December 16, 2007

2008 World Cup
Rybinsk, Russia
1.2km Skate Sprint

(Pictures included)

Wow, the last couple days have been a whirlwind! I will try to recollect what happened…

The week leading into the Russian races was full of anticipation. After a solid weekend racing in Davos, I had a day or so to recover and then jumped into a sprint prep workout with Chandra Crawford (‘06 Olympic sprint gold medalist from Canada). We powered through the soft snow, taking turns leading each interval. The workout went well, giving me confidence that I was ready to sprint fast. We also managed to fit in a short powder run on our cool-down, keeping the atmosphere light.

Hello!

Wanted to post a little something before we vanish off into the Russian wilderness!

It’s been a good week of preparation in Davos.  Lots of new snow and a couple good workouts to get the body fired up.  Yesterday I did some speed with Chandra.  We took turns leading in the soft conditions and practiced all types of terrain.  On our cool down we hiked about 200m up an alpine run to take some sweet tele turns  in the powder on the way down.  Very fun!  In the evening we did a classic ski by the light of our headlamps.  She had a Scandinavian built Silva and I had a Petzl.  It was interesting to compare the two types.  Both emit totally different beams.

Now we’re spending the night in Munich before catching a charter flight to Rybinsk tomorrow.  I had a good trip in Russia last year and I look forward to another exciting experience!  I will post a story when I get back into communication on Sunday or Monday.

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.

Yo! Just wanted to post a quick update about the night sprint in Zug from yesterday. We left Davos mid afternoon and drove the two hours to Zug. The crew included coaches Chris Grover and Justin Wadsworth, and athletes Torin Koos, Chris Cook and myself. Arriving in Zug was quite surprising, green grass and all. The sprint course was a 500m ribbon of snow in a local park, right on the shore of a large lake. The athlete lounge was a large boat docked near the start.

Although I only spent a little over a week in Northern Scandinavia this year, I was still incredibly excited to leave and get back to the sun and daylight in Central Europe. On Monday morning we departed from Kuusamo and spent most of the day traveling to get to Davos, Switzerland. Our flight was delayed in Helsinki due to heavy snow and we had to sit on the runway for an extra hour before taking off. So the travel took much longer than anticipated. Highlights of the day included my first experience chatting with the Japanese girls and finishing the book, The Greatest, a biography about Haile Gebrselassie. Upon arriving in Zurich we piled into a rented van and station wagon and drove the two hours to Davos. I finally crawled into bed at 11pm, very tired, and had a deep night of sleep.