Olympiatoppen

I traveled to Oslo, Norway on Wednesday evening and arrived at the Olympiatoppen (the Norwegian Olympic Training Center) on Thursday morning. If you are a skier trying to get some good training in, this is the perfect place to do it. There are literally hundreds of kilometers of ski trails right out the door, many that connect to the Holmenkollen trails, which is great for us, as we are preparing for the World Championships which will be held on those very trails. It's dorm room living and buffet food, a strength facility which is huge, and a train that runs into town every 15 minutes. Its really quite perfect and very easy living. Today we get a few more U.S. athletes, but up until today Simi, Morgan, Pete and I have been the crew. We all had some hard intervals this morning which we did on the World Champs courses. Last night we prepped for them by watching the Women's 30K race from last year on these courses, which really is quite a race to get you psyched up for some hammering. Tomorrow we have some easy distance and then Wednesday we will drive up to Beitostollen, Norway where we will race a Scandinavian Cup mini tour on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Pete, Mo and I walking the streets of Oslo last night after a great dinner and afternoon in town. We met up with one of my Norwegian friends from my Burke days who gave us a tour of the Old City, the Architecture Museum and some coffee shops!

Locals on the train after the daily ski. Routine. Pretty sweet.

View from the ski trails yesterday. Double tracked classic trails are definitely my favorite and there are tons of them here. Really pretty.

A few pumped people during yesterdays ski.

All pictures are from Simi, as I have yet to break out my camera! Whoops! More soon.