AST Athlete Journal: Zoe Gray
Hello Everyone!
Its been a long summer but a as snow starts on the mountains that means ski season is on its way, as well that means its athlete journal time!! For those of you who don’t know me I am Zoe Gray and this is my third year on the Alberta Ski Team! I am writing to you all from the air while on our 30 hour travel day to Chile!!! I hope I can provide a little update on what my team and I have been busying ourselves with throughout this long break from snow:)
At the beginning of our off season, I hosted a training camp for the up and coming ski racers of Alberta. It was amazing to see them putting in effort, and work on both strength and skill development while off the snow! I plan on continuing the summer camps, and hopefully meet more of our next generation!
Amongst the training I organized for them, I also attended our teams training held at CSI. We are so lucky to have such a elite training program to follow, and an amazing trainer, Nate, who helps us prepare year round for our skiing. Our training during the summer is made with the intention of gaining muscle and building strength, so we would have heavy lifts for lower and upper 4 times a week, and do bike/running sprints twice a week. Along with my teams program, I would do CrossFit at Endeavour Fitness, do some tumbling out of the new gymnastics building, The Gray Complex, go for bike rides up on the Pano trails, and hike with my adventure buddy Polly! I am a huge believer that staying fit by doing a variety of different sports and activities will only positively effect you as an athlete as a whole, and I was lucky to be able to do so within such a supportive community!
Our team finally all got together in Saas-Fee at our first on snow camp, it was so exciting to finally get back on snow after itching for it all summer:) We are very lucky that we get to travel to such beautiful places!
We arrived in mid-late August and were greeted with hero snow and blue bird days. Saas-Fee is a relatively small mountain town filled with adorable bakeries, mini golf, a sports centre, and our favourite grocery store Migros! The first 2 weeks had amazing snow conditions, and we could push volume with 16-18 runs a day. It was awesome to watch some of the worlds top skiers such as the French Team, USA slalom Team, Team GB, and our very own Canadian National Mens Development Team!
Our schedule was very similar day to day, starting with an early breakfast to accommodate with our 6:30am gondola load. The hotel prepared lots of bread, cold cut meats, and cheeses for breakfast, as well as some good ol’ Nutella that I added to make my banana chocolate toast! We lived on the upper side of the village and had an added little warm up every morning to get to the gondola station, I found the walk an amazing way to fully wake up and get my body moving before my proper activation warmup (also a great mental prep time for the European lift lines). Once you were able to fight of European kids (particularly the Italians) there were two gondolas and then a tram through the mountain. We aimed for 15 runs in the course most days, however it does vary depending on energy and conditions. We were often off of the glacier by 11:45am, because that was when the snow got too soft. After our ski session a lot of the girls would prep skis right away. We found it helped us to do it before lunch so we could have something break up our day from skiing, to not skiing. This way any bad feelings that may have came from skiing was left in the morning, and we could enjoy our afternoons, WE ARE IN SWITZERLAND AFTER ALL!
Our team succeeded in exploring all we could while in such a beautiful area! Each afternoon looked a little different each day, we had the freedom to go and adventure as long as we did our dryland and a type of recovery. The activities included beach volleyball, soccer, mountain scootering, boxing, plyometrics, body workouts, core, and proper gym lifts as well. With our recovery we got adventurist and took gondolas to go swim in glacier lakes, and did some hikes to glacier fed rivers which we would cold plunge in, and some easier walks around the small town! I saw some amazing mountains and gorgeous views that I won’t be forgetting!
Everyday around 6pm we would do video sessions with our coaches, to deep dive into what we are working on and brain storm what drills could potentially help, and touch on what mindset and focus we want to have going into the up coming session. This is a super important step in my day, as sometimes I can give myself too much to work on and become overwhelmed on the hill, so if this happens to you to, then maybe try this process.
-Set aside time for video with coaches, or teammates, or older athletes
-REALLY REALLY analyze your skiing, GOOD and bad
-Write it all down in your journal, any feelings you want to have on the skis, mindset you want to have, different adjustments to equipment, body positioning, line adjustments , ext.
-Circle two, (this is the max I can think about while I’m skiing), main things you want to work on out of all the things you wrote down, and those are the only things you focus on for the following day
-Throughout the following day write how it feels, if its working, your coaches opinion
-Bring those notes to the next video session, and build 🙂
I find that doing this helps me know what works and what doesn’t, and clears up many of my mis-understandings. The other amazing thing about it, is that when you have a rough day you can look back and see what works for you:)
After our video session we wrap up our days with team meeting, team dinner and a little bit of relaxing before bed. We followed this same day set up though our first 2 weeks, and everything ran smoothly! I was seeing progress in my skiing and my confidence was growing the more I could get on snow. Our third week however, our days consisted of a much different schedule due to rain and poor conditions. The glacier didn’t open for five days and there was a landslide that took out the main bridge! We did lots more hikes around Saas and more dryland to occupy our time. Although we were not able to ski the adventures we had made up for it. We saw adorable cows, and goats, and were able to explore the tastes, and sights of Saas-Fee. Since the storm closed the road we were stuck in Saas a little longer than anticipated, but still made it home safe and sounds (just a few days late). Saas-Fee was a very successful camp and we saw a lot progress from everyone!!
We got a few weeks at home, I filled mine with some beautiful fall hikes, family and friends time, and the Skis and Hearts fundraiser!! It was a great re-group before we are in full stride of the ski season. Now we head of to Chile for our second camp of the season!
A huge thank you to our team sponsors GMC Dealers of Alberta, Karbon Sports, and Genstar Canada!!
Thank you for reading our first athlete journal of the 2024-2025 season, make sure to stay updated with us through our instgram posts and stories, as well as the other athlete journals!!!