Summer Training

It literally seemed like I was barely back home before I was packing bags again to leave for France. I joined some of the team in Les Houches for a few days of fitness training with Steve from Sterling Health and Fitness. We hiked into Switzerland to Barrage d'Emosson, went white water rafting and mountain biking. It was a valuable few days where I learnt a lot about where I was going wrong with my current training programme and adaptations I make to make it better.

 

Me and Amber taking delivering a core workout

Due to the poor conditions in Tignes there was a change of plan and we ended up skiing in Les Deux Alpes for 2 weeks. I've never seen the glacier looking in such bad condition, yet we were incredibly lucky and the conditions for skiing were awesome. We only lost one day due to poor weather. Despite such a long time off skis and not doing my usual summer gym training. I was feeling good on my skis and was putting together good turns especially in GS. This was my first camp with different coaches, although the 'Canadian invasion' isn't kicking off until October it was refreshing to have some change and I really enjoyed it. It was good to have kids from BSA on the camp too as we finished the fortnight with a mixed team event. The FIS team took the 'fancy dress' a lot more seriously than the younger guys and we went with a Pants and Pigtails theme! We had plenty of strange looks that day and lots of people asking for selfies!

The FIS team the moved over to Zermatt to finish off the camp. I've never been before but now it's definitely one of my favourite glaciers. Snow was awesome and training was really good. Disappointing that we lost 2 of our 5 days to weather. But the 3 days we had were really high quality and it was really cool to train alongside Swiss, Canadian, Austrian and Croatian national teams - we were in good company! 

It's been a really intense few weeks but I've got a lot out of it. I don't feel like my time spent off travelling has caused me any major set backs I think it may have been beneficial to take a little time off. I'll now be working as a coach for the British Ski Academy dry slope camp at Norfolk for the last week of August! and I've now got time to prepare for university. I'm really happy to have been awarded a sports scholarship at university of Manchester. I'm now trying to figure out potential flexible training arrangements for the beginning of the season. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated!

New Plan of Action.... Want to be involved?!

A blog update will be coming shortly following my summer glacier training in Les Deux Alpes and Zermatt!



I'm happy to announce I'll be starting studying at university in September at Manchester doing French and Business Management. I'm desperately looking for any new support to help me continue my ski racing career whether it's advice, aiding travel arrangements, contributions towards new ski boots and a race suit. I'm extremely lucky to be offered a once in a lifetime training camp in Canada in November with the opportunity to train and compete in races. This comes alongside the British Ski Academy's new coaching team of ex Canadian WC team coaches. I'm looking for anyone who is willing to help with costs for transportation or training fees or knows someone who might be able to. I'm aiming to try and qualify for the winter universiade games to compete for GB and Manchester University and one of the very few British winter sports athletes attempting to continue their ski racing career alongside studying. I'm very fortunate to be recognised by my university and been awarded a sports scholarship. If you know anyone who is interested in helping young British athletes, with contributions big or small please don't hesitate to contact me. Thank you so much!


Nia Jenkins

Round the World in 50 days

Since finishing the end of the winter season its been a busy time for me. The majority of it has been spent travelling! As most of you I am sure are aware, as part of my Jack Wills Young Brits Award 2014 I was given a round the world flight ticket courtesy of STA Travel!

On the top of Burj Khalifa

First destination was Dubai where I experienced heat on a completely new level. It was a crazy place to visit, with the heat and the over the top extravagance. Not usually my cup of tea, I quite enjoy visiting cities but I got no feeling that I was experiencing a culture hugely different to the western one I already know! Burj Khalifa at night was definitely a highlight! I also visited ski Dubai while I was there - bizarre the heat can be 50 degrees outside yet there are penguins and a ski slope inside a shopping mall. I didn't have a go - it was quite nice to take a break from the skiing!

Flower Dome Singapore

Singapore: Gardens By The Bay

My next stop was Singapore, such a cool city with amazing energy. Such a contrast to Dubai where nature, sustainability and the environmental considerations are almost non existent.. I was there during the opening ceremony of the South East Asia games, so there was a lot of excitement and the fireworks were awesome. Gardens by the Bay were definitely one of the favourite places I visited!

Surfing in Bali

After Singapore I visited Bali. I think this was my favourite destination of all. The culture was so different to what I am used to, and there is so much to see and do! I wish I could have stayed for so much longer. I managed to go surfing in Kuta, climbed a volcano on my 20th birthday to see sunrise over Kintamani,

Monkeys in Bali

trekked across rice terraces and swam with turtles on the Gili Islands. Despite travelling alone, I met so many back packers in Indonesia doing exactly the same thing as me and I made so many friends from countries all over the world!

Fraser Island

I went to Australia after Bali, the weather was a bit of a contrast and on the whole I was pretty underwhelmed when I landed in Sydney for 3 days. Once I started to travel north, up the east coast I saw why people love Australia so much. Even though it wasn't summer the atmosphere and chilled vibes in Byron Bay were so cool especially with all of the surfing! I spent 3 days touring Fraser Island, camping and off roading in 4x4s. One of the most beautiful places I have ever seen! Everything is picture perfect, I saw humpback whales, sharks, dingoes, giant lizards and dolphins all in the space of 2 days! I only had 11  days in Australia which is no where near enough! Its a place I'd love to go back to!



The last country I visited was the US. I landed in Los Angeles, probably the worst place I visited on my travels. I'm not a huge fan of celebrity chasing, hollywood glitz and thousands of tourists! So when I joined my Trek America tour and made my way towards the Grand Canyon - campi

ng on the banks of the Colorado River on the way I felt much happier! The Grand Canyon was incredible, photos never do it justice! The sheer size of it just blows your mind! Next stop was Vegas, now considering I'm not a huge fan of fake, over the top tourist magnets I really enjoyed Vegas. It doesn't take itself seriously and despite not being 21 there are so many things to do and its so much fun! After another big city visiting Yosemite National Park was a well needed break, hiking 8 miles alongside waterfalls was amazing and it was such a good feeling to get back into mountains! After I finished the tour in San Francisco I spent a few extra days exploring the city - one of my favourite cities in the US, a cool atmosphere and so unique! I managed to squeeze in seeing a baseball game too - SF Giants vs NY Mets. New York was my last stop before flying home! One of the places I had been looking forward to seeing most on my trip! It didn't disappoint and despite being exhausted and broke I had an amazing time and it was a great place to end my trip!

Due to the fact I was taking almost two months of skiing and training some people questioned whether I was actually taking my skiing seriously. Less than a week after returning from my travels I am now preparing for summer glacier training with BSA in Les Deux Alpes and Zermatt and my motivation is as high as it's ever been! I can't wait to get back on skis! It will be a bit of a change this season. The coaching set up at BSA has been completely changed and although I was sad to see my old coach Ali Morton go after I have been coached by him for so many years I'm looking forward to working with someone new,

I have also made the decision to take up my place at University of Manchester in September. Although i've changed my course to Business and Management with French. After two years out from studying I realised I had a change of heart.  My goal is to continue to compete during the winter as much as I can while balancing my studies.

Its been a busy couple of months with so much going on I'll try to update a little more often! I have to send out a massive thanks to Jack Wills and STA Travel for the amazing opportunity they gave me and I wish the best of luck to all Young Brits Applicants for 2015!

Where's the snow?!

After a month in the UK I flew out to Austria on the 2nd. I spent a day in Salzburg sightseeing and looking at all the Christmas markets. It's quite nice to get the chance to see a bit more than just the airport when you fly everywhere!

Our base for the winter has now changed, I won't be based in Innerkrems this winter, but in a small village near Nassfeld. However due to Europe's snow shortage it hasn't opened yet so we've been training in Mölltal on the glacier. The conditions here have been pretty good and free skiing has been fun in the powder. We're just hoping it gets colder and the snow gets harder to get better gate training in! 

Enjoying my GS training and free skiing with my new POC gear, I love it! Huge thanks to 9point9ltd and www.2pure.co.uk

My first races of the season should be in GS in Leogang next weekend followed by SL in Kranska Gora, they've started making artificial snow in Leogang so hopefully the races will go ahead!!

x

Hintertux October

I've just returned from two weeks in Hintertux with Motion Team, it was a huge relief to finally go back out in the mountains, it was the best reminder of why I put in so many hours in the gym in the last couple of months! 

Me and fellow Motion and Rossignol UK team mate Kirsty Guest

I had a day of free skiing to get the feelings back and to get the feel of my new Rossignol equipment! I really like the new set up!

 It was straight back into GS gates for day two. As it was the week before Sölden, Hintertux was pretty busy with big national teams preparing for the races. It was cool to train alongside Tina Maze and the Italian World Cup teams there aren't many sports that give you the opportunity to train in exactly the same environment as the top athletes in the world. So I feel very lucky! Talking to some of them on the lift I was surprised but also relieved when they said they were finding the conditions really tough too! Despite not skiing for a couple of months I was really frustrated with how I was skiing and I think I found it more difficult than I was expecting.

Had a selfie and a lift queue chat with Elena Curtoni :)

With Davide SImoncelli, Giovanni Borsotti and Luca De Aliprandini

We couldn't train for the next two days because of the weather, the mountain had to close. Over a metre of snow fell in 48 hours at the top. Even where our team were staying at just 850m altitude we had 40cm. It turned the place into a winter wonderland, so we made the most of it and did a team snowball fight in the woods, watched a whole season of Suits and did fitness training sessions in an underground car park! 

  

When the bad weather had passed it was back to hard training. For some days we managed to do some double sessions of either slalom or GS in the morning with Super G in the afternoon. The slalom and GS wasn't going so well but I managed to get some good feelings on the Super G skis.

Conditions were almost perfect everyday for the second week. I managed to get more sessions of slalom in. I have to be careful training slalom because it's so easy to injure my thumb again.  Skiing slalom courses with only stubbies on the right foot turns looked a little odd, but at least among the sea of gates we could tell which course was ours... Hopefully when I am back out training again I can ski full slalom courses as I would in races.

The final day training was the best day for me. After a frustrating two weeks when I felt my skiing had not been where I wanted it to be. I finally started to feel like changes were being made and I got more confident skiing giant slalom. It was a good way to end the camp. 

I am now home for a month before I head out to Innerkrems in Austria. Hopefully my first races will be middle of December. Now it's the last final push to get stronger and ready for the winter and make the most of the time at home!   

Bad weather doesn't mean a bad day!

Yesterday we managed to set up some GS gates on 35. The visibility was poor and very high winds made another tough day training. With lifts stopping/breaking/closing frequently it meant the turn around for each run took much longer! In the end it was a matter of quality over quantity, I was lucky enough to get 3 runs in gates,  some had none! 

With the soft snow, I struggled on the new skis, but took positives from my runs - I was taking the right line and attacked. Next challenge is to nail the timing and transition.

The weather took a turn for the worst today as we woke up to heavy rain and low cloud, then told the glacier was shut. Luckily having seen the weather forecast, BSA had made arrangements to use the sports hall for a sprint session in the morning and basketball in the afternoon. Although I'd much rather be skiing, today was good fun!

GS for the week has now finished so we're moving onto the slalom skis tomorrow. Weather is looking a lot better so it should be good!

Photo courtesy of Jazzy Butcher: Me, Megs, Yaz and Abi tucking on the bridge on our walk to the lake.

Cloud moving down the valley: