Sophie Caldwell: Stratton!

I've been back in Stratton for just over a week now and it's been awesome to be back with my SMS T2 team. Speaking of SMS T2, we're a little late to the social media, but we've taken it on in full force. SO, check out our website, facebook, twitter, and instagram and follow us for daily updates throughout the year! Our new coach, Patrick O'brien, has been around every day and has appeared to make a seamless transition from being an athlete to settling into the coaching role. We've also been able to do a handful of workouts with the SMS high school kids and devo kids. The day after I came back home, I turned around and headed up to Hanover for the weekend to attend my sister's graduation. My teammate, Annie Hart, was also graduating along with a lot of other people I became close with while I was at Dartmouth, so I was very happy to be able to make it back in time!

Big group of current and former Dartmouth skiers the night before graduation

The happy graduate with her diploma. Even though she's my little sister, Isabel is probably the person I look up to the most in the world. I'm very proud of her and can't wait to see what comes next!

Austin, Isabel, and me at Dartmouth graduation

One of my boxes from Sochi finally arrived and here is my Grandmother, Twinkle, looking beautiful in a hat I gave her from the Olympics

On Monday, the SMS T2 team went back to Hanover for a running clinic with Ben True. Ben is a world class runner who also ran and skied for Dartmouth and I think we all learned a lot in addition to realizing that we all have prettttty bad running technique. It proved to be helpful because the following day we all set PRs in the two mile uphill run test we do at Stratton! Our running clinic was followed by a delicious team dinner at Paddy's house made by my Aunt Margaret and Uncle Tim.

Thanks Ben!

Start of the uphill run test - check out that perfect form!

As a warm up for strength on Tuesday, we ran an agility workout for the younger kids. It was a rainy afternoon, but we still had fun winding around cones and doing some backwards skiing.

Annie H helps Sage with her backwards skiing

Sage and I did some lunging practice

Simi explaining cornering to the devo boys

On Thursday, I made a trip down to NYC for my Dad's cousin Ezra's memorial service. I'm not sure how many people met him in person, but he had quite a following on his blog, Teaching Cancer to Cry. I recommend reading it to everyone - he was an incredible person. It was a beautiful service and a nice time to be with family.

Family

Last night we had a team dinner and meeting at my parents' house in Peru. Last summer it was pretty rare that we had the whole team in one place and we're making a better effort to have more of that this year. Chip (women's alpine coach at Dartmouth) and Marina Knight (head of the T2 foundation) came down for dinner with their two sons, Cedar and Forest. It was a really fun night of eating delicious food, playing with Cedar and Forest, and spending time with the team.

Team photo!

Austin with our new kitten, Leroy

This morning we went to Weston for some rollerski intervals. Everyone else was doing double pole intervals, but I can't use a pole with my elbow yet, so I did skate intervals. We had a big group out there and it was a really good workout.