Back to training in chillan!

So I'm now back in chillan. Training is going well, we definitely did the right thing by staying in Santiago while the weather was bad, the guys who stayed here missed 6 days skiing in a row! It snowed a bit on our first day back so conditions are wintery again which is nice, although its forecast to get warm in a few days. The spring is springing. Just done a couple of days GS training which has been good, seeing some nice progress technically and getting more consistent which is good! Another days GS again tomorrow before back on the speed skis, I can't wait!!! 

Me and Doug also did some handy work and added some lights to our tuning bench! Works like a dream and makes us look like the pros! Haha

Keep it real

TJ

Chile!!!

Hey Guys

As usual, it has been a while since I last blogged!

Loads of stuff has been going on, it has been an amazing summer, I got lots of good physical preparation done before I flew over to Chile. I even managed to squeeze in a short break to Barcelona with my very supportive girlfriend, to relax and keep the mind fresh before a long trip away! (Just earned myself some brownie points haha)

I have been in Chile for just over 3 weeks now and so far its been a great trip! My first destination was Termas de Chillan which is about an 8 hour bus journey south of Santiago. It's a really cool place, the mountains aren't as big and impressive as the ones further north but you are into volcano territory! In fact the ski resort itself is situated on a volcano, so if the wind is blowing in the right/wrong direction, you get a pretty strong smell of sulphur! The training there was fantastic, lots of speed training, on really good snow, with some other national teams (Swiss and Spanish speed men/German speed girls). I also had some races while I was there, two super combines organised by the Swiss national team. Both the sg runs went pretty well, I mixed in the top 10 with the Swiss boys which I was happy about! Sadly I didn't make any points, Patrick Kueng was on fire and smashed both sg runs! In the one super combi that I completed, I finished 6th scoring 29 FIS points. Not a bad result at all. Overall, a good 10 days training and racing!


After Chillan we headed back up north to a place called Farellones, for a week of races in La Parva. To some frustration, the weather wasn't on our side, so we had some delayed races and some poor snow conditions. Somehow though we managed to fit in two downhill races and a super combined. The first downhill didn't go as I had planned, I struggled in the tough conditions and wasn't very fast. For the second downhill I toughened up, charged as hard as I could and managed the rough conditions a lot better. It wasn't the prettiest of runs and it certainly didn't feel nice but I finished with a decent time in 10th place, scoring 22 FIS points. My best result in a SAC (south american cup) race so I am happy with it! Similar story in the super combined again, conditions where poor and it was really tough to be fast. I had an average run in the sg and then skied pretty well in the slalom to finish 8th scoring a 37. Not a perfect race but this result paired with my result from Chillan should now move me into the top 100 world rankings.

The weather has been terrible for skiing the last 5 days so I have been in Santiago taking a short break to rest up before another 4 week skiing block back in Termas de Chillan. So far the trip has been amazing, I have had some really good, hard training, been to some amazing places and am having lots of fun along the way! I have missed loads of stuff out, but you would be here reading till next week if I was to write it all! So instead I am just going to upload loads of pictures so you can see. Plus we all know the best part of a blog are the pictures anyway!!!

Thanks for reading.

Keep it real!

Tj

SUP Barcelona

Barcelona

La Segrada Familia

Isobel's mad bike skills

Coaches going up early to set the downhill course

Downhill

Downhill

Ski Club Farellones

Loved the old school static bike

Lama friend

Sunset #1

Sunset #2

Sunset #3

TRX workout

 View of Santiago from La Parva

Student protest in santiago

Waverider

Tallest building in South America

Cool street art in Santiago

Cool street art in Santiago

Cool street art in Santiago

Travelling like a local!

Beach day trip

Nice and relaxed

First time to the Pacific Ocean

Vina Del Mar

First time in the Pacific

Got hammered by some waves but eventually got out the back!

Sunset over the Pacific

Sunset over the Pacific and Vina Del Mar

Vina Del Mar

P.S. Even though it looks like I am on holiday, I am honestly hard at work!

Summer so far

Hi Guys

Sorry it has been a couple of weeks since I last blogged, I have some time now though, as I am currently on the train back from Scotland. Today I was in Stirling doing some fitness testing with the Scottish Institute of Sport. The guys there who look after us alpine athletes are fantastic, especially as I’m not even Scottish! We do a number of tests, one on the bike, a couple of strength exercise and a jumps test. I’m not going to go into detail about the bike test, it’s pretty dull and the data I got today goes way over my head, I need to wait for it to be simplified! The strength tests went well, my power levels are up at every loading and my max back squat has increased by 10kg in 4 weeks, up to my personal best of 160kg. So overall I am pretty please with my results from today, even though I had to take nearly 10 days off with a quad strain, I still saw good strength gains! Now I have another 4 weeks of physical work to do before I go to Chile, so my goal is to increase my max squat up to 170/175kg, which I think is very possible.

Other than training and testing I have done a few cool things recently. This year I have tried to go up to Norfolk Ski Club a lot more. I have had the pleasure of getting to know a lot of new and young skiers in the race team. The talent coming through and the skill levels I see in racers who are still so young, is amazing! The race team coaches are doing a grand job! I have been giving some feedback now and again and hopefully my input can make a bit of a difference! Also this weekend I tried to do a bit of extra fund raising at the South Norfolk Show. The council very kindly have me a free pitch so I went along with a Skiers Edge machine for the day and had a little competition. I didn’t raise record breaking money but it was a fun day and I got to meet some really nice locals.

On another note, in the free time I have had, I have spent as much time as possible enjoying the sun shine with family and friends. The time I get at home is very limited so I try to make the most of it and so far it has been a great summer! As the saying goes, work hard, play harder ;)

Hadn't been to Tyrrel's Woods since I was 15, had great fun cycling round it with Isobel.

Isobel may not have great bike skills but she has some stamina! Managed 15 spontaneous miles! 

My set up at the South Norfolk Show 

Getting into position for a nice picture at Southwold beach

Honestly, I did try to keep Isobel from falling off! 

How we did laugh. Along with a lot of other people watching! 

Sports massage

Spent all morning lifting in the gym sweating it out. Now having an awesome sports massage/acupuncture session with Derek Lister at the Wymondham chiropractic clinic. This should keep me ticking over for the next few days!

If you live in the Norwich area and need some rehab work or sports massage then I would recommend checking Derek out, top bloke and great therapist!

www.dereklister.co.uk 

Summer fun

What a weekend!

First off I headed up to the Norfolk Ski Club for a race training session. It had been a while since I skied on the dry slope and I'm not going to lie, I was very nervous. If you are someone who skis both snow and dry slope, you will know that they are almost a completely different sport! Well to my surprise it was awesome fun, I really enjoyed the session and it brought back some good memories of when I used to train at the ski club every week all those years ago. I didn't ski to badly either!

Saturday arrived and along with it came my fun race day. A lot of hard work went into organising it especially from my dad who I could not thank enough! Also while I am on the topic I would like to say a huge thank you to everybody that volunteered and helped out, with you guys it would not have been possible to run! All in all the day ran pretty smoothly and everybody seemed to have a really good time. I know I had a really good day racing. To see so many racers of all ages there, especially the young guys was amazing. The show of support and interest towards my career as a ski racer was truly humbling! I am now already looking forward to next years race!

To round off the weekend I headed to the Norfolk broads with my girlfriend and some friends! It was a really nice, relaxing day, spent with great company and blessed with fantastic weather! It was my first time on the Norfolk broads which is shameful considering I have lived in Norfolk all my life. I think I have now found my new favourite place to go and chill out!

Norfolk Broads

Norfolk Ski Club 

Good company

Hi

Hey guys

So I have finally got round to setting up a Blog page. For those of you who ever visit my website, that will be taken offline soon and everything will go through this Blog along side my Twitter (@tj_baldwin) and Facebook fan page (facebook.com/tjbaldwinski). 

Here is just a quick update of what I have been up to since the end of the season! 

First off I was straight back out to Austria to get some skiing in while the snow was so good still. I was in Kitzsteinhorn and in Molltal for nearly 3 weeks and got some great skiing done. I spent a lot of time on the new reg gs ski trying to get used to it, get some feeling and work out how to ski fast on it. I did ski on the 35m radius skis last year but didn't really do much on them, so it did take a while to get used to them and work out how they feel...the one things that comes straight to mind is HARD WORK! 

After being in Austria I came back home for a few days before jetting off to Majorca for a weeks cycling camp! I headed over there with Doug Crawford, Chemmy and a company called Neon Velo. Neon Velo is a new company, specialising in bike tours and comes with full roadside support, sport massage support and riding support. They were very kind to us and came over to support us. they organised every thing for free, without them the camp would not have been possible! The guys that came out with us from Velo were fantastic and the riding we did was phenomenal. We covered over 350 miles over 6 days with around 10,000 meters of vertical climbing! We even cycled up the daunting and punishing Sa Calobra, this is where Bradley Wiggins and some of team Sky spend a lot of time training - now I can see why they are so good! All in all it was a fantastic trip and gave me a great physical base to work off of over the summer!

After Majorca I spent a few weeks back home in the UK doing lots of physical work, spending some time in the gym. However the majority of my time was spent out on the road bike putting in some long rides. I joined a club to ride with (Iceni Velo). Whilst I was at home I raced in the Norfolk 100 which was pretty brutal, I had a few Jens Voigt moments and had to tell my legs to shut up hurting! It did come with a great sense of achievement at the finish though. 

My last excursion took me and the team (team mate Doug and coach Mike) to Stelvio glacier, this was a first for me. It is a very very cool place! Passo Stelvio the road to the bottom of the glacier (2700m), is by far the coolest and scariest road I have ever driven on! It's one of the greatest driving and cycling roads in the world and wow does it live up to its name! It just keeps on twisting, turning, switching back and going up and up with ludicrous drops down the side! The glacier itself isn't to challenging but provided us with exactly what we needed. We stayed up the mountain at 3100 meters. On the mountain we used all of our speed skis in order to make them faster. We did lots of work on improving our gliding and tuck turns and finished the camp with some good information about our skis too. Great camp! 

I am home for another 7 weeks which is my main physical training block before I head to Chile for my summer ski training. My home is now officially the gym! 

Now I am home I have some exciting things going on; including a fund raising race day at Norfolk Ski Club on Saturday 29th June which consists of head to head dual slalom racing and an evening event with live music and an auction. It promises to be a great day! On the 14th July I will be having a competition at the South Norfolk Show where you can come and challenge me on the skiers edge machine to try and win yourself a signed world cup bib and other prizes.

Also I am very excited to say I will be doing some work for Ambition Race Team at the Hemel Snow Centre between the 28th and 31st July. Mark Telling the head coach and owner of Ambition racing provides top class race training; I am very happy I am able to be a part of it!

Now you all know what I have been up to over the last few months, I will try and post at least once a week and keep everyone up to date with what I am doing.

Thanks for reading, visit soon and keep track of what I am up to!

Play hard, Train harder

Tj

View from Stelvio galcier

Morning we left Majorca

Bottom of Sa Calobra

Support car giving us new bottles and food

Welcome to Majorca

Welcome to Majorca panorama

Team bottles

NormaTec compression recovery

Majorca day 2 - Sa Calobra 

Majorca day 4