Category: XCFeeds

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

Spain And Laura Orgue
I love the annual series FasterSkier does profiling each nation that scored nation’s cup points in the days before the World Cup begins. Usually by the time they reach Norway and Russia, I’m actually less interested, but the first week or so is a fun ride through nations with tiny, little known programs.

First up was Spain, featuring Laura Orgue. The correctly note that she’s basically the only real prospect they have, and thankfully she’s not terribly old (~25). What can happen a lot with these tiny ski programs (or even medium sized ones, really, like the US) is they latch onto a decent skier and basically ride them into their 40′s. However, looking at Orgue’s last few seasons, I’m a little concerned:

No one’s pretending that Orgue has been anything other than a middle of the pack type of distance skier, but I’m worried that her results have plateaued a bit, perhaps even tailing off last season. In my experience looking at skier’s results, after the early rapid improvement, they often hit a plateau. But each year they spend stuck at that level decreases the chances that they’ll start improving again. The clock is ticking, so to speak.

As for the men, the FasterSkier profile if anything underplays the comical contrast of with and without Johann Mühlegg:

These are the number of results at each level per WC race that season.

Related posts:
October 31, 2011
Who Wants a PPP?

Everyone enjoys a Pizza Party, especially when you can have your own Personal Pan Pizza (PPP). Caitlin and I hosted a party for the neighborhood kids last Thursday night. The original plan was to host the party at the Harrison Community Center but things fell through so we held the party at our house.

The kitchen is small to begin with so the 9 of us decided that we would have to be very clean and orderly. We washed our hands and set up stations to prep our ingredients. I stayed in charge of the oven but the kids did all the chopping, mixing, creating and cleaning.

What is that green stuff? … Spinach

Gerry, Javaree, DJ and Adanis enjoying their Personal Pan Pizza

We learned proper and fastest way to chop onions, how to carve a fresh pinapple (on sale at Aldi’s this week for $1.69), shred cheese, spice up canned tomato paste, slice mushrooms, cut apples, and cook sausage. With all of our ingredients ready to go we were ready to make some mean pizzas.

We sliced specialty breads in half to create the crust and everyone built their own creation. The bread came courtesy of the Salvation Army and Target. Target drops off bread that is older but still good and amazingly the whole grain and speacilty breads are the ones still sitting there at the end of the day. The breads looked pretty scary to the kids but once we convinced them that the carraway seeds were not bugs and the olives not giant raisins we decided that the bread was pretty good. It is good for you too.

Dinner time for Thomas Ave N

October 30, 2011
Who Wants a PPP?

Everyone enjoys a Pizza Party, especially when you can have your own Personal Pan Pizza (PPP). Caitlin and I hosted a party for the neighborhood kids last Thursday night. The original plan was to host the party at the Harrison Community Center but things fell through so we held the party at our house.

The kitchen is small to begin with so the 9 of us decided that we would have to be very clean and orderly. We washed our hands and set up stations to prep our ingredients. I stayed in charge of the oven but the kids did all the chopping, mixing, creating and cleaning.

What is that green stuff? … Spinach

Gerry, Javaree, DJ and Adanis enjoying their Personal Pan Pizza

We learned proper and fastest way to chop onions, how to carve a fresh pinapple (on sale at Aldi’s this week for $1.69), shred cheese, spice up canned tomato paste, slice mushrooms, cut apples, and cook sausage. With all of our ingredients ready to go we were ready to make some mean pizzas.

We sliced specialty breads in half to create the crust and everyone built their own creation. The bread came courtesy of the Salvation Army and Target. Target drops off bread that is older but still good and amazingly the whole grain and speacilty breads are the ones still sitting there at the end of the day. The breads looked pretty scary to the kids but once we convinced them that the carraway seeds were not bugs and the olives not giant raisins we decided that the bread was pretty good. It is good for you too.

Dinner time for Thomas Ave N

October 30, 2011
Who Wants a PPP?

Everyone enjoys a Pizza Party, especially when you can have your own Personal Pan Pizza (PPP). Caitlin and I hosted a party for the neighborhood kids last Thursday night. The original plan was to host the party at the Harrison Community Center but things fell through so we held the party at our house.

The kitchen is small to begin with so the 9 of us decided that we would have to be very clean and orderly. We washed our hands and set up stations to prep our ingredients. I stayed in charge of the oven but the kids did all the chopping, mixing, creating and cleaning.

What is that green stuff? … Spinach

Gerry, Javaree, DJ and Adanis enjoying their Personal Pan Pizza

We learned proper and fastest way to chop onions, how to carve a fresh pinapple (on sale at Aldi’s this week for $1.69), shred cheese, spice up canned tomato paste, slice mushrooms, cut apples, and cook sausage. With all of our ingredients ready to go we were ready to make some mean pizzas.

We sliced specialty breads in half to create the crust and everyone built their own creation. The bread came courtesy of the Salvation Army and Target. Target drops off bread that is older but still good and amazingly the whole grain and speacilty breads are the ones still sitting there at the end of the day. The breads looked pretty scary to the kids but once we convinced them that the carraway seeds were not bugs and the olives not giant raisins we decided that the bread was pretty good. It is good for you too.

Dinner time for Thomas Ave N

October 30, 2011
Who Wants a PPP?

Everyone enjoys a Pizza Party, especially when you can have your own Personal Pan Pizza (PPP). Caitlin and I hosted a party for the neighborhood kids last Thursday night. The original plan was to host the party at the Harrison Community Center but things fell through so we held the party at our house.

The kitchen is small to begin with so the 9 of us decided that we would have to be very clean and orderly. We washed our hands and set up stations to prep our ingredients. I stayed in charge of the oven but the kids did all the chopping, mixing, creating and cleaning.

What is that green stuff? … Spinach

Gerry, Javaree, DJ and Adanis enjoying their Personal Pan Pizza

We learned proper and fastest way to chop onions, how to carve a fresh pinapple (on sale at Aldi’s this week for $1.69), shred cheese, spice up canned tomato paste, slice mushrooms, cut apples, and cook sausage. With all of our ingredients ready to go we were ready to make some mean pizzas.

We sliced specialty breads in half to create the crust and everyone built their own creation. The bread came courtesy of the Salvation Army and Target. Target drops off bread that is older but still good and amazingly the whole grain and speacilty breads are the ones still sitting there at the end of the day. The breads looked pretty scary to the kids but once we convinced them that the carraway seeds were not bugs and the olives not giant raisins we decided that the bread was pretty good. It is good for you too.

Dinner time for Thomas Ave N

October 30, 2011
Who Wants a PPP?

Everyone enjoys a Pizza Party, especially when you can have your own Personal Pan Pizza (PPP). Caitlin and I hosted a party for the neighborhood kids last Thursday night. The original plan was to host the party at the Harrison Community Center but things fell through so we held the party at our house.

The kitchen is small to begin with so the 9 of us decided that we would have to be very clean and orderly. We washed our hands and set up stations to prep our ingredients. I stayed in charge of the oven but the kids did all the chopping, mixing, creating and cleaning.

What is that green stuff? … Spinach

Gerry, Javaree, DJ and Adanis enjoying their Personal Pan Pizza

We learned proper and fastest way to chop onions, how to carve a fresh pinapple (on sale at Aldi’s this week for $1.69), shred cheese, spice up canned tomato paste, slice mushrooms, cut apples, and cook sausage. With all of our ingredients ready to go we were ready to make some mean pizzas.

We sliced specialty breads in half to create the crust and everyone built their own creation. The bread came courtesy of the Salvation Army and Target. Target drops off bread that is older but still good and amazingly the whole grain and speacilty breads are the ones still sitting there at the end of the day. The breads looked pretty scary to the kids but once we convinced them that the carraway seeds were not bugs and the olives not giant raisins we decided that the bread was pretty good. It is good for you too.

Dinner time for Thomas Ave N

October 30, 2011
Who Wants a PPP?

Everyone enjoys a Pizza Party, especially when you can have your own Personal Pan Pizza (PPP). Caitlin and I hosted a party for the neighborhood kids last Thursday night. The original plan was to host the party at the Harrison Community Center but things fell through so we held the party at our house.

The kitchen is small to begin with so the 9 of us decided that we would have to be very clean and orderly. We washed our hands and set up stations to prep our ingredients. I stayed in charge of the oven but the kids did all the chopping, mixing, creating and cleaning.

What is that green stuff? … Spinach

Gerry, Javaree, DJ and Adanis enjoying their Personal Pan Pizza

We learned proper and fastest way to chop onions, how to carve a fresh pinapple (on sale at Aldi’s this week for $1.69), shred cheese, spice up canned tomato paste, slice mushrooms, cut apples, and cook sausage. With all of our ingredients ready to go we were ready to make some mean pizzas.

We sliced specialty breads in half to create the crust and everyone built their own creation. The bread came courtesy of the Salvation Army and Target. Target drops off bread that is older but still good and amazingly the whole grain and speacilty breads are the ones still sitting there at the end of the day. The breads looked pretty scary to the kids but once we convinced them that the carraway seeds were not bugs and the olives not giant raisins we decided that the bread was pretty good. It is good for you too.

Dinner time for Thomas Ave N

October 30, 2011
Who wants a PPP?

Everyone enjoys a Pizza Party, especially when you can have your own Personal Pan Pizza (PPP). Caitlin and I hosted a party for the neighborhood kids last Thursday night. The original plan was to host the party at the Harrison Community Center but things fell through so we held the party at our house.

The kitchen is small to begin with so the 9 of us decided that we would have to be very clean and orderly. We washed our hands and set up stations to prep our ingredients. I stayed in charge of the oven but the kids did all the chopping, mixing, creating and cleaning.

What is that green stuff? … Spinach

Gerry, Javaree, DJ and Adanis enjoying their Personal Pan Pizza

We learned proper and fastest way to chop onions, how to carve a fresh pinapple (on sale at Aldi’s this week for $1.69), shred cheese, spice up canned tomato paste, slice mushrooms, cut apples, and cook sausage. With all of our ingredients ready to go we were ready to make some mean pizzas.

We sliced specialty breads in half to create the crust and everyone built their own creation. The bread came courtesy of the Salvation Army and Target. Target drops off bread that is older but still good and amazingly the whole grain and speacilty breads are the ones still sitting there at the end of the day. The breads looked pretty scary to the kids but once we convinced them that the carraway seeds were not bugs and the olives not giant raisins we decided that the bread was pretty good. It is good for you too.

Dinner time for Thomas Ave N

October 30, 2011
Who wants a PPP?

Everyone enjoys a Pizza Party, especially when you can have your own Personal Pan Pizza (PPP). Caitlin and I hosted a party for the neighborhood kids last Thursday night. The original plan was to host the party at the Harrison Community Center but things fell through so we held the party at our house.

The kitchen is small to begin with so the 9 of us decided that we would have to be very clean and orderly. We washed our hands and set up stations to prep our ingredients. I stayed in charge of the oven but the kids did all the chopping, mixing, creating and cleaning.

What is that green stuff? … Spinach

Gerry, Javaree, DJ and Adanis enjoying their Personal Pan Pizza

We learned proper and fastest way to chop onions, how to carve a fresh pinapple (on sale at Aldi’s this week for $1.69), shred cheese, spice up canned tomato paste, slice mushrooms, cut apples, and cook sausage. With all of our ingredients ready to go we were ready to make some mean pizzas.

We sliced specialty breads in half to create the crust and everyone built their own creation. The bread came courtesy of the Salvation Army and Target. Target drops off bread that is older but still good and amazingly the whole grain and speacilty breads are the ones still sitting there at the end of the day. The breads looked pretty scary to the kids but once we convinced them that the carraway seeds were not bugs and the olives not giant raisins we decided that the bread was pretty good. It is good for you too.

Dinner time for Thomas Ave N

October 30, 2011
Who wants a PPP?

Everyone enjoys a Pizza Party, especially when you can have your own Personal Pan Pizza (PPP). Caitlin and I hosted a party for the neighborhood kids last Thursday night. The original plan was to host the party at the Harrison Community Center but things fell through so we held the party at our house.

The kitchen is small to begin with so the 9 of us decided that we would have to be very clean and orderly. We washed our hands and set up stations to prep our ingredients. I stayed in charge of the oven but the kids did all the chopping, mixing, creating and cleaning.

What is that green stuff? … Spinach

Gerry, Javaree, DJ and Adanis enjoying their Personal Pan Pizza

We learned proper and fastest way to chop onions, how to carve a fresh pinapple (on sale at Aldi’s this week for $1.69), shred cheese, spice up canned tomato paste, slice mushrooms, cut apples, and cook sausage. With all of our ingredients ready to go we were ready to make some mean pizzas.

We sliced specialty breads in half to create the crust and everyone built their own creation. The bread came courtesy of the Salvation Army and Target. Target drops off bread that is older but still good and amazingly the whole grain and speacilty breads are the ones still sitting there at the end of the day. The breads looked pretty scary to the kids but once we convinced them that the carraway seeds were not bugs and the olives not giant raisins we decided that the bread was pretty good. It is good for you too.

Dinner time for Thomas Ave N

October 30, 2011
A Magical Morning

When I woke up today, I felt like a kid on Christmas morning. I wanted to rush around the house and wake everybody up and show them the beautiful snow outside. Unfortunately, there was no one to wake up except Emily, and I figured she’d appreciate being able to sleep in on her day off. The first thing I did instead was to email out to the Craftsbury junior skiers to cancel morning rollerski practice and replace it with ski practice on the Center’s fields.

We convinced Lisa (one of the Center's rowing coaches) to put on some skis and join in the fun.

These apples still taste amazing

A game of "cut the pie" on the upper soccer field

No need for kick wax

We ditched the skis for a short game of snow soccer

By late afternoon, the snow was already beginning to disappear

October 30, 2011
A Magical Morning

When I woke up today, I felt like a kid on Christmas morning. I wanted to rush around the house and wake everybody up and show them the beautiful snow outside. Unfortunately, there was no one to wake up except Emily, and I figured she’d appreciate being able to sleep in on her day off. The first thing I did instead was to email out to the Craftsbury junior skiers to cancel morning rollerski practice and replace it with ski practice on the Center’s fields.

We convinced Lisa (one of the Center's rowing coaches) to put on some skis and join in the fun.

These apples still taste amazing

A game of "cut the pie" on the upper soccer field

No need for kick wax

We ditched the skis for a short game of snow soccer

By late afternoon, the snow was already beginning to disappear

October 30, 2011
A Magical Morning

When I woke up today, I felt like a kid on Christmas morning. I wanted to rush around the house and wake everybody up and show them the beautiful snow outside. Unfortunately, there was no one to wake up except Emily, and I figured she’d appreciate being able to sleep in on her day off. The first thing I did instead was to email out to the Craftsbury junior skiers to cancel morning rollerski practice and replace it with ski practice on the Center’s fields.

We convinced Lisa (one of the Center's rowing coaches) to put on some skis and join in the fun.

These apples still taste amazing

A game of "cut the pie" on the upper soccer field

No need for kick wax

We ditched the skis for a short game of snow soccer

By late afternoon, the snow was already beginning to disappear

October 30, 2011
David Landgraf Article in Silent Sports

Here’s another great article about David Landgraf on Silent Sports. Click here to read!

It’d be nice if you could leave some positive comments on this, Silent Sports makes you log in, however, so we won’t be too bummed if you don’t!

October 30, 2011
David Landgraf Article in Silent Sports

Here’s another great article about David Landgraf on Silent Sports. Click here to read!

It’d be nice if you could leave some positive comments on this, Silent Sports makes you log in, however, so we won’t be too bummed if you don’t!

October 30, 2011
A walk around Muonio

As Nordic ski racers, we are incredibly lucky and spend many months of the year travelling around the world, training and racing in faraway lands. Most of the winter is spent living out of a suitcase and moving from place to place. But with the focus centered squarely on racing fast, training and resting takes the priority over sightseeing on these trips. It’s easy to get into the habit of seeing the only ski centers, hotels, and their connecting roads at each race location. Visiting other places in the local area is often overlooked in favor of time off our feet, letting tired muscles recover. However most times, these outings become refreshing breaks from the normal rigors and routine of training. I promised my brother that I would take pictures of all the towns that I visit while travelling this season and I think I will be able to thank Eben for helping me get the full experience of this winter’s travels.

Yesterday afternoon I went for a long walk around the town of Muonio. With warm temperatures and a sunny sky, it was hard not to go outside. I didn’t even need my puffy coat and my biggest regret was forgetting to wear sunglasses!

The red area on the map shows the province of Munio which was established in 1575 and has a current population of around 2500 people. We are staying in the town of Muonio in this province and it's about 300km north of the Arctic circle and a couple of kilometers from the Swedish border.

Here are the Lomamaja Pekonen cabins, our home in Muonio. We are staying in the cabins on either side of the cars which happen to be the exact same cabins we rented last year.

One street that goes through town

And the other street in town

A very bright sun for northern Scandinavia. I boosted my immune system today with a healthy dose of Vitamin D.

This is the church that overlooks the town. There is a cemetery behind it that has candles next to each grave and makes for a neat after dark.

S-Market is one of two grocery stores in town. The other option, Kmarket, is somewhat visible in the background. Groceries are somewhat limited at this latitude so we've eaten a lot of meat, potatoes, beets, and other root vegetables. I was very surprised to see Ben&Jerry's ice cream in one of the stores here, but at alsmost 7Euro/ pint, it's a bit out of our budget.

The sport store in town caters almost exclusively to Nordic skiing, Nordic walking, and snowmobiling.

There is a wide river flowing through town with marshy sections like this one which is across the road from our cabins. There are also a lot of lakes in the area.

The ski area, Olos, is at the base of this hill. If you look closely you can see the big windmills that spin over our heads while we ski.

October 30, 2011
A walk around Muonio

As Nordic ski racers, we are incredibly lucky and spend many months of the year travelling around the world, training and racing in faraway lands. Most of the winter is spent living out of a suitcase and moving from place to place. But with the focus centered squarely on racing fast, training and resting takes the priority over sightseeing on these trips. It’s easy to get into the habit of seeing the only ski centers, hotels, and their connecting roads at each race location. Visiting other places in the local area is often overlooked in favor of time off our feet, letting tired muscles recover. However most times, these outings become refreshing breaks from the normal rigors and routine of training. I promised my brother that I would take pictures of all the towns that I visit while travelling this season and I think I will be able to thank Eben for helping me get the full experience of this winter’s travels.

Yesterday afternoon I went for a long walk around the town of Muonio. With warm temperatures and a sunny sky, it was hard not to go outside. I didn’t even need my puffy coat and my biggest regret was forgetting to wear sunglasses!

The red area on the map shows the province of Munio which was established in 1575 and has a current population of around 2500 people. We are staying in the town of Muonio in this province and it's about 300km north of the Arctic circle and a couple of kilometers from the Swedish border.

Here are the Lomamaja Pekonen cabins, our home in Muonio. We are staying in the cabins on either side of the cars which happen to be the exact same cabins we rented last year.

One street that goes through town

And the other street in town

A very bright sun for northern Scandinavia. I boosted my immune system today with a healthy dose of Vitamin D.

This is the church that overlooks the town. There is a cemetery behind it that has candles next to each grave and makes for a neat after dark.

S-Market is one of two grocery stores in town. The other option, Kmarket, is somewhat visible in the background. Groceries are somewhat limited at this latitude so we've eaten a lot of meat, potatoes, beets, and other root vegetables. I was very surprised to see Ben&Jerry's ice cream in one of the stores here, but at alsmost 7Euro/ pint, it's a bit out of our budget.

The sport store in town caters almost exclusively to Nordic skiing, Nordic walking, and snowmobiling.

There is a wide river flowing through town with marshy sections like this one which is across the road from our cabins. There are also a lot of lakes in the area.

The ski area, Olos, is at the base of this hill. If you look closely you can see the big windmills that spin over our heads while we ski.

October 30, 2011
A walk around Muonio

As Nordic ski racers, we are incredibly lucky and spend many months of the year travelling around the world, training and racing in faraway lands. Most of the winter is spent living out of a suitcase and moving from place to place. But with the focus centered squarely on racing fast, training and resting takes the priority over sightseeing on these trips. It’s easy to get into the habit of seeing the only ski centers, hotels, and their connecting roads at each race location. Visiting other places in the local area is often overlooked in favor of time off our feet, letting tired muscles recover. However most times, these outings become refreshing breaks from the normal rigors and routine of training. I promised my brother that I would take pictures of all the towns that I visit while travelling this season and I think I will be able to thank Eben for helping me get the full experience of this winter’s travels.

Yesterday afternoon I went for a long walk around the town of Muonio. With warm temperatures and a sunny sky, it was hard not to go outside. I didn’t even need my puffy coat and my biggest regret was forgetting to wear sunglasses!

The red area on the map shows the province of Munio which was established in 1575 and has a current population of around 2500 people. We are staying in the town of Muonio in this province and it's about 300km north of the Arctic circle and a couple of kilometers from the Swedish border.

Here are the Lomamaja Pekonen cabins, our home in Muonio. We are staying in the cabins on either side of the cars which happen to be the exact same cabins we rented last year.

One street that goes through town

And the other street in town

A very bright sun for northern Scandinavia. I boosted my immune system today with a healthy dose of Vitamin D.

This is the church that overlooks the town. There is a cemetery behind it that has candles next to each grave and makes for a neat after dark.

S-Market is one of two grocery stores in town. The other option, Kmarket, is somewhat visible in the background. Groceries are somewhat limited at this latitude so we've eaten a lot of meat, potatoes, beets, and other root vegetables. I was very surprised to see Ben&Jerry's ice cream in one of the stores here, but at alsmost 7Euro/ pint, it's a bit out of our budget.

The sport store in town caters almost exclusively to Nordic skiing, Nordic walking, and snowmobiling.

There is a wide river flowing through town with marshy sections like this one which is across the road from our cabins. There are also a lot of lakes in the area.

The ski area, Olos, is at the base of this hill. If you look closely you can see the big windmills that spin over our heads while we ski.

October 30, 2011
The Final Movie, Now Back to the Books. And the Rollers.

October 29, 2011
The Final Movie, Now Back to the Books. And the Rollers.

October 29, 2011