Easter meet at Panorama

Easter is still a week away, but the Panorama Ski Resort closed on April 10 so we decided to hold our annal Easter Meet the closing weekend.
Friday was a perfect blue sky day and later in the afternoon some good flights could be logged. Trevor with www.SoarTheRockies.com did a maiden flight on his rebuild "Libelle" over the summit and between the paragliders. It was a fantastic show for everyone. When I arrived at Panorama and headed up the mountain, I watched Frank climb out and head out to the valley, and he landed at the Lakeside Pub. I got up there late and had to land at the resort, as we had another xAlps presentation for the resort in the early evening.

23 pilots showed up on Saturday, and between everyone, there were about 86 flights with lots lasting up to about 40 minutes. It was kind of high overcast and the sun was not strong enough to create the bigger thermals. It was a great day for pilots and spectators, as the sky was filled with pilots, and at the end of the day we had 8 pilots landing at the day-lodge.


On Sunday only about 7 pilots managed to get a flight in before the wing got too strong and was very cross at take-off. We wrapped up the event at noon and then enjoyed the "Slush-Cup" and some great afternoon skiing with family and friends.

One of my highlights was flying tandem with Katia and Erik. On the end, Erik and I shared 1st place for the event, as Erik dropped his easter egg from 300 feet right into the target and we ended up landing on target. Katia and I had a great flight but missed with our easter egg drop. The kids were very proud when they received their own trophies as the youngest competitors of the event.

I have put up some pictures at my picasa album, check them out and add more if you have some.

Happy landings from Erik, Katia, Penny and myself.

Training in March

Training in March is coming along very well.
Even though spring does not seam to show any signs yet, training switched from X-country skiing to to hiking and walking.
Live and work is very busy and if I am not able to train during the day, I am spending a lot of time hiking and walking during the night hours.
I pretty much train every day to get into a routine.  Most of my training is now walking and hiking for several hours with a full backpack. The backpack makes a big difference as this will also strengthen my core and shoulders.
Most of my walks I combine with climbing stairs. We do have  a 40 meter vertical set of stairs going down to the beach  which I will do at least 3-5 times after a multi hour fast walk including all my gear.  The hikes are still in the snow and when the snow gets to soft or to icy I am wearing my snow-shoes. My plan is to do multi- hour walks/hikes for several days in a row and then train for a day or 2 in the gym.
You can see my progress on my MovesCount page or even see how I am doing compared to the other xAlper at http://www.movescount.com/groups/group1115-Red_Bull_X-Alps_Athletes

Penny at the cross country worlds masters in Silverstar

Last week we headed to Silverstar with the whole family. Unreal how much snow these guys have and how much still was coming down in the week we stayed there.
Penny participated in 3 races and had the following results
15 km classic ski, 6th overall and fastest Canadian
1o km classic ski, 8th overall and fastest Canadian
30 km classic ski, 6th overall and fastest Canadian
Way to go Penny we are all so proud of you. Considering Penny raced only a 15 km and a 30 km  in cross country ever before. Some of the worlds best coaches say "if she would now learn how to ski, she will be for sure one of the best skiers in Canada.
We had an excellent time there, we shared a suite with the Tamelin's (3 kids from 6 to 12) and the kids never had a dull moment. We spend time cross country skiing, down hill skiing, skating, toboggan, hot tubbing with rolling in the snow and tubbing. The kids loved tubbing the best.
I had enough time to get work done as we had very good internet connection and i got about 10 hours of cross country skiing in. Most of my skiing was at night and sometimes challenging due the poor visibility with all that snow.  Skiing at night for up to 2 hours with poor visibility defiantly hones your orientations skills.

Training in February

Photo by Calum Neff

How is training going?

That is what I get asked most of the time from people meeting on the road.
All started very good except when I had a nasty cold which was affecting my lungs resulting of a no training period for about 10 days in January and February.
After the first week in February I could start in the gym and slowly get outside to hike, cross country ski, ski and walk.
Beginning of February we had same melting temperatures which got replaced soon with very cold temperatures dropping as low as -30 C and more snow. This season is a very good snow year here in the Rockies. Even today I was hiking up Mt. Swansea in a blizzard and there is no sign of spring yet.
Most of my hiking was with snow-shoes due either the sheer ice on the bottom of the mountain and the deep snow at the summit. When it got to cold I spend a lot of time in the gym to work on overall core strength.
Based on MovesCount.com I still  logged 62 hours of training in February alone.
Suunto is behind MovesCount.com and has sponsored 10 xAlps athletes with T6d watches, a heart rate monitor, walking pad and biking attachment to log our training.
For February I was training most hours of the athletes who logged their times, this does not mean I was working out the hardest as this is not my goal. My goal is to work out every day and slowly bring it up to a level where I can train hard for 4-6 hours a day at least 5-6 days in a row without feeling any fatigue.
Keep on checking out our xAlps MovesCount Group to see what kind of training everyone is doing. Also make sure to check out my profile often at http://www.movescount.com/members/maxfanderl as I can win 1000 Euro if we get most of the hits/visits until the race.

xAlps presentations in the valley

We have been asked several times to talk and do a presentation about our experiences during the 2009 xAlps and how we are preparing for the 2011 xAlps.
A week ago we did 2 "motivational" presentations for the Windermere Valley school and are most likely going to do the same for the other schools in the valley.

We were also asked to do a presentation for the "Wild Voices" which is part of "Friends of Kootenay National Park" and "Parks Canada".
We love to support this project, and this also gives us a great opportunity to, once again, thank all the local businesses who donated services and products for our 2009 fundraiser and all the other companies who supported us with gear and equipment we used in 2009.

The Presentation is Tuesday Feb 22nd, 7:30 pm at the David Thompson Secondary School in the theater.

See you there
Max & Penny

Paradise Ridge the easy way up.

A friend (Rob Gardner) called me and asked if I had some time to play and could take a break from training. As mentioned in the previous blog, my lungs are plugged up and I need to give them a break, so I was game for a snowmobile tour up to Paradise Ridge (2500m ASL). This ridge is across from Panorama Mountain Village (local ski hill) and offers great views down into the valley we live.
We met more guys up there on their snowmobiles going skiing and boarding the "Canadian Style" and I managed to get a great flight in even with quite some wind from behind on take off.

How is training going?

How is training going? - That is the questions I get asked the most the last couple of weeks.
Right now, I am not doing to well as I got a cold and it went right into my bronchitis. Meaning I have to slow down to give it a chance to heal. In the meantime I give Google Earth/maps quite a workout, which is as important as fitness.
In regards to fitness, Suunto sponsors 10 of the xAlps athletes a Suunto watch and heard rate monitor to log our training at www.movescount.com. Who has the most visits will get Euro 1000 from Suunto.
I will keep updating my training and I hope you keep watching my training process to count up my visits.

Happy watching/training

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