The Countdown Begins!

It all starts one month from NOW. From TOMORROW!  November 6th I will jump on a plane and be racing in Europe until Christmas.  This will be my first time racing World Cup period 1 and it's going to a be a whirlwind tour with up to 14 race starts in FIVE different countries including Norway, Finland, Germany, Switzerland & Slovenia.  I am pretty pumped for new race venues and an opportunity to test myself against Marit Bjorgen from day one.  Last year I learned that there is certainly a learning curve to being on the World Cup and I'm hoping that my experience last year has given me some confidence and knowledge for this trip knowing that I've done it before and the girls are totally human.... except for (maybe) these two:

Props to my teammate Sadie for finding this pic online somewhere....

With only a month or so to go until the official race season kicks off I'm sure that skiers everywhere, in the US and abroad, harbor some similar feelings and questions:

"Where is my fitness?"

"How will I perform this year?" 

At this point in the fall (at a certain level) you've either done the hard work or you haven't.  October is a great time to ask yourself: "Have I done every possible thing I could to be as fast as I can be this upcoming winter?"  Personally, I find that at this time of year my problem isn't finding the time or motivation to train. Instead the hard part is to know when to stop or when enough is enough.  If it were up to me and personal enjoyment I would probably train 40 hours/week!  It's easy to think, oh.... if my roller ski interval times aren't getting better right now I need to train more.... when really, the opposite might be true and what your body really needs is rest.  My coach Erik brought up an interesting point the other day at practice.  He said that he doesn't believe there has ever been an Olympic or World Champion that's been self coached.  I haven't fact-checked this but it makes sense when I consider the value of having someone see you at training - an objective eye to sense fatigue or a downward spiral.

But, enough about that!  Where am I right now and what am I doing for training? Right now I'm at a big dry land camp in Park City Utah!  I've never trained in Utah for dry land and this camp is the perfect opportunity to get my feet underneath me before the season.  Skiers from all over the country are here to train together.  Yesterday we did intervals at Soldier Hollow, the 2002 Winter Olympic venue.  The US Ski Team is also based out of Park City so we have lots of resources at our disposal.

I find that the fall is always a really great time to get out of Alaska and do something.  During the summer months I have a tendency to stay really close to home and come October, skiing the same roller ski loop for the 59th time becomes less appealing.  It's nice to get out and explore different places - this is a big part of what I love about Utah or skiing or anything else.  Last year I wasn't presented with the Utah training camp option so I created a training camp of my own in Hawaii, and specifically Kona.  Last summer in Alaska was one of the worst weather summers in the books and it rained for FORTY DAYS straight.  Because of that Hawaii wasn't a luxury but rather became a necessity.  When I planned the trip I had NO IDEA that our stay would overlap with one of the MOST AWESOME athletic events I have ever watched: Ironman World Championships! The race is actually this upcoming Saturday October 8th and a small part of me is sad to be missing the even this year. In fact, here I am roller skiing on the Queen K highway posing with a bike team from the Netherlands. Yes, the dude in the arrow helmet is kissing my check while my husband takes the picture!

 Ironman Time! 

After taking a red eye flight direct from AK my good friend Alison from Whitman College days picked me up in Salt Lake City and we ended up here:

 Gorgeous sunshine, trails & my personal favorite, yellow fall leaves! 

 This forest looks like a work of art in and of itself. I LOVE it! 

The trail system here is absolutely AMAZING.  I am so impressed and I have to say, a bit envious.  The mountain biking here looks phenomenal with over 200+ miles of single track in the great Park City area alone!  On our hike we randomly found this in the woods:

Speaking of mountain bike trails and single track, there is a great trail building effort in Anchorage building a new set of single tracks at Kincaid Park! For folks in Anchorage I encourage you to attend the work parties that happen every Monday and Wednesday nights from 6-8pm. (Meeting in the Jodphur parking lot) No experience is necessary and they have all the tools.  Here is a pic of a bunch of us post-work party a couple of weeks ago.  Anchorage will never be the mtn biking mecca that Park City is but these new trails are AWESOME. 

 

If you want to see the new trails in motion, check out my teammate Reese Hanneman's blog here for a YouTube video

To continue with Park City.... 

A cool sticker I saw on a car in the parking lot... 

Some one tell these coaches that the "boot" isn't in!  Three coaches from three different programs all with foot injuries! 

Cheering on the boys at Soldier Hollow yesterday in our threshold intervals

Me and Kikkan post workout

I think our boots got dirtier here in Utah than they do in Alaska! 

This picture shows the dedication of a starving skier... he is eating raw Top Ramen noodles for his post workout recovery food because (and I quote) "You can get 20 of these for five bucks!" Someone get this kid a bar sponsorship, quick! 

After posting some pretty gorgeous pictures of Utah I feel obligated to show a couple recent pictures of my home, Alaska and our beautiful fall colors: 

 

Rob and I went on a hike and found this thing on the top of a mountain. We think it's some kind of air traffic control repeater but we're not sure?

Over looking Hope, Alaska and Turnagain Arm

Last but not least, a fun picture of my great host, Morgan Smyth!  (Hopefully she won't kill me for putting this up on my blog!)  While at training camp down here I am staying at Morgan and Deb's house.  Morgan is even letting me borrow her car to get to workouts while she bikes to work.  Morgan and Deb's awesome hospitality is making it financially possible for me to be here at this camp.  Thanks so much you two!  If you're ever in Park City and looking for an awesome place to stay check out Deb's B&B called Old Town Guesthouse!

Oh! And one more thing!  Because there are so many of us in town we're hosting a Fast and Female event here in Park City!  It's this Saturday and will be held at the COE, AKA, Center of Excellence.  I'm sure I'll have an entire post of it but if you know of anyone in town, sign up because this event is going to be great!  Also, for Alaskans, save the date Sunday, October 30th for a Fast and Female event in Fairbanks, AK!

Fast and Female Park City, Utah

Registration Link: http://ffparkcityoct2011.eventbrite.com/

NEW EVENT ADDED!

Fast and Female Fairbanks, Alaska

Registration link:  http://ffoct30fairbanks.eventbrite.com/

More to come and as always, thanks for reading! Make today AWESOME because as I like to say, "you have so much to be thankful for!"

Holly :)

Precip: first SNOW, then RAIN!

The August glacier camp was the latest camp our team has ever attempted.  At some point during the “summer” the glacier transitions from melting away under the sunshine and/or rain (ablation) and begins the annual accumulation process of collecting snow and refilling crevasses.  The blue ice temporarily disappears and once again, the surface of the glacier is covered in a fresh, white blanket. 

That said, if you have no expectations about the weather, you cannot be disappointed. The typical first move on Eagle is to climb out of bed and pull the blanket covering the window tacked to the wall away and see what you’re in for that day…. "Is it blue bird and sports bra or is it ice-pellet shrapnel and windbreakers?"  This camp was the later.... Because I knew the forecast going into it, I thought this was necessary:

Casey and Erik enjoying a rare moment of relaxation with espresso in the afternoon. 

The bergschrund that forms every year at the top of the glacier, near the facility.

While the “pure enjoyment” part of me wishes that we had sunshine everyday, or even for ONE DAY, I know that we gained MORE by skiing in challenging conditions...... by doing intervals when it was 32 degrees and snowing…. (Poor Pete iced so bad he fell on his face and broke his ski). 

When the going gets tough there are two options: you can give up and create excuses or you can work with and overcome the situation. You can tough it out. No, the skiing may not be pretty… you may not be proud of it but maybe you’re even the fastest one out there that day? Who knows….

Erik Flora, our coach is famous for all kinds of lines and points.  He emphasizes and re-emphasizes things with new found enthusiasm all the time.  One of his favorite talking points on the glacier is to speak favorably about the “difficult weather.”  He makes the point that Eagle features conditions that are similar to the last three championship cycles.  He has a good point: 

1) In Oslo/2011 we raced World Championships in front of tens of thousands of spectators in pea-soup fog; Conditions often found on Eagle Glacier.

2) At the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver we raced in our fair share of either rain or slush up above our boots; Conditions often found on Eagle Glacier.

3) In the 2009 Liberec (Czech Republic) World Championships they raced in poor conditions and wild grooming; Luckily our grooming is mostly awesome these days thanks to our new Pisten Bully! However, there was one day that the wind drifts were so bad that all twenty of us completed our training session “tailing” the Pisten Bully so we could ski in the tracks before they “blew in” with fresh snow!

Here are a couple of pictures of the blue ice/fresh snow glacier on our single "sun-break"

This camp, due to the low snow, the skiers enjoyed a daily commute on the Pisten Bully down to skiing. One of my teammates likened it to riding the school bus to school; our skis and poles were our books, our workouts our assignments, and our post-training granola bar our “sack lunch.”

Another sweet picture of Casey and the new PB. Thanks so much to all the supporters who chipped in!!! 

This is the post-training traffic jam in the glacier kitchen that is LUNCH!

One of the many products of the "traffic jam"

Some of you may wonder what we do all day, everyday during our glacier training camps.  The schedule is surprisingly jam-packed and I rarely find myself with much extra time.  Here is what the general schedule looks like: 

6:30am – wake up/breakfast/dress/last minute ski changes & adjustments

7:45am – “pre-game meeting” Description of workout, technique examples, daily training volume assignments, waxing recommendations.

8am – Board Pisten Bully to “commute to training”

8:30-11am – train & ride PB back to facility

11am-noon – Lunch #1

Noon – 3pm – Afternoon chores, pm ski prep (klister!) & technique review from the morning session, dinner prep – some athletes are able to nap. (This is where my sleep envy comes in…. ) + Lunch #2

3:15 – 4pm: Afternoon “pre-game meeting” , PB transport, etc.

4-6:30pm – Afternoon training, ride PB home

Post-afternoon ski core or strength routine.

7pm – Dinner

Dinner clean

Training talk

10pm – lights out/quiet time….. get ready to wake up and do it all again the next day.

Erik graciously goes over technique with anyone who wants it for hours and hours.... 

Matt Gelso putting peanut butter on his burger? Hum... can't knock it until I try it and well, I didn't try it. 

Was this really necessary?

Okay, this was HILARIOUS. Right before we left, Eric and Reese made a deal:  Reese could smash a rotten tomato in Erik's face and Erik would earn $5.  An amount, which he pointed out would otherwise take him 30 minutes to earn at his $10/hr job.  This situation goes to show that we’re not a rich sport, but what we lack in dollars, we make up for in passion!

The Sun Valley crew missed the tomato incident but luckily Reese caught it on film.... 

Speaking of Reese, check out his latest video account of our final glacier camp of the year (including the tomato incident) here: 

Hiking off the glacier on the first beautiful day... 

It was great having Sun Valley (SVSEF) join us for this camp.  Top l-r: Mike Sinnott, Matt Gelso, Chelsea Holmes. Bottom l-r: Morgan Arritola & Colin Rodgers.

Of course the APU crew needed a team shot too. (The rest of our folks flew down... ) Fitz, me, Erik BJ, Pat PJ, Reese and E-Flora

Gelso sports his plastic bag "diper-slide" for Gus's Crack, the infamous steep pitch of heather which is often easier to slide on your butt than try to hike... 

In the car we found this waiting! Not necessarily standard fair but it sure tasted good at the moment! 

And then there was JUNEAU...... 

After this structured, ski-only schedule it was time to get out of the Anchorage Bowl and see some new territory.  I realized that between summer school, glacier skiing, and intensive training I haven’t left South Central Alaska since May.  While I enjoy being home, the redundancy of my days, (especially when it’s bad weather) starts to get to me and I need a change of pace.  So, a couple of weeks ago I booked a mileage ticket to visit my good friend Sarah Schoen in Juneau.  While I have lived in Alaska for six years now there are still many, many parts that I hadn’t seen and I was curious to explore the South East.  

Now, I know that the weather in the South East is unpredictable at ANY time of the year but after spending almost a week there I am AMAZED at how much it rained.  In many ways, it made ol’ANC look like dry Arizona in comparison. I resorted to borrowing Sarah’s “Rain Moo-moo” which was actually a rubber Helly Hansen rain jacket that went down to my mid-shin. On Friday night we attended Juneau’s First Friday event, an art opening where all the downtown galleries and shops have open houses to display local artist’s pieces.  At least half of everyone in attendance were wearing Xtratufs, (brown rubber boots) even at the wine tasting event: Rubber in Juneau is a Nordic Skier’s Spandex, a surfer’s board shorts or a Seattleite’s favorite coffee mug. 

Check out this AWESOME fence!

Despite the dismal weather (I experienced THREE whole hours of visibility during my six day stay) I had a great time visiting with Sarah and she was as always, a wonderful, gracious host. 

Sarah picked and pickled "fiddle heads" which I've always wanted to try.  They are young fern sprouts and an Alaskan delicacy. 

Here I am with the Mendenhall glacier in the background during our 3 hours of clear weather! 

My visit to Juneau also gave me a chance to catch up with my friend Abby Lowell (McCallister).  Abby and I raced for PNSA, Pacific Northwest together.  In fact, we raced the J2 relay together back in the day.  In this picture Abby is actually 8.5 months pregnant.  Up until last week she had been running an average of 35 miles/week while pregnant!  Abby is actually the editor for the Juneau Empire and blogged about the experience.  Perhaps the most interesting blog title is called, "No, it does not bounce all over the place."  Check out Abby's blog about running pregnant HERE.

It’s funny what people do in order to adapt to bad weather.  Juneau folks definitely have the creative bug….. Theme parties are big: one night there was a fried chicken party at a bar.  Sarah also told me about a theme party her parents attended in Juneau when they were young where everyone showed up in their swim suits with a lawn chair…… the heat was turned up and they sipped on Margaritas; all the while it was pissing rain and perpetually 50 degrees outside.  Instead of either of these options we chose to pick blueberries in a downpour:

The LOOT!

Now it’s time to head back to ANC to get back to work. I have a busy couple of weeks ahead of me with fall classes, a 2.5 week visit from my brother, a three-week block of power training and then it’s off to Park City for a two-week altitude/sunshine training camp. Two months of preparation left and it’s off to Europe for race season! It’s going to happen quickly!! Tighten your seat belts! 

My Labor-Day ski from the end-of-the-road to Sarah's office in Auke Bay... 

Also, if you’re looking for something to do (!) check out this recent “Pro-Workout” I did with Faster Skier the other day here:

"Over Under Workout" 

Until later, enjoy the fall and thanks for reading and following along!

Sincerely,

Holly :)

Just another reason to be an XC skier in Alaska!

Summer glacier skiing can make the front page of the SUNDAY Anchorage Daily News! Check it out here:

http://www.adn.com/2011/08/06/2003773/mountaintop-training-helps-athletes.html

Marc Lester, ADN photographer came up and joined us for the first night of our glacier camp. When he wasn't taking pictures he even joined us in the kitchen and assisted our cook crew. (Thanks Marc!) Check out this awesome six minute video that he made about us:


Eagle Glacier Training Camp from Marc Lester on Vimeo.

Here is the text of the article in case the link isn't working for you:

Mountaintop training leads to medals podiums

By MARC LESTER and BETH BRAGG
sports@adn.com

Published: August 7th, 2011 09:42 PM
Last Modified: August 8th, 2011 06:50 AM

EAGLE GLACIER -- It's always winter at Eagle Glacier, perhaps never more so than in the summer. June, July and August mark the cross-country ski season at the Thomas Training Center, the facility that sits high on a ridge above Girdwood in the Chugach Mountains.

This is where the best skiers in Alaska come to get better. Sometimes, like at a recent training camp that featured an Olympic gold medalist from Canada and a World Championship silver medalist from Alaska, it's where the best skiers on the continent come to get better.

Here, skiers find an endless winter -- even when skiing in shorts and T-shirts under a blazing summer sun -- that is helping them gain ground in a sport long dominated by Europeans.

"We kind of went across the world and looked at all the different programs that were having high-level success and looked for the different things they used in their training," said Erik Flora, head coach of the Alaska Pacific University nordic ski program, which runs the Thomas Training Center. "The first thing that became apparent is that as a country, we didn't ski as much as the rest of the world. The world leaders, that is."

APU didn't need to search the world for a solution to that shortcoming. It needed only to look up.

LONG DAYS OF SKIING

A mile high in the mountains and about a 10-minute helicopter ride from Girdwood, Eagle Glacier has long drawn skiers jonesing for snow during an Alaska summer.

A photo album in the two-story training center shows scenes from the 1980s, when Olympic skiers Jim Galanes and Bill Spencer used a wall tent for a base camp while glacier training. Even before that, in the 1960s, Lowell Thomas Jr., the famed Alaska bush pilot and former lieutenant governor who donated $1 million to the APU nordic program in 1999, brought his kids here to ski in the summer.

These days, skiers usually arrive in an Alpine Air helicopter and can look forward to hot food and warm beds after long days of glacier skiing. They sleep in bunk beds, cook meals together and hang clothes -- some damp with sweat, some damp with the rain that occasionally pelts the glacier -- on indoor clotheslines that become colorful displays of gloves, hats and socks.

At the end of July, the training center was the scene of a week-long slumber party for some of the world's top women. Among the 14 skiers from the United States and Canada who shared close quarters -- and maybe some training secrets -- were Chandra Crawford, an Olympic champion from Canada, and Kikkan Randall, a World Championship silver medalist from Anchorage.

"We're geographically isolated from our competitors, so it's really great to have the Canadians up here," said APU skier Holly Brooks, a 2010 Olympian who will compete for the U.S. Ski Team at the first series of World Cup races this winter. "They can bring in their strengths and their ideas, and what they've seen from the international field.

"I think that we've realized that in order to get better and to improve, we have to work together. We have to share some of our ideas and some of our quote-unquote trade secrets."

Not that all of the sharing involves skiing.

Crawford, who won the sprint race at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, spent some of her downtime playing the guitar, teaching chords and organizing a three-part-harmony sing-along with APU skiers Becca Rorabaugh and Kinsey Loan.

MISERY LEADS TO MEDALS

At the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, after posting the then-best finish in history by an American woman, Anchorage's Nina Kemppel paid tribute to Eagle Glacier. She had skied to 15th place in the women's 30-kilometer classic, a race made messy and difficult by wet, falling snow and 33-degree temperatures.

"Thank you, Jim Galanes, for making me ski on all of those horrible, ucky days with no kick wax up at Eagle Glacier," she said.

At a 2007 sprint race in Rybinsk, Russia, after becoming the first American woman to win a World Cup medal, Randall gave credit to the glacier. She had placed third on a sprint course pieced together with crushed ice.

"Conditions were what you might see on a glacier in Alaska during the summer," she said. "I've asked myself (at Eagle Glacier), 'When am I ever gonna race on this?' It was good today to have that experience."

At last season's national championships in Maine, the APU ski team turned heads with its domination of the awards podium -- and again the glacier earned praise.

"Eagle Glacier is a critical component in that we're able to come up here once a month and ski for seven days," Flora said. "And so you never lose that snow feel."

'A LOT OF MILES'

Because this is a glacier, there are hazards.

Crevasses are a concern, so tracks are set in areas with low probability of crevasses and the course is marked by wands.

The two-story building is bolted to an outcrop of rocks between the glacier and a cliff. The cliff features a nearly vertical drop and yellow tape warns people to keep their distance. If anyone is caught beyond the yellow tape, a helicopter is called and the person is kicked out of the camp.

A staff of three, including Flora, runs the center but athletes are expected to pitch in. The staff is in charge of setting and grooming trails -- a job made more pleasant this summer with the arrival of a new PistenBully -- but athletes help with maintenance and by taking care of the cooking.

Meals served at the recent women's camp can best be described as heaping: a mound of food for every plate, with appetites to match -- the result of two long workouts a day.

"We're expecting them to ski a whole lot," Flora said. "We use this camp to build endurance. One of the ways to build endurance is to ski a lot. Ski a lot, a lot, a lot of miles."

Flora estimated skiers at the women's camp put in 60 to 75 kilometers a day on an 8-kilometer loop. For the entire week, that added up to about 25 hours of skiing.

Between workouts and in the evening, athletes enjoy living arrangements that are communal but quite civilized.

There are composting toilets and a supply of water from a nearby pond. There's a dresser filled with old VHS tapes and newer DVDs and a television to watch them on. There's a big freezer stocked with food and an exercise room equipped with a stationary bicycle -- and decorated with a poster of four-time Olympian Kemppel.

"I love it," Randall said. "It's a great chance to eat, sleep and train. And the good camaraderie of everybody just working hard and suffering through some tough conditions and also celebrating some just absolutely beautiful days. We laugh a lot. We have fun a lot."

And best of all, the glacier is just an hour away from Anchorage, a trip that includes a quick helicopter ride to the training center.

"This is a huge advantage," Randall said. "I mean, it's almost ridiculous when you can be at your house one minute and an hour later you're up here skiing on the glacier. It's an incredible facility, really."

Read more: http://www.adn.com/2011/08/06/2003773/mountaintop-training-helps-athletes.html#ixzz1URbUhTqs