Glacier: take 1

I survived my first glacier camp of the summer! Just as I thought summer was over, we got a second go around and were lucky enough to have almost perfect weather on the glacier. Lots and lots of sun, soft snow, and sore muscles. I don't think I have been this tan since I left Utah 6 years ago! I do not have the photographic talents that my teammates do so I have shamelessly stolen these pictures from teammates Holly Brooks and Reese Hanneman.

I was worried about my injuries and certainly had my ups and downs during the week, but in the end, I think it was a very worthwhile camp as I was able to really focus on the movements I was making and work one on and one with our coach to improve those movements. I didn't ski quite as much as I am accustom to or would have liked to, but that's life when you're injured.

Getting "buzzed" by a teammate's friend on a spectacular evening

Awesome panorama of the facility and drink supply pond

I found some pure zinc chapstick when I was home this spring and had to bring it up to the glacier where sunburnt lips are hard to combat. Sun safety!

Skiing

More Skiing

Our Men's team has had lots of changes with people retiring and newbies joining. This is the 2013-14 Men's Team and Coach Erik Flora on the far left!

Due to the high number of injuries on our Women's team, only 4 of us were able to make it up to the glacier and this is proof that we didn't totally score, we did get 2 foggy days. 

Waiting for the helicopter to come pick us up. 

This is our staff. They work super hard making sure the facility stays in good operation and that we get the most out of our training camp. We had a competition in which these techs had to wax our skis for intervals using our supplies. Don Haering, far right, was my tech and we won the competition so the trail is now called Haering's Humps. 

I also like to do some backing up on the glacier, it keeps everyone happy! 

Another week down

This week was highlighted by record high temps followed by the end of summer, a big fundraiser, and going on some bike adventures, trying to make the most of my foot injury.

The week started out with some serious heat, I could have been easily convinced I was back at Dartmouth. However, as soon as the solstice hit, which is technically the start of summer, actually marked the return to normal AK summer (or lack thereof). But it hasn't rained yet so I can't really complain.

On one hot evening we decided to take a dip in the river to cool off. Lots of others had the same idea.  This however, was my reminder that I was still in AK and not in New England...

Cooling off!

Freezing now as I emerge from the lake

We had a nice visit from Mr. Bear, who knew it was Wednesday, trash day! bad bear!

Sadie, enthralled by the bear and not running for once in her life

I have been getting back into road biking lately. Biking is not great for my back, but it is for my newly injured feet so I have to pick my battles. Road biking in Anchorage is really an experience. For one, there aren't many roads in AK so all our riding is in the city. Two, there are lots of hidden secrets in the city if you go far enough. Three, the animals are still lurking in the depths of the city. Four, there is lots of construction and dirt roads so really its more like cyclocross, than road riding.

Caught by construction, we hit the soccer field to get back to the planned route.

A day adventuring 

 APU hosted a big fundraiser for the whole school, that was "cirque" themed complete with acrobats. It is a huge fundraiser and the ski team gets a little money out of it by auctioning off a dinner made by the Men's team and a dinner made by the Women's team.

Crazy Decor

Dressed up for the event

Momma and baby chilling in the yard. 

Another adventure ride, we found this scenic spot that reminded me of some rides I did around Hanover. 

Today we hit the glacier for our first camp of the summer. I am excited to be back skiing and to hopefully get my injuries back in a good place for another month of dryland training.

Injuries and Sunshine

I have to say I am actually in disbelief. It has been warm and sunny in Anchorage for over two weeks now and there is a severe weather warning for heat (it's AK so the 80's deserved a warning) this week. I have never experienced such good weather here. I have worn shorts outside of training, used the AC in my car, and even got a little sunburnt and sought out shade in the past 2 weeks! The only way I am still reminded I am in Alaska not the east is that the mosquitoes are out of hand. You cannot leave the house without a thorough coating of deet.

It's been awesome and had kept me so busy bouncing from one activity to the other, I have hardly had a moment to relax which is really the way summer should be!

Wednesday we biked up to a lake and went for a canoe. We have awesome boy teammates who paddled Sadie and I around due to our bad backs!

Enjoying the Alaska Beach! I have now worn a bikini and eaten ice cream outside in AK!

When it stays light all night, its hard to ever stop playing. We enjoyed some nighttime B-Ball at the park by our house. I still remembered a few things from my middle school basketball days.

On the Weekends, I work at the downtown market selling bike jerseys. Wax tech Mike and Sadie came to visit me and we strolled through the market on a balmy day.

There have also been some floods as a result of the heat. This river went over the road on a big downhill that we could not see the bottom of. It ended in 3 crashes with some scrapes and bruises and fortunately a lot of laughter, not tears.

We also went to the rodeo! I have to say I was a little disappointed having drown up in the West and seeing some professional rodeos, but it was sunny, warm, and fun anyhow.

 The sunshine is my saving grace these days, as I have encountered a new injury...I am now suffering plantar fasciitis on my foot. This is a common injury for runners and I have somehow acquired it despite not running that much. So needless to say, between my back and foot, I spend about 1 hour everyday doing physical therapy. I am working hard to stay positive, keep up on my body care, and train where I can in hopes this will be a short lived set back. We have one more week of dryland training in town before heading up for out first Glacier Camp of the summer.

Happy Father's Day to my most proud and supportive Father!

Computer Problems...

I made it back to AK with just hours to spare before jumping into meetings for our annual fundraiser. I spent 3 days putting together the finishing touches on the fundraiser with the rest of my team. While no one likes doing these things, it is of course important to our team and being able to do the things we do best, skiing. Everything went well and we raised some good money!

Then we jumped right into training...Luckily AK is cold so there was still some skiing to be had so we did a mix of running and skiing and I have also taken up swimming this spring. I even bought myself a swim cap, making me the real deal...NOT. But I have found that mixing up the activities I do for training really helps my back stay in a less painful state and swimming of course involves little risk of further injury so I have been taking tips from my teammates that are really good at swimming and trying to improve.

We had just one week of training in Anchorage before we were off again. I headed to Bend, Oregon for a US Ski Team camp. I love Bend! It is a very hip outdoorsy town and it is the West. The cool part about Bend is that there is still skiing late into the summer up on Mt. Bachelor, a giant volcano. So, we ski in the morning and then head back into town where it is warm and summer-like for a dryland session in the afternoon. This is a great way to ease into dryland activities. When we can use our familiar skiing muscles on snow in the morning and then start to get our running, rollerskiing, adn biking muscles into shape in the afternoon, we help prevent injury while still training a high number of hours.

Just before I headed south, I made the bozo move of spilling on my computer...It still worked so I brought it and a day into the trip it suddenly failed on me. There was a bunch of mishaps during the fixing process so three weeks later I am still without a computer and really behind on everything because of it. Turns out I am really dependent not only on a computer, but also the internet! I am now back in Anchorage so I have the ability to use the computer lab at APU so I am slowly catching up. Creating a blog was one of the many things I am catching up on. Here are some pictures from the last month of my life.

In order to prevent this from happening again and to keep you all well informed, I am going to write a weekly blog on Sunday so please look for that!

The boys after an awesome ski with fresh snow at Hatcher's Pass, AK

The unwanted storm that brought half a foot of snow in town the day before we left for Bend

Skiing in Bend

At camp, we do lots and lots of following trying to pick up technique from others.  

Bend has awesome trails for running and biking. I was lucky enough to be able to borrow a bike  to do some afternoon riding! 

Back in Anchorage, which I survived my first rollerski of the season on June 2nd!

 I did my first rollerski this week on June 2nd! Most people are probably thinking, what you only started rollerskiing now, you're behind. But I like to brag about this for a couple of reasons. First, I have really taken an effort to be more controlled in my training to try to eliminate my back injury for good and I feel I am accomplishing this. Second, I have been able to ski on snow until this week and we all know snow skiing is WAY better than road skiing. Lastly, it is easy to burn out on rollerskiing come October so the later the start the later the burnout so I should make it a long time this fall before I am dragging my feet to get out the door.

Look for Sunday Blogs from here on out! Enjoy Summer!

Vacation Time

I only get about 1 week a year when I don't have to think once about skiing, training, or anything of the sort. It also happens to be my only week to spend with Patrick in which we don't have to worry about racing or training. Since we were already in California, we continued west and headed for the coast to hang out with some friends. We spent the first weekend camping in the Sonoma State Park. It was much colder than I had imagined, but fortunately we came from a ski race so we had plenty of warm clothes and good company!

Our campsite had an awesome tree to hang out in

I love sea creatures so tide pooling was my favorite activity!

Pat and I checking out the tide pools

beautiful coast

On our way home, Patrick and I took the scenic route, driving along the edge of the Russian River Valley. We stopped for some wine tasting and a walk through the vineyards. Then we continued on to San Francisco, where I have friends from college and high school so we had a great time enjoying the city life and visiting friends. We love checking out the city, but it is a little high stress for us small town folk so we were thoroughly exhausted by the end of the week.

John took us on a tour of all the single track in the city

The view at one of the look outs was amazing!

 A view of downtown

 We decided to break up the drive back to Utah and spend the night somewhere in Nevada to go biking. Last year we did the same thing and had remembered this small town that advertised mountain biking so we decided to check that out. We had remembered it as a cute town with lots of spanish influence literally built out of a steep hill. However, as we rolled in, it turned out our memory selectively picked the 2 buildings that were historic and failed to pick up on the trailers and sketchy part of the town. There was no one around and we couldn't even get the information we wanted about the bike trails. We drove up to the place we were planning to camp only to find lots of snow and some sketchy, somewhat permanent looking camps that thoroughly freaked us out. So, we made the decision to keep driving to Ely, Nevada which is not any less sketchy, but a little bigger and we camped there last year so we were at least familiar with the town. We arrived in the dark with snow on the ground so rather than try to cook at the campsite, we had a really romantic dinner at the McDonalds Play Place and then set up camp. When we woke up, we were frosted head to toe. Last year we camped here about the same time and it was really warm, go figure, weather in the desert...It was too snowy to bike so we just went for a short hike before continuing to Utah.

Pat, super psyched to make coffee in the snow

A frosted tent

Using the stove for warmth

It was a short, but fun vacation! After struggling with my back injury the second half of the season, I made the decision to return to Utah to be evaluated by a doctor and do what I can to make the changes needed to forever heal this nagging injury. Let's hope it all works out!

Done Done Done

I don't think I have ever left as tired and exhausted as I did during the last few days of Super Tour Finals. Everything seemed like a challenge, eating became a task, and sleeping was difficult. The last week of racing for everyone in the U.S. occurred from April 4-12, which is extremely late for any sort of ski racing and on top of that we raced 5 times during that time period, all above 7,000 ft in every sort of weather condition you can imagine. This is also the only time during that year that all U.S. skiers race together, including the entire World Cup team so the races are competitive and important.

The first 4 races were considered a mini-tour so there was an overall winner based on the cumulative times at the end of the 4 days.

Day 1: 3.5km Freestyle Prologue. We were welcomed by pouring rain, not the image I have when I think of California so certainly everyone's spirits were a little deflated. It was a brutal 3.5km course on top of that and I was the lucky one to have the famed Kikkan Randall starting behind me. Knowing this is my weakest event, I had a good feeling she would catch me, which retrospectively was probably not the best way to look at the race, but regardless, it happened and I did my best to learn from her and follow her into the stadium. It was certainly not my best day, finishing 12th.

Day 2: 10km Classic Mass Start. The sun came back out, but the interesting weather provided somewhat tricky wax conditions, adding to the stress of racing. I started off well skiing with the leaders, but as per usual, skied poorly in the downhill sections loosing a bit of contact. I unfortunately then broke a pole just as I was finding my groove to get back in the lead pack. It was a very bad place to break a pole as no coaches were out there so I skied for about a kilometer with one pole before I saw a male friend of mine who was cheering us on and I yelled for a pole which he graciously gave me. It was about 2 inches too long, but that is better than no pole so I continued onward. The hill featured on this course was something close to absurd. It was a wall so steep and so long, it left some of the best in the world in nothing more than a glorified waddle, panting like a freight train. I couldn't help but look up and laugh seeing Kikkan walking up a hill on skis while actually pulling away from the field. I skied a much better second lap and moved into 8th. I was looking for more, but it would have to do.

The start of the race

The entire field waddling up the hill and this is only about halfway up!

Here I am reaching the top and trying to move from the waddle back to striding

 Day 3: Classic Sprint. It's amazing how even when you are too tired to sleep, your body can still pull itself together for about 4 minutes of hard racing. While sprinting has not been my strength this year, I have been able to succeed in sprinting when I have found myself exhausted. The day brought rain, snow, and sun so we had three pairs of skis waxed and ready all times and were continually testing trying to find the best wax. It was exhausting for everyone and I am very thankful to have a full wax staff who works so hard to make that an option for us. I had a lackluster qualifying round and was lacking in confidence going into the heats. Fortunately for me, the finish was all uphill so I just went for it in the first round, easily moving on. This was certainly not the smartest move on my part, but I had to prove to myself I was amongst the best. In my semi-final, I used the same tactic, moving into the final. I was ecstatic to make the final, but I paid the price of pushing too hard in the earlier rounds and really struggled to get my body going. I was able to fight a little and ended up 4th on the day, something I was quite pleased with.

Day 4: Hill Climb. We skied all the way to the top of Sugar Bowl Resort, 1500 ft of climbing in about 3km. We started based on our combined time in the previous 3 races. The first 3 km were flat through a meadow and then we turned and headed straight up the alpine area. We were greeting by outrageously strong winds that made planting your pole and seeing the blue lines of the coarse a real challenge. I skied the first 3km very conservatively and was disappointed to loose time on this section but I was able to find a really good groove on the way up and started passing people one at a time while crawling up the slope. Eventually I was passed by Jessie who started behind me, but knowing she was going to have a good time on the day, I stuck with her all the way to the finish line, collapsing in a heap while the wind howled across us. I moved up 2 places in the mini tour, finishing 6th and had the 7th fastest climbing time on the day. I was pleased with this as I am much larger than all of the girls who finished ahead of me. It was so windy, I was too tired to even think about skiing down on skinny skis, but was shocked to see that the lift was even running. I took my chances and rode the lift down swinging like crazy.

Wind howling across the mountain

Day 5: U.S. National Championships 30km classic. 30km is a long and hard race so rather than hold it in January with the rest of the National Championship races, it is slapped on at the very end of the season, making it a true battle of grit as everyone is skiing with so much fatigue. It turned out to be the sunny hot day we were all hoping for earlier in the week. The snow became mush very quickly and staying hydrated was key. After the snow turned to mush, it was a serious slog fest as none of the downhills were fast enough to tuck forcing us to work hard and ski hard every one of those 30km, never getting a rest. For the first time in the U.S. we also had the option to switch skis in the race, however, at the penalty of a small loop that took about 50 seconds to complete. This adds a lot more in terms of tactics picking which laps to switch and which not to based on the pack you are skiing in and not knowing what they are going to do. I had one of my best races of the year! I had a great start and was skiing right with the leaders. As we turned up the largest climb, a couple girls started to pull away and I thought I might as well try to go with them as it was the last race and I had nothing to loose. They went through the stadium without switching skis so I too followed them and was able to ski with both Liz and Kikkan (both world cup superstars!) for another half a lap before there pace became too much for me to handle. I dropped a little ways back but held a steady distance behind them. The challenge then became skiing alone for another 15km while holding off the girls behind me. Every so often I could get glimpses of Kikkan that kept me chugging along. I dug really deep and pushed myself harder than I think I ever have and was able to hold on to 3rd place, something I am really happy with. It was great to end my season on a high note and finally prove to myself that I can indeed ski 30km well. 

The Start 

Champagne toast for a season done!

Podium 

 These races had more on the line than pride. The SuperTour Points awarded for each race were doubled. The winner of the Overall SuperTour gets start rights for the World Cups in the Fall. I came into the series with a pretty good lead, but my biggest chaser, Sadie, was skiing very well and I knew I had to hold it together to keep my lead. I managed to hold the overall lead and also, with a good sprint finish, won the distance title and the sprint title. This means that I scored the most points over the whole season in SuperTour (professional circuit in U.S.) in sprint and distance racing. This is something I never even considered going into the season, but is a big bonus and a great accomplishment. I can't wait to get back on the World Cup and improve my results from this spring!


I am so happy to be done and to have had my best season yet. I am very thankful for my sponsors, mainly Rossignol, my team, coaches, family and friends for all the support and effort put into helping me have such a great season. Cheers!