In early January I traveled to Europe to compete in some IBU Cup competitions. The first weekend was in Nove Mesto in the Czech Republic. The countryside around Nove Mesto has rolling hills with patches of forests and lots of fields. Imagine the Creek Road between East Albany and Craftsbury, but add high rise apartments [...]
Finding ways to make a professional ski team ‘green’ is a tough job. On one hand we’ve made a commitment to developing young skiers into international competitors. On the other, we’ve also made environmental initiatives and awareness an equally important goal. It’s a difficult position to be in- the Green Racing Project isn’t going to [...]
As I mentioned in my earlier post from Roxbury, we’ve been hoping for a good sunset. Tonight, on our last night at Nationals, we got lucky. Here are the results of my very amateur attempts at photographing the beautiful colors. After a good ski this morning that included many laps of the sprint course, I’m [...]
Yesterday’s distance races here in Rumford were an 11-lap 30k for the guys, and a 7-lap 20k for us. I have to admit, after watching and cheering for the end of the boys race (you know, just the last 4 laps), I wasn’t feeling too pumped for my own 7 laps. But in the [...]
My time at US Nationals has come to a rather unexpected close. It was a tough call, but after today’s debacle of a 15k I decided that further racing would just set me back. The smarter choice was to head back to Craftsbury for some rest and recovery. Sometimes things just don’t go as planned. [...]
Rumford, Roxbury, and Rangeley. Those are the towns we’ve been spending time in since arriving in Maine on Friday for a week of racing at US National Championships. Rumford is, of course, home to Black Mountain and all of the racing action. Roxbury is about 20 minutes north of Rumford and it’s where we are [...]
Here’s a long story about what happened to me in yesterday’s sprint. It’s probably one of the more unusual stories from the day. The morning started off like any other race morning: we arrived, tested skis, warmed up, and everything seemed to be on track. I got to the start with my race skis and my [...]
My family’s December is filled with Christmas traditions. As a kid, I couldn’t wait to climb into the attic and dig out our boxes of holiday decorations. My younger brother always remembered exactly where we had stored the boxes the year before, and his first order of business was to unearth the stocking and hang [...]
Racing in high school and college I wondered what was the mark of a full time professional athlete? Was it winning prize money at a Supertour? Racing in high level domestic competition or even in Europe? Was it having a full fleet of skis and a wax tech to make those hard calls for you [...]
This last weekend members from the GRP headed to Foret Montmorency for a great weekend of skiing. When we arrived conditions were good, although only 10k or so of skiing was opened and had been groomed. But thanks to the steady snowfall the groomers continued to open more skiing every day and conditions steadily improved. [...]
This weekend we traveled to Forêt Montmorency (north of Quebec City) to find some snow. They have plenty of snow here, with more falling as I write, and when the groomer decides to get out on the trails, the skiing is great. The ski lodge and trail system is owned by Université Laval and doubles as [...]
I’m psyched to be back in Vermont and skiing on snow (although that might not last long), but I had a really wonderful Thanksgiving with my family, and I miss them, too. I traveled to Irvington, Virginia to see my aunt, uncle, cousins, and grandparents. I hadn’t seen my dad’s family in a couple of [...]
We may not have much snow in Vermont right now but that doesn’t mean that we don’t have access to great skiing! Early this morning we loaded up the van and headed to Stowe to ski the Notch road which is now closed for winter. The freezing rain that hit the area on Friday helped [...]
While the rest of the GRP took off early Monday morning last week, I managed to grab an extra hour or so of sleep before embarking on a marathon of bus rides to Aare, Sweden. In fact, my teammates made it back to Craftsbury on Monday before I made it to my friend’s house in [...]
Although we’ve been on snow in Finland for the last month, there’s still nothing quite like that hard-earned first Vermont ski. Like most of my First Skis and many of my Last Skis growing up, this one was on the “secret trail.” Not that its really much of a secret, but it doesn’t get much [...]
Although we’ve been on snow in Finland for the last month, there’s still nothing quite like that hard-earned first Vermont ski. Like most of my First Skis and many of my Last Skis growing up, this one was on the “secret trail.” Not that its really much of a secret, but it doesn’t get much [...]
The Norwegians and Swedes both travel to the races with giant tractor trailer trucks for their own wax cabins. They park in adjacent spots just to amp up the rivalry. But unfortunately for the Swedes, I think the Norwegians are winning. At least with the paint job… Happy Thanksgiving everyone! We had turkey for dinner a [...]
Earlier this morning, when it was a balmy 49 degrees and raining (for the 2nd day in a row), I felt the need to hunt down some snow. A reliable source, Mr. Marc Gilbertson, told me tales about weekend crust skiing on the toll road at Stowe, and it sounded almost too good to be [...]
Home Sweet Home 30 Days, 6 Races, 33 training sessions, 8.8 pounds of sinappi, countless jars of duo-spread, its been one incredible trip here in Finland! Great snow, great racing, and great training all the way around But I’m sure everyone is also looking forward to getting back stateside for Thanksgiving with their families!
We arrived in Rovaneimi on Monday after a long, reindeer sighting filled drive down from Muonio. The place where we are staying is perfectly located just a few steps from the stadium. It’s awesome to be able to walk to ski and race! We can even see the top of the in-run on the 90 [...]