Training in Canmore on a budget!

For the past two weeks Brian and I have been living and training in Canmore, AB. We flew here straight from California and hit the ground skiing the very next day! I love those kinds of seasonal transitions. We are lucky enough to be able to buy a $10,500 house in Minneapolis which allows us flexibility when the racing season comes to leave for extended periods of time. We have great friends and a wonderful support crew who watch/ stay at our place and take care of Lahti, our husky, while we are away. We could not do what we do without them and we will always be willing to return the favor someday!

Another way Team Gregg makes the most of our traveling and racing is finding really great deals along the way. Brian (and his twin brother Chad) are masters of airline travel. We make the most out of every mile and credit card perk we can so that our travel days are smooth and super affordable.  We also tend to get great deals on rental cars but it is getting trickier with all of the skis and equipment we travel with. Now we like to make it a game to see how many pairs of skis, luggage bags, giant carry-ons and Costco groceries we can fit into our compact rental. So far it has worked every time :)

Once we get to our location I like to pride myself on finding great deals for lodging. Brian also likes to comment that if I book the place to stay and it is small...I won't complain ;) This training camp is a perfect example of this! I found an apartment studio room for us to rent for $36 a night! That's about a 1/3 of what most places cost in Canmore!!! Yes it is small but we are pretty good at living in small places and by European standards it is quite large! We really enjoy staying with families when we travel but a month can get a bit long with two athletes so we try to break it up between hotels and homes.

Secret closet to store skis! 

Drying laundry AND making dinner in the bedroom!

We stopped at the local thrift store and bought a pressure cooker pot and a crock pot!

We don't go out to eat so we save a lot of money and I think we eat healthier too!

Laundry time and all out of Team Gregg clothes :( 

 Since we are here in Canmore for so long we decided to rent a wax room for Team Gregg. Thanks to a generous donation we were psyched to have a place to change, wax and spend time between long training sessions!

Team Gregg's wax room! Thank you sponsors!

We had a few less World Cup wax techs than the US Ski Team (about 5) but we put in the hard work and feel great about our new fleet of skis so far!

Brian skiing with the mountains behind him. (Noah Hoffman photo)

We have been skiing a ton. Brian got in over 24 hours last week and I was able to get over 24 hours this week.

Not all of the training has been on snow. I love running on the World Cup Cross Country trails and the Canmore Nordic Center! 

We have also been rollerskiing a bit!

Continuing to build on our strength, power and speed thanks to Matt at Horsepower Strength!

 One of the best parts about being in Canmore is the number of new training partners I get to train with. There are so many talented athletes in the area that I never seem to have a hard time finding someone to join for an Over distance ski, an afternoon run or a hard interval set!

Three time Olympian in Biathlon Zina Kocher!

Rocky Mountain Racer and World Cup Skier Andrea Dupont!

Olympian Biathlete Rosanna Crawford lending a hand to first time skier Emma!

Happy for some fresh snow!

Tonight Brian and I had a fun date night! We joined fellow Loppet Foundation Member Katie Bono, who is now a big-time climber here in Canmore, and her boyfriend Cody at the Banff Film Festival. We watched a great film about Alpinist Jeff Lowe and his battle with technical terrain as well as his current battle with ALS. I loved the film and it was great to have Jeff Lowe appear in person at the end of the film!

Less than 4 weeks until Team Gregg's first official races of the season. I am lucky that I missed the Olympics so that I was able to secure the World Cup start rights for this fall through the overall Super Tour leader. Obviously Brian wasn't so lucky ;) and he has to start his season in West Yellowstone and shoot for the period 3 start rights we both had last year! We are both feeling great and looking forward to the season!