I'm Back...... Bigger and Stronger Than Ever

As of last night, I am officially back in Niagara and back to business with training. My trip to Canmore Alberta went smooth and I had a great time doing stuff I wasn't expecting to do there. I thought I would be snowboarding almost every day and partying every night, but I only snowboarded for 3 full days and only partied a few times also. The thing I spent the most time doing was walking/hiking. I walked well over 100km in the two weeks there and climbed to the top of Mt. Lady MacDonald. One day we even walked to Banff. A map said it was 17km, but it turned out to be over 30km and took us over 6 hours. We walked on the train tracks for the most part meaning switching it up between shuffle stepping and making huge strides to match the spacing of the ties. Two trains passed us while walking and reminded us of there power by nearly blowing us over as we stood about 5 feet to the side.

Even with all the walking I put some weight on jacking me up to 157lbs; the biggest number I've ever seen on a scale that had only me on it. We did cook some creamin food everyday, I got Shepherd pieified twice and drank a lot of beer. I feel very lean still but hope to drop 10+ lbs before the race season. The snowboarding was epic and I would have to say that Lake Louise is the best resort. Sunshine Village gets more snow, but the terrain and lifts make more sense at Louise. Louise has huge bowls on the backside filled with powder that make one run down it worth the 80 dollar lift ticket price.

Things I learned about Canmore/Banff.
- Most people there are from somewhere, whether it be Ontario, Quebec, Australia or New Zealand they are all there for the same reason; to ski/snowboard in a beautiful mountain range... and party.
- The area is designed for hiking. You can get all around town on beautiful trails and those lead to an endless network of loops to hike.
- There are bike parks everywhere and they are cool. I found three in Canmore just wondering around.
- The people there are friendly. Everyone you walk by greets you and motorists always happily stop and wait for you to cross roads.
- There are tons of Elk. I saw over 50 at once while they mow'd down grass on a soccer Field.
- It doesn't snow much in the Valley, but mountains to the north and west get dumped on. Sunshine Village gets the most.
- You have to watch out for the Cougars; both at the bar and on the trails they are out there. At the bar a glass of Merlot will take care of them, but on the trail you have to yell and fight to survive.
- Banff is thee place to be on New Years. It's like a mini Times Square where hundreds of great people fill the streets and just go nuts.
- You can kill hours just staring at the mountains out your window. They are beautiful.
- I will live there soon. If I didn't have ambitions with education or didn't like the bicycle racing in Ontario I would not have come home. St. Catharines seems like a deep shit hole after being somewhere so beautiful, and right now its depressing for me to look outside.

I made a slide show of mostly scenery flicks. There are some food pics of too and I felt I had to include the Guacamole cause I ate so much of it. I made it like 10 times times for my friend who was trying to heal an overuse knee injury because I heard the cados are good for your joints. Videos of riding are mainly bails so I left them out. At the end is a clip i filmed of the views from the top of Mt. Lady Mac. Its a crappy vid but gives you an idea of what its like to be 1000m above Canmore. Enjoy