I chose to make a training block this summer in the East to spend time with my extended family and to see my boyfriend. August seemed like the best time since I find August to be the rainiest of months in Alaska, but still summery in the East, allowing me to extend my summer a bit! I first made a pit stop on SLC to pick up Mom before heading to NH. While I was still trying to get some training in, we had a bigger task at hand. We were to clean out all the barns, yes plural, at my grandparents house to get one step closer to being able to sell the house. It was quite the project and my Uncle Sam, who is nearly a spitting image of Bumps, worked dawn til dusk, just as Bumps did everyday, for a week while my mom, me, and 2 other Aunts pitched in where we could. Bumps was not one to throw things out so we really found some treasures. We had no shortage of WD-40, bailing twine, baskets, buckets, watering cans, and thermometers. At the end of the week, we had a barn sale, which was hugely successful and gave us a great glimpse at the local color...We had people buying stuff of us Friday as we were setting up and by Saturday at 9AM, the advertised opening time, we had sold everything of good value. Let's just say, the locals around there love a good deal. Unsure of when the house will sell, I took some time to swim in the pond a few more times and collected a few more pigs as a keepsake.
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| Yes, you are right, this is too brown to be the east. Pit stop in SLC, picking up mom |
I found some great running trails in the area, where I ran into 2 black bears on one run! The first one ran away from me, but left me thinking how maybe I was silly to leave my bear bell in Alaska and to be most worried about deer flys and ticks in the east. After summiting some "peaks" I found tons of wild blueberries, which clearly explains the large number of bears before I ran into another bear. This one was content with the blueberries and didn't care in the least about me.
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| Map of all the great trails I found! I was running alone, without water, and therefore no phone to take pics with... |
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| Side note...We all opened our bags of new training gear to find skirts...thinking maybe our coach had actually lost his mind, we were thankful to learn it was a mistake, but they were ours so we have embraced the skirts by instating mini-skirt Mondays into our training. |
Patrick helped us out with the barn sale and then we headed west for Stratton, where Patrick is now coaching. Many of my teammates from Dartmouth are on the team so it's great to catch up with friends as well. I am very thankful for them to be so welcoming and treating me as part of the team while I am out here. The Canadian Men's team is here doing a camp and junior camps have been going on so it's been a busy and hard week of training!
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| Talking to a captive audience of juniors |
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| Practicing some sprint tactics |
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| Trying to find my sprint (in the white) |
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| Warming up with coach Pat on the bike |
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| Boys showing off their 6 packs |
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| Jessie and I talking to a group of juniors |
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| Sophie, with her 6 pack too, showing us how sprinting is really done |
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| Our cheering squad. |
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| SMS T2 team plus me! |
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| Working with juniors on some skills |
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| It's blueberry season! |
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| T-shirt signing |
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| Crushing some distance on the plethora of awesome roads in New England! |
I have one more week of training in VT before heading back to AK. It's really great to mix up the training. I am thoroughly enjoying the undulating terrain and numerous roads as well as time with friends! Thanks SMS T2!
