Photos from day 2

Out on the river trail to the Mora trails. It was snowing today, and a bit warmer - right around zero. Glad I wasn't classic waxing...

Quickroute from the first sprint that we did yesterday. You can see where I blew it on the way to #6 - took that right turn, thinking I was taking the right fork. At least I caught it, but not that quickly...
Quickroute from the second sprint. This one was longer, and had two butterflies on it. Again, I made a mistake near the end - my concentration needs some work. I missed my turn to 11, realized it, took the next turn, and then could see the control, so tried to take a downhill shortcut. Unfortunately, I hit something solid under the snow, got onto one foot, thought I could ride it out, and failed, landing with a poof in a pile of snow. Then, I couldn't extricate myself from that pile of snow, so spent a while floundering around trying to stand back up. Of course, when I got to the finish, Erik was waiting for everyone, and said something along the lines of "you met some snow, eh?" That was embarrassing. Sigh.

And from the afternoon's training - follow the highlighted line. I sort of had some issues around the marsh, and by the time I figured out where I was, I backtracked to get back on the line.

Cristina was really excited about cheese slices after the first ski.

Mora Ski Gymnasium

I left for Sweden on Tuesday, met up with Greg at the JFK airport, and we finished the trip across the Atlantic puddle and got to Mora by Wednesday sort of mid day. Erik Svensson and the Mora Ski Gymnasium have been kind enough to put us up for a couple days, and invited us to join them for all the trainings that they're doing. It's a really sweet setup, and makes a lot of logistics actually much easier than if I were trying to plan things myself. We're staying in a dorm in the basement of one of the ski dorms, and it's way more than I expected. Cristina got here Thursday afternoon, and there may even be sightings of an Ali by Saturday!

At least the main room is quite big - enough room for two couches, a table, and two bunkbeds. Living in style!Looking the other way.

The apartment comes with a very large kitchen. Better than a lot of places I've seen, actually!

mmmm sunshine.

Greg catches a quality nap on the train.

The first thing we did was hit up a grocery store for the essentials, like nutella.
Greg doesn't really have standards when it comes to food. I find nutella-cheese-baloney-jam sandwiches weird. Cheese-wrapped fried meatballs, on the other hand, are purely delicious.

We did a little skiing, too. Turns out, they groom a snowmobile path from the Mora dorms to the Vassaloppet trails, so Wednesday afternoon we went exploring on those. That was fun, but joining the ski-o kids Thursday was more fun. Basically, they get driven to a map, that has some custom ski trails on it, and they were doing two sprints, so we joined them. I can safely say that I was the second (of two) girls on that course. The entire thing was windy narrow trails - spectacular. Good rolling terrain, enough uphills to make you try hard and enough downhills to keep you on your toes. We went back in the afternoon to do a line-o, and that was also hard. My actual reading of the map isn't so bad right now, but I was unable to keep focus. Hopefully more sleep, less jetlag, and more coffee will fix that before WOC!


Cristina came prepared - with night vision goggles. I didn't get it either.

The snowmobile groomer, with one of the coaches ("trainers") waiting for the kids to start the workout.

The woods are beautiful. Supposedly it will snow a lot tomorrow, but today was sunny, if not all that warm. Swedish junior skier whooshing through the woods.

I'll leave you with this one - amazing the things you can find in a Swedish grocery store. We had to import the Greg-in-tights, and the scimitar came with the apartment, but you can get huge chunks of sausage (it tasted like hotdogs).

Here goes

I leave tomorrow for Sweden, for the World Championships in Ski Orienteering. After Rangeley and Ski to the Clouds, I'm less than certain about my fitness, but there isn't much I can do now that would be effective except rest. Never been good at that. As with every big competition, I feel woefully under-prepared and under-practiced in the skills I feel are necessary, but again, not much I can do now.

I get to Sweden by Wednesday morning, and head to Mora, where Erik Svensson is helping us get some access to maps and terrain, and it will be walking that fine line between resting enough and practicing map-reading enough... Sunday we head north, to Tänndalen. Monday is an easy day, just skiing around on model maps, and then a week from tomorrow, Ski WOC begins! I'm pretty pumped.

Ski to the Clouds

I was wrecked after Rangeley - physically and mentally. Totally shattered. I had pre-registered for Ski to the Clouds, but given my state of immobility Saturday night (you want me to get UP off this floor? Whatever for?), and the state of the weather on Sunday (mmmm, 45 degree rain!), I was sort of wishing I hadn't. I was staying at Colin's parents' house again, which was nice, because it meant not driving all the way back to Boston that night, so we did the important things - pasta, beer, massage, and play with the cat, and I started to think there might be hope for tomorrow.


This cat is dumb - she likes to drink out of the faucet in the shower, and it drips on her head. She doesn't seem to notice.

I decided to make the call about racing in the morning - I'd go for a jog and see how my legs felt. I honestly didn't think there would be any point to racing up Mt. Washington if my legs felt like they did during the marathon. I don't drop out of races, but I do decline to start some of them, if I have a good reason. The rain was fine, weather don't scare me.

I woke up before my alarm, headed out for the test jog, and decided that the race was a go - my kneecaps hurt like hell, but that receded to a dull ache after about 10 minutes, and my legs seemed to have recovered from the effort the day before. And, I have a great pair of slush skate skis, that never get to get used. Ok, let's hit the road!
Never pick up hitchhikers.

The reason we were carpooling is actually kind of sad - Cary took an SUV to the mouth while riding his bike last week, and while he's "ok", relatively speaking, he needs some major dental surgery, and apparently thought that racing a 50k wasn't the best of ideas. So the original plans fell through. Anyway, Colin was being a good carpool-mate and claimed that he didn't mind stopping by Mt. Washington on the way back to Boston, although I couldn't convince him that an uphill ski race in the cold rain was a good idea. What gives?

Nice spring day.
Mt. Washington is right there, see her?


"America's toughest 10km". Yup. 4km flat stuff, and then 6km up the Mt. Washington auto road. I knew I wasn't going to feel super fresh, but I was mentally prepared, and I was also prepared for when my left calf completely blows up. I just hoped I could postpone the inevitable to partway up the climb. This calf thing has been getting worse over the last 4-5 years, basically I'm convinced it's compartment syndrome, but haven't gotten it tested or done anything about it, I'll admit I'm still in the denial stage. Anyway, the gist is that my left calf tends to blow up when I skate up hills hard, but I keep hoping it'll behave.

My skis were rockets, and I found myself with some fast guys, cruising through the flat bit. Unfortunately, the race is ultimately decided on the climb, and the calf thing makes that a bit challenging. This time I made it about 20 strides into the hill before I felt it begin to go, and within half a km I was in agony. It feels like my whole lower calf is exploding, not sharp pain, just like there is some giant squeezing my leg. I had made sure to tie my boots super loosely; this wasn't a boot issue. But goddammit, I don't drop out of races. It turned out both V1 right and left hurt equally as much, but things were a little better if I kept my left ski on the firm-packed middle bit of the trail. I couldn't push off of that leg, but I could still stand on it, which is only like stage two of complete bodily disfunction during skate races. Only 45 minutes of climbing left!

Pretty quickly into the climb, the Bates girl who ended up winning caught me. I decided to see what it was like to ski behind her - Obviously I had to try harder, but I lasted for about five minutes before my calf started to move towards stage three, the can't-stand-on-that-ski anymore stage, so I backed off. Just before the 2mi sign, Ellery Leeds and Katie Miller caught me, and I skied with them for a bit, aided by a flat part that I could double pole, to rest my calf. Then things went steep, and I went back to being unable to push off my leg. Shortly thereafter, Jane and Meghan McClelland caught me, and I could ski with them for a little longer, but not enough. The pure limiting factor was my calf - I was watching my HR drop. Not supposed to do that on a hillclimb.

Photo credits great glen trails. See that canted right knee? That explains why my kneecaps hurt so much right now. Broken.

Anyway, it took me 3km to remember to remind myself that I love hills, and I alternated between "I love hills" and "good at hills!" in my head for probably 20 minutes. "This is fun!" was a bit too much, my brain is dumb, but not that dumb. The climb seemed pretty interminable, but I wasn't going to stop, and I'd reached some sort of equilibrium with the pain in my calf - it certainly hurt, but I could keep skiing, albeit not that fast.

The finish was a welcome sight. And skiing up the hill with a rain jacket (and dry hat in the pocket) tied around my waist was one of the few smart things I did today. The descent was actually really fun, since you could carve through the slush.

My finish placing wasn't where I'd hoped, but calf issues aside, I am much happier with this race than yesterday's - probably has to do with forcing a cheery attitude on myself. Today had the potential to be truly miserable - and it wasn't. I guess my new standard for ski racing is "as long as it isn't miserable, we're all good".

I plan to rest in the ten days between now and my departure for Sweden, but I'm just so bad at resting. Resting is a much bigger challenge to me than something like skiing halfway up Mt. Washington. Here goes...

Rangeley Lakes Loppet

(photo credit Jamie Doucett)

I've been under this impression, the last couple years, that Rangeley is a flat, fast, marathon, and that I like the course. None of this is true, but I'll probably forget that none of it is true and do the race again next year. Rangeley actually has some 10+ minute climbs (like the stupid climb from ~13 - 15k), and the downhills are all gradual enough that you have to work them. Not my sort of course at all, although to its credit, there is a lot of transitional, windy, V2 stuff too. I guess you have to have a lot of terrain over a 25k loop.

Last Wednesday, Ali and I were doing some double pole intervals, in the three-minute range. We did the last one skating, and I noted that my legs were pretty tired. I chalked it up to the fact that this was the last interval, didn't think too much more about it, did some one-minute puke-pace intervals with the CSU juniors on thursday just because why not?, and then spent most of Friday running around stressed about stuff. So I guess it shouldn't have been much of a surprise that my legs felt heavy on Saturday, but I was really hoping that it was a superficial thing, and I wouldn't feel tired while racing. Not sure it actually works that way...

I deliberated over which skis to use for far too long before this race. The forecast was for high thirties, with snow showers giving way to rain showers. The snow was powdery-looking, but wet. My slightly-drier-ground skis tested faster before the race, and it looked cloudy enough that the sun wouldn't come out to change things, so I went with those. Burned in some fluoros, skied around for five minutes and called it a warmup, and went to the start.

This course starts with like 3km of downhill, which means that things stay bunched, and I didn't think that Sabra Davison was going to keep going that fast. But she kept skiing that pace, and I knew I couldn't. Pop. Shortly thereafter, Megan Killigrew and Stephi Crocker caught up then, and I skied with them for the next 20k. Early on, I noticed that my skis were running faster than theirs, and I felt pretty smug about this, anticipating downhill attacks and huge glide. But around 15k I started to notice that I really had to work the downhills to stay with them. Uphills were mostly fine, but it was painfully apparent on the downhills that I was getting dropped, and it was only a matter of time before I wouldn't be able to do another sprint at the end of a downhill to close the gap. My legs weren't burning ever, just sort of heavy, tired, hard to keep the turnover up.

That inevitable moment happened just after we came through the lap - I stood up to take a drink, and they were just gone. I tried to tell myself to just keep skiing, because 50km is a long time and anything can happen, but unfortunately, 50km is a long time. I had about 4km of being miserable, but then the sun came out, and the snow started to glaze, and because I had fluoros on, my skis sped up. I assume everyone else's skis sped up, too, but at least it was easier to ski. Another Dartmouth girl, pulling Katrina Howe, caught up then, and I skied with them for a couple more km, until near the top of a hill, Kat just skied away from us. Shortly thereafter, the other girl skied away from me, and my legs just had nothing to give. Not cramping, not bonking, just tired. Blah.

The stupid climb at 13k was stupidly painful, and my legs were not happy. Just everything was tired, my left calf was toasted, and that made it impossible to hold a good body position, so my quads and glutes were working harder than they had to, basically I was done. Too bad the race wasn't done. Thankfully, two V1-only masters caught up to me, so I skied with them through the rest of the stupid climb and the curvy long climb after the stupid climb. The last 3km loop was as insultingly long as ever, but I finally finished, and I took my 10minutes of misery/agony/whininess/disappointment before re-joining humanity.

I might have held on longer with better skis, but ultimately, I was just tired. Sigh. Rangeley defeats me, again.

Reality. Sluggish. (photo credit Jamie Doucett).

VT Vacation

I'm noticing a trend - I need to take a vacation after a week of ski camp. This is problematic, because ski camps generally take up my vacation time.
Jamie is pictured here, standing in the doorway to my broom closet bedroom. I was mostly sleeping on the couch, but using the closet to spread out my stinky ski clothes, and find some privacy for phonecalls and stuff. After sleeping in a broom closet, of course you need a vacation!

Anyway, Ed has decided that he is going to tap the maple trees on Bullitt land up in VT, and have his cousin Rob do all the evaporation, so he is in the midst of carrying out some grand scheme to set out the lines and get everything ready before the sap starts running. Rob used to do that area, but I guess it was too much work, regardless, they have these grand plans to eventually have 1000 taps. Ridiculous. I get roped into Ed's grand schemes, which is fine, mostly, unless its snowing heavily and very windy. I don't really enjoy snowshoeing around the woods in a snowstorm, and after half a day of that, I bailed on Ed and went inside to drink hot cocoa and read my book. I was feeling wimpy.


Doesn't this just look cold and snowy?

And because Ed's truck was involved, we got it stuck. Naturally.

Ed expects to spend a lot more time up there running lines to maple trees, he has the mainline set up, and all the little secondary lines are going to run into that. The mainline will empty into a tank. Rob will drive by and empty the tank into his tank of sap in his truck, and then he will turn it into deliciousness at the sugar shack. I'll help with that part, all you have to do is watch water boil!

After a few nights of 12hrs or more of sleep, I'm feeling pretty good, and ready to take on the world again. Starting to get really excited about the ski-o world champs, all pumped to train really quality workouts for it, but its doing this freezing rain thing in Amherst, which makes me a lot less excited to train hard. Booo.

February ski camp

After the races last weekend, most of CSU headed over the mountains to Jackson, for the February ski camp. I had a couple days off from school, thanks to Presidents' day and my awesome class schedule, so I joined them for the first part of the week. It sure is windy on that golf course, but once you got in the woods, the skiing was absolutely beautiful. Three days of skiing and coaching and more skiing, life is pretty good. Of course, because I couldn't commit to the camp until the last minute, I was using a broom closet as a bedroom, but hey, you take privacy where you can get it in a ski house.

The best workout was definitely the one where we skied to the top of the alpine mountain (on xc trails), and then skied down. Super fun. This is me at the top of the alpine mountain, about to put on five thousand layers of clothing and ski down. I guess its good that Bretton Woods is such a wimpy little hill.
Some hardcore intervals by the JO crew.

Thursday morning, I left at the crack o' dawn, to get to school in time for some classes, and the plan was to head straight to VT to hang out with Ed for the weekend that evening. Naturally, I locked myself out of my office (with the car keys in the office), and it took a while to get straightened out. But it's all good, I have keys, and I'm on my way to VT.