World Champs Briefly

Team Photo in our sweet new BD sweatshirts.

The best Parmesan cheese I have ever tasted! AMAZING! Straight from a local Italian farm with 200 Buffalo. Cool.

Ice Caves at the Holmenkollen Venue. Pretty sweet looking, though I never went in them.

Bird in the skate portion of the pursuit, just off the lead pack.

The Hoff hassling any and all he could.

Harvey and his gap on the rest of the field. Gutsy move that day, really impressive, and one of these years he is going to hold it the whole way.

Feed zone in the pursuit. Total craziness.

Mens pursuit day. Crowds were huge and only got bigger through the week.

Norwegian Fans. They would cheer for everyone really loudly and cause deafness if you were Norwegian.

View of the ski jump and some of the stadium

Spectators were literally everywhere, and not just one row, but 50 rows deep and along the entire course. They packed into the woods, between trees, anywhere they could possibly be, they would go. Every day. For 10 days. It must have been exhausting. The day of the mens pursuit 3,000 people missed the race because they were in line for the trains for so long. So, they started hiking to the venue 5 hours before the races would even start. It was nuts. Camping would for sure be the way to go, for the added fun factor and the time saver!

Steph (our awesome volunteer massage therapist from Caribou, Maine), Kikkan, Sadie, Jessie, Holly, me, and Nancye Rahn (USST staff member who took her vacation to come watch our races!)

Me, the US Ambassador to Norway, and Nancye. The Ambassador and his wife invited us to their house one night to mingle a bit. Super nice.

A very cute, very fired up Norwegian kid, of which there were many.

Medals Ceremony entertainment the night of the Canadians win in the Team Sprint. We were extremely fired up and I for sure thought I was Canadian that night. So psyched for those guys!

Medals Ceremony. Awesome singers and performers.

And extreme costumes!

No words. This guy is into it.

The Swedish Princess and Prince who came to watch the Swedish women receive their gold medal.

Pretty psyched Gold Medalists!

More pretty pumped Gold medalists, Devon Kershaw and Alex Harvey. Congrats guys!!!

Billy Demong being honored for his 6th place finish

Todd Lodwick celebrating his 5th place

And more fans just celebrating anything and everything they could.

I have lots more to say, and will continue to post stories from the Championships, but wanted to get something up before everyone got sick of waiting and spammed my blog or something! Sorry for the long waits.....more soon! Final World Cup for me in Lahti, Finland tomorrow then flying home to Park City. Super psyched to see some friends and get ready for spring series in Sun Valley at the end of March.

Drammen World Cup to Oslo

Drammen is a town that is known for their city sprint every year, but this year they did something different and hosted a World Cup up on the town's ski trails. As I have never been here before, it was cool to see a new town and ski at a new venue. Saturday we raced a 10k classic and then us distance skiers drove to Oslo to our hotel for the entirety of World Champs. The sprinters stayed another night and raced a skate sprint on Sunday, in which the North Americans had a really great day. Kikkan took home her third World Cup gold of her career, second this year, which was SUPER exciting to see, and a great way to head into the Championships, where the first race is another skate sprint on the course she was second in last season! It should be a really exciting event, which you should be able to watch live from the USA on www.fromsport.com. Check it out. The canadians also had a great day, with Alex Harvey finishing 2nd and Lenny Valjas qualified 4th and finished 9th! Huge day! We were watching the races from the bar in our hotel where they projected it onto a wall for us! Pretty sweet.

An older street in Drammen. Really cool architecture right by the river

View of the river in Drammen.

This is the downtown square in Drammen where the city sprints usually take place. It would be quite an event to be part of some year.

Drammen library. There is a college here and this library is incredible. I sat in a comfy chair by one of the many windows for part of an afternoon one day and read my book. It's always good to find a hang out place in each town that is out of the hotel room for me. I sleep better, relax better, and feel better not trying to rest in the room I sleep in. So, this was my Drammen spot.

Having the World Championships in Oslo is going to be unreal. As Oslo is the birthplace of nordic skiing, saying people are into it over here, really doesn't come close to summing up how into it these people are. To give you a small idea, we are still 2 days out of the championships and people have had their tents set up out on course for a good couple weeks now. "Camp Gjerdalen" just went up yesterday and is already manned by some of his many friends and family. Im not sure I can sum up exactly how sweet this event is going to be, but it's going to be unreal. We are fired up as a team, and are ready to rock. This is going to be fun. It's time to get into it!!

Stadium in Oslo. 80 Piston Bully passes? 100? Whatever it is, it's a lot.

Tad on day 1 with the 120 meter jump in the background.

Tad, Matt and Canadian Brook Gosling out on a ski the first day. It's cold, but this day in particular was really sunny and nice.

A really awesome old Saab 9-6 I saw. Made from Jets.

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.

January Training Block/VT Time

Berlin Elementary Winter Carnival!

Some of the kids and I after the Berlin Elementary School Winter Carnival. Winter Carnivals are a really neat thing that some of the schools around here are doing. Kids head outdoors and learn and participate in different activities for a couple hours in the afternoon. There are different stations, cross country skiing, sledding, snow sculpting, and snowshoeing, and each kid gets to try out all of them by the end of the series of carnivals. Kids get to try out new things, see if any strike an immediate interest, play outside with their friends and enjoy winter and being healthy together. I was super stoked to be a part of one day of it. Thanks Berlin!

Berlin Elementary student enjoying the time outdoors and on skis!

U-32 Night Sprints!

I was also invited to participate in some night sprints at my old high school, U-32, where nordic skiing has really taken off. Mark Chaplin and Kathy Topping, the same coaches who coached me for cross country running in the fall and track in the spring, have done an amazing job grooming fun trails (about 8K) and striking up an interest in the community towards nordic skiing. The team is huge and filled with kids who are excited to be a part of a supportive team and of course to be skiing around in the cold dark in spandex suits! We are so weird. U-32 ran a great event of night sprints that had a good turnout of kids from other area schools and clubs. I was pumped to get the invite and had a blast skiing around the 1k loop. It was awesome. Thanks for a great event Mark and Kathy and keep up your great spirits U-32 Raiders!

And my babysitter JoJo came to surprise me too!!!

HOME!

I have been home in Vermont for a good 5 weeks now, with a week spent at US Nationals in Rumford, Maine. Its been great to have a solid training block and be home in Vermont with my family and such great snow. I got a cold after nationals and have had time to recover from that, raced the Colby Carnival and got to catch up and stay with some long time friends the Poole's and race up in Canada this past weekend as well. I'm ready to be hitting the road now though, as it's mid-race season and being home gets a bit itchy after a while. I am heading to Oslo now for a few days of training on the World Championship courses, then we will drive up to Beitostolen, Norway for some Scandinavian cups next weekend. After that we have one World Cup weekend in Drammen, Norway and then back to Oslo for the World Championships. This is going to be a seriously fun event and a huge deal over in Norway, as they are expecting between 200 and 300 thousand fans!

My dad on a ski with my dog Charley. Super great snow in VT these days, and it seems to just keep dumping. Awesome.

My Mom, my dog Charley and I went for a little classic tour in the snow this morning before I headed to the airport to catch a flight to Newark, NJ and then Oslo, Norway. Currently I'm still in Burlington, but getting out looks good, so I'm keeping my fingers uncrossed because I have yet to cross them and things are going well.

My mom and Charley. The snow is so light and perfect and the woods are really beautiful. Super great to be able to just walk out the door of our house and ski. So fun.

I headed up to Orford, Quebec this past weekend to do a mini-tour race series. Orford has awesome trails and I highly suggest checking it out if you haven't been there and are looking for a new place to ski. Its really pretty, has great grooming and what seems to be an endless trail system. Thanks to all the race organizers for their work on putting the races on. It was really fun to be a part of.

Updates to come again more frequently!! Stay tuned.

Friends of Liz

There is also a new button added to my blog site directly to the right that has the word Donate on it. This is the first step in a project called Friends of Liz, which the hat company, SKIDA is helping me with. We have come up with a hat, which is in production now, that will be my design and have a patch on it with the Friends of Liz Logo on it. This should be up and running with pictures of the hat over the coming weeks, so stay posted, and again, thanks for all you already do to support me.

Check out Skidasport.com for cool hats, bandanas, neck warmers and headbands!

US NATIONALS

US Nationals in Rumford, Maine just ended and it was a great event. I traveled to the event with my old club, Burke Mountain Academy, and coaches Pete Phillips and Matt Johnson were my wax techs and support squad for the week. It was great to be back with Burke and spend some time getting to know the athletes on the team. I will be traveling with Burke to Sun Valley for US Distance Nationals and Spring series at the end of March and am already looking forward to it. The racing went well, though I did not have my best showing in the 10k classic, the 20k skate the next day gave me a chance to redeem myself and I was really happy with my effort that day. The sprint on Saturday went better than expected, finishing 7th at the end of the day, which I think is my best Nationals sprint result ever. I am home now battling a cold, which will have me missing the Supertour in Lake Placid this Friday and Saturday, but I can't really complain as this is about as good a time as any to get sick. I will be home training until February 1st when I head to Europe.

Here are a few pictures from the week, courtesy of Ian Harvey and John Farra and a video clip that was taken.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cSeeZsTRyE

Me, racing the 20K skate race on Thursday.

Noah Hoffman leading a train of the ultimate US National Champion this day, Lars Flora and CXC's Brian Greg who finished the day in a strong 6th.

Women's Podium from 20K Skate

Thanks to all my supporters and sponsors. This is a long road, full of bumps, holes and flying saucers. Avoiding what you can is only part of the game. Sickness, injury, fatigue, mental burnout, these happen in a career to most. Getting back on your feet, jumping into the air and becoming better than you were before the crash, that's the real game, and it's always the support of fans, friends, and family that make your brain know it's possible.

10K classic race. The volunteers and race officials did a great job pulling these races off, given the amount of snow they had to work with. To be honest, when I showed up the day before this race to check out the trails and help shovel, I didn't think there would be any way they could put a race on the following day, especially a race with 600 athletes competing. But they did, and it was good. Thanks a lot to all who helped get this event off the ground.

Highland cows on the way to Trapp Family Lodge (www.trappfamilylodge.com) for a ski pre-nationals. Beautiful place, Vermont is.

Now home for 3 weeks to eat home cooked meals, train hard and well and get ready for the rest of the season. Pumped.