EAST COAST LOVE

It had actually been a full year since I had last been in New England which was the longest I have been away since I started college 7 years ago now....(feeling old). Needless to say, I was really excited to not only get a break from AK and training up there, but to see lots of my friends and family. If only I had more time...I have so many friends and family in New England, that I would need at least a month to see everyone.

First Stop: CAPE COD! I had a recovery week and nothing says recovery quite like Cape Living does. I gorged on steamers and lobsters, flipped Patrick and I in the sailboat in the middle of the cut, ate Four Seas ice cream for lunch and dinner, and spent some time with Charlie and my cousin Jen. We also got an opportunity to visit the Ocearch. Ocearch is a giant (former crab) boat that goes around the world catching Great White Sharks for research purposes. It started with a show on Discovery and History that you may have seen, but now is solely working for research purposes. The boat is ironically from Park City and my Dad worked on financing it through US Bank. He is also obsessed with it so if you know him, you have probably heard more about it than you want to know, but if not, here is the website you can check out. Betsy is the most recent Great White caught off of Cape Cod and you can track her on the website to see if it's a good day to go swimming or not...  http://ocearch.org/

This is the small boat they use to actually catch the Shark and tire them out

Then, this lift is lowered on the side of the boat where they then drag the shark on to the lift in order to get samples from the shark and put a GPS on it. 

Here is Dad, super pumped pretending to drive the thing

YEAH PC!

A school of porpoises came by.

I swear they are there.

Loving Four Seas!

 Second Stop: Putney, VT. Patrick is from Putney so we went to his house for a few nights to visit his parents. It was full on blueberry season so we went picking and I had to make a pie!

Third Stop: Stratton, VT. Many of my former Dartmouth teammates now train with Stratton Mountain School T2 Team. Patrick and I headed over there to check things out. It was great to train with my Dartmouth teammates. I miss them a great deal! They are the best training partners I have ever had and was very happy to spend time with them. I also accomplished a 70 minute swim in a pond where I couldn't touch the bottom most of the time. I am a very slow swimmer, but that was quite a feat. I wish I had a picture of it. Pat and I both looked like drowned rats afterward.

Me leading Erika in intervals

Cruising on a distance ski 

Sophie and I hammering out some more intervals

Patrick and Eric heading up

Stop 4: Dartmouth. We stopped by Dartmouth on our way north to visit with our old coaches. It was great to see them and great to reminisce about the good ol days. Hanover is a wonderful town and I am so thankful for the time I got to spend there.

Stop 5: Craftsbury, VT. We finally made it to the Kingdom. I learned how to drive a dump truck so we could do some trail work and pick up some trees. We also had an exciting afternoon of water recreation. We tried out stand up paddle boarding for the first time. I have to say, it wasn't as great as everyone makes it out to be. It's a bit slow for my taste. But I also got to FINALLY jump on a water trampoline which I have been wanting to do since our neighbors at the cape got one many years ago. It also was not as great as I had imagined, but I had fun anyhow. We tested out all the water toys at the kids camp and being the land lovers we are neither Pat nor I were very good at any of them. Nils came to visit which was a huge highlight. Nils has moved on from competitive skiing so I don't get to see him as much. We also went to the community corn roast put on by a local dairy farm. It was quite the seen with live music 100 different types of pasta salad and baked beans, and lots of local color. I found it really neat to see the operation of the dairy farm. Pat's uncle has a small dairy operation on his farm so Pat is quite knowledgable and taught me all kinds of things. There was even a cow that had just been born that day! I failed to take any pics of the farm : (  Lastly, Hannah was racing in some biathlon rollerski races that are quite important as they help her to qualify for the World Cup. We went to volunteer at the races and cheer her on. She WON the first day!!!! and came in 2nd (top american) the 2nd day! So that was spectacular to see. She looked really good out there!

Nailing some targets

Skiing hard

As per usual, I was having too much fun to bother taking pictures, so sorry for the small sampling. It was a busy and fun trip and I am sad it's over!

BUT, next stop is Park City, my actual favorite place!

And I almost forgot... Fasterskier did a feature on me and my hopes of going to the Olympics this winter. Read it here: http://fasterskier.com/article/eyes-on-sochi-brennan-aims-for-olympics-while-training-smart/

Glacier Girls

The second week of Girls Camp or NAWTA (north american training alliance) is done on Eagle glacier. I have blogged so many times about the glacier so I'm sure everyone gets the idea now. We ski a lot and try to learn a lot. As also said many times before, the benefit of having new girls to ski with on the glacier is to learn new technique tricks and push ourselves a little harder. It was truly amazing to have guest star, Norwegian national team member, Astrid Jacobsen on the glacier. Her classic technique is flawless and she was incredibly open telling us many stories of her team and their training which is always fun and fascinating.

This glacier was a little different...we had full time physical therapy support. Zuzana Rogers, who is a local PT with Advanced Physical Therapy (a new team sponsor) that has been working with our team donated her time to follow us on the glacier and work on us 24/7. It was AMAZING! Being injured really sucks and not being able to get help when you need it sucks even more. My injuries were not the slightest issue at this camp and that is all thanks to the work Zuzana did on me everyday. It is incredible the difference it makes to have a qualified person guide you and work on you everyday rather than once a week.

We also had media day. There were about 10 different people from different media outlets that showed up to check it all out. Here are the links of the material I have seen so far:

KTUU (NBC) News: http://www.ktuu.com/videogallery/76815494/Sports/APU-Skiers-Train-on-Eagle-Glacier

Anchorage Daily News: http://www.adn.com/2013/07/26/2993490/elite-cross-country-skiers-train.html


NPR News: http://www.npr.org/2013/08/01/207894104/glacier-helps-u-s-ski-team-drift-ahead-of-competition?sc=tw&cc=share

Thanks to Matt Whitcomb for the high quality photos and all my other teammates and friends who are way better at taking pics than me. Here's a look at the glacier:

Winners of the annual speed realy! 

PT with a view!

The Whole Group

Go Rossignol!

Getting creative with injury care: contrast foot baths

The whole gang

Catching BIG air....

GO APU

The APU ladies

Trying to stay with Astrid during some hard Level 4 Classic intervals

And trying to stay with Liz!

Glacier Clouds

Brunch, a post-interval fave

Astrid

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Astrid made us Norwegian Waffles with brown cheese upon our return to town!!!

Quick Back-log

The US Women's Nordic Team arrived and things got busy here in Anchorage! We were graced by wonderful weather as always for Girls Camp, workouts were hard, and social nights were the norm. It is always difficult for me to adjust from training with my APU teammates to having an influx of lots of fast girls show up at my house and at our training sessions. This is one of things I realized I need to work on throughout the week. My goal for the week was to be confident in MY own training and believe that whatever I am doing right now for training is because I know thats what I need to be fastest in the winter regardless of what the 15 other fast girls around me are doing. My training volume has been significantly reduced this year due to the injuries I have developed which is where I believe this lack of confidence developed, but I had a really successful time turning things around and being proud of what I did do throughout the week. A couple highlights included reducing my time on our L3 interval route by about 1 minute, swimming 1 mile all in the freestyle technique, and completing a 5 hour mountain bike ride without back pain!

After training, these birds decided to attack us. Becca was more cool with it than the rest of us.

Checking out the coast with Patrick

The top of Resurrection Pass, 3 hrs into the bike ride

Sunny on one side of the pass

A little gloomy on the other side...

Made it to the top1

Pat had to hike up to the snow to get a snowball. Silly easterner still thinks its crazy to find snow in the summer.

After turning back down the pass, I managed to break the derailleur hangar off my bike and therefore had no rear derailleur. I happen to have an amazing boyfriend who is not only good at fixing bikes, but also riding bikes so despite a plethora of bugs, rain drops, and a few swear words, Patrick was able to turn my bike into a single speed and switch our pedals so he could ride it 12 miles out while I rode his slightly more functioning bike. He even managed to not break the chain until the last kilometer!

Post workout photoshoot with the whole bunch of girls!

Astrid cooking up some king crab!

A couple exciting things happened this week during camp. First, we had guest superstar Astrid Jacobsen join us from the Norwegian National Team. Astrid won World Championships in 2007 and then showed up at World Juniors, which also happened to by my first World Juniors. I had a great race myself, but happened to be in 3 heats of the sprint with Astrid. She thoroughly kicked everyone's butt, including myself. She has also received a lot of attention because she chose to continue her education while ski racing and is also attending medical school. As I also chose to pursue education in addition to skiing, I have found her to be a real inspiration. It was amazing to be able to train with her, or well behind her, and listen to her wisdom. She is a very bright and experienced athlete and I learned so much from her!

Kikkan also landed a new sponsor, Alaska Seafood, who blessed us with King Crab Legs, Salmon, and Halibut. I am a seafood fiend and really gorged myself, it was amazing!

grill full of tasty fish!

Sadie, her boyfriend Jo, and I on top of Hatcher's Pass, another great bike ride we did!

After a great week of dryland, we headed to the glacier for a full week of skiing! We had a media day so check back this week or all the links to the articles, videos, and photos.