slow down to speed up

​A Pre-season tail familiar to many

Chaotic is probably the best word to describe the last month or so. A week of cabin life recharging in Beitostolen, Norway, was exactly what the doctor ordered. 

After returning from Park City camp in late October, life felt a little rushed in sleepy Stratton, Vermont. To many, including myself, that might sound a bit shocking. However, it turns out packing up your life into one duffle bag for six months (for the first time), training 20+ hours a week, working remotely part-time, and life itself leaves very little downtime. This was heightened by the stress/excitement of gearing up for Period 1 of the World Cup, something I’ve never done before! The days filled with getting from Point A to Point B, without forgetting 88, idealized a week of cabin life in a sleepy little town in Norway. And that’s exactly how I spent the last week in Beitostolen, Norway. A large exhale of relief might have been heard throughout the country of Norway.

On November 8th, Alyana and I settled into the cabin-life lifestyle in Beito; our days consisted of sleeping in late, skiing many loops around the very hilly 4 km man-made loop, eating yummy food, drinking lots of tea, face-timing friends and family, and working from our computers. The days were slow as we adjusted to Europe time and the feeling of skiing on “real” snow. It was exactly what I needed, especially heading into a long winter of the most travel I’ve done.

Ten days spent in Beito was a great pre-camp to the real pre-camp in Ruka. This allowed our bodies to get a headstart on adjusting to Europe time and training on snow. The on-snow training in Beito offered plenty of challenging terrain and snow conditions. The first few days were wintery, and the skiing was excellent for early November. A large chunk of the available 4.4km man-made loop is part of the World Cup course, and the TV does, in fact, not do it justice. It was fun to get a sneak peek of the race course because our third stop in Period 1 is in Beito, so we could do some intensity on the courses we'll be racing on come December. The courses are courses I really like; minimal flats and tons of climbing with technical descending. However, the tough courses made training hard without flat or "tourist" trails to rip around on during easy skis. It was good practice ensuring that my heart rate was in level 1, even if the pace felt so slow, like walking on skis slow. This is the challenging time of year because it is so exciting to get back on snow, and it is easy to go too fast during easy training and train too many hours. One of my goals going into the week was not to get too excited about skiing too fast and too much, and I'm happy to report that I was successful! Slowing down this past week allowed for an easy adjustment to our next stop: Ruka, Finland. I met up with the rest of the US Ski Team in Ruka a few days ago. We are all settled in cute little cabins right beside the race courses. The courses are slowly coming together each day as truckloads of snow spread around us, but I have yet to ski on the sprint course. I do have to say that everyone says the hills in Ruka are crazy, and the TV doesn't do justice to them. They are, in fact, correct. The hills are the biggest ones I've ever seen on a cross-country ski course. We love the challenge! I'm hopeful that slowing down over the past two weeks will help me find that extra race gear here in a few days :)

Some of the highlights from Ruka so far include: seeing the sun (!!), baking lots of yummy treats, amazing homemade dinners by our very own chef Tanya, getting to know US Ski Team staff better (mainly wax techs), and way too much giggling with my roommates Jessie and Julia. We are having fun!!