RACE SEASON!

Shoot, school got the best of me, or rather my free time this past month. With the term ending December 5^th, but my last day in Alaska being Thanksgiving Day, I had my work cut out for me. Finish school early or on the road is nothing new for me, but packing up and leaving for 5 months is! In the last month, I have come up with a preliminary race schedule that involves spending time in between race series at home in Park City both because I love the western sunshine and because travel in and out of SLC is much more affordable than Anchorage. Check out my race schedule page to get the low down on all my race appearances this winter.

Our race season was scheduled to start November 18^th in Fairbanks, but in true Fairbanks fashion, the highs for the week were around -30F, no joke. That place is COLD! So we quickly bagged that plan and invited University of Alaska Fairbanks down south to have an informal race between UAF, University of Alaska Anchorage and APU. It was a balmy -4 in Anchorage, the legal cutoff for racing so we knocked heads a little and got our feet wet racing. The cold is always interesting to race in because it is very hard to get a read on how the body feels, as it just feels, well, COLD! Either way, you get some good lung burn and some sore muscles making it good practice.

Next, I frantically finished my classes, got everything squared away in Anchorage and headed south to West Yellowstone. This place has been my Thanksgiving home since I started Nordic skiing. Nordic skiers from around the country flock to this small town, otherwise flooded with snowmobiles, in south western Montana to get some early season snow and racing. It is always fun to catch up with friends and see all those skiers you haven’t seen since March! I was lucky enough to have my family and college roommate drive up to join me for Thanksgiving! Mom cooked a great feast as usual and we had a wonderful time!

West Yellowstone marked my first real weekend of racing with points and money on the line. I did something I have never done before and flew in the night before the race. Anchorage sits at sea level and West Yellowstone is about 6600’ combined with the many hours on a plane and stress of traveling, this is not something usually recommended, but with school getting in my way, it was my only option so I gave it a shot. Let’s just say, I have gained a new sympathy for all those low landers who continually complain about altitude in the West… I was feeling the thin air, but was able to wrap my head around racing and push myself as best I could. It was great to get the first race jitters out and ski on some new boards. I finished the weekend with 2 top 10s, not a bad start to the season. 

Enjoying that incredibly western sun in West Yellowstone, MT
Courtesy of Becca Rorabaugh

Our very nice house in West Yellowstone
Courtesy of Becca Rorabaugh

My new me! I have traded in my green snowflakes for some blue.
Courtesy of Matt Whitcomb
  Our team headed to Bozeman, MT on Monday to meet up with the rest of our team and prepare for another set of races there this weekend. As we drove north, the snow vanished and we were greeted by spring time temperatures in Bozeman. Unsure if the races were going to happen, we hesitated to unpack and settle in anxiously awaiting the official decision. On Wednesday, with a few inches of snow overnight, it was decided that the races would happen in some fashion. We were lucky enough to be able to ski on a north facing canyon early in the week until we got a little storm.

We have been very fortunate with our living situations. We are staying right across from the ski trails in Bozeman in some incredibly nice houses out-fitted with hot tubs, surround sound, a million channels, and beautiful views! We are out of cell service which is tough for some, but after spending some time in New England, I have learned to do just fine without. 

Skiing up Bozeman Creek, making due with what little snow there is!

The races will go on! Saturday and Sunday, we will be racing in some form or another before packing up and hitting the road for the VERY long trip to Silver Star, BC! Check back for a race report on Bozeman! Thanks for following!

Just a little...

Can go a long way.
Today the National Nordic Foundation, an organization out to support development of nordic skiing through funding World Juniors, Scando Cup, U23 Championships, OPA Cup, etc, is asking everyone to donate just $25.00.

Please consider giving $25.00 today to support not only me, but every other skier from age 15 on up who is trying to make their dreams come true.

http://ccgeneralfund.causevox.com/4eaac877306c1

Follow this link to the donation page and to learn more about the National Nordic Foundation

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!

As we pulled into the parking lot today, we had 2 people come to tell us that there was lots of bear activity still going on. Not being a fan of bears, I wasn't too excited and when I saw this: 

I just about died

This is Becca's foot, size 42, which is not small and this is one of the smaller footprints we saw. One was about the width of 3 of my feet combined. The tracks went on every trail, were going in every direction, and were most certainly fresh as it snowed last night. This is definitely a large brown bear that appears to be somewhat confused. (Thanks Becca for the pics!) 

This is a series of bear prints and the remains of its snack...

 One woman warned us that her dog was barking a lot and kept finding dead animal remains in the woods, nothing like a bunny rabbit snack. I just hope bunny tastes better than a spandex covered skier. 

Other than the silly bear, the skiing in AK is probably the best skiing in the world right now.

But, it was a chilly 6F this morning. Nothing like frozen nose hairs and burning lungs. 

Fortunate

Yes, I am stuck in cold, dark Alaska, thousands of miles away from my boyfriend and family, frantically trying to write term papers before I start racing and fighting off a nasty cold that hit me hard this past weekend, feeling a little sorry for myself, but guess what?

THERE IS SNOW HERE!

So I have quickly gone from feeling sorry for myself to feeling very fortunate that I can ski when very few people in the world can right now. 

Some former teammates and my boyfriend traveled a few weeks ago to Muonio, Finland, which lies on the Arctic circle making it even darker than Anchorage and they have been dealing with this:

(patrick photo)

Rain, incredibly dirty snow that was saved from last year, and every other elite skier in Europe going around the same 3km loop all day long.

We had a team time trial up on Hatcher's Pass on Saturday. It was a brisk 8F with a nice wet wind blowing making for some burning lungs and nearly frostbitten appendages, but excellent skiing conditions. It felt great to go hard on snow and to practice racing in winter conditions, after all, West Yellowstone is not known for it balmy November temperatures. 

I came down with a bit of a nasty cold after that, always good to get that first winter cold out of the way as well, so I have been resting up and going on some snowy adventures around campus as well. It snowed a good foot overnight turning everything into a winter wonderland. All the 50+km of bike path here are groomed once the snow flies so you can ski just about anywhere in Anchorage! The picture up top is the bike path bridge over one of the main roads. 

This is what Anchorage considers a plowed road....This is one of the main drags across the whole city and it is slick as all get out. With the bike paths groomed I am very close to giving up my car for some commuter skis. I have never seen a city that regularly gets snow be so incredibly bad at removing it. It's quite humorous until you are trying to drive somewhere. 

Just over a week until our first set of races! 

Snow, Skiing, Halloween, Sunday Mornings

A Glimpse at my Weekend:
(click on a picture to enlarge it!)

One of the last rollerskis of the season! Rollerskiing in 20F temps on frozen leaves is not very fun!

The Cook Inlet in the background

Going Swimming!

Us with knee injuries have done a little swimming. Sadie used to swim competitively so she relies on swimming to workout quite a bit so I decided to jump in and try it with her. Swimming is HARD! She lapped me many times until I finally swam a mile. 

Alaska has a couple skiing secrets, well not really secrets, but they are secret because only people brave enough to venture up to Alaska get to experience them. The Eagle Glacier is the first of such amazing places and Hatcher's Pass is the second. Hatcher's Pass is just outside of Palmer, AK, north of Anchorage and is high enough in the mountains to get snow when no where else does. While in town the ground is well frozen, it is bare so we have been spending some time driving up there. 

This is about 9:00AM, the sun is just starting come up.

Hatcher's Pass is a former gold mining village so the trails go right through the village and around all the buildings.

The main drag

The actual mine and associated structures

Making my way up the big hill. There is only about 3k, but a lot of vertical

Looking down on the village

After our interval workout, the sun came over the mountains! Getting on snow for the first time has never felt better for me. I think all the skiing on the glacier really did the trick. I am feeling much more fit this year!

Sadie and I got some new shades from Rudy Project, nice and bright!

 After a nice 3 hour skate ski up at Hatcher's, we scrambled to put together some Halloween costumes.

Sadie and her boyfriend, Waldo

Sadie and I were a "crime scene" complete with handcuffs, pistol, police badge, and magnifying glass

Sundays are our day off so we always have a big family breakfast. This morning, I woke up earlier than Sadie and commenced on a Halloween breakfast

Add caption

I made a pumpkin mold and used it to make some Pumpkin chocolate chip pancakes complete with an M&M stem and a tasty topping of yogurt, candy corn, and Sophie's VT maple syrup!

I looked out the window this morning to find this!! It snowed a couple inches of some really slick snow that compacted into a nice slippery sheet on the road. 

Alaska does not salt or plow roads, they just sprinkle some gravel and call it good. I have never experienced such a small amount of snow (about an inch) cause the roads to go from perfect to miserable and I did spend 4 years in New England. I think I will be investing in studded snow tires tomorrow. It is supposed to stay cold so I'm afraid the roads are going to look like this until April.......Hopefully it snows a little more so we can ski in town!

To top off the weekend, Sadie's boyfriend treated us to some grab for letting him crash at our house for a bit! YUM!

 Rollerskiing is most certainly done with here so I hope it continues to snow so we can ski in town this week. There are hundreds of kilometers of groomed trails in Anchorage and I have only skied the race courses so I am excited to check out some new trails!

Lastly, I have figured out my race season for the first part of the season and have updated it on the schedule tab above. I am excited to say the Brennan's will be having a full attendance at Thanksgiving for the first time in a while as my mom, dad, and brother will be joining me in West Yellowstone!!! Check it out and come see a race! 

Eastward

I completed my first pilgrimage to Dartmouth as an Alumni. I jumped into a few workouts with the team and it sure felt like I never even left. I loved it! I never thought I would miss the east as much as I do so this trip was really wonderful. I got to see lots of friends, some family, and spend some time with my boyfriend. It was a whirlwind of a trip and not nearly long enough to go everywhere I wanted to, but here are some highlights!

My first day there, I went for a run and just took off running on the lush, soft, and leaf covered trails in Putney, VT. I felt amazing running with so little impact and not having to worry about bears, moose, or bums. It was incredible! At one point, a few white tailed deer came leaping through the woods and I thought they were dogs because they were so small compared the AK moose I am accustomed to worrying about. That afternoon I headed up to Dartmouth to do some intervals with the team and it was a classic rainy and humid New England day. It was the first time I have worked out in shorts in months. I was just relishing the sweat pouring off me and the splash from the giant puddles we had to ski through.

Next, I headed north to Craftsbury, VT where Patrick lives and trains most of the year. It is incredibly isolated there, not even a chance of cell service, but I was content to spend time with my friends and do some fun, new training. After Patrick got a trip full of rain when traveling to AK, he must have ordered up some equally wonderful weather for me to experience during my trip. It was dreary New England weather the whole time, so my hopes of grabbing some Vitamin D were quickly foiled. I got to see all the work Patrick has been doing on the trails there all summer. He has worked to widen them all to 9 meters, which is huge. They looked really nice and I hope they get some good snow so I can experience them this winter as well.

Class of 2011 XC Women

Catching up with former teammates

We moved on to my friend Hannah's farm house just north of Hanover for an alumni get together and got to catch up with all my former teammates!

Then it was HOMECOMING! Homecoming is my 2nd favorite event at Dartmouth after Winter Carnival, of course. We started they off having breakfast with our former coach which is always a treat. We then participated in the Time Trial with the team. It was great, we had about 30 of us out rollerskiing in florescent shirts. Homecoming is marked my a enormous bonfire on the Green in which the freshman are supposed to run the same number of laps as their class year. So this year's freshman had to run 115 laps as the class of 2015.

The top of the fire burning bright

The class of 2015 and their captains preparing for their laps!

I then spent one last night in Putney visiting Patrick's parents and then drove to Boston with a friend who is now living there. She graciously put me up for the night so I could catch an early and LONG flight back to AK. It is about 2 hours longer traveling west against the jet stream. I had my fair share of homework to keep me occupied after neglecting it for the duration of my journey. 

There is no snow in Anchorage, but quite a bit up in the mountains so there might be some skiing to be had......

No Bears Today

But we did see a Lynx!!!! Lynx are very shy and are difficult to spot so I was very excited to see one today. I thought it was just a stump but my teammate saw the pointed ears and informed me it was actually a Lynx. We gave it space and walked around, but it didn't budge, it was perfectly still waiting for some breakfast to come by. I once again did not have a camera with me so I found some pictures online to show those of you that don't know what a lynx looks like.

For those of you the knew Boulder, I think he was part lynx. Although he looks rather relaxed here, he could easily be found looking just like the lynx above. It is also rutting season for the moose as they are coming down from the mountains for the winter so they are EVERYWHERE in small groups and are a little on edge......makes for some exciting training.