Hey there!

Quick video from the classic team sprint in Liberec today. No footage of the women’s semi-finals, we were too busy racing. Laura and I just missed advancing to the finals by five tenths of a second.

A little preview of where the 2009 Nordic World Championships will be held next year.

We arrived in Otepaa, Estonia last Friday and spent our first few days training and getting acquainted with the courses. After a few good interval sessions and distance workouts, Laura and I are taking a day off. Not wanting to spend the whole day on the internet, we headed out for a walk to see what we could discover in Otepaa…

Laura checking the map in the town center.

A Report from the 2008 Canmore World Cups Skate Sprint…

Not advancing to the heats in Wednesday’s classic sprint gave me extra motivation to have a good race in Saturday’s freestyle sprint. I took an easy day Thursday, and then built back into my race preparation mode on Friday. Honestly, I didn’t feel that great during my morning ski, as I zipped around the course to try and get a feel for how it would ski. But I was confident that by race day I would be ready to go.

Saturday morning, things were looking up. The air temperature had warmed up to a much more comfortable 20 deg F, the wind wasn’t blowing too hard, and as I skied my first few warm-up laps, I could tell my body was feeling good. Ski testing went very smooth and Peter and I both decided that #195 (the pair I raced on in Rybinsk) were the fastest skis for the day. I finished off my warm-up and headed to the start feeling very warm and revved up.

Silver Star Training Camp RECAP

A video is worth a 1,000 words…

A film by Jeff Ellis’ (Small Boy Productions)

 Quick update on me.  I had a wonderful Christmas in Ontario with my fiance and his family.  We had skiing literally right out the back door and it was nice to get some down time after all the World Cup hype. Although I was “hiding out” in Canada, I still managed to get over a hundred emails a day from people congratulating me on my win, and was kept busy with phone interviews and media requests.  I had no idea my race in Russia was going to have such an effect on people.  My ten day break went by way too fast!

Now the holidays are over and it’s time to get back to work! I just arrived in Houghton, Michigan yesterday, for the 2008 US Championships, and it’s a very different scene from last year.  This time there is plenty of snow, and new sections of the courses have been opened.  The skiing is terrific and I think it’s going to be a thrilling week of competition.

I am very excited to be reunited with my Alaska Pacific University team.  We’ve already put in a couple solid workouts on the race trails and it’s great to be back working with my coaches Erik and Frode.  There are still many ways to improve before the racing begins and there is a positive energy in the team.

First race is on Tuesday, January 1st.  It’s going to be a busy few days getting back into race mode, selecting skis and such.  I will report more as the week goes on!

Cheers!

Quick post tonight, more to follow. Today we raced 10km classic once again.  Although conditions had been great all week, this morning we encountered the classic waxing condition that is dreaded the most – right at freezing and fresh snow.  Luckily for the women’s race, the snow tapered off for our three laps and the kick wax/klister mix I had on my skis worked fairly well.