Home Sweet Home

I spent the past two weeks training in Park City. APU chose to head to PC for our August camp rather than do a third glacier camp. We chose this in order to spend more time at higher altitude due to the fact that many important events (including the Olympics) are at altitude. I was beyond ecstatic because the glacier in August is generally terrible due to the weather and I got to go home. What is better than training camp with your mom there to cook for you and your own bed to sleep in.

We did lots of trips up the Canyons. There are a handful of us with injured feet so we took advantage of having the gondola to ride down. I also got to enjoy some great mountain biking due to my uncooperative feet. I have to say, I can't really complain about having to mountain bike in Park City AND my feet are doing much better and I have started running little bits everyday.

Showing Sadie the trails

Post-ride smiles

Taking the gondola down!

Solo ride on the best loop around. Thanks for the awesome Park City jersey Charlie!

It was hot, dry, and very dusty!

 The first week brought all kinds of hot, dry weather with afternoon thunderstorms. That led to a wildfire only 10 miles away. It was quite scary because it happened right in a neighborhood and was moving towards other neighborhoods in the area. We were really lucky because the smoke stayed clear of Park City so we didn't have to change training at all. They were able to get the fire out pretty quickly and only a few homes burned. There were helicopters and giant planes flying overhead all day long carrying water and fire retardant to the fire.

Smoke coming over the mountains. eeek

I also managed to get myself really tired. I haven't been able to train as much as I would have liked most of the summer so I haven't had too many days of pure exhaustion, but I was able to find that place at camp. We were training about the same number of hours as usual, but added in lots of intensity and had the added stress of altitude, something that is hard to quantify in our training. It felt good to be tired as I felt I had done my job, trained hard, but I am not always the best at managing my tiredness. I pushed through only to have a total breakdown during our sprint time trial. So now, I am working on recharging and also confronting all my doubts and fears about my training this summer. The fall is a great time to work on some specific skills so I will be thinking about where I want to head as I transition back to Anchorage. I also start school this week...

It's always hard to leave home. Park City is really dear to my heart and somewhere I hope to return to soon more permanently. For now, I have to get my study on and focus on some specific training. 

Thanks for following.