At Last!

We arrived in Canada yesterday after a ridiculously long trip. We left the OTC at 2am Eastern time and arrived in Calgary at 2pm Mountain time. We finally pulled into our (very posh) condo in Canmore at 5pm and proceeded directly to dinner and then to bed. 10 hours of sleep, and we were all new people this morning!


It is beautiful here, and though the snow is a bit lacking, it's worlds better than rollerskiing. The ski area is situated right at the base of the mountains and is one of the most inspiring places I've ever skied. We're all looking forward to the next few weeks here. I hope to have some pictures from the range and skiing in the next few days, but for now, the view from our condo will have to do.

Motivation

Below is an article I wrote recently for the Bogus Basin Junior Nordic Team newsletter. I wanted to talk about what I'm doing and why I'm doing it, in hopes of inspiring some of the Juniors from my junior team to realize they can also get to where I am. Hopefully it will at the very least explain what has motivated me to get to where I am.


When you go away to ski camp, you spend the time training, eating, sleeping and relaxing. It is an enjoyable time, but also some of the most focused and intense training of your season. Now, imagine that you never leave ski camp. That’s my life now. After my graduation from Dartmouth College in June, I moved to the US Olympic Training Center in Lake Placid, NY as a member of the US Biathlon Development Team.

I always knew I wanted to continue my ski career after college, however, I was not always sure that would be in the cards for me. As a junior racer, I had a lot of success, but in college, I had a couple of tough seasons. I kept at it, though: training hard and staying confident in my abilities. My senior year, after a summer of training and assistant coaching with BBNT, I made my goal to finish in the top ten of every Eastern Collegiate Circuit race (commonly referred to as carnival races). But after early season successes, I began to realize I could do more than finish in the top ten. I decided I wanted to make the NCAA Championship Team, and to my excitement, I did. The season ended with an invitation to apply for, and eventual acceptance to, the US Biathlon Development Team. Acceptance meant free room and board at the OTC, coaching, partial funding for summer and fall training camps, and nearly full funding for winter competitions domestically and internationally. All of this made skiing full time possible, since holding down a job during a 20-hour training week can be a difficult task.

Now, training and nearly beginning to race full time, I am realizing that hanging onto my goals, even through the tough times, was important. I plan on training hard and staying focused on my goals for as long as I have this opportunity. I am glad that I went to college and had that experience. I know now that I can always fall back on my education and other passions when I am done racing. This opportunity fell into my lap in part because of timing and luck, but mostly it was because of years of hard work and never giving up on my goals.

Side Trip

First, in my last post I erroneously failed to mention how pleased our team was with the Soldier Hollow venue in Heber, Utah. The owners were incredibly generous in their allowing us to train every day on their world-class facilities. We owe them a huge thanks, and if you are ever in Utah, you must go ski at Soldier Hollow. It is inspiring to be on the same trails where Becky Scott won her Olympic medal and Ole Einar Bjorndalen won his many in 2002. It is an experience not to be missed.



Now for the update. This weekend, Zach and I headed over to Dartmouth for a quick visit. We had been hoping to find a time this fall to come over and join the team for a Sunday OD (over-distance) run, and we finally settled on this weekend. It worked out nicely since Dartmouth was celebrating 35 years of coeducation and consequently Dartmouth Skiing was hosting a kick-off event for the Women of Dartmouth Skiing to help us continue to stay connected and begin a campaign to raise $100,000 for the 100th Anniversary of Skiing at Dartmouth in 2009. It was great to get to talk with some of the alums, many of whom graduated in the late 70's and early 80's, making their stories of Dartmouth and the ski team much different from mine. However, it was also good to see that many things have stayed very much the same: from OD runs to bikini skiing and Moosilauke, our experiences have many things in common.

Sunday morning we each headed off with our respective teams for an early morning run in the woods. The women's team headed up Smarts Mountain, which offered us great views thanks to the sunny (though very windy) morning. The way down was slippery with ice and snow, which made us all excited for impending winter and ski season. It was so good to see the team and catch up on what everyone has been doing. While I'm glad to be out of school and extremely happy doing what I'm doing, I do miss my team and all our fun times. Luckily, Hanover is a mere 3 hours from Lake Placid, so I imagine we will be back again soon.

A Quick Break

I'm now back in Lake Placid for a brief interlude between camps. With a successful October camp behind us, the Development Team will be heading to Canmore, Alberta (near Calgary) in a week. There, we will train for a couple weeks before the first NorAm (North American Cup) races. After Canmore, we'll be off to West Yellowstone, Montana for the second set of NorAm's. Then home for Christmas break. The two sets of races will determine who will go to Europe in January to compete on the Europa Cup circuit. So until then, we'll all be working extra hard.

Being home the last week was great. It was fun to see some friends and spend time with my family. I'm looking forward to being home again for Christmas, but before then, there's still work to do!


Soldier Hollow course and range from the hills above.


The stray cat that adopted us for the day while we were raking leaves. He was so sweet that he must have belonged to someone, so the neighbors took him in until he's claimed.


Halloween! A Greek goddess and a Trojan warrior...or something like that. We had a great night giving out candy and checking out the cool costumes.

Three Seasons in Two Weeks

A lot has happened since I last wrote: I visited my brother at Yale, had my 23rd birthday, and flew to Utah to begin our October camp outside Park City. It has been jam packed for the past two weeks, and while it has flown by, Yale and my birthday seem worlds away.



October 7, my birthday, was spent hanging out with my parents, boyfriend Zach and my brother Luke in New Haven, CT. It was a perfect summer day…in October. We had breakfast on the beach, and could have ventured into the water had we wanted since the temperature was already near 80F. After leaving my brother to get back to work, we drove to my aunt and uncle’s house in Rhode Island for birthday dinner and pumpkin pie (which was actually squash pie, but just as delicious).



The next day, Zach and I left for Utah to join the rest of the US Biathlon Development Team and the National Team for our October camp. We arrived to perfect western fall weather: cool mornings and warm afternoons with lots of sun all day. There was snow in the mountains surrounding the Heber Valley, which made for inspiring views from our rental house each morning. We have all been adjusting well to altitude training and taking advantage of the great rollerski trails and shooting range at the 2002 Olympic venue, Soldier Hollow.



We moved houses on Sunday, trading majestic mountain views for pastures, deer, and one curious, apple-core-loving horse. Yesterday, some weather rolled in, and we awoke this morning to an inch and a half of wet SNOW. Despite the white stuff, we were still able to pull off a time trial with some juniors who are also here training. I shot amazingly until my forth and final stage, when I missed 3 of my standing targets. Until then, I had only missed one shot. I still ended up forth, hitting 16 of 20 shots. It was a great experience for me, as is every race at this stage in my training. I skied hard and, for the most part, shot well, so I was very happy with my result.



We have another time trail with the national team on Saturday, and finish the camp with one more week of training. So far this has been a very productive camp and great preparation for our early races, which are also at altitude in Canmore, Alberta, Canada, and West Yellowstone, Montana. The recent snow has done nothing but make me look forward to when there’s actually enough for us to ditch the rollerskis and grab the real things. Think Snow!!

Enjoying it All

This past week has been another rest week for us, and being that fall is certainly in full swing here in Lake Placid, we took full advantage of the time off.



Zach and I started the week off by going apple picking, because what good upstate New York resident lets the fall pass without picking apples?? Since we went on a Monday, we had the orchard all to ourselves, which was fabulous. It couldn't have been a better day: sunny skies and pleasantly cool temperatures made for a beautiful drive over and a great time in the orchard. We picked two baskets full of Cortland, Macintosh, Golden Delicious, Gala and Honeycrisp varieties. Currently, the enormous pile is sitting in my room and quickly disappearing. Most people would be amazed at how Zach and I are able to go through apples! The best part, though, was sampling all the different apples. If you've never eaten an apple right off the tree, you are REALLY missing out. Supermarket apples just can't compare. My favorites? It's hard to choose since I like them all, but the best would probably be the Cortlands and Honeycrisps. We'll be back in the orchard before fall is over for sure.


On Wednesday afternoon, Zach and I hiked into a shelter on Copperas Pond, about 15minutes from Lake Placid and an easy 1.3 mile hike (or 0.5 miles if you take the short way that we didn't know about). It was absolutely beautiful in the mountains. The shelter is right on the pond, so waking to the first light hitting the pond in the morning was amazing. Perfect weather, of course, and a great one-night trip.


Then it was time to begin some easy training again. Today we took a run up a hill overlooking Lake Placid and Mirror Lake (the lake around which the town of Lake Placid is situated). It was beautiful (this is getting to be a welcome theme here...) and we had a great time exploring new trails and taking in the views. We had to stop and get our bearings as we looked over the town, I guess we're not quite locals yet!

Tomorrow we have some tough bounding intervals up Whiteface Mountain (the alpine ski area here), which marks the end of our easy week. There is really nothing that can compare to a Northeastern Autumn, and each day I am reminded but the beautiful foliage how lucky I am to be living my dream. September is more than half way over, which means snow and racing are quickly approaching. I can't wait!

September?!

It's been a little while since I've written, and all the sudden fall seems to have crept up. I can hardly believe that it's September already, but the wildly variant weather proves that another New England autumn is here.

Let's catch up on things. The end of my off week was spent taking my brother to his freshman orientation trip at Yale. Being a Dartmouth girl through and through, I spent much of the time deciding why Yale was clearly inferior to my alma mater. However, I must admit, it was pretty nice there and my brother seems to like it, so that's all that really matters.


Next, I headed off to Alaska to meet up with my boyfriend, Zach. We spent a great week training and helping his family get ready for his brother's wedding. The wedding was outside, with the beautiful Matanuska Valley and surrounding mountains making for a perfect backdrop. It was a great time for all, and well worth my short trip to Alaska.

I then flew back to Maine to spend a couple days with my parents and aunt and uncle before my parents headed back to Idaho. After a slight hiccup of car trouble on the way back to Lake Placid (luckily it happened in Hanover, with lots of friends to help and beds to crash in around), I finally arrived back at the OTC, only to leave the next morning with the rest of the Development Team for a weekend in Jericho, VT for training on the rollerski loops there. When we arrived on Friday, it was incredibly hot and humid. We had a tough couple of workouts on Friday due to the heat and humidity, and were so exhausted after the morning workout that the four of took naps on the hard picnic tables in the building near the range. The weather was no different on Saturday which made for tough conditions for the NENSA rollerski race. Thanks to great organizers, though, the race went off great and I think everyone had a good time.


Sunday was an off day, so we returned to Lake Placid to lounge. We were back in Jericho yesterday to significantly cooler temperatures. After an easier day Monday, this morning was spent with some level 3 rollerski interval combos (meaning after each interval we stop to shoot, making it more like an actual biathlon race). The temperatures have been cooperating nicely, but we'll be lucky if we can hold off the rain this afternoon for one last workout before heading back to Lake Placid.

Next week is an easy/off week and then we'll have a 10 day block of training then more rest before heading to Utah for our October camp with the National Team. Things are really moving in high gear here as we all get ready for winter, which like fall, will no doubt close in fast!