I don’t have anything overly exciting to report from the last few weeks… no waterskiing or glacier skiing  (sad face)… but plenty of rollerskiing, bounding, and all kinds of other related training. We are getting into a pretty good chunk of intensity right about now, which means it’s more common than not to wake up with intervals on the plate.

Yeah, I will admit, it can be a little uncomfortable to do that amount of intensity, but this discomfort is usually being over-ridden by the feeling of refinement; the summer’s raw fitness being honed into speed. This is good. This is the goal.

Sadie, the classic master

On my way up the GasLine during some L4

Bart knows how to go hard

That, my friends, is concentration. Kikkan drills it.

After all of the dry, sunny days we've had here, the singletrack was amazing. But chains still break.

Don't let the label fool you; the distance crew throws down some pretty impressive double pole sprints.

I’ve rounded up a few more pictures from the glacier camps… I still can’t believe how sweet it is to be able to ski in the summer!

Becca and I, the Fairbanks crew

Greta Anderson is stoked...

...and so am I

Holly attacks me with biscuit dough... but those were indeed some mean biscuits

Erin and I, digging the skiing

 After the massive week of hours on the glacier, the next one was prescribed as “on-your-own” recovery. I used it as an opportunity to go home to Fairbanks for a few days. It was nice to see a bunch of friends that are about to go off to college, hang with the family, and get a little sun. For those of you who think Fairbanks is in a deep-freeze year-round, I will have you know that it was 94 there on Sunday.

I spent a few of those days on the boat in Valdez, slaying the silvers… From the sounds of it, the salmon runs are a little weak in most places, but Valdez was an exception. One of the days, we limited out (24 fish for 4 people) in 2.5 hours! Meat locker!

Me, with the catch of the day!

Just got down from my second glacier camp last night. I think it is safe, and accurate, to say that it was better than the July camp in pretty much every way. Decent weather, great snow, and lots of skiers able to absorb some big hours. So far, the only negative thing I could come up with was that we ran out of milk after four days, due to the heavy influx of cereal eaters. But we got to fire up the sauna, so it evened out.

When it comes to organizing the helicopter flights, Doctor Southam is the boss. I was making fun of him, so he put me on the last flight. By myself. With the gear.

Arriving at the Center in the beautiful Alaskan evening sunlight.

It was great weather to kick off the camp

"Uh, how much of this should I put on?"... either klister or sunscreen

Thats one mean, track-setting, gear-hauling machine

A sling-load heads out towards Girdwood

Holly leads a group of women on some L5 intervals

Wrecka leads another bunch

Some dudes gunnin for it... yes, I know its blurry

Mark busts out some pull-ups in the middle of our strength routine, while the girls supervise and work on the puzzle

Erik tirelessly tinkers with an athletes technique, here as the rest of us chow down on dinner

The boys gearing up for some pretty gnarly L4 intervals

Mark and I on the hike out... 6000 ft of vert with packs, and under 2 hrs

Following one of the ridges all the way down, from blue ice to rainforest plants

I just got back from a week spent at Lake Tahoe… it was an amazing time in the sun, and good to hang out with my family and some Californina cousins that I don’t get to see too often.

 Like is usually the case with my family when we go on “vacation”, there was very little lounging around; it’s all about cramming as much sweet stuff into one day as possible, and then doing it again tomorrow. The average day for this trip looked like:

-Get up semi-early and take the ski boat out to carve turns while it was still smooth.

 -Return to the house and eat a massive pancake and fruit breakfast (Cali fruit is pretty bomb!)

-Head out for some sort of ski-specific workout, like running or rollerski intervals.

-Return to the house and jump in the lake, followed by lunch.

-Load up the mountain bikes and head out on some ridiculously epic ride… the trails around Tahoe are killer good!

-Return to the house and jump in the lake, followed by dinner.

-Sit around outside on the deck playing cards while its dark and 85 degrees.

-Hit the hay.

 One thing I did notice about the whole week was how it was such an example of contrasts. The environment down there is quite different from here in Alaska. The water was twice as blue, the sun was twice as hot, my shorts were only half the length of the other dudes (almost on par with the gals), and the people gave me looks that were about nine times as incredulous as I rollerskied by them…

Sometimes while I was frying in the sun next to the kool-aid blue waves, I would try to remember that in just a few days, I would be up on a glacier surrounded by nothing but white and black; snow and barren rock. Which is where I am headed today. And then I’d try to forget…

This is probably the most fun full-body general strength routine possible... I was sore after every session

After a few pulls, I started to feel comfortable again... cuttin hard homes!

Logan going for it!

Running intervals through some really scenic, big forests

We did a few 3-4 hour rides that covered some amazing terrain... lots of climbing and lots of descending

Altitude camp: a lot of the riding was up around 10,000 ft... which meant some sweet views too!

It was good to be back riding with my bro, which I havent gotten to do since I moved to Anchorage

 Logan has had some really crazy health issues lately, and has been jumping around from feeling strong and fit to laying in the hospital for a week. Thankfully he is on the mend, and he and I were able to do fun stuff together like always! 

To quote a certain Steinbock, the Bog Logs "pinnin it!"

Logan and I after being thrown from the tube by my dads wake-making boat driving