FasterSkier

Category: XCFeeds

A collection of live feeds from cross-country ski blogs around the web.

  • July in pictures – Fish, fun & North American Girls!

    It’s Sunday morning and I’m on my fourth cup on coffee waiting for the “weather’s clear, let’s go!” call to head to Eagle Glacier.  
    We’re currently half way through a two week training camp here in Anchorage where all the top ladies in North America have gathered to spend two weeks training together.  We just finished a great week of dryland training in Anchorage full of roller skiing, running, and lifting weights. Now we’re waiting for the weather to clear so we can fly up to the training facility at Eagle Glacier to spend the next week on snow. Luckily the weather has cooperated the last week and Alaska’s redeemed itself for many of our visitors.  (Three years ago when Nationals were here we had an extreme cold spell and the ski races were postponed/cancelled which didn’t leave a good taste in anyone’s mouth….)
    It’s great to train with all these ladies in a low-pressure environment and learn from one-another.  Our competitors in Europe have the advantage of seeing eachother frequently and if we’re going to compete with them, we need to work together to get better.  I feel fortunate to constantly be surrounded by a strong women’s team but it’s a bonus to have the other US Ski team girls here as well as the Canadian girls including 2006 Olympic Gold Medalist, Chandra Crawford.  
    Before I share pictures from the training camp so far, here are a couple of other (overdue) shots from this month: 
    Yes, Mt. Marathon came and went….. my APU teammate Kikkan and I battled it out in the ladies race and I came up short once again getting passed on the same stretch of pavement a couple of blocks from the finish line. I was a bit disappointed with my performance, not having had the time to put into mountain training but I’ve been working on my double pole and upper body strength this summer so hopefully that will make up for my continuous second place finishes in this race! 
    Rob, my husband has his rookie year in Mt. Marathon….. here he is the day before the race in the “gut” which is part of the downhill race section. 

    At the finish line with my APU girls – Lydia, Ana, Alex, Hannah & Taryn. These girls are awesome athletes themselves and cheered hard in the race too! 
    A special thanks to my headgear sponsor, the Rhyneer Clinic (Orthopedics) for their continual support and my teammate, Erika Klaar for hooking me up with sweet headbands  – check out her site for cool, Alaskan-made stuff HERE.

    The men’s race was particularly exciting seeing that any one of six men had the potential to take the win. Here is a picture of the guys at the beginning of the race – ironically in the order that they finished! 

    My co-worker at APU, Eric Strabel taking the win after a blazing downhill!  This was something like Eric’s 15th or 18th time racing Mt. Marathon (?)  Crazy fun to see him so excited….. 

    In fact, APU SKI athletes ended up sweeping both the men’s and women’s podiums at Mt. Marathon which is rare – a testament to the time and energy we put into our fitness, even if it isn’t running specific. 

    Fatigue sets in at the end of the race….. APU skier Jack Novak finished TENTH place in the men’s division in his first race to the top of the mountain. Super impressive! 
     A great highlight of July was a visit from Rob’s sister, Erin, her husband Frank, and getting to meet our niece, Rienzi for the first time.  Erin and Frank came down for Mt. Marathon while Grandpa and Grandma babysat in Anchorage. (Thanks for the feeds and cheering you two!)

    A now pictures from our training camp…. 

     It’s always fun to take folks from out of town around our training stomping-grounds. Alaska is a great place to be a Nordic Skier and it’s fun to have other people come to that realization too! (Bird to Gird trail)
    Running Rabbit Lakes – Me & Chandra

    Rabbit Lakes once again
     Jessie pre-belly-flop 

     Running down valley

    Girls bringing it in with our neon Rudy helmets…. 

    Kikkan showing the sweatshirts made for the camp – “North American Women’s Training Alliance!” 
    Meanwhile, the middle of July is always Kenai dip-netting season and a chance for all Alaskan’s to fill their freezers for the upcoming year. I wasn’t able to help fishing this year because of the camp but luckily Rob and my in-laws headed down to Kenai and returned with a full quota of Red Salmon – 70 fish! 

    Taking a small break in the filleting process – TONS of work but well worth it

    Gorgeous red fish steaks! 

    Rob holding a red salmon

    In addition to filleting and vacuuming packing, we also take the time to smoke fish for the up-coming year. Here is Rob with our home-made smoker (that yes, looks like at outhouse) 
    Yesterday we had a roller ski time trial at Potter Valley with the camp girls… I’ve run this race many times as a coach but somehow, this was my first shot at competing in the time trial. We had a great group out on the road and three of us ended up breaking the course record! 

    Camp girls left to right: Ida Sargeant, Sadie Bjornsen, Sarah Cresap, Perianne Jones, Me, Kate Fitz, Becca Rorabaugh, Jessie Diggins, Chandra Crawford, Sophie Caldwell & Liz Stephan

    Jessie with her congratulatory flower for the time trial win and new course record of 22:59! Good job Jess!  (Don’t let this innocent picture fool you! This girl is TOUGH out on the race course….)

    Nothing like re-hydrating with post time trial watermelon! 
    Today is a recovery day and weather permitting, we’ll fly up to Eagle Glacier where the plan is to ski 4-5 hours per day.  We’ll focus on technique, learning tricks from each other, talk about the season to come and put in a really, hard, solid block of training.  I’ll update from the glacier at least once so check back soon! Thanks for reading and I hope you all are having a great summer! 
    Sincerely, 
    Holly 🙂 
    Here is a quick video of the APU girl’s team training to leave you with….. 

  • July in pictures – Fish, fun & North American Girls!

    It’s Sunday morning and I’m on my fourth cup on coffee waiting for the “weather’s clear, let’s go!” call to head to Eagle Glacier.  
    We’re currently half way through a two week training camp here in Anchorage where all the top ladies in North America have gathered to spend two weeks training together.  We just finished a great week of dryland training in Anchorage full of roller skiing, running, and lifting weights. Now we’re waiting for the weather to clear so we can fly up to the training facility at Eagle Glacier to spend the next week on snow. Luckily the weather has cooperated the last week and Alaska’s redeemed itself for many of our visitors.  (Three years ago when Nationals were here we had an extreme cold spell and the ski races were postponed/cancelled which didn’t leave a good taste in anyone’s mouth….)
    It’s great to train with all these ladies in a low-pressure environment and learn from one-another.  Our competitors in Europe have the advantage of seeing eachother frequently and if we’re going to compete with them, we need to work together to get better.  I feel fortunate to constantly be surrounded by a strong women’s team but it’s a bonus to have the other US Ski team girls here as well as the Canadian girls including 2006 Olympic Gold Medalist, Chandra Crawford.  
    Before I share pictures from the training camp so far, here are a couple of other (overdue) shots from this month: 
    Yes, Mt. Marathon came and went….. my APU teammate Kikkan and I battled it out in the ladies race and I came up short once again getting passed on the same stretch of pavement a couple of blocks from the finish line. I was a bit disappointed with my performance, not having had the time to put into mountain training but I’ve been working on my double pole and upper body strength this summer so hopefully that will make up for my continuous second place finishes in this race! 
    Rob, my husband has his rookie year in Mt. Marathon….. here he is the day before the race in the “gut” which is part of the downhill race section. 

    At the finish line with my APU girls – Lydia, Ana, Alex, Hannah & Taryn. These girls are awesome athletes themselves and cheered hard in the race too! 
    A special thanks to my headgear sponsor, the Rhyneer Clinic (Orthopedics) for their continual support and my teammate, Erika Klaar for hooking me up with sweet headbands  – check out her site for cool, Alaskan-made stuff HERE.

    The men’s race was particularly exciting seeing that any one of six men had the potential to take the win. Here is a picture of the guys at the beginning of the race – ironically in the order that they finished! 

    My co-worker at APU, Eric Strabel taking the win after a blazing downhill!  This was something like Eric’s 15th or 18th time racing Mt. Marathon (?)  Crazy fun to see him so excited….. 

    In fact, APU SKI athletes ended up sweeping both the men’s and women’s podiums at Mt. Marathon which is rare – a testament to the time and energy we put into our fitness, even if it isn’t running specific. 

    Fatigue sets in at the end of the race….. APU skier Jack Novak finished TENTH place in the men’s division in his first race to the top of the mountain. Super impressive! 
     A great highlight of July was a visit from Rob’s sister, Erin, her husband Frank, and getting to meet our niece, Rienzi for the first time.  Erin and Frank came down for Mt. Marathon while Grandpa and Grandma babysat in Anchorage. (Thanks for the feeds and cheering you two!)

    A now pictures from our training camp…. 

     It’s always fun to take folks from out of town around our training stomping-grounds. Alaska is a great place to be a Nordic Skier and it’s fun to have other people come to that realization too! (Bird to Gird trail)
    Running Rabbit Lakes – Me & Chandra

    Rabbit Lakes once again
     Jessie pre-belly-flop 

     Running down valley

    Girls bringing it in with our neon Rudy helmets…. 

    Kikkan showing the sweatshirts made for the camp – “North American Women’s Training Alliance!” 
    Meanwhile, the middle of July is always Kenai dip-netting season and a chance for all Alaskan’s to fill their freezers for the upcoming year. I wasn’t able to help fishing this year because of the camp but luckily Rob and my in-laws headed down to Kenai and returned with a full quota of Red Salmon – 70 fish! 

    Taking a small break in the filleting process – TONS of work but well worth it

    Gorgeous red fish steaks! 

    Rob holding a red salmon

    In addition to filleting and vacuuming packing, we also take the time to smoke fish for the up-coming year. Here is Rob with our home-made smoker (that yes, looks like at outhouse) 
    Yesterday we had a roller ski time trial at Potter Valley with the camp girls… I’ve run this race many times as a coach but somehow, this was my first shot at competing in the time trial. We had a great group out on the road and three of us ended up breaking the course record! 

    Camp girls left to right: Ida Sargeant, Sadie Bjornsen, Sarah Cresap, Perianne Jones, Me, Kate Fitz, Becca Rorabaugh, Jessie Diggins, Chandra Crawford, Sophie Caldwell & Liz Stephan

    Jessie with her congratulatory flower for the time trial win and new course record of 22:59! Good job Jess!  (Don’t let this innocent picture fool you! This girl is TOUGH out on the race course….)

    Nothing like re-hydrating with post time trial watermelon! 
    Today is a recovery day and weather permitting, we’ll fly up to Eagle Glacier where the plan is to ski 4-5 hours per day.  We’ll focus on technique, learning tricks from each other, talk about the season to come and put in a really, hard, solid block of training.  I’ll update from the glacier at least once so check back soon! Thanks for reading and I hope you all are having a great summer! 
    Sincerely, 
    Holly 🙂 
    Here is a quick video of the APU girl’s team training to leave you with….. 

  • July in pictures – Fish, fun & North American Girls!

    It’s Sunday morning and I’m on my fourth cup on coffee waiting for the “weather’s clear, let’s go!” call to head to Eagle Glacier.  
    We’re currently half way through a two week training camp here in Anchorage where all the top ladies in North America have gathered to spend two weeks training together.  We just finished a great week of dryland training in Anchorage full of roller skiing, running, and lifting weights. Now we’re waiting for the weather to clear so we can fly up to the training facility at Eagle Glacier to spend the next week on snow. Luckily the weather has cooperated the last week and Alaska’s redeemed itself for many of our visitors.  (Three years ago when Nationals were here we had an extreme cold spell and the ski races were postponed/cancelled which didn’t leave a good taste in anyone’s mouth….)
    It’s great to train with all these ladies in a low-pressure environment and learn from one-another.  Our competitors in Europe have the advantage of seeing eachother frequently and if we’re going to compete with them, we need to work together to get better.  I feel fortunate to constantly be surrounded by a strong women’s team but it’s a bonus to have the other US Ski team girls here as well as the Canadian girls including 2006 Olympic Gold Medalist, Chandra Crawford.  
    Before I share pictures from the training camp so far, here are a couple of other (overdue) shots from this month: 
    Yes, Mt. Marathon came and went….. my APU teammate Kikkan and I battled it out in the ladies race and I came up short once again getting passed on the same stretch of pavement a couple of blocks from the finish line. I was a bit disappointed with my performance, not having had the time to put into mountain training but I’ve been working on my double pole and upper body strength this summer so hopefully that will make up for my continuous second place finishes in this race! 
    Rob, my husband has his rookie year in Mt. Marathon….. here he is the day before the race in the “gut” which is part of the downhill race section. 

    At the finish line with my APU girls – Lydia, Ana, Alex, Hannah & Taryn. These girls are awesome athletes themselves and cheered hard in the race too! 
    A special thanks to my headgear sponsor, the Rhyneer Clinic (Orthopedics) for their continual support and my teammate, Erika Klaar for hooking me up with sweet headbands  – check out her site for cool, Alaskan-made stuff HERE.

    The men’s race was particularly exciting seeing that any one of six men had the potential to take the win. Here is a picture of the guys at the beginning of the race – ironically in the order that they finished! 

    My co-worker at APU, Eric Strabel taking the win after a blazing downhill!  This was something like Eric’s 15th or 18th time racing Mt. Marathon (?)  Crazy fun to see him so excited….. 

    In fact, APU SKI athletes ended up sweeping both the men’s and women’s podiums at Mt. Marathon which is rare – a testament to the time and energy we put into our fitness, even if it isn’t running specific. 

    Fatigue sets in at the end of the race….. APU skier Jack Novak finished TENTH place in the men’s division in his first race to the top of the mountain. Super impressive! 
     A great highlight of July was a visit from Rob’s sister, Erin, her husband Frank, and getting to meet our niece, Rienzi for the first time.  Erin and Frank came down for Mt. Marathon while Grandpa and Grandma babysat in Anchorage. (Thanks for the feeds and cheering you two!)

    A now pictures from our training camp…. 

     It’s always fun to take folks from out of town around our training stomping-grounds. Alaska is a great place to be a Nordic Skier and it’s fun to have other people come to that realization too! (Bird to Gird trail)
    Running Rabbit Lakes – Me & Chandra

    Rabbit Lakes once again
     Jessie pre-belly-flop 

     Running down valley

    Girls bringing it in with our neon Rudy helmets…. 

    Kikkan showing the sweatshirts made for the camp – “North American Women’s Training Alliance!” 
    Meanwhile, the middle of July is always Kenai dip-netting season and a chance for all Alaskan’s to fill their freezers for the upcoming year. I wasn’t able to help fishing this year because of the camp but luckily Rob and my in-laws headed down to Kenai and returned with a full quota of Red Salmon – 70 fish! 

    Taking a small break in the filleting process – TONS of work but well worth it

    Gorgeous red fish steaks! 

    Rob holding a red salmon

    In addition to filleting and vacuuming packing, we also take the time to smoke fish for the up-coming year. Here is Rob with our home-made smoker (that yes, looks like at outhouse) 
    Yesterday we had a roller ski time trial at Potter Valley with the camp girls… I’ve run this race many times as a coach but somehow, this was my first shot at competing in the time trial. We had a great group out on the road and three of us ended up breaking the course record! 

    Camp girls left to right: Ida Sargeant, Sadie Bjornsen, Sarah Cresap, Perianne Jones, Me, Kate Fitz, Becca Rorabaugh, Jessie Diggins, Chandra Crawford, Sophie Caldwell & Liz Stephan

    Jessie with her congratulatory flower for the time trial win and new course record of 22:59! Good job Jess!  (Don’t let this innocent picture fool you! This girl is TOUGH out on the race course….)

    Nothing like re-hydrating with post time trial watermelon! 
    Today is a recovery day and weather permitting, we’ll fly up to Eagle Glacier where the plan is to ski 4-5 hours per day.  We’ll focus on technique, learning tricks from each other, talk about the season to come and put in a really, hard, solid block of training.  I’ll update from the glacier at least once so check back soon! Thanks for reading and I hope you all are having a great summer! 
    Sincerely, 
    Holly 🙂 
    Here is a quick video of the APU girl’s team training to leave you with….. 

  • Pioneer Days


    In Utah, this weekend is Pioneer Day. The Mormon pioneers were one of many groups of settlers that traveled West in the 1800’s. The 24th of July marks the day when Brigham and his brigade looked down Emigration Canyon onto the Great Salt Lake and proclaimed. “This is the place.” Luckily for these pioneers, they found a freshwater stream to go along with a lake that’s five times saltier than the sea.

    In Utah, July 24th is kind of a big deal. So after climbing Mount Timponogos from the early morning through to the afternoon, I made my way down to celebrate with some friends at the S Bar Ranch in Birdseye, Utah. Open air, a field of horses, a herd of cattle, a plethora of ATVs, and apple pie and there is little doubt one is in America.

    After turning in the medical books for the year, Bettina made an American reappearance last week. I tried telling her I got a great deal on this little former sheephearder house but after one night it was back to the city we went.

    I never would have thought I’d see a Audi Q7 (msrp 59450) towing hay. I guess that’s just how some newby Park City ranchers roll.

    Judging by the hardpan clay dirt underneath, I’d say Park City Mountain is being a little overambitious, a little misleading with its ski report these days.

    After seven weeks of constant use, my surgeon said the time was right to rid myself of the sling and to start getting the range of motion and the strength back in my right arm. During this time, I’ve been banking long hours, low in intensity, high in the mountains. Here, my old college roommate Colby Frazier joined me for trek up Mount Olympus in the Wasatch Range.

    For me, the grad summer school days are just about at an end, and its off for a little training vacation to Alberta, Canada next week.

  • Pioneer Days


    In Utah, this weekend is Pioneer Day. The Mormon pioneers were one of many groups of settlers that traveled West in the 1800’s. The 24th of July marks the day when Brigham and his brigade looked down Emigration Canyon onto the Great Salt Lake and proclaimed. “This is the place.” Luckily for these pioneers, they found a freshwater stream to go along with a lake that’s five times saltier than the sea.

    In Utah, July 24th is kind of a big deal. So after climbing Mount Timponogos from the early morning through to the afternoon, I made my way down to celebrate with some friends at the S Bar Ranch in Birdseye, Utah. Open air, a field of horses, a herd of cattle, a plethora of ATVs, and apple pie and there is little doubt one is in America.

    After turning in the medical books for the year, Bettina made an American reappearance last week. I tried telling her I got a great deal on this little former sheephearder house but after one night it was back to the city we went.

    I never would have thought I’d see a Audi Q7 (msrp 59450) towing hay. I guess that’s just how some newby Park City ranchers roll.

    Judging by the hardpan clay dirt underneath, I’d say Park City Mountain is being a little overambitious, a little misleading with its ski report these days.

    After seven weeks of constant use, my surgeon said the time was right to rid myself of the sling and to start getting the range of motion and the strength back in my right arm. During this time, I’ve been banking long hours, low in intensity, high in the mountains. Here, my old college roommate Colby Frazier joined me for trek up Mount Olympus in the Wasatch Range.

    For me, the grad summer school days are just about at an end, and its off for a little training vacation to Alberta, Canada next week.

  • Pioneer Days


    In Utah, this weekend is Pioneer Day. The Mormon pioneers were one of many groups of settlers that traveled West in the 1800’s. The 24th of July marks the day when Brigham and his brigade looked down Emigration Canyon onto the Great Salt Lake and proclaimed. “This is the place.” Luckily for these pioneers, they found a freshwater stream to go along with a lake that’s five times saltier than the sea.

    In Utah, July 24th is kind of a big deal. So after climbing Mount Timponogos from the early morning through to the afternoon, I made my way down to celebrate with some friends at the S Bar Ranch in Birdseye, Utah. Open air, a field of horses, a herd of cattle, a plethora of ATVs, and apple pie and there is little doubt one is in America.

    After turning in the medical books for the year, Bettina made an American reappearance last week. I tried telling her I got a great deal on this little former sheephearder house but after one night it was back to the city we went.

    I never would have thought I’d see a Audi Q7 (msrp 59450) towing hay. I guess that’s just how some newby Park City ranchers roll.

    Judging by the hardpan clay dirt underneath, I’d say Park City Mountain is being a little overambitious, a little misleading with its ski report these days.

    After seven weeks of constant use, my surgeon said the time was right to rid myself of the sling and to start getting the range of motion and the strength back in my right arm. During this time, I’ve been banking long hours, low in intensity, high in the mountains. Here, my old college roommate Colby Frazier joined me for trek up Mount Olympus in the Wasatch Range.

    For me, the grad summer school days are just about at an end, and its off for a little training vacation to Alberta, Canada next week.

  • Alaska Dryland

    The US Women’s team camp plan was changed this year and our summer snow camp was changed from New Zealand to the Eagle Glacier in Alaska.  The plan was to organize a huge women’s group with many of the top North American racers for a week of dryland training and a week of glacier skiing.  I had traveled to Alaska four different times before this trip for various ski races and I can’t say I really liked the place during any of those trips.  It takes a long time to get here (often a longer travel day than to Europe)  and then it was always either dark and below zero or dark with very little snow.  But I was ready to put those experiences aside and was looking forward to experiencing Alaska in the summertime.  And what a difference it has been!

    I flew to Alaska a little over a week ago and was greeted by the sun despite it being close to midnight.  My last flight left Seattle at sunset and we had a continual sunset all the way to Anchorage.  If anything it was getting lighter as the time went on and we flew farther north.  Since then we have had perfect training weather with temperatures in the sixties and seventies, a fair amount of sunny days, and only one afternoon of rain!  The training group has been huge and lots of fun!  The US team, Canadian National Team, APU, and other top skiers from around the country are all training together so it has been awesome to train with people who I have previously only raced against during the winter!  For the past week we have been staying at Alaska Pacific University and training in Anchorage.  The APU team have been great hosts and have taken us all around Anchorage sharing their different training grounds.  We’ve put in lots of distance hours as well as a bunch of interval and speed workouts.

    The stretch of beautiful weather is supposed to end today so we are heading up to the Eagle glacier a day early.  We are leaving tonight rather than tomorrow so we can fly in rather than having to hike in with all our gear once the gnarly weather hits.  It’s a 5-10 minute flight from Girdwood, Alaska and I’m really excited for my first ever helicopter flight.  Then I’m even more excited to be back on snow!  For the second half of the camp, we will be staying at APU’s training center on the glacier and will be skiing, eating, sleeping, and skiing some more!  I’m not sure what to expect but from what I’ve heard it’s the perfect place for putting in lots of quality hours on snow!  I’m sure there will be some great stories of what happens when 15 or so female Nordic skiers and a handful of male coaches live together in a secluded and rustic building on a glacier for 9 days.

    Here are some pictures from the past week of camp.  Thanks a lot to Matt Whitcomb and Lauren Loberg for taking all the pictures during the workouts.  Visit www.nccsef.org or the USSA Nordic Facebook nordic page for more pictures!

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    We did a 2 hour double pole along the bike path of Turnagain Arm.  A strong headwind on the way back made for a tough finish and a lot of pace lining.

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    The second day of camp had 5×6min L4 double poling intervals.  Intervals with this big of a group are fun and tough.  It seemed like someone new was pushing the pace on each interval making for fast times and lots of hammering.  It’s also a good experience to ski behind different people and copy their tempo or technique.  Liz and I are working together on this interval in an unsuccessful attempt to catch Kikkan.

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    Awesome scenery during one of the distance rollerski workouts!

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    We did a 3:30 Tour of Anchorage OD which was a loop around the different bike paths of the city.  We skied alongside the ocean for a few long stretches and the clear weather gave mountain views including some of Denali.

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    There were a few sections where the bike paths didn’t connect.  Jessie and I practiced our off-road rollerskiing skills because Sadie told us we were not allowed to take our skis off!

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    Many of our afternoon workouts have been trail runs into the mountains surrounding the city.  On this run, we ran to Rabbit Lake which is where Kikkan’s husband Jeff proposed.

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    Chandra and I went swimming as soon as we reached the lake.  The water was a lot colder than Big Hosmer so it was a chilly run home but totally worth it!

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    Yesterday we did a short speed session.  We skied around a neighborhood where there was very little traffic and had great head-to-head sprints.  For me it was really fun to chase and be chased by Kikkan!

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    All of our interval workouts have been in a big groups which has been great practice for mass start races.  This picture is from a workout where we did 6×10min at L3 with a faster sprint finish to each interval.

    282589_222583437782911_124575080917081_599982_4597901_nGirls camp has of course had lots of pink and other bright colors.  Thanks to Rudy Project for all the neon!

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    My moose count got so high that I lost track.  They are literally everywhere including right in the middle of the city.  I think the gold medal day was when I saw six different moose within about six hours!  We even have a couple that live in our backyard and were eating the rhubarb outside of the coaches apartment.  We haven’t seen any bears yet but we have eaten quite a bit of freshly caught salmon and halibut adding to the Alaskan experience!

  • Fly Like an Eagle

    A little off-roading adventure on our OD ski the other day!
    We were planning on heading to Eagle Glacier mid-day tomorrow, but as the weather looks like it is going to get pretty nasty starting later tonight, we are going to take advantage of the opportunity to get up and get settled on the glacier this evening. We will be up there until next Sunday and will have limited access to the outside world, but I will be posting updates on my Facebook page, to keep you all updated as often as possible. I am really excited as I have never been in a helicopter, so I am looking forward to experiencing that tonight. Stay tuned, but tune into Facebook, not this page for the next week. We have had a great week of dry-land this last week here in Alaska, with killer weather and a great training group, so hopefully the weather will keep rocking for another week, but either way our training group will. We finished our dry-land week with a classic time trial this morning, with Jessie Diggins leading the charge and setting a new record for the course!! Yeah Jess! Heading off to do a run and strength now and then hitting the road to Girdwood to board a helicopter. Into it. Also, keep checking in on the USST Facebook page, as we will be posting a request for a vote on the best women’s training group video. We chose our top 5 from 21 that were sent in and now it is up to you guys to chose our winners. Thanks a ton to all the girls who motivated and sent in awesome videos. We had a blast watching all of them and I stayed up until midnight last night trying to pick my top 10. It was extremely hard to chose my favorites. Anyway, more to come soon, but until then, keep keeping on.
    I’m sending all my good wishes, thoughts, and prayers to the people of Norway. I hope you can feel the World’s support with you during this awful tragedy.
    On a happier note, though, WELCOME PETER STEPHEN!!!! Here is the newest member of my family! My cousin, Josh, and his awesome wife Kate had their baby last week and thought I would share a couple photos with you all to put a smile on your faces.




    Welcome to the World and family Peter Stephen!!
    Mom, Kate, and Peter, both healthy and very happy! So excited to meet him!!

    Josh, this is my new favorite photo of you. Does life get better than that, Peter? No way. So happy for you guys.

  • Fly Like an Eagle

    A little off-roading adventure on our OD ski the other day!
    We were planning on heading to Eagle Glacier mid-day tomorrow, but as the weather looks like it is going to get pretty nasty starting later tonight, we are going to take advantage of the opportunity to get up and get settled on the glacier this evening. We will be up there until next Sunday and will have limited access to the outside world, but I will be posting updates on my Facebook page, to keep you all updated as often as possible. I am really excited as I have never been in a helicopter, so I am looking forward to experiencing that tonight. Stay tuned, but tune into Facebook, not this page for the next week. We have had a great week of dry-land this last week here in Alaska, with killer weather and a great training group, so hopefully the weather will keep rocking for another week, but either way our training group will. We finished our dry-land week with a classic time trial this morning, with Jessie Diggins leading the charge and setting a new record for the course!! Yeah Jess! Heading off to do a run and strength now and then hitting the road to Girdwood to board a helicopter. Into it. Also, keep checking in on the USST Facebook page, as we will be posting a request for a vote on the best women’s training group video. We chose our top 5 from 21 that were sent in and now it is up to you guys to chose our winners. Thanks a ton to all the girls who motivated and sent in awesome videos. We had a blast watching all of them and I stayed up until midnight last night trying to pick my top 10. It was extremely hard to chose my favorites. Anyway, more to come soon, but until then, keep keeping on.
    I’m sending all my good wishes, thoughts, and prayers to the people of Norway. I hope you can feel the World’s support with you during this awful tragedy.
    On a happier note, though, WELCOME PETER STEPHEN!!!! Here is the newest member of my family! My cousin, Josh, and his awesome wife Kate had their baby last week and thought I would share a couple photos with you all to put a smile on your faces.




    Welcome to the World and family Peter Stephen!!
    Mom, Kate, and Peter, both healthy and very happy! So excited to meet him!!

    Josh, this is my new favorite photo of you. Does life get better than that, Peter? No way. So happy for you guys.

  • Fly Like an Eagle

    A little off-roading adventure on our OD ski the other day!
    We were planning on heading to Eagle Glacier mid-day tomorrow, but as the weather looks like it is going to get pretty nasty starting later tonight, we are going to take advantage of the opportunity to get up and get settled on the glacier this evening. We will be up there until next Sunday and will have limited access to the outside world, but I will be posting updates on my Facebook page, to keep you all updated as often as possible. I am really excited as I have never been in a helicopter, so I am looking forward to experiencing that tonight. Stay tuned, but tune into Facebook, not this page for the next week. We have had a great week of dry-land this last week here in Alaska, with killer weather and a great training group, so hopefully the weather will keep rocking for another week, but either way our training group will. We finished our dry-land week with a classic time trial this morning, with Jessie Diggins leading the charge and setting a new record for the course!! Yeah Jess! Heading off to do a run and strength now and then hitting the road to Girdwood to board a helicopter. Into it. Also, keep checking in on the USST Facebook page, as we will be posting a request for a vote on the best women’s training group video. We chose our top 5 from 21 that were sent in and now it is up to you guys to chose our winners. Thanks a ton to all the girls who motivated and sent in awesome videos. We had a blast watching all of them and I stayed up until midnight last night trying to pick my top 10. It was extremely hard to chose my favorites. Anyway, more to come soon, but until then, keep keeping on.
    I’m sending all my good wishes, thoughts, and prayers to the people of Norway. I hope you can feel the World’s support with you during this awful tragedy.
    On a happier note, though, WELCOME PETER STEPHEN!!!! Here is the newest member of my family! My cousin, Josh, and his awesome wife Kate had their baby last week and thought I would share a couple photos with you all to put a smile on your faces.




    Welcome to the World and family Peter Stephen!!
    Mom, Kate, and Peter, both healthy and very happy! So excited to meet him!!

    Josh, this is my new favorite photo of you. Does life get better than that, Peter? No way. So happy for you guys.

  • Fly Like an Eagle

    A little off-roading adventure on our OD ski the other day!
    We were planning on heading to Eagle Glacier mid-day tomorrow, but as the weather looks like it is going to get pretty nasty starting later tonight, we are going to take advantage of the opportunity to get up and get settled on the glacier this evening. We will be up there until next Sunday and will have limited access to the outside world, but I will be posting updates on my Facebook page, to keep you all updated as often as possible. I am really excited as I have never been in a helicopter, so I am looking forward to experiencing that tonight. Stay tuned, but tune into Facebook, not this page for the next week. We have had a great week of dry-land this last week here in Alaska, with killer weather and a great training group, so hopefully the weather will keep rocking for another week, but either way our training group will. We finished our dry-land week with a classic time trial this morning, with Jessie Diggins leading the charge and setting a new record for the course!! Yeah Jess! Heading off to do a run and strength now and then hitting the road to Girdwood to board a helicopter. Into it. Also, keep checking in on the USST Facebook page, as we will be posting a request for a vote on the best women’s training group video. We chose our top 5 from 21 that were sent in and now it is up to you guys to chose our winners. Thanks a ton to all the girls who motivated and sent in awesome videos. We had a blast watching all of them and I stayed up until midnight last night trying to pick my top 10. It was extremely hard to chose my favorites. Anyway, more to come soon, but until then, keep keeping on.
    I’m sending all my good wishes, thoughts, and prayers to the people of Norway. I hope you can feel the World’s support with you during this awful tragedy.
    On a happier note, though, WELCOME PETER STEPHEN!!!! Here is the newest member of my family! My cousin, Josh, and his awesome wife Kate had their baby last week and thought I would share a couple photos with you all to put a smile on your faces.




    Welcome to the World and family Peter Stephen!!
    Mom, Kate, and Peter, both healthy and very happy! So excited to meet him!!

    Josh, this is my new favorite photo of you. Does life get better than that, Peter? No way. So happy for you guys.

  • Race For The Cure

    This morning a bunch of our group jumped in the Race For The Cure 5 km. running race in Manchester. Hundreds of people come out for this cancer fundraiser and we try to do the race every July.
    We were lucky that it was cloudy and low 70’s during the race. Everyone did very well, especially considering that they are fresh off of our Tour. I think that nearly everyone set PR’s.
    Picture above is 300 meters into the race. Sorry I didn’t get everyone.

    Skyler hammers in for 2nd place.
    Austin Cobb makes his move.
    Austin.
    Matt.
    Rachel.
    Issy P.
    Katharine, George F and Chloe start their finish sprint.
    Gage.
    MacKenzie
    Tess.
    Charlotte.
    Warming down.



    Leader Board.
    SMS moms supporting the cause.
    Some of our group relax after the race.

  • WC Split Times: Biggest Losses

    The obvious follow-up from the last entry in this series is to look at the folks who have the strongest tendency to fall further behind the leaders as the race progresses. Not surprisingly, this group will include a lot of the more marginal skiers from smaller skiing nations. I did filter out people for whom I only had data from one race.

    So keep in mind that fading later in races doesn’t always mean you finished poorly. It just means that you’re considerably further behind the leaders at the end of the race than you were at the beginning. (And check out any of my previous posts using this data for a more detailed description of how to interpret these graphs.)

    We covered American Lars Flora earlier, noting that he had some health issues during his stint in Europe and so he had a series of tough races over there. Britta Johansson Norgren is one of the more notable skiers to be included in this group. Recall that fading further behind the leaders in a women’s WC mass start or pursuit race was not entirely uncommon last season. But Norgren saw a bit of the same pattern in interval start races as well, which pushed her down the list a bit.

    Kristian Tettli Rennemo is a Norwegian I’m not very familiar with, but a quick glance at his results seems to suggest he’s fairly talented. At least, he’s got quite a few WC starts under his belt. Nothing spectacular, but some strong results in Scandinavian Cup and other FIS races.

    Related posts:

    1. <Trends In Race Times
    2. <US World Cup Split Times
    3. <Canadian World Cup Splits


  • More Pictures

    Here are some more pictures from the bike ride yesterday. They are out of order… but browse away and click on any to enlarge.





















  • Tour Of Southern VT (stage 3)

    Final day of our tour today. Hot and humid, but at least it was hilly! Because of the heat and the 9-10 hours put in over the first two days, we shortened the bike to 60 miles. (The young girls got together for their first group bike and went for 2 hours). There were some big hills (ask Hamish), but everyone did a great job. We split into two groups and had van support for each group..food and drink.
    We finished at 12:30 and had a nice cookout followed by a swim. Plan for tomorrow…total recovery..it is going to be 90 again.
    I will try to get up a bunch more pictures later.
    Great job everyone!
    Townshend.
    Newfane.
    Snack time, 2 hours in.

    Sophie M and Hallie.
    Lunch at the end..thanks Matt and Kate..and Poppet ( grill master).

  • Tour Of Southern VT (stage 2)

    Round up the usual suspects.
    Today we had our long roller ski. The group above skied 2000 kms in the heat today! (that is total, not each).
    Here are some pictures. Click any to enlarge.

    Heading out.





    Driving a support van can be tough so Matt gets some sweets.







    45 km snack prep.





    The finish sprint to the pond.





    Bridger is tired.

  • Alaska Women’s Camp

    Here are some pictures/394 to be precise from the last few workouts at our Women’s Camp in AK. It’s been really awesome to see Alaska in the summer and having such an awesome training group each day is unbeatable.

  • Alaska Women’s Camp

    Here are some pictures/394 to be precise from the last few workouts at our Women’s Camp in AK. It’s been really awesome to see Alaska in the summer and having such an awesome training group each day is unbeatable.

  • Alaska Women’s Camp

    Here are some pictures/394 to be precise from the last few workouts at our Women’s Camp in AK. It’s been really awesome to see Alaska in the summer and having such an awesome training group each day is unbeatable.

  • Alaska Women’s Camp

    Here are some pictures/394 to be precise from the last few workouts at our Women’s Camp in AK. It’s been really awesome to see Alaska in the summer and having such an awesome training group each day is unbeatable.