11/17 - I am back in Minnesota after 3 weeks of travel and training. A 70 hour training month this late in the year is certainly a new approach to the season for me, and I'm very tired! Thankfully I'm now in a rest week and taking it quite easy before my first real races in only about two weeks. The craziness of race season has begun, and the simplicity of training camp life from the last few weeks will be missed.
From Utah, I headed straight up to Canmore, AB, where I spent two weeks training on snow at the Canmore Nordic center. I was very excited to be there for Frozen Thunder, which is pretty much always the first on snow training and racing in North America, and has plagued me with jealousy while grinding away on gloomy November rollerskis for many of the past years. The hamster wheel skiing was great for high quality training, but did get to me mentally. I was especially grateful for the experiences I got to have off of the track, including a little hike up a local peak, a true cross-country skiing experience in Lake Louise, and a day out on some borrowed backcountry ski gear.
The Frozen Thunder classic 10k time trial. Neither of the races were great performances on my part, but they were meant to be training and learning experiences. They served that purpose well, and left me optimistic for our upcoming races in the Midwest. Thank you to my coaches for doing there best to get us fast skis, and to Anna for the pictures from these races.
The sunrises from the nordic center each morning were unbelievable. Another reason to be first on the tracks each day.
Me: Wow this is great! It's about time we got up on top of one of these mountains.
About half the team:
Lake Moraine Rd. made for a beautiful ski on natural snow. Even though I had been skiing on snow for over a week at this point. This was the first day it felt like winter to me.
Afternoon jogs in town were fine I guess.
I got out in the mountains for real with some friends on bigger skis! There was some serious snow falling, so we just enjoyed the tour up, some slow flat turns, and skiing through the trees. I needed this.
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