Catch up from Lahti...

Ok, so I think at least 50% of my posts have started with "catch up from ____" so maybe my new blog page title should be titled "catch up". A bit/a lot of catch up needs to happen again here, so here are a few pictures from Lahti, Finland and beyond, and as usual, more to come.

Morse farm shirt and Skida hat being sported in front of the jumps at Lahti. As I didn't bring a ton of shirts or hats, these were both sported a lot over the winter!

Morgan, Holly and Kikkan with a bunch of Finnish kids who were headed out to watch the jumping competition one day. Not a rare sight in Europe. Safety vests always too.

So over the course of the winter, starting before Oslo, I developed a lot of pain on the back of my heel. I have some pretty good bumps, shown here in these lovely pictures of my feet, and the combination of tight boots, a slightly different fit in this year's model, and not paying enough attention to the pain I was getting until it was too late, I developed bursitis in my heel. It got so bad that in order to race in Lahti I had a cobbler cut a hole in the back of my boot so I was able to put my foot in it. I have not raced since then and have seen 2 specialists so far to try and take care of the problem. Bursitis can take 8 weeks to heal up, so I am 3 weeks in and have had some relief in the pain, though still cannot touch the area comfortably. The good news is that it is not painful unless something touches the area, so I learned today that I am cleared to train and do whatever doesn't hurt it. So, that's great! There is a surgery I can have if I want to that would shave down the extra bone growth that I have, but with surgery there is always a long recovery and possible complications, so I'm going to try and avoid it. I decided not to race in Sun Valley for the Supertour Finals and long distance Nationals and try and give my foot a bit of a break from ski boots and stress on the tendon. I did go up to watch the first 2 races, now am back in Park City, Utah and am headed back to Sun Valley for the final races and Fast and Female the day following. Then I am headed East to see a final doctor and be in Vermont for a bit of mud season, which I hear is in full effect!

Kikkan on the Podium at World Cup Finals in Falun!!! SO COOL!!!

YEAH BUDDY!! Just in case anyone is wondering about the effects of cracking a bottle of Champagne post World Cup Podium, ask Kikkan. The effects of toasting with your team of wax techs, coaches and teammates and enjoying the success you have just achieved keeps the momentum going. Kikkan toasted with Champagne after every podium she was on and she was on more of them this season than ever before. Not saying the bubbly did it, but I am saying enjoy and take in success when it happens, because it doesn't happen every time you strive for it.

Me when I found out!

So, I road tripped to Vail, Colorado to see the first doctor, 5 days after returning from Europe. I was surprisingly not sleepy and got to catch up with some great friends and see the sun full on for the first time in a little while. I did forget sunglasses though, so skiing that day was extremely bright! Oh and funny thing, as I'm driving on I-70 just outside of Vail, I look over and see Phil Comen from Onion River Sports driving next to me! Really funny. We didn't get to catch up, as we were headed to different places and you can't say too much in a driving snowstorm yelling between two cars going 70, but it was good to se him.

The Vail trails. Thanks for the Vail Valley Ski Club for letting me tour around on their trails!

I headed out after my ski on my way back to Park City, but such is so often the case for me, I glanced at the map instead of looking twice (a good rule of thumb for me every time) and, wanting to take a new way home, ended up driving through Steamboat. Now, that's not necessarily a bad thing, but when it takes you 3 1/2 hours to get there from Vail, when you can get there in 1 1/4, you know you have gone the long way. As I was settling in for a long drive toPark City that night, I saw off on my right a ski area, with groomed nordic trails. The sun was setting and the moon was coming up and so I pulled a U-ey and went for a ski. Meanwhile, my friend Sarah MacCarthy called me and her parents live in town, so I ended up staying at their house for the night and going on a really great ski in the morning with her dad. We followed it up with a tour of the Steamboat Library and breakfast and then I headed out.

Night ski in Steamboat. Really pretty night.

Me at Sarah's house with her dog and cat!

And the funny thing is that this is Sarah with my dog, Charley, a week earlier at my house with my parents when I was in Europe! House swap! Thanks parents!

I did a lot of driving, listened to a lot of music and saw a couple dinos.

Dinosaur, Utah

Just a cool tree.

Road trip must.

I blew bigger bubbles, but this was the last of the gum, so I was a but compromised.

WHAT?!? Earings that are as big as my I-Pod? Pretty sweet fashions in this world. Wish I had a pair of these for choice occasions.

More pictures from Sun Valley and life soon.

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.