A screw and glue party!

Because how else does one attach excessive amounts of fireworks to a board?



First you do the actual attaching of fireworks to boards.






Then you go ride your bike all day. I rode this scary log thing, and given my mortal fear of logs, I'm darn proud of me.


Then you go to the picnic, byob. Who brought the damn athlete to the party??




Then Ed's cousin Rob makes the little kids churn ice cream. And forgets how to count as he's counting off their ten rotations...


Definitely the most popular guy around right now


Dee hands out the sparklers.

And then, things go boom.

Is it vacation yet?

ugggggghhhhhh






Yup!

(Spot the rollerskier!)

A picture!

I found a photo! this is from the Coyote Hill mt bike race I did like a month ago.

Humidity sucks

I'm not doing much racing these days. Believe it or not, I'm actually following through with my goal of only traveling every other weekend this summer, and amazingly enough, I have more money in my bank account now than I did at the start of the summer! Actually earning money is kind of a crazy new concept for me. But I also feel rested, motivated, and happy, which is not something I could have said last year at this time. Between April and July last year, I had had surgery, traveled to Michigan for a family reunion, traveled to West Virginia for a week for work, driven to Buffalo for a wedding, ridden the gaps, run the presidential traverse, raced in two mountain bike races and multiple orienteering events, and I hadn't been home on a weekend yet. I guess it is no surprise that I feel rested compared to last year.

Alas, this also means no race reports, which are really the only purpose of a blog. I could regale you with tales of strawberry-picking expeditions, or rollerskiing up the Fitchburg time trial hill (which has the worst pavement I have ever skied on), or riding my bike slowly in circles, but that just doesn't have the same ability to captivate like a race report. So I've decided that I need to use my camera more, and write less. We'll see how that works out...


Anna in her new Colavita kit after hanging in with the men at the Heartbreak Hill race.

What do you do when you have lots of strawberries to use up? Make an overly elaborate strawberry dessert thing, of course! (it has ladyfingers, soaked in a mix of lamic and strawberry syrup, strawberry mousse, angel food cake, strawberry sauce, strawberries, more strawberry mousse, and then stars cut out of angel food cake dipped in strawberry sauce)

Carbon Footprints

I've always considered myself environmentally friendly, a clean hippy if you will. (I don't go for that dreadlocks-birkenstocks-dirty-tie-dyed-teeshirt look, I don't find it flattering to the figure). I do things like turn off the lights, bike to work and carpool to races. I know a lot more about climate change (and other environmental challenges) than the average joe. And I work at The Nature Conservancy! How much more environmentally friendly do you get than that?

And then I took a carbon footprint test. The average US citizen emits 27 tons of CO2, and the US is the highest emitter of CO2 in the world. I emit 36 tons, 68% of which comes from transportation. I am a little foggy on how much of that comes from home energy use, since we don't have to pay utilities, and live in an apartment that is part of a big house. I also don't really know how much I drive, since I totaled my car 10,000 miles after getting it, but if I took the average for how long I had it, that is ~25,000 miles a year. As for flights, I had five short flights and three long flights last year, thats not so good...

Here is The Nature Conservancy's carbon calculator if you want to calculate your own footprint. Unfortunately, as an athlete who is dependent upon snow for races and training, it is difficult to avoid driving. Even reducing the total number of miles driven is difficult. Unlike a cyclist or a runner, who can train wherever they want, we have no choice but to go where there is groomed snow (another carbon intensive activity, I'm sure), and to compete against the level we want involves even more driving and flying. I don't know what the carbon footprint would be for someone who follows every supertour, but I bet its higher than mine. Another problem with skiing is that because of the relatively small number of active participants in the sport(compared to cycling, for example), everyone has to travel to every race, since there is not a high enough density of skiers to have as many local races as there are local bike races. I don't know if that made sense outside of my head.

Next year will be just as bad, with three long flights (Anchorage, Europe, and Japan), and already two short flights, with a couple more to come. The only true solution I can see is to reduce the intensity of my ski racing and training. In other words, back down to an "active participant" level, where I only do races that are close to me, I only train on snow once or twice a week if I have to drive to it, and I don't travel for dryland practices unless I can get there by bike. That doesn't sound like much fun... but it seems to be the only sustainable way to do things. Solution #2... become a bike racer. There don't seem to be too many ways to compromise between racing fast (training in the right places, racing the right races) and saving the world. A depressing thought. Feel free to enlighten me about carbon offsets, because I don't know much about them.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I am single handedly destroying the earth. We've only got one. How much does it actually matter to me when put up against my passion for ski racing?



And on that note, folks -- EAT LOCALLY!

If only all dopers were this dumb...

"...Mr. Kyro did not aid his own case as he forgot a bag containing doping items (plasma expander Hemohes) at a Finnish gas station during the Lahti games which was picked up by the police."

Full article.

I really like to think that skiers are clean. Nothing pains me more than to have a colleague or other non-athletic person ask me if I think there is doping going on in skiing, even at my level. Of course I don't want to think its happening! Why would I compete if I thought everyone else were doped? How can you be a fan if you suspect someone is cheating? Such a depressing topic. Wouldn't it be sweet if there were massive phenotypic changes when someone cheated, like they grew wings or something? Literally, not figuratively. Then we could nail 'em with birdshot...

Franklin Falls rollerski time trial

The NENSA camps at Lake Placid usually end with a time trial, and the past couple camps it has been on the Franklin Falls road, which goes up the shoulder of Whiteface. The course starts slightly rolling, climbs for a bit, then climbs steeply for a bit, and finishes with a flat section, a tiny bump, and another flat section. Not easy. Overall it is 7km, and I wish I'd been able to charge the stupid Garmin (now it won't even charge. gah.), to get the total ascent. Its a lot.

The boys went first, they do an extra flat out-and-back on a side road, that way they'll pass us and we'll all finish closer to the same time. The girls started a minute later. Just before the start, I jumped into the woods to pee. The ground was pretty muddy, and I got some mud and little pebbles under my boot, making it difficult to get my ski on. I get it on, kick it around, it seems to be firmly attached so I line up. Four strides in, I'm suddenly scootering on one ski wondering why my left foot feels so light. Oh shit, where did my rollerski go?!? Turn around to get it, make sure its on this time, and head off, maybe 50 feet behind the pack. I can see the lead pack skiing relaxed, and I really want to be up there with them, but I know that bad things will happen if I go into an all-out sprint at the start of an uphill TT.

I try to stay smooth and I start passing some girls, start the first climb and my legs definitely feel the effects of the past week of training. My calves are threatening to cramp up, but I focus on a smoother stride and I think I can maintain what I'm doing. Then the road kicks up, and damn this thing is steep. I put my head down and just grind away, and when I look up next I can see I'm closing on Parker Tyler, one of the Stratton girls. About halfway up the hill, the guys start to catch me, and at first I worried it was some of the girls I'd already passed, but not to fear. After what felt like forever, I got to the top of the steep part, and the road flattens out. At this point I only have one tempo, its just a switch between V1 and V2, no sudden changes are possible. Real slobberfest going on, I don't seem to have the energy to spit. I kick it into V2, its hard but not suicidal, and I reel in Parker. Then we hit the last little bump and I can't V2 that, I have to V1, and she gets 10 feet on me. The road flattens out again going into the finish but I can't pick up the tempo, my limbs are too wooden, and I cruise through the line just behind Parker.

Overall this was a great camp. It was so much fun to be training with other people, at a really high level, and not be sick or tired. The OTC in Lake Placid really allows for the best quality training you can get, and I love that I was given the opportunity to take advantage of that. Next camp is in August! I can't wait =)


A train of Stratton skiers on our distance double pole yesterday