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.

Davos to France

Pictures with no words

To Gallivare!

On Monday morning we woke up to a day of easy travel to Gallivare, Sweden, the first World Cup stop of the season. After a leisurely breakfast of the usual spread of oatmeal, breads, jams, fruits, pickles, cheeses, mini Finnish pancakes, yogurt, muesli and coffee, tea and juice, we climbed in the van and pulled out of Muonio. Immediately, we left the main roads, crossed the boarder into sweden and found ourselves on two lane, icy roads, with endless kilometers of snow-plastered pine trees, lakes and reindeer. It was about 250 kilometers to Gallivare, and with about 100 to go we started to worry about the amount of gas we had in the tank, as the gas light had been on for about 20k and every town we came to consisted of merely a blue sign with the town name and a house or two, but definitely no petrol station. So, with about 80k's to go, we decided it was not looking too good for us and we better ask for some help. So we pulled into a driveway and an older, weathered man walked out of the house, wearing a light fleece jacket and no gloves. He turned out to be a reindeer farmer who was receiving a shipment of 200 reindeer in the next 20 minutes, but as he had no diesel, he called all of his friends and one of them who lived a couple of kilometers away had some diesel we could buy. So we waited with him while his reindeer were delivered, which was quite a process and then went and got ourselves 5 liters of diesel from his friend down the road.

Mo at the Reindeer farmer's house, caught in the moment of adventure.

If you order 200 Reindeer for your farm, this is how they come, in a double stacker semi.

Sunset in Gallivare when we arrived at 2 pm.

While we had run our van was out of gas, the second van, carrying all of the gear and 3 people, began leaking oil and broke down at a gas station. Some locals, who turned out to be reindeer herders (it may be becoming clear what people do around this part of the world for professions), took Jocke, Kris and Fish to their house where they made them coffee and attached a homemade trailer to the back of their Golf. Then they loaded Jocke's stuff in it (he was headed to the airport so he had all his stuff with him) and everyone piled into the small car. Picture it, the reindeer herder, his wife, Jocke, the Bird and the Fish all squeezed into a Volkwagen Golf. Pretty funny.

We all arrived in Gallivare safe and sound, thanks to the kindness of humans. This morning's ski was awesome and in a couple hours a few of us will head out for an afternoon night ski. Others will run, others will lift weights and others will rest. Everyone is fired up, last year's Supertour winner, Chirs Cook, shows up this afternoon and we will be fielding 2 relay teams on Sunday. It's an amazing way to start the season, having a big traveling team, and knowing there are about 15 other American's racing in Roveniemi this weekend as well.

Here are a few more pictures from this weekend's events.

Newell at the Alpine World Cup in Levi carrying the flag. After the races on Sunday a few of us jumped in the van and headed over to Levi, a town about 45 minutes away to catch the second run of the men's World Cup slalom. We had 6 guys racing and two qualified for the second run, Ted Ligety and Will Brandenburg. Ted skied to an 18th place finish and unfortunately Will, who had skied up from bib 35 in the first run to 8th, straddled and skied out. It was really fun to be in Finland watching our alpine guys do their thing.

Alpine World Cup in Levi, Finland.