If you give a duck a scone...

Here Soph and I are starting our wonderful 2 hour classic.  It was an absolutely gorgeous day, and I got an even better view as I got to ski behind Soph the entire time ;) She is a great person to follow--super smooth and super talented.  So lucky to have her as a training partner and friend!

One of my favorite books growing up was "If you give a mouse a cookie," which then was followed  by the even better sequel "If you give a moose a muffin" (obviously that book was going to be better because muffins are prominently featured in the title).  The general premise of both books is that if you give a mouse a cookie (or a moose a muffin), then he is going to want some milk.  And if he wants some milk then he is going to want more and more and more.  Turns out this story has its roots in reality.  

After a great classic ski with Soph (see above picture), Soph, Erika, Jessie and I went to an amazing bakery and got some excellent scones (Raspberry White Chocolate--YUM).  We then went down to the waterfront to enjoy our scones on the wonderful day, and ran into a team of ducks.  At first they seemed really cute and really friendly, and in Jessie's favorite term "really nice."

This is me and my duck friends.  If you look closely you can see the brown sign warning people like me to please not feed the ducks.

But for some reason I couldn't get the stupid ducks to come closer to me for a picture.  So I had the brilliant idea of feeding the ducks a piece of my scone to get them to come a little bit closer.  They did in fact come closer.  Too close.  One sort of nipped my finger with his beak and I freaked out a little bit.  And then the ducks gained a lot of confidence, so while we were taking the below picture, one of the ducks ran off with a chunk of Jessie's cookie.  Instead of being called friendly, Jessie dubbed the ducks devious.  So my next endeavor in life is writing the book "If you give a duck a scone..."  Then he is going want some cookie.

Here we are in front of Lake Placid--little did we know that the ducks were enjoying a chocolatey feast

 The next day we started off with some super fun skate speeds.  I have been working really hard on improving my skate technique, and there is no better way to do this than follow some of the best in the country at max speed.  Below I follow Ida in one of the uphill skate speeds.  The way the speeds were organized was on a continuos 20ish minute loop with 3-4 speeds dropped in.  Its a good way to practice reacting to mass start tactics, and just really fun.  As long as you don't fall.  Every time I started a speed I would sort of pray that I didn't end up on my belly on the pavement.  Not only would that be sort of embarrassing, but it would hurt a lot.

Uphill skate speed practice. Amy Caldwell Photo

We also practiced going down hills really fast.  As Jessie very wisely pointed out earlier in the fall (I can't believe I'm already saying "earlier in the fall"), at least half of a race is downhill (in most cases--not so in climb to the castle, see below pictures).  So it is super important to be able to go really fast down hills as well.

Here Erika and I work on our downhill speed.  These are the most frightening, because if you fall, it will hurt really bad.  I have yet to ever have a serious roller ski accident so I probably am not as scared as I should be.  USSA Nordic photo

There are a lot of boys at this camp.  Here is a shot showing just how many there are.  All that testosterone makes the boys more amped and makes them go faster.  It probably also makes the girls go faster.  Amy Caldwell Photo.

And finally here are some pictures from the Climb to the Castle courtesy of faster skier. Obviously no downhill here.  I think I sort of look like a ghost in the solo shot.  It's scary, I don't really like the vacancy in my eyes, but I think it rather well depicts not only the epic-ness of that day, but also just how hard that race was.  The other picture is a shot sometime within the first mile or two of Jessie leading, with me next then Ida and then Sophie.  It was a lot more fun skiing in a group than by yourself (as I learned).

Well that's it for now, hope everyone is having great days!

hugz and kissez