiden, Jamie and Caleb at home working on their recovery. Us girls, Katie, Keira, Polly, Deavyn and I, will be staying in Kamloops together. We leave in two weeks for NorAm finals at Burke, and Nationals at Mont Tremblant, then we are into the Panorama spring series and Nakiska finals! The season feels like it is flying by, but I am happy to know we still have lots of race starts. My next athlete journal will be in May. I am excited to be able to update everyone at the end of my season!
Thank you to all the support from our sponsors, GMC, Wolfe, Karbon, Genstar, Mountain Fire Foods, and Gear up as well as all of the coaches and the huge support system we have that helps us all succeed.
See you next time!
Kyleigh