Oberhof

We made it to Oberhof, Germany after a 6 hour drive from Ramsau. This is my first time here. It was a long travel day made longer by construction and traffic, but it’s good to be here. I am particularly excited to be here, not just because there is a ski tunnel and great training opportunities. Oberhof will be the venue for the first two stages of the Tour de Ski, on December 29th and 30th, 2012. The Tour de Ski is a series of World Cup races (7 races in 9 days for the 2012-13 season) modeled after the Tour de France. It is one of the biggest events in the world for cross country skiing. I hope to compete in the Tour for the first time this coming season.

Also, we were told before we arrived that the weather is always bad in Oberhof. We were pleasantly surprised to see the sun today. Here is Andy Newell in front of our great hotel, the Waldgasthof.

The rooms are nice, especially because I got the single this time.

The hotel provided us with a cooler full of drinks.

And a basket full of candy in our rooms.

And they provided us a great wax room.

And a barbecue for dinner, with burgers, grilled pork and wieners. Simi was especially excited:

I can see the ski jumps from my balcony.

Also, here’s some video from our ski on the glacier yesterday. I was doing 2 hours double pole only. It looks incredibly slow in the video and it was, but it was hard.