Christmas Time in Vermont

I have been at my parent's home in East Montpelier since I traveled back from Davos, Switzerland two weeks ago. I have yet to miss a Christmas here with my family, and this year my brother, Andy, who lives in Seattle, was able to come home for a few days as well. I am enjoying my last day at home tomorrow before heading out to Alaska for Nationals. Coming home is always awesome, time with my parents, time with my dog and just plain, time. It is great.

My parent's home with the newly erected barn!

Family snowshoe

My brother, me and my cousin Josh and his wife Kate!

Christmas doll from Norway whom my Mom named Sigrid

Took Charley for her first ski on the snowmobile trails with me. It was incredibly fun. We both had headlamps, as it got dark while we were out there, and it was an experience I will never forget, and will repeat tomorrow!

Andy sporting his new glasses

Dad doing a dance!

Andy and the dreaded gift of "the puzzle"

Next year's Christmas card, or it would be if we sent Christmas cards

Burke Mountain from the Sutton Ridge

Morning light

Mom performing carols

Christmas pudding burning the traditional flame

Charley in action!

Rough life, eh?

DAVOS!

The internet is very in and out here, but Davos is one heck of a place.  I think for many of us, it is one of the favorite spots on the tour, and when you come from dark scandinavia, the sun feels even better.  Races this weekend are a 10/15K skate on Saturday and a skate sprint on Sunday.  I head home on Monday, so these will be my last races over here until later this season.  

First morning! AAAHHH!

Mo, enjoying the sun

My two favorite things: trains and alert-shirt orange

Gormet meals at the Hotel Kulm

Moon rise over Davos

Hotel Kulm staff Christmas party.  Here, the tradition goes that if you are a bad kid that year, Santa will put you in his sack and take you out into the woods and leave you, so kids around here are much more behaved! 

Pete Vordenberg and his wife Barb Jones.

Kuusamo Report

Canadian bowling team.

Team USA Bowling

Mo i.e: "The Ocho"

Newell turning 26!

Davos, Switzerland now, where there is not only plenty of snow and good coffee but something called "sun".  Crazy, but that thing shines bright and lights up your life.  Pretty awesome feeling the Vitamin D kick in again.  Pictures to come.  Sprinters are in Dusseldorf this weekend, then we will all meet up here in Davos for next weekend's WC.  Results for this weekend will be at: www.fiscrosscountry.com.  Tim Burke 2nd in a 20K individual start biathlon race today!!  Stoke is high here!  Alpiners in Aspen this weekend, ski jumpers and combiners in Lillehammer, nordic supertour in Bozeman (results at: www.summittiming.com.)  The results for all this will be at: www.fis-ski.com.  The winter is here, races are happening, it's time to get stoked and start cheering from your seats at home or from the sidelines of a race course.  Let's get fired up.

Suomi!

First news I have....

My good friend Emily Carver made the newspaper in Maine for her work with the AmeriCorps!  Check it out!

http://knox.villagesoup.com/place/story/trekkers-hires-carver-as-americorps-member/183538

We traveled to Finland on Monday morning early after a long bus ride to Oslo immediately following the races on Sunday.  We are pretty far north, so it is plenty dark here most of the day.

Spirits are HIGH!  And the lights are plenty bright, though Vitamin D levels will decline here.

More soon.

Portable Bridge Construction: Day 1

Kikkan after her best distance skate race ever.

The morning we woke up to.  Sun!

XC Ski fans toasting marshmallows on the side of the race.

A few Swedish fans and their blow up doll!

Some days will not go as you planned.  In fact, most days will look a bit like Swiss Cheese, full of things that are unexpected.  What I have always done is simply try to avoid the holes as best possible, so as not to fall in.  However, what I should be doing is building a portable bridge that I can put down as soon as I see the hole and carry it with me to help get over the next one.  Today, I began constructing my bridge.  Today, I discovered a hole 1:30 before my race that I let myself fall in and once I was in, climbing out became even harder than missing the hole entirely would have been.  Let me explain.

We have been training in Beitostolen for 2 weeks now, and exactly one week ago we raced the same exact race that we raced today.  However, today, we woke up to a much different day than we have been used to here.  The tracks were icy, downhills fast, corners sketchy, uphills tough to get an edge on, but this was race day and this was a hole that was unplanned, as there almost always will be.  I skied scared and tentative and all of that overtook my head, so that the simple act of going as hard as possible was even blurry.  So today, I start building my portable bridge.  This is one race in the bag, one race to learn from, one race to motivate me.  

On every day there are those who persevere and those who don't.  Today was Kikkan's best distance skate race ever.  That is something to smile about.  Ben Sim cracked the top 30 for the first time in Australian xc skiing history (I think).  They will be jumping in the air for sure tonight.  The winner of the men's race today is a biathlete and his tears of joy were enough to take your mind off of your own race, good or bad.  Watching the men race after my own effort out there today was inspiring and a reminder that good days or bad, the sport that I picked is one that I love.  There will be more holes, and when I have built my bridge, I may need to build a rope tow to get over an unexpected mountain that may emerge in front of me.  Adversity is a given, learning to push through it must be the goal.

Only Hell is Hotter

Yep.  You read it right the first time.  Basically we are one step below the heat found in Hell itself, us Cross Country skiers.  So all you people who thought you picked the dorkiest sport possible, you can pat yourselves on the back and maybe strip down to your spandex on your next ski.  Own it, because our sport is not only silver to Hell it is:

Yep, that's right, cool.

The FIS World Cup season starts tomorrow with a 10K Freestyle in Beitostolen, Norway.  We have been here for the last 10 days and were able to get a couple races (a 10K Freestyle even!) under our belt on tomorrow's course.  Things are going well here and all the other teams have arrived now.  There is a 4x5k and 4x10k relay on Sunday for the men and women, and we have been desperately trying to put a women's team together.  If we are able to, we will be a North American team, stealing one of the Canadians for our own and likely wouldn't count in the results, as we would be a mixed team.  However, the goal for us antsy girls is simply to be able to put a team together so we can race, so not counting in the final results is not an issue for us.  Results for the weekend can be found at the new FIS cross country website below.  Tally Ho!

http://www.fiscrosscountry.com

Trolls

Mo and I made friends with a couple of trolls on our day off yesterday!

Mo's new rain boots!!  A new addition to my suitcase this year is a Dr. Seuss book on every trip.  This trip is my all-time favorite of his: The Lorax.

Newell, Kikkan, Matt and I went on an awesome skate tour this morning.  Fresh snow, grooming a few days old, but perfect for balance training and great to get off the race trails for the mental side of things.

We travel to some amazing places as athletes and it is really great to take advantage of the places we are when it is possible to.  We are here to ski race as fast as possible, but it is necessary to get away from the venue and explore too.

Ketchup to Beito

In one week I went from being in East Montpelier, VT to being in Beitostolen, Norway!  Here is a bit of a picture book of my last 2 weeks.

East Montpelier Elementary where I went to school.  Murals on the wall are still the same, but I swear the chairs and tables have gotten smaller!

Berlin Elementary.  I was pleasantly surprised by how many kids had cross-country skied before.  Thanks to all three schools for being so welcoming towards me.

My Mom's birthday party the night before I left.  I think she would tell you she just turned 30  and I would have to bet that if you met her you would believe her.

Me in the start gate with my East Montpelier Elementary Roadrunners 

T-shirt, courtesy of the Kindergarten class!

Same T-shirt in our wax room.  Quite a few skis, eh?!

First day in Beito.  Team heading to training.

Kikkan and Mo jumping over the trench that emerged from the time we walked to go ski and the time we walked home!  These Norwegians get after it!

Our daily lunch: Caviar, Fish paste, and Petter Northug bread.  Delicious.

Randy Hill, our sport scientist, thoughtfully brought a blow-up ice bath for us to travel with all winter!  Yay!  No, actually it is awesome and we have all been in it a lot this past week already.  Ice baths are the key to recovery, despite their less than appealing draw in the winter time.

Race 1 of 2009-2010 season.  10K skate for me, but some of the team started yesterday with a classic sprint.  It's a great feeling to put on that bib for the first time and charge.

Morgan Arritola getting a sweet ride from a really fast French skier.  Mo stuck with her the entire second lap and finished with her.  You get passed and you quickly re-focus and stick to them like glue for as long as you possibly can.  Mo did just that and had a sweet ride for an entire 5K.  The minute you let your mind go to the negative aspect of someone passing you, is the minute your race is over.  Re-evaluate, re-adjust and then re-focus.  First World Cup races are next weekend here in Beito.