Canmore...then home!

Due to the sloth-like internet at our little apartments in Canmore, I'm currently sitting in one of the many coffee shops Canmore has to offer.  This one is called the Good Earth, and initially I wanted to come here because at home (a place I will be in 1 day, 3 hours and 19 minutes...not that I'm counting) the Good Earth restaurant is amazing.  And the coffee shop doesn't disappoint! The other really cool one in Canmore is called communitea, and its one of those super zen super modern looking places...with 80 different kinds of tea! It's super yummy, the internet password is givemeahug but its one of those places I feel weird taking out a computer...don't want to mess with the vibes or anything.

Other than going to coffee shops for internet, we go to them to keep ourselves occupied between training sessions!  It has been awesome skiing this early in the season, and I hope it helps later on!  We have skied every day except yesterday (when we took an amazing trip to banff/lake louise...see pictures below) and I am starting to feel a lot more comfortable on skis, even if I'm becoming a little (a lot) tired.  The highlights have been a 10k timetrial (which was hard), and today we had an awesome skate speed session.  We like to think of ourselves as the miracles on ice (at least 95% of skiing fast is feeling fast...and looking fast).  Confidence is key to that, so its good to pep each other up during the workout.  Tomorrow we have a classic sprint simulation, so that should be super exciting.  Then strength then home! I'm pumped to go home, I haven't been in awhile and I miss the good old midwest (even though I think I'm starting to consider the east coast a second home and I like real maple syrup better than Aunt Jemima, nothing quite beats going home to my own original bed).  Enjoy the pictures!

The crew minus Jessie and Gus in front of lake louise.  It looks like a fake background, but I promise it's not.  REAL LIFE. Eric Packer photo.

Sometimes Skyler and I like to push each others buttons...In the absence of my real brother Henry to wrestle (watch out Henry), Skyler has been a great substitute.  We can thank Erika for this gem!

But other times Skyler and I get along.  Erika is so good at capturing both sides of Skyler's and my interactions.  Thanks ruka :)

Speaking of brothers, here is my real one Henry and me.  Talk about full circle! My family used to go on alpine skiing trips for spring break and one of our trips was to Banff and Lake Louise!  I had great style back then, and check out that pose.  Maybe I should have been an alpiner.  Thanks mom for digging up this shot, can't wait to see you!

But if I'd been an alpiner I probably wouldn't have met Soph!  Soph and I always get along.  It's really great to have such a good friend there all the time, I don't know what I'd do without her!  Maybe go to bed after 10 o'clock (I think our average bed time is around 9:30.).  Eric packer photo.

Mandatory back shot.  Ever since NCAAs in Bozeman Erika, Soph, and I have been doing this shot.  This might be the most amazing backdrop yet.  Eric packer photo.

This is an old picture, but one of me back in park city on the treadmill test.  It was my first time doing a roller ski test like that, and I definitely prefer normal tests to the ones on the treadmill.  But a good thing to get used to!  Erika Flowers photo

Welp thats about it.  We are also going to a halloween party tomorrow evening hosted by the Canadians after I pack all of my bags...which could be a struggle.  It should be really fun.  It will be a nice addition to my typical halloween night, spent waiting by the door, desperately hoping that maybe this year we will get a cute trick-or-treater, that isn't my little sister Val (although she's pretty cute).  Here's to hoping!

hugz and kissez

Short Haikus sans fast internet!

Internet here slow
But in Canmore there is snow!
No pictures right now

Internet in town
Hopefully by tomorrow
New blog will be born

But the training rocks
Got to pull out my rock skis
On the 2-K loop

hugz and kissez

Heaven on earth!

Utah is amazing.  Today was our first day of rain and it has been an entire week.  It's almost nice that it's raining because then I don't feel bad just sitting around inside all day.  Not that we've been doing much sitting around inside, in fact we have been pretty busy since the last post!

 Above Erika, Soph, and I are beginning the first set of level three intervals since arriving at 7000 feet.  It was 3 by 8 minutes double poling on the flat followed by 3 by 6 minutes striding.  The nice thing about being up really high is that to go level 3 (threshold) all you have to do is worry about skiing with super good techinque and BAM heart-rate 175 (my average level 3). The route we did the intervals on was alright too, I guess (just kidding it was the prettiest roller ski of my entire life).  The intervals felt good, and my lactate on the last one was 4.6 which was right on target!

Packer looking super good on one of the double pole intervals (notice the casual lake and mountains in the background).

Erika, Soph, and I striding at the end of our cool down.  Look at that synchrony.  Not that we tried to do that or anything...

This was at the top of our cool down.  Sometimes it takes us awhile to get into order for the picture.  Or maybe Gus was trigger happy with the camera button and just didn't tell us he was taking one.  

 Everyone finally getting together for the classic and obviously necessary group shot.  Utah (and the team) at its (our) finest.

Again not quite ready for the picture.

But we eventually get there.  As Skyler would say (about his shuffleboard game, but it still applies to these pictures too) it's not about how you start but how you finish.  But ask him and Gus about their record against Packer and me in shuffle board (3-2, our favor...just sayin).

This was driving back from one of our runs.  Heaven on earth!  Or at least the entrance.

On one of our off afternoons (following the intervals) Erika and I went hiking with some of the USST alpine boys.  A lot of the guys on the alpine team go to Dartmouth in the spring so we caught up with them for an easy hike.  Here was the view from part way up. Ah-mazing.

And don't worry, we've been baking up a storm.  I think these were my favorite little snacks.  Pretzels, with chocolate, and candy corn.  Literally impossible to go wrong with that combination. 

Anyways, this morning we did some easy skating at Soldier Hollow and then this afternoon we are getting massages (YUS) and then going to dinner and a movie with some of our alpine dartmouth friends.  Working up for some intervals tomorrow, then an off day Sunday (!!!) and then my first experience with testing at the Center of Excellence on Monday.  Woof.

hugz and kissez

Park City!

3:15 am is an ungodly hour to be awake, doing anything.  Yet that was the time our alarms were set for our travel day to Park City.  The travel day went pretty smoothly, and Sophie and I only had one sprint.  We had a really short layover in the homeland (Minneapolis airport) and Sophie and I were almost positive we were going to miss our flight.  We even heard our names over the loudspeakers calling us for the last boarding call (rockstars!).  But, we got our airport sweat on and made the flight with 30 seconds to spare.  We arrived in Salt Lake City, and then got picked up and driven to the most incredible home ever.  Erika's Aunt and Uncle were extremely generous and are letting us stay in their home for the duration of the Park City camp, and it is sweet.

This is the outer view of the house.  It is about 30 minutes from soldier hollow, and only 10 minutes from the center of excellence.  It is well worth the drive however.  Sophie and I share a room, but then everyone else has their own.  Living the life!

Sophie and I matched on our travel day.  It was unplanned (actually though)

The view from the house.  Stunning.  I now understand why people love the West.

 The first day we were here we just did an easy 30 minute run, and had to remind ourselves to go extra slow.  Our house is at approximately 7,200 feet and that is high.  Even walking up the stairs gets me a little winded.

The next day we did an easy distance classic, and I am so bummed that I forgot to bring my camera.  It was so pretty.  The last hour was on some sort of semi-private road that was just a great uphill striding grade, and it was lovely.  That afternoon we entered the Center of Excellence for the first time to do our new strength plan.  It isn't quite as fun as just lifting really heavy things like our last one, but the core section is brutal and we all feel it a little bit even today.  I hurt my shoulder a little bit in the gym, but it isn't anything to serious I don't think so I'm just taking it easy on the upper body for the next couple days to ensure total recovery.

This should give a general idea of the massive size of the COE gym.  They have everything you could possibly imagine.  Even the dumbbells are engraved.

The next day was supposed to be an off day.  But it was also outlet shopping AND Fast and Female...basically not an off day.  The outlets were a success, but we will probably have to go back again at some point during our stay.  The Nike outlet store is by far my favorite.  Then it was on to Fast and Female, which involves two of my favorite things: pink and glitter.  And this year I got to a lot of my third favorite thing: dancing.  Jessie and I were in charge of the endurance dancing station, which basically entailed us dancing for an entire hour.  My strategy was just never to stop, because if I did I don't think I would be able to get started again.  Needless to say I think I should probably add an hour of level four dancing to my training log.  Even though I was really tired after the Fast and Female event, it is a great organization that promotes healthy living by embracing strong and beautiful bodies and trying to ignore the pressure to be super thin.  It is a really important message to get into young girls heads at an early age so they can grow up to be beautiful and happy with themselves both inside and out.

My healthy, strong, and beautiful teammates Sophie, Jessie and Erika.  Jessie's shirt is fabulous: "Barbie wants to be me."  And it's true, barbie doesn't hold a flame to Jessie!

Then things got a little intense when we got back home.  The house we are staying at has a shuffle board, and that is a great game.  I got into a duel with Erik Bjornsen from Alaska Pacific University, and narrowly beat him in a 5 game series.  Some would say I got lucky on my last shot (for those of you who know shuffle board I got 3 disks in the 4 point zone on my last shot), but I would like to think it is just raw talent.  I plan on also beating Skyler, and by beating I mean destroying him at some point in the next week and a half.  Watch out Skyler, I'm coming for you.  And you too Gus.

Till next time!

hugz and kissez

October!

How much more cliche can a blogpost get than by starting off with: "I can't believe it's October!"  Well, by doing this:  "I can't believe it's October, the leaves are so pretty!"  But cliches are cliches for a reason: They are generally, most of the time (if not all of the time) very true. Now it's time to start the blog:

I can't believe it's October, the leaves are so pretty!

October means Halloween.  Halloween means candy.  Halloween Candy means pumpkin shaped Reeses.  Pumpkin shaped Reeses mean YUM. 

Probably the most said sentence over the past three days has been "Those leaves are POPPIN!"  This is a picture from just outside the foxstop, a yummy place near where we are staying.

The biggest event from the past couple days was either the Reception we had for the SMS T2 team, or tieing Skyler in the leaf catching competition during or run yesterday.  Or also maybe seeing a moose literally 20 seconds into our run.  That's right.  A moose.

The Reception:  Before the reception we had a trip down to Putney to meet Zach and work on some ski grinds (or rather go down there and have him tell me what I need for my skis, but it was a learning experience for sure).  He also made us some coffee, which was SO good, but it was so dark and so extremely loaded with caffeine that I was just jumpy for awhile.  But I recovered from the imminent caffeine crash just in time for the reception!

The whole squad minus Jessie, who is at home (actually I think she's in park city now).  We can't wait to get back and see her!  This picture makes me giggle every time, just because it looks sort of like one of those awkward family photos.  I can elaborate on the family tree I've created for the team at some other point :)

Erika, Soph, and I.

The reception went off without a hitch, and it was a very nice way to spend some time inside instead of out in the pouring rain.

This was a little distance skate we did over in New York awhile ago.  It was literally pouring the entire time that day.  I was still recovering from some tiredness slash sickness so I cut it a little short. In fact all of last week I took it pretty easy.  But Soph and I did bench 100 pounds.  And do weighted pull ups, whoaaaaaaa.  Jacked (or getting there anyways).

Oh yeah, it has rained every day for the past forever it seems.  That made our run yesterday SO SO wet.  According to Skyler during the run we looked like swamp monsters.  But I was a swamp monster who caught just as many leaves as he did.  The competition started about 20 minutes into the 2 hour run when Skyler started trying to catch the leaves, to no success for awhile.  Then I caught one.  Then he caught one.  Then Erika caught none, but then Skyler and I kept on catching them.  It became a pretty intense battle.  I was behind one leaf for awhile, but then with about 23 minutes remaining I caught one to tie it up.  Then I was on pure defense mode, I would rather tie than lose.  Skyler, however, is sort of hard to play defense on only because he is like a foot taller than me.  We sprinted (or threshold ran, whatever) the last 3 minutes in a fruitless effort to catch one more leaf and win, but the battle ended in a tie.

At least we had the opportunity to partake in the game, which wasn't necessarily a given seeing as a HUGE moose showed up 20 seconds into our run.  Andy was convinced he was a friendly guy, Erika, Skyler and I thought otherwise.  As mentioned earlier, due to Skyler's larger frame, Erika and I were using him as a shield (sorry Skyler).

I think he forgave us though, probably because of the two baked goods we have whipped out of the apartment the past couple days:

Raspberry Oat Scones

Cinnamon rolls

And now I need to go get ready for a Level 3 time trial.  Yeah a time trial that you have to stay in level 3 the whole time for.  This will likely not be my speciality, as my typical style is going out hard and just trying to hold on.  But it will be good practice for sure.  Oh, and I suggest the movie the looper.  We saw that in Manchester yesterday afternoon, and holy buckets.

hugz and kissez