I had an opportunity to watch the rehearsal for the Olympic Opening Ceremony - and that is where I could really start to feel the excitement in Vancouver and Whistler.

I left for a final training camp on the day of the Opening Ceremony, which was great because I had the opportunity to watch on TV with my teammates. 

The feeling here in Panorama has been great.  I've been training two sessions per day, and watching as much of the Olympics as possible.  It's amazing to see the excitement in Vancouver and Whistler and I am excited to get back home and get a taste of it myself.

As for training, well it's pretty easy to be motivated when such a huge event is going on and the Paralympics are just three weeks away.  Getting out of bed each day to get out on the hill and make my final tune-ups is pretty easy.

Training has been going very well for the most part.  It's always great to get a really good block of consistent training in the middle of the season.  When you race all the time it becomes very difficult to make any significant improvements.    So getting together with my team for eight solid days of training is a huge help in mid-February.

As we are reaching the end of the training I, as with all of my teammates, are focusing on those events in which we are strongest in and have potential to win a medal.  For me that is slalom.  I skied well in the World Cup season, but still need to make up 1.5 seconds or so to be in contention for a medal.

I've had a great opportunity here to train with the Canadian men's technical team and some of the best slalom skiers in the world.  My coaches told me I would be training with the guys and it made me nervous.  It was great to feel the nerves in training and great to be challenged to compete with the best in the world.

But let me tell you, it is a bit of a different game.

When I compete on the World Cup, we typically compete on rolling terrain, with hard packed snow and our runs are about 45 seconds long.  For the last two days I've been competing on a run that is just short of an elevator shaft, on ice.  Now when I say ice I don't mean really hard snow. I mean they take the snow that they have on the hill, they fill it full of water, and then they wait until it freezes.   Basically, think of an ice rink, and then tip it to the steepest grade you can imagine.  That's what we ski on.  And instead of 45 seconds, they runs are now 65 seconds.

The benefits of surviving this have been great for me.  It is an incredible challenge to just make it to the bottom, let alone do it quickly.  It challenges not only your technique, but also your willingness to fight, your strength and your nerve.

Overall it was a very successful few days.  I learned a lot, I survived the tough conditions, and I'm excited to take what I've done into the Paralympic Winter Games. 

Three weeks left.

Here we go.