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"Following the end of last season, I've been training both on and off the pistes. Hitting up the European glaciers and indoor resorts through the early months of the summer, then making my way across the globe down to Chile to get some winter snow.

The skiing in Chile was brilliant; the snow a bit grippier in comparison to the European white stuff. I did a few races in Chile, one of them starting directly behind the Olympic Downhill Champion from the Turin Olympics. Alas, his performance didn’t quite rub off on me as I crashed, hard, doing around 60-70mph which meant I was out of action for a few days. Crashes as I am sure you all know, come with the territory when taking part in any extreme sport.

Chile was over much too quickly and because of the hectic training schedule, there wasn't really much time to explore the surrounding area or experience the local culture.

The winter season really got under way at the beginning of November. We had the British Ski Team official launch in Leicester Square, an amazing film that had been shot in Chile giving an insight into life as a professional ski racer. Getting back into a racing frame of mind is quite a challenge when you haven't been racing for a couple of months. I see a sports psychologist though, who I talk to about visualising and mental preparation.

c/o SnowsportsGB

Armed with some new techniques, we did time trials in a place called Reiteralm in Austria; they were for the slalom, with the fastest 2 out of 3 runs added together. After winning runs 1 and 2, I decided to go all out on the final run, just to push the envelope. In retrospect, not a good plan – I crashed into the timer at the bottom. 'A few aches and pains but nothing too bad', I thought. Turns out I went home for a longer Christmas break than scheduled.

Thankfully, I flew back to Austria on the 31st December. 2008 kicked off with a relaxed day’s training (i.e. not a 6.30am start!) – free skiing with no gates. It was great to just be able to go and relax while skiing, something that we hardly get a chance to do. We did some off piste (as there had been a bit of new snow in Lofer), some jumps and just generally clowned around, taking full advantage of the rare opportunity.

Since then training has been more serious, back to doing courses and the early starts so that we get the best training (when the snow is iciest). The timer is set up to help simulate race conditions, the video cameras in the hands of the coaches ready for evaluation after the session is finished.

On the 10th January it was back to races with a Super G in the Europa Cup which went pretty well. Following that was a month of full on speed races, Downhill and Super G, all over Europe in places like Crans Montana, Chamonix and Sarntal in Italy where I scored 20.68 FIS points in the Super G.

During this time I was also doing super combined races for the first time. This is one speed run followed by a slalom run with the times added together. I felt I was getting there, so on the whole I was pretty pleased. But no rest for the wicked. Afterwards it was back to training the technical disciplines.

At the end of January we had 8 days of GS and slalom races winning the last FIS slalom race in Jenna, Germany. A good way to finish! Now I'm out doing more speed races, before the run towards the end of the season."

Ed