In a word, inspirational is what the Canadian Men’s team has been over the last two weeks. In the 2 weeks of Olympic Games, the history book for Canadian men’s X-C skiing has been re-written, and I have been delighted to watch it all go down.

Life for me was a little bit crazy prior to the mid-point of the Olympic Winter Games. At the start of the Games I was training hard for the last races of the season in the U.S. of A. I had a quick flight to Madison, Wisconsin on Friday, raced Saturday and Sunday, earned two more victories on the Nor Am circuit, with just enough time to “enjoy” the city Sunday night and catch a plane home.

That was on Monday February 22. My plane got re-routed to Edmonton due to “fog” in Calgary. Are you kidding me? The city is like 1000 km’s from the Ocean! Anyways, landing in Edmonton meant a middle of the night airport run for my amazing girl friend, Sarah. It also meant that her amazing Dad, Neil, had driven to Calgary in the almost middle of the night, to pick me up for no reason. I flew over top him at 2:30am. Sorry Neil! After “stealing” Sarah’s car I bombed back to the Bow Valley just in time to check into the Banff Hospital and check into surgery so that I could get my shoulder’s instability fixed. I had the surgery done on Wednesday morning. I came out of the OR at 10am to turn on the T.V. beside my hospital bed. In my drug induced haze, I did my best to stay awake and cheer on my buddies in the 4 times 10 km relay. Swear to goodness, if anything else had been on I would have been lights out and sleeping, but seeing the guys fighting it out, kept me glued to the T.V. Although it wasn’t the medal they’re capable of, it was truly amazing to watch and was another sign of things to come. Are you still with me? As of Wednesday, my life slowed down to a turtle’s pace. Surgery I’ve learned will do that. All I’ve been doing since the operation is eating my Mom’s amazing food, while getting babied like crazy, thanks Mom! Watching and cheering on Canada during the final days of those amazing Games was a great way to pass the time and I’ve been icing the heck out my very sore shoulder and doing my best to take it easy.

A quick pic from one of my walks, something I'll be doing a lot of until my shoulder heals properly.

My shoulder surgery was planned from the beginning of the season. In New Zealand, when my shoulder dislocated for a 3^rd time in 2 weeks my coach, Louis and I sat down to a fireside chat. I’d say that was the low point of the off-season and things were not looking up. The doctors had told Louis and me, ‘don’t let this shoulder come out again’ - and that was after the first incident. Each time it comes out it gets harder to regain the stability in the shoulder. You could say we had a heart to heart. One thing Louis doesn’t lack is a positive attitude. I came away from the meeting thinking, “Okay. This is my last strike, let’s not screw it up!”, while at the same time being very positive about the possibility to have a 100% recovery. The silver lining in all of this was that Chandra had arranged for an amazing Physiotherapist to be with the team in N.Z. Ronnie, was the craziest Norwegian I think I’ll ever meet and that’s saying a lot. At 8:30 am the tobacco dip was in, coffee in hand, he was ready to go to work. By 11:00 am, the dip had been replaced and instead of coffee, it was now a Red Bull or Coke in hand. Working hard all day, he got me on the path to recovery and this time I was able to keep things “together”. He helped me get my shoulder to a level where I could train hard within a couple months post-dislocation.

But surgery was always in the plan. Now that I’ve had the surgery it’s time to recover. I’m optimistic I can do this in the coming 8 - 12 weeks. My season has been cut short, which is a big time bummer, but there are bigger things to get ready for next year. It’ll be hard to watch the rest of the racing this season, but I know I’ll be getting up off the couch more motivated than ever for something amazing in the 2010 - 2011 season.

The sunrise above Canmore, March 4, 2010. It was an amazing morning.

As hard as it was not to be at the Games, I do feel very good about my racing this year. Other than two bad days of racing at Trials and getting sick for my European World Cups, this season was a story book. I won every domestic race I entered other than one distance race in Quebec and the two trials races. 5 wins in 8 starts isn’t too shabby! I had some personal bests as well. Five wins in a season is a first for me. I won my first distance race and I had my best Classic Sprint on the World Cup. As I sat on the stationary bike cooling down from the Qualifying round in the February 6 Canmore World Cup, it dawned on me… this was the same bike that 5 months ago I had been training on with a freshly dislocated shoulder. At that point no one could guarantee I’d be able to race at all this season. From that moment, I went out to ski an aggressive World Cup heat, that although didn’t pan out the way I’d planned, but I learned a lot about my ability to climb and race with the best.

So, all things considered, this season left a lot to be desired, while at the same time holding a lot of personal accomplishments. My big goal for the season was a top -10 at the Olympics. Ten days before the games I felt like I was in a position to achieve that result. If I had done things a little bit differently I know I would have raced my way to that result. That being said I didn’t do it. So what do I need to change? I gave the season my best effort, now have had stabilization surgery and figure it’s time to gather up the chips, get back in the game, train harder so I get dealt some “better cards” and sit down to play the next hand in the 2010 - 2011 season. World Championships 2011 are in Oslo and I’m already motivated to ‘go for it’. Humans, and this one included are resilient. Even though there has been some disappointment I still find myself confident in my ability to find success racing the world’s best.

Thanks so much to everyone who has followed the journey and shared in it! I have such an amazing group of friends, family, supporters and community that I feel like the luckiest kid alive. My next post will be a photo essay of my going ons this spring. Activities will be “low risk” so I don’t hurt my freshly treated shoulder, but I’m hoping to still have some fun! ‘Till then…

Check yourself before you wreck yourself,

Phil