The preseason training began in September where we went to Reiteralm, Austria to train skicross starts. A little confusing right as this is a place with no Glaciers, but the training here was on dryslope they have a variety of start section, which allowed me to work on different techniques that can be found amongst different start sections. In skicross it's important to get the timing right, especially in a technical start, to have the most snow contact to get ahead. As there were a variety of different starts this allowed me to practise the different features and rhymes you would find between the features. In the afternoons this when we would be focusing on fitness and different fun activities like kayaking.
Towards the end of September moving into October I went to Madrid. Here we skied at the indoor snow dome, where they had built us a start section with four rollers afterwards. This was my first time back on “snow” since the end of last season so I had a little getting used to, the strangest thing for me was having GS skis on in a snow dome. It was really good training especially as it had 2 start gates meaning we could race against each other, more skicross fashion compared to the last camp where only singles, allowing me to work more and try to beat some of the fast racers on the team. Having the roller section after meant I was able to work on the timing of my compressions to gain speed off the back of them, something which I am working on to gain speed at all points down the skicross track. Madrid was good because after training we got to enjoy a bit of the sun along with our fitness of course.
Into October. Towards the middle of October we had to postpone some of our glacier training by a week due to snow conditions as it wasn't beneficial to go. But when we went towards the end of October into November the conditions were moving into our favour. I went to Hintertux, where we were able to get onto some of the GS training lanes to improve some of my alpine skills. For me this is one my weakness as going into skicross I came from a Freestyle background, and the courses are starting to have more alpine features within them and girls from an alpine background have an advantage over me at.
After this camp I had to come home and went to London for the Austrian Embassy where I was able to get my visa for the winter season, so that I am able to train in Reiteralm for longer periods of time, to hopefully reach my goals for the upcoming season.