APU invited me to their summer home, the Thomas Training Center on the Eagle Glacier. The training center alone is a remarkable facility nestled on the ridge 5,500 feet above Girdwood, Ak about 40 minutes south of Anchorage. The real gem however, is the 7.5km loop of skiing meters outside the door.
Mikey and I super excited for our first helicopter ride.
Day 1: Awesome
Several Sun Valley skier: Mike Sinnot, Colin Rogers, and Nicole Deyong and I joined up with the APU team. It was really fun to catch up on everyones summer training and endeavors. Through years of training and racing together we are all good friends. I think I spent a bit too much time reading the trashy Cosmos laying around the Thomas Training Center (yes 30 minutes is too much time). In addition to staying in tough with the feeling of snow one of my main motivations for this camp was to train with the many strong athletes who make up the APU and SVSEF elite teams.
Most mornings I drank my tea outside and enjoy being surrounded by mountains
The beautiful days are burned into my memory, but 75% of the time the weather was more akin to this. We might not have had good weather, but we had great skiing ever day.
The drying room, important to staying comfortable and staying healthy. Most of the time the APU skiers were smiling, I am not sure what Becca is doing
We had beautiful days for our first and last skis of camp
Is that a Thule rack?
Last season I felt I made a big jump in my ski racing. There were a number of factors contributing to that but I felt getting on snow in the summertime was huge for me. Last year Matt and I went to the Haig glacier. Classic striding has been a focus of mine and skiing on snow in the middle of the dry land season has helped me make some major efficiency improvements.
It was a challenging decision for me to miss the first 10 days of the CXC Team Vertical Limit camp in Ironwood, MI. Especially when the glacier camp cost about $1,000. It is an investment in my ski racing which I hope to regain this season. I did make it back for a few days of August camp. There is a V1 roller ski climb in Ironwood which is worth flying in from Alaska for. This climb was
Go Training! Classic Intervals in Afton before heading up to Ironwood. We don't have a lot of big climbs in the Midwest be we have some and they are good.
