TJ Baldwin : June 2013

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

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