The Sun Camp

We have now completed our 3rd and final glacier camp of the summer. Our summer training is broken into 4 week blocks. Two weeks are spent dryland training in Anchorage, one week training on Eagle Glacier, and the last week spent on our own with some combination of recovery, adventuring, and training. Repeat this three times and that's a summer! It sure makes the summer fly by! I am having a hard time believing it's already mid-August. The good news is that I have had what I would call a very successful summer of glacier camps with the most training to date, the best technique to date, and limited to no injuries! The bad news is that I have not been the best about taking my recovery seriously enough and came out of the last glacier camp a little pooped and with a few less pieces of skin! I guess falling gets easier when you get tired... 

We were graced with 5 of 6 days of perfect bluebird skies on the glacier, making getting out the door a whole lot easier when you are feeling tired and not quite as motivated. I also have some teammates that double as spectacular photographers so thanks Eric Packer:

Out for an afternoon classic ski

A far away shot of our glacier sprint course

Skiing back to the building. With warm temperatures there was a lot of ice starting some come through the snow as seen here.

nothing beats sportsbra skiing

Happy to have some juniors along and share some of our stories. They are also heading to Dartmouth this fall!!!

Girls Team skiing together

Happy for sunshine

Team Picture after our exceptionally hard team sprint that left me with a few raspberries after a crashing on some icy snow

Coach Erik Flora and glacier workers, Don and Andre who work around the clock to make sure we have the best camp possible.

Girls Team!

Look at those guns

Erik and the elite team

With a big chunk of summer training done, it is time for a change of pace and scenery! I am taking a break to visit Park City and Cape Cod to spend time with family and recharge for the next block of training. 

Alaskan Summer

When one week of every month is spent skiing on a glacier and the other three weeks are in Alaska, it's easy to get confused about what time of year it actually is. However, summer in Alaska brings about all sorts of adventures, rain or shine.

After two weeks of training hard in Anchorage, we headed south for the 4th of July holiday weekend. Seward hosts the Mt. Marathon race, a grueling 3 mile race that ascends AND descends a 3,000 ft mountain. I am not a participant and not sure I ever want to be, but I enjoy being a spectator along with thousands of other Alaskans. This year two international mountain running stars came to participate in the event, making it an even bigger show down than past years. I was truly impressed and inspired by the athleticism and prowess both displayed as they easily walked away with the men's and women's title and broke both records! Killian Jornet is well known for his speed ascents up large mountains such as Denali and his girlfriend Emelie Forsberg is a world champion mountain runner who both now have a large Alaskan fan club following their performances. I was looking forward to heading on some of my own adventures in the Seward area until I dropped a 35lb bar on my foot in the weight room... I feel I dodged a bullet however as nothing was broken and it only cost me one weekend of training!

Sadie ready to celebrate the 4th of the July with her Olympic sweater

Killian reaching the bottom

Lots of spectators

Next, it was back to the glacier! While we didn't experience quite as bad of weather as last month, we had soft snow to contend with and some very tired bodies after two very solid months of training. We followed a similar training plan so I had some idea of how I might feel for each session. I tend to have the trend of getting a little too excited about skiing and getting pretty tired the first few days, then following a little spark with some hard training and a little slower distance pace, I catch a second wind for an end of week sprint simulation. The last day always consists of a very long workout, but knowing it's the last is typically enough to get us through feeling alright. We were able to hike out this camp, which is always an exciting adventure moving from a gray and white glacier panorama down through scree, mossy hillsides, and finally through the alders and back into the rainforest of Girdwood. Overall, the glacier camp was a huge success with lots of technical improvements, but I did leave feeling ready for a true recovery week to recharge for the second half of the summer.

Sometimes you get too tired to change standing up

50k ski done!

Enjoying a sunny afternoon on the heli pad

Getting bundled up for the snowmachine ride across the glacier to begin the hike down

On the recovery week, I decided to take advantage of being a resident Alaskan now. I headed to the Kenai River to go dipnetting and try my hand at filling the freezer. People from all over travel to the Kenai so it is a bit of a circus at times and a bit of a gamble trying to predict the fish. It seems everyone has their own theory for when the fish are coming, which tides are best to fish, the best techniques for dipnetting, the best ways to process the fish so your guess is as good as mine as to what the actual best way is...We camped on the beach just at the mouth of the river and just enjoyed ourselves, watching other with their nets in the water until we saw people bringing fish in, then we would jump in and try ourselves. A dipnet is about 5ft in diameter with a 15ft long pole making it no easy task to manage it along with the tides and the currents. Our preferred method was the moving method in which we would put the net out into the river and walk with it downstream, hoping to scoop up a fish, then drag it out, throw it over your shoulder, walk back up the beach, and start over again. If you felt a fish in your net, you quickly turn it and run to shore, smack it over the head, rip it's gills, throw it in the cooler and start over. It was quite the workout and I had some extremely sore muscles the next day. We were successful and brought home enough fish to feed us for the rest of the year!

Celebrathing Becca's birthday with Rhubarb Crisp

We made a trout cake for Erik's birthday

Beautiful night at the beach

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David and Jess getting after it. 

The row of tents moving in

Rolling in the coolers

The line of people waiting for fish

We have now started on our last glacier block of the summer meaning two weeks of training in Anchorage and one week on the glacier.

Time Flies When...

you train a lot (and have fun, of course!)

My summer is already flying by! After a few weeks of getting back into training in Anchorage, I flew to Park City for my first U.S. Ski Team camp of the summer. It was an unbelievably busy camp, meeting with the various extended staff helping us out, testing, training, and getting into a groove with my new teammates. I did 2 treadmill tests, one classic and one double pole only. These test only last a little over 10 minutes, but it is a max test so you go until you can't go anymore! I also did strength testing, mobility screening, hemoglobin testing, blood testing, and physicals making for an exhausting first few days. I was glad to be at home however, hanging with Mom when I got the chance! It was also very exciting to learn about all the various resources available to me through USSA and the Center of Excellence. I certainly have everything I need at my fingertips, it's my job now to use them and keep working hard.

Excited to work with Craft and work towards my goal of being injury free this year

Treadmill testing

Running adventures with Sadzarue

We had an unusually rainy camp but our new Craft gear kept us dry!

The Team

Hiking adventures with friends

Getting big in the COE

Biking adventures with Mom

More biking with Erika

We made it to the lake!

I just had a quick week back in Anchorage training before we headed up for our first glacier camp of the summer. Our first few days were filled with intense snow and hurricane force winds. Never able to see more than a few feet in front of you and your poles blowing sideways, skiing was quite the challenge, but we worked on our toughness, powered through it and the weather slowly improved throughout the week, finishing with a picture perfect day. The new snow meant the skiing was fabulous as we trailed behind the Pisten Bully, grooming fresh tracks through the snow storm. I felt like I was able to work on many important things, get in touch with skiing again, and build some good fitness.

And phew, finally, I got my first and much needed recovery week of the summer. Anchorage had a serious heat wave roll through and I took advantage camping, adventuring and spending time in my bikini, a rarity in Alaska! Now we are back at it, ramping things up again for the next block of training. I have chosen to focus on training in Anchorage this summer so I am hopping to have a more regular schedule in the coming months filled with training and some solid Alaskan adventures.

I was the benefactor of my mom's new bike purchase and got her old one to bring with me to Anchorage!!!!!

And I officially became Alaskan....

Our inspiration while fighting hurricanes on the glacier

But the sun finally came out!

Happy Sadie flying down after a good camp

Some really happy girls who just finished camp in the sun!

Back At It

The first day of training is much like the first day of school. Excitement to see all your friends who have been on various adventures, excitement to start moving towards all the goals you just spent all spring planning, and chaos in scrambling to get all your equipment together. We started off with a bang, rollerskiing and treadmill testing on day 1 and continued to progress into a more regular training pattern. Now, at the end of two weeks and a few sore muscles later, it feels like I never even left.

Some things have changed however, I have been nominated for the U.S. Ski Team! This holds a particular significance to me outside of the obvious. I was named to the U.S. Ski Team when I graduated from high school and spent two years racing for both Dartmouth and the U.S. Ski Team before being dropped in 2009. Whatever the reasons were for dropping me, it was impossible not to feel some amount of devastation as it felt like there was no point of doing this if the National Team staff didn't believe in me. How was I going to make it?  I was lucky a girl though and I was surrounded by coaches, friends, and teammates who did believe in me and didn't let me walk away. I think I had one of my best summers of training that summer with the help of Ruff pushing me along when I needed it most.

I am a stubborn one and I believe strongly in hard work and not in talent. I have carried a bit of doubt with me ever since being dropped. It's not something that just disappears, but I did my best to push it to the back of my head and continue to believe in my effort. Finally, 6 years later, I'm back, and well, let's just say it feels good! It was something I really needed to prove to myself how important hard work is.

I have a few more teammates now, but other than that, things are staying more or less the same for me as I will continue to train with APU and Erik Flora. I'm looking forward to all of it!

Crust Skiing!

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Sadie giving her speech at graduation

2 degrees while crushing the World Cup, one heck of a girl, that Sadie!

More skiing!

snow, sun, and friends!

crushing mountains with the best!