Becca Rorabaugh

Once upon a time, there was a great non-profit organization named NCCSEF (National Cross Country Ski Education Foundation). Because their name was so long and awkward, they decided to change it to NNF (National Nordic Foundation), which is much easier...

It’s funny, there is definitely something about the mountains. I am probably blogging to the choir here, but looking back on my excellent recovery week in early August, I just have to say something about how refreshing and rejuvenating it was. I ha...

It’s funny, there is definitely something about the mountains. I am probably blogging to the choir here, but looking back on my excellent recovery week in early August, I just have to say something about how refreshing and rejuvenating it was. I ha...

This is a bit late, but I would like to post something about how awesome the training camp with all the US team women and Canadian ladies was. By that, I mean I want to tell you all about why it was so awesome, and what I learned from all that awesome...

Well, the day has finally arrived... my one day of relaxation that is! I am in Anchorage, and I don’t go up to the Eagle Glacier until tomorrow. The last week has been one of the craziest of my life, trying to train twice most days, study for finals...

Hello Everyone!!If you missed out on the APU fundraiser event in Alaska (there are lots of good reasons for this: like not living in Alaska), then here is your chance to get in on the action!Morgan Smyth has spearheaded a campaign to get you all involv...

Today I learned that rain can be warm. I mean I think I knew that before, but I hadn’t ever experienced warm and muggy-feeling rain. I went for a run in my sports bra, and felt incredibly hot the whole way. During most of the day I have been feelin...

I am writing a paper about this painting, and I just found a great poem that unfortunately I can’t use in my essay. However, I can share it here! It’s called Manet’s Olympia, by Margaret Atwood. I think it does a great job of expressing the sp...

Okay, I am going a little overboard here. I found a blog that I LOVE yesterday, and I feel like I need to share it with the entire world. By the end of my campaign to share the awesomeness I will have increased Lauren Fleshman’s blog readership by ...

I got a little excited about the Dachstein so I had to put that video up before I did a real blog. However, now I am ready to talk a little about Rogla and share some more photos from that part of the trip. Rogla is interesting. It’s a little micr...

Yesterday we went up to the Dachstein glacier. It cost only €30 to go up and ski for a day, and believe me it was worth it. Writing about it won’t do any good, so here is a video and some photos.Basically we took a tram to almost 9,000ft and went...

Alex Harvey’s amazing finish in the team sprint today fired a lot of people up. There are stoked skiers all over North America who are excited to really be in the game now. We have known that the Canadians were fast and had medal potential for a wh...

This is the beginning. Not only of my second European adventure this winter, but also of a new attitude about racing for me, and a blogging block. It seems to me that I every time I tell myself to blog more frequently, I tend to publish every two mon...

I know I am a little behind on this, and that the Tiger Mom craze is a bit passé, but I wanted to throw this out into the internet. Everyone has at least heard that Amy Chua wrote a book about parenting the ‘chinese’ way. She admits upfront that...

a href=http://www.beccarorabaugh.com/Becca_Rorabaugh/Blog/Entries/2011/2/2_Latvija_files/IMG_0011.jpgimg src=http://www.beccarorabaugh.com/Becca_Rorabaugh/Blog/Media/object006.jpg style=float:left; padding-right:10px; padding-bottom:10px; width:216px; height:123px;//a[Wednesday, post skate sprint] It was a fun day on the Scando cup today. I qualified 21st, which is decent but not awesome. The course was insanely short, and the times were a little over two minutes. Results can be found a href=http://www.infoski.lv/distancu-sleposana/rezultati/2009-2010-gada-sezona/here/a. The course basically consisted of a start stretch, a U-turn, another straightaway, a 15 second uphill, and winding overspeed to the finish. Once positions were established at the top of the hill in the heats, it was very rare for things to change over the second half of the course. I definitely took advantage of that in my heat. I had the choice of far inside or far outside lanes at the start, and I decided to take a chance on the inside lane. I figured that if I made it to the corner before or at the same time as the other girls, I was going to take the inside no matter what. My gung-ho attitude basically created a pile-up because I didn’t give them an inch in the U-turn and one of them stepped on my ski and we tangled. It wasn’t as bad as it sounds though because I got out of the tangle first, and essentially took bib numbers 10 and 11 out of the race. I need to work on my fast V1, I felt quite klutzy out there on the hill, so I don’t think I could have beat them to the top without a position advantage. With the advantage I was able to hold them off after the top of the hill and in the end I was third in my heat. I improved my place to 15th, which I think is quite respectable! In all I had a blast going head to head with such fast girls, and definitely gained some valuable racing experience. Cooling down I thought that my body felt more ready to race distance fast than sprint, so I was psyched for the subsequent 10k.br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/[Thursday, post 10k skate] Well, maybe I jumped the gun in getting excited for distance racing. I felt okay warming up, maybe better going L2 than too fast, but when I was about to start I was sure that I was as ready as I was going to get. However, that would prove to be a little inaccurate. Basically, I felt like I was stuck in 4th gear. I wasn’t lollygaggin’ or anything, but I wasn’t jammin’ at 3000rpms in 5th either. And today, it would have been really nice to be at that level. As people passed me, I had a bit of difficulty hanging in there and being tough, but I think that I did what I could on the given day. However, I didn’t know that I was so close to Jennie Bender (we finished 2 seconds apart). I think that I could have been motivated by that, knowing that I wasn’t actually having a terrible race. It’s hard to tell if I should expect myself to keep up with the person who started behind me, or if that’s just part of the game here. So far, I guess it’s part of the game.br/br/Some fun Latvia shots:br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/

a href=http://www.beccarorabaugh.com/Becca_Rorabaugh/Blog/Entries/2011/2/1_Otep%C3%A4%C3%A4_wrap_up_files/DSC00960.jpgimg src=http://www.beccarorabaugh.com/Becca_Rorabaugh/Blog/Media/object001_4.jpg style=float:left; padding-right:10px; padding-bottom:10px; width:216px; height:123px;//a[5k from the Waide Hotel, Estonia] Well, we’re on the road again. Today we are driving from Estonia to Latvia, and so far the only thing that I know about Latvia is that it has a reputation for being a car-jacking mecca. With such a fabulous reputation, I can’t wait to go and check it out myself! The wax team did a midnight drive into Latvia and reported that it was like Estonia, only a little sketchier and poorer. br/br/[2k past the border crossing into Latvia] Okay, now we just crossed the border. The only things that I have noted in the five minutes that we have been here is that the roads are a little rougher, and there was some kind of industrial plant about 1k past the border crossing. Some of the buildings looked a little more run down, but the terrain and weather is identical to Estonia. There are small rolling hills, and the weather is grey and snowy.br/br/Here are a few notes about my second two races at u23s:br/ - The classic sprint was vaguely embarrassing because I didn’t qualify in a forty person field, but I felt great so it gave me hope for my body coming around in other races. I know that a 400m double pole race is not currently my forté, but it’s still disappointing. br/ - Contrary to what the results may imply, I thought I had a good pursuit. I fell twice, went the wrong way in the exchange, and had trouble finding my kick in the classic leg, but I had a great skate leg and I think that I had my toughest mental race of the year. I felt strong climbing in a skate race, and had solid movements the whole way. That really gives me hope that things are finally coming around, but I guess we will find out tomorrow!br/br/[In the hotel in Madona, Latvia] Now we are in the hotel here and it’s gorgeous! It’s very scandinavian in decoration and has some amazing wooden staircases. The rooms are light with a lot of wood and the whole place just feels airy, spacious, and very nice. This is not what I was expecting in Latvia, and I wish we were here for more than a couple days! Tomorrow we have a skate sprint, and the next day we have a 10k skate race. The following day, Friday the 4th, we will drive back up to Estonia and settle into a place in Jõulumäe for two days of racing there. I am looking at 7 races in 11 days here, and I am only three races in! I am stoked that my racing might be finally coming around this year, and can’t wait to test it out here in Latvia.br/br/[Post ski in Madona, Latvia] So far I have been incredibly impressed with Latvia. We went to lunch at a rundown-looking place, and it turned out to be very polished and well-decorated inside. The food was excellent, and the kids who were eating there were cute, curious, and liked to practice their english. The theme we have noticed thus far is that places look look a bit dilapidated on the outside, giving them a sketchy first impression, when the inside is very nicely painted and decorated. Our hotel seemed to have more ambient natural light on the inside than the weather had outside when we arrived, which is quite a feat of decorating!

a href=http://www.beccarorabaugh.com/Becca_Rorabaugh/Blog/Entries/2011/1/27_Otep%C3%A4%C3%A4_files/IMG_4203.jpgimg src=http://www.beccarorabaugh.com/Becca_Rorabaugh/Blog/Media/object007.jpg style=float:left; padding-right:10px; padding-bottom:10px; width:216px; height:123px;//aWell, I don’t know what to say about today. I felt okay, not great, and I need to train quite a bit more to be competitive in a place like this. The level of fitness required to be notable here is about 5 orders of magnitude higher than mine. The snow was very Fairbanks-esque, which I like, and makes for a difficult, painful race. I was only four places worse than my 10k classic last year, and considering my double-illness before and after nationals this year I think I can’t really complain. I want to train my butt off this year and get a top-ten next year in the 10k classic, and that’s all I really have to say. Other than thanks to the wax crew for some bombin’ skis. Mine were pretty darn good.br/br/One thing that I can say is that I love being around this scene. I want to feel like I belong here, to be consistently in the top 15 or so and know a lot of the skiers. I think that it is inspiring to watch people like Great Britain’s Andy Musgrave make an impact. He went out so hard that I thought for sure he was going to die, but in the end he was 6th! I want to be that person, and I know what it feels like to have that kind of race. Obviously not at this level, but the kind of race where you know you’re capable of doing it, you’re moving up through your competitors, and there is so much positive energy from people cheering that you really don’t feel a thing. It’s really almost magical. At this level though, you have to put in much more time outside of races in order to have one of those. It’s not like high school when you can run cross country, play soccer, and pop a great race a few times each season. I feel like you really have to work for it here, and I hope that I am up to that challenge.br/br/Here are a few photos from today:br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/br/