Sunday, June 30, 2013

Sunshine & K's on Eagle... (as in kilometers...)

Eagle Glacier in Pictures.... 

 Reese showing off his pre-glacier camp pancake sandwich 

 Thanks Alpine Air for getting us and all of our stuff up to Eagle!

 Riding in the back of the helicopter with Lex enroute to his first time on Eagle! 

 About to make touch down at the facility

 Awesome heli shot 

Sun safety zinc lip balm... me, Sadie, Rosie, Lauren & Fitz 

 
Got buzzed by Reese and Don's roommate Austin 

 More sun safety 
 Sadie B 
 Part of the 9k loop... 

 We have a new, legit men's team. They trained together all week... it was impressive 

Erik, Reese & Lex in threshold skate intervals 

 Me, making sure to "Get Out and Play Everyday!" 

Eagle on a clear day does not suck 

 Looking down at Girdwood and Turnagain Arm 

 Eagle, Panorama Style 

 Out for a ski with my music.... thanks so much to all my great sponsors that help make productive training camps like this one possible. 

 D. Norris manning the grill on burger night! 

 Making cookies

 Can't ignore strength work, even on the glacier 

 Klister testing.... 

 Panorama.... drink pond, athletes waiting for heli, tool connex, facility, waxing connex, trash connex, edge of cliff 


We practiced our soft conditions all week as the snow didn't really freeze once. 

 Photo: Reese Hanneman 


 The mastermind, Erik Flora 

 Da boys.... Erik Flora, Erik Bjornsen, Tyler Kornfield, David Norris, Lex Treinen, Sam Sterling & Reese Hanneman 

 Coach, yet again 

 Reese was all smiles 

 Coaches! 

 Good to test out some new klister boards! 


 Erik "attending" class from the glacier!  (Super cool opportunity granted by APU!)

 Lauren uses the make-shift trash can ice tub 

 APU Girls after an L4 classic session.... after the weather turned a bit more familiar..... 

 For classic intervals we tried something new. We had a "tech off" where each tech had a team of 3 skiers. Skier's skis were judged on kick and glide and at the end of the session, a winner was determined. You may ask what was on the line? Well, Don won and for his efforts he got to have part of the course named after him and the other techs were required to make a sign to mark the trail! What is it called? You'll have to ski Eagle to find out..... 

 Post OD (over distance) food. Sometimes you just need a bit of grease! 

 The ladies, waiting for the helicopter
 Staff, all smiles! Mikey, Sam & Don 

 ..... and the reason we had to wait. It was clear on Eagle and cloudy down below. You've gotta love those days where you're literally "above" the clouds! 

Life, on the glacier 

 The old machine 

 Selfy - with the glacier in the background 

Hello Costco

 Hello supplies 

 It's super cool in that Eagle is running mostly all summer with camps. Here are master skiers arriving at Eagle for their camp which began today. They took the heli up, we took the heli down. They get a small taste of what we do. 

 We had no more than 30 seconds to take this picture with Gil Lund, a Kongsberger member (from Seattle) that came for the camp! 

Last but not least, our safe return to sea level & civilization. Thanks to Erik, Mikey, Don & Sam for making that one of the most productive Eagle Camps ever! 

If you're still interested in seeing more pictures of Eagle, check out my teammate Reese Hanneman's blog for some really creative shots HERE!

What's next? Time for a couple of days laying low and then it's time to get back to training! Thanks for following along! 
Cheers, 
Holly :) 

Thursday, June 27, 2013

Massive Catch Up & lots of Pictures!


Unfortunately blogging in my head doesn't translate to actual posts. (I'm looking for that app if anyone knows of one!)  Summer has been in full swing in Alaska and in case you haven't heard, we're experiencing a heat wave and what people are calling "a real summer."  In the past four years or so we've had the coldest summer in history... two years ago I counted 40 days straight that I roller skied in the rain. Last September, usually one of my favorite months in AK was nick-named "Raintember."  Anyways, you get the deal. I've been enjoying roller skiing without gloves, wearing shorts, and even jumping in the water after a training session or two. It's the little things that count!

I'm currently writing this from Eagle Glacier where the APU elite team is having our first glacier training camp. It's been awesome so far but it's entirely deserving of it's own blog post ... so check for that in a handful of days. 

I believe I left off with my last post mid Bend camp.... well, after Bend the team traveled to Park City, Utah, home of the US Ski Team. I actually wrote about this experience in a recent article for the Anchorage Daily News.  You can read the short article HERE.  This is the first article of a series about the "Road to Sochi" from an athlete's perspective. I'm excited to share stories from training and hopefully the actual Games themselves! 


The other cool media thing I've been involved in recently was an interview and video made by Seattle-based KING 5 News enroute home to Anchorage. You can check that out here:


(sorry for some reason I can't figure out how to embed the link in this post but it's a sweet video, check it out!) 

With KING 5's Allen Shauffler, downtown Seattle in the background

But back to PC and Bend.... I'll let the pictures tell the story: 
 Here I am, hanging like a dead bug after my max classic VO2 Max test. There are a couple of pictures in this series but this one cracked me up because Sophie is watching from the warm up treadmill with a hilarious look on her face and Matt is still filming me on the way to helping me up!

 In Bend the entire USST went to the one-night-only showing of "First" a documentary about 12 summer Olympians that went to their first games in London. It had some cool footage but the story line jumped around a lot. Nonetheless it was still a cool team outing.

 Perhaps my favorite part was the commerical at the beginning for Sochi :)   (Imagine that!)

While training in Park City we live in condos up at Deer Valley near Guardsman Pass. Our condos are located at over 8,000 feet so we get some sweet altitude and then drop down into town for training. This is great except that here we are, packing for an entire day of testing and training - expedition style. 

We had some fun team dinners including a pizza making party at the Adam's Family house. Cork brought these beautiful sweet buns..... just one of his many hidden talents! 

Colorful safe roller skiing with the girls thanks to Rudy Project! 

Here I am doing a one legged squat - a new part of the strength test. And no, I actually cannot lift that much weight. I'm standing on a force plate. 
Here is Sadie doing part of her flexibility and mobility "FMS" test. 

A shot down the gym at the COE ..... 



Getting to and from Alaska is expensive. Therefore, I try to do stopovers in Seattle to visit my family whenever possible, usually on the way home from training camps when I can afford to relax and need a break from training.  Living far away from my family I miss all kinds of things including birthdays, mother's day/father's day... and most recently, my cousin Emily's graduation from High School and my cousin Eric's graduation from college (actually not in Seattle.... )  Anyways, we had a sweet family picnic and KING 5 news joined us to film more lifestyle footage. Here's my gang! (minus sibs who are spread all over the world right now) 


Training camp and visiting my family was sweet but near the end I couldn't wait to get home to Alaska. There is something to be said for sleeping in your own bed, hanging out with your husband, and reading the newspaper with a strong cup of coffee in the morning! Plus there was that sunshine that I eluded too.... 

Rob & Buggz! 


With some of my best AK girls.... making amazing food in the backyard (complete with one baby bump!)
Time in Hope and a biking adventure with my old teammate and one of my favorite training partners ever, Katie Ronsee! Yes, we are holding baby goats and they were ADORABLE. 

APU (the University) had it's third annual Gala event. It was incredibly snazzy and the team went to take part in the event. Here are Sadie and I in front of a gleaming Carlile Truck (our sponsor!) that was parked inside of the hanger... 

In other news, Fasterskier reporter Nat Herz moved to town and is working as a reporter for the Anchorage Daily News. Welcome Nat!  Not everything in Alaska bites... some just kick! 

Solstice dinner with friends including Greer with this amazing strawberry rhubarb pie! 

I visited APU Juniors at "Death Camp" in Girdwood. The juniors trained super hard and I got a kick out of their game of charades. Here they are preparing to act out "lawn mowing someone's face."  Not sure where they come up with this stuff..... 

Sweet Penguin Ridge hike with Danielle, Carolyn & Rachel 

.... and one last teaser of Eagle Glacier - that post is up next! 


Thanks for hanging in there if you made it this far! I'll try and be more succinct in my next post! 
Enjoy summer, 
Cheers, 
Holly ;)