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Thursday, August 9, 2012

August on XC Ski Girl...

Check it out if you're interested!

http://www.xcskigirl04.blogspot.se/

Post from Sweden coming shortly. I'm almost half way through the camp and it's been a great experience. Tomorrow 5x10 minutes classic roller ski intervals, threshold. PM strength and then we're headed to Torsby for some more tunnel skiing!

In the meantime, here is a small selection of photos taken from facebook - thanks friends!

Team Sweden & USA on the first training session - 3 hour bog run! Thanks to Kikkan for the pic!

Roller ski skate sprint race..... what a fun way to do intervals! Went FIVE times.. prelim, 2 quarterfinals, a semi & final. Each heat had four skiers. Winner of each heat moved up a bracket, last place moved down. Kept the workout super fluid and really fun. Got to work on top speed, race tactics, skiing in a pack. Compliments to Chandra for capturing the pic!

Running with Kalla, day one - thanks to Kik for the pic

More soon!

Cheers,

Holly :)

Monday, August 6, 2012

Update.... in Pictures

As always, the last couple of weeks have been busy..... I spent an awesome week on Eagle Glacier with my APU teammates. This was my second camp on the summer and after a 9-hour weather delay in Girdwood due to bad weather, it turned out to be an AWESOME camp. I logged another big-hour week and feel that I make some technical improvements. Following the glacier camp, Rob and I along with other Anchorage-area Olympians were invited out to GCI's Agulowok Retreat in Northwest Alaska. We flew to Dillingham and took a Grumin Goose out to the lodge. We had one gorgeous day but otherwise, it rained buckets. We got to see the bears in Katmai National Park at Brooks Camp (!) I caught my first Rainbow, and we went skeet shooting. (I hit nothing with affirms that I should remain a cross country skier rather than switch to biathlon!) Now, as I write this, we are in Sweden, ready to start a joint camp with the Swedish National team girls. I'm super pumped to have some new training partners and work really hard over the next week, plus. It was a difficult 30+ hours of travel to get here from Alaska but I'm sure it will be well worth it! Thanks a ton to NNF, the National Nordic Foundation for helping fund this training camp! Read on......

While being grounded on the runway in Girdwood, we checked out this sky crane. This thing cost $50/second to run!!! WOW!

It's July in Alaska! I brought a freshly smoked salmon fillet to share with my APU teammates. Thanks so much to my husband, Rob for slaying it dip-netting, as usual :) I didn't get to go fishing but I helped with the filleting...

After a day and a half of rain on Eagle we were treated to some awesome AK sunshine - it DOES happen up here! This is my teammate, Reese Hanneman

APU girl's team, L4 skate intervals

Post intervals pancake lunch tradition!

My plate :)

Salomon on Eagle

Good buddies Charlie Renfro and Chris Hodel were able to fly up for an APU team photo shoot. They got some amazing stuff and it was a blast having them up there! Thanks guys!

After the hard glacier effort Rob and I caught some rare quality time together.....

Here is the Goose that we flew out to the lodge in. This plane is from 1942 and it lands in the water, on it's belly. Water splashes up, almost beyond the windows and you momentarily think you're going to sink....

It's Bear season in AK! Apparently this bear was fishing and eating only the Salmon eyes - must be a delicacy!

Thanks so much GCI, David Morris, Dave & Mary, and the entire staff at the Agulowok - you guys are awesome!

Buddies Rachel (biathlete) and Alex (freestyle) on the skeet range....

The beach at Brooks immediately has human & bear foot prints leading to the entrance of the park!

Our group at Brooks Falls

Parking lot at Brooks and AK fireweed

With my first Rainbow!

After the lodge trip and a weather delay getting out of Dillingham I flew 30 hours and met up with my USST teammates in Sweden! Some of you may remember that I skied in the Torsby Tunnel last November, getting ready for the opening World Cups in Norway. Well, I'm back here again to gerbil it around the 1.3k loop. Also, Salomon France is here and I've spent some time testing skis with them......

I also got to test the new Salomon skate boot. It's almost entirely carbon and it's SO LIGHT. It feel like you have a sock on and I am ecstatic to race in it this upcoming winter! Trust me, these things are amazing!

As you can imagine, we're also spending a fair amount of time watching and following the Olympics while over here. The Swedish commentary isn't quite the same but we're having a blast following the races nonetheless. Bar none, my favorite OLYMPIC moment so far has been the 10k! This past May the US team got to meet the Nike Team project.... here we are pictures with Mo Farah and Galen Rupp - the Gold and Silver Medalists from the London 2012 race!

And....we're momentarily getting the car to meet up with these ladies!

If you haven't seen this yet, check it out!

A sunny day on Eagle Glacier with the APU Ski Team

By Charlie Renfro

Okay, racing to pack & depart! More later,

Cheers,

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

So many wonderful things!

I can honestly say that the past few weeks have been some of the busier in my life.... but I am not complaining but I've been able to do some wonderful, amazing things with awesome people. Rather than do a full account of everything I've failed to post, here is the last month or so in pictures with some quick descriptions! Enjoy and as always, thanks for reading!

Finnish Super Star Skier Aino Kaisa Saarinen came to ski on Eagle Glacier! Who would have ever thought that would happen!? She liked it to!

I won a big race that I've been trying to win for five years; hence, I got sprayed with champagne at the finish!

Here I am coming across the finish line July 4th in downtown Seward. If you care to read more about the race you can find the article here:

http://www.adn.com/2012/07/04/2531168/brooks-runs-down-elusive-title.html

My friend Annie volunteered to be the team massage therapist for the week. She kept us moving, happy & healthy. Body care becomes a big issue when you're training up to 30 hours per week. Here I am lucky enough to be receiving an outdoor massage on the deck at my own house! Thank you SO MUCH ANNIE!

The Knapp family kindly had our whole group over for dinner!

Thanks Laura G for the pic! Half way up Mt. Marathon

Thanks to the Schoen family for flying me to and from McCarthy to officiate the wedding of my dear friends, Chrissy & Ray. The wedding was during the camp so the flight made it possible to officiate the wedding while missing as little of camp as possible!

Sprint relay day! Complete with a visit from Kikkan's husband, Jeff!

Rob and I just celebrated our third wedding anniversary! 7/11!!!

We had more foggy days on the glacier than sunny days. Of course all the pictures get taken while it's nice out but we certainly put our fair share of hard work during days that aren't photogenic. We ski train rain, snow, sun, or fog.

This was that sunny, oh so great day!

Awesome roll sesh in Anchorage with the NAWTA group

I played the bad guy in our skit/talent show - hence the knife!

End of an awesome roller ski at Glen Alps!

We celebrated summer solstice with Michael Franti and Spearhead! What a great concert!!!! Big smiles all around!

Like I said, we had all kinds of weather on Eagle!

The beauty of Eagle

One afternoon we joined the APU juniors for a distance run up Winter creek, lunch & had a panel discussion afterwards. We shared our experiences - both failures and successes. We had a blast and I think the juniors did too judging by their faces! (I suppose an Olympic Gold Medal helps too)

Merritt, one of my best friends from college came to visit with her husband Steve!

Hope Point, AK

We celebrated Merritt's birthday in Hope!

Flying over Eagle Glacier on the way to Chrissy and Ray's wedding!

With Emily Chenel/Lints who now lives in Homer, AK. The two of us were on the PNSA J2 relay team when we were 14 years old! So fun to connect with old friends!