Life at the Snow Farm

After about 40 hours of travel last week, we touched down in New Zealand. Forty hours of travel sounds pretty miserable, but I actually found the travel here easier than it ever was traveling to Europe. There is a long 12 or 13 hour flight from California to Auckland, but it's night time when we fly, so it's easy to fall asleep and when I woke up, I watched a movie, was served breakfast, and then landed in Auckland. The part that I still can't wrap my head around is that the day of July 8th did not exist in my life. I took off from L.A. at 10:30 p.m on the 7th and landed in Auckland at 6 a.m. on the 9th. Figuring out the time change is a little tricky. The east coast is 16 hours behind New Zealand, but I find it easier to calculate 8 hours ahead, yesterday. So if it's noon on Tuesday in New Zealand, it's 8 p.m. on Monday in Vermont. Got it?  The time change makes it very easy to fall asleep at night and very easy to wake up in the morning. It's perfect for the big hours of training we're putting in at the Snow Farm.

Hoods up and we're ready to go! (Ben, Paddy, Liz, and Ida)

The Snow Farm is just over an hour northeast of Queenstown, New Zealand. We are here training for about two weeks and I think it's the best place I've ever been to train. There are around 35kms of trails groomed right now and the skiing is literally right outside of our doors. The building at the snow farm is very big with a couple dining areas, a cafe, ski rooms, a small gym, and a some hotel rooms. There is plenty of space, so we never feel trapped up here and we head down to the town of Wanaka to do strength or walk around if we have an off day. For those who get car sick, the drive to and from the Snow Farm can be a little rough, but we pile the sickies into the front seat and they survive.

Jessie, Andy, and Liz on one of our runs down in Wanaka. If you're lucky, you can see the eels swimming around in Lake Wanaka. (Anouk photo)

Jessie, me and Liz heading out for a run in our Johaug gloves

Enjoying some off day sweater tea and muffin in Wanaka

Okay, now for the good stuff. The skiing. The weather has been unbelievable since we arrived. We eat our breakfast in the mornings and watch a beautiful sunrise, then we get ready to go skiing. It's not warm, so we bundle up with a lot of layers, but the slowly rising temperatures and the constant sunshine warm us up pretty quickly. Anouk Faivre Picon of the French National Team is joining us for the camp and it has been so much fun to have her. Ida is very good at french and I can speak a little, so we get to practice our French while Anouk works on her english. She claims she isn't very good, but I beg to differ. So far we have been doing a lot of easy distance skiing with some technique, speed, and strength thrown in. Starting this week we will begin to add a little intensity into the plan, but the main focus of this camp is to get on snow and get in a lot of easy volume training. The Snow Farm is at an elevation of about 5,000 ft or just over, so we have been careful about keeping the training easy and hydrating a lot. I haven't felt a huge altitude effect and it's been pretty easy to go easy, which leaves you feeling pretty darn good! That said, I was ready for our first off day of the camp today because my legs definitely didn't pass the stair test this morning.

Anouk and Ida out on one of our favorite loops, "The Loop"

Dynamic warm up for a speed session

Liz and Bernie!

The gals (Anouk, Liz, Jessie, Ida, and me)

And again. The ladies at sunset. Bon nuit!

The snow farm has also been an ideal place to recover from some big hours. Each time we come in from training, there is a delicious home cooked meal waiting for us upstairs. When we get hungry in between workouts, the coaches' room is always well stocked with wine gummies, tim tams, cereal, and PB&J makings. The rooms are very comfortable with plenty of space for afternoon reading, movie watching, blog writing, and video review. By the time dinner is over, we usually try to keep ourselves up for another hour or so before giving into the heavy eyelids and excitement of going to bed only to wake up and do it all over again tomorrow. Make sure you're following us for updates on the next couple weeks at the snow farm. We haven't been shy about rubbing this winter wonderland in your faces. That's all for now!

Sunrise this morning at the farm

All smiles skiing with Jessie (Anouk photo)

Paddy and I got in a long ski for the Prouty ride my family does each year in memory of my Aunt Jennifer

Loving being back with my buddy Liz

Ahhh

Plenty to smile about

Sunrise at the farm

Even the clouds are beautiful here

Bluebird

Interval Day in Photos!

We've had a couple big weeks of training in Stratton and I'm ready for a recovery week before heading to New Zealand next week to SKI ON SNOW. I've never been to New Zealand and to say I'm psyched is an understatement, but first things first, back to the past couple weeks in Vermont. Minus the three hour rainy mud/river/trail run we did yesterday, things have been pretty nice. It hasn't been too hot, but it's been plenty humid, and pretty buggy. It's not perfect, but it could be a lot worse. On Saturday we had a classic interval session on our training plans and Jessie got in touch with friend and photographer, Reese Brown, who came over for the day to shoot some photos for us. Huge thanks to Reese for making the trip over and capturing all these awesome shots pictured below! 

Reese came over to Stratton on Saturday morning for our classic intensity workout. Before starting our intervals, we all sharpened our pole tips and grouped up to discuss some goals for the workout. After explaining the workout to us, Coach Pat had us each share something we thought we could bring to the workout and something we were hoping to work on during the workout. Personally, I think I'm a smooth level 3 classic strider, so I was willing to let people hop in behind me during those intervals. Areas that I can improve in are keeping my workouts in true L3 and working on staying relaxed, but strong, while double poling. 

Coach Pat sharpening our pole tips before the intervals

Annie, Annie, and Erika sporting their matching Podium Wear T2 tank tops

We headed out on the flats for the first half of our interval session to do some double poling. We took turns leading and following because it's important to feel the difference and practice drafting and skiing in a pack. When you have a head wind and can feel the effect of drafting so much, it's a great opportunity to ski with someone who is a stronger double poler than you are by hopping in their draft and learning a thing or two!

Sim and Paddy warming up for intervals in their matching Craft outfits

Pack of ladies following Jessie and her impressive double pole

After the double pole intervals, we headed to the steep stuff to get some striding practice in. We've put a huge emphasis on double poling so far this summer, so it felt good to get some different muscles firing and practice our striding. Threshold striding intervals are one of my favorite workouts because if you can nail the pace and the technique, you can be moving along really quickly, but also have it feel really graceful. It's tough to always do both, but every once in awhile you can and it feels GOOD.

Train of girls

Our cabooses!

Andy

Simi

Ben

Paddy and Sim

Reese took a ton of great photos and here are a few more good ones from our cool down after the intervals. 

The girls' team coming up over the hill. (We don't usually ski across the road like this)

Happy to finish intervals for the week!

Diggity Dog head on

All smiles

That's all for now! Again, thank you to Reese Brown for taking the time to come visit us. My next update will be from New Zealand!

Why I Love Summer

I've only been back in VT for two and a half weeks now and summer is already going by too quickly. I'm looking forward to a lot of travel in the months of July and August, but in the meantime, I've really enjoyed being in one place for awhile. In less than three weeks I'll be heading to New Zealand for the majority of July and then I'll be back for a couple weeks before heading over to Norway for a couple weeks in August. So while I'm here, a couple thoughts on why I love summer, particularly summer right here, right now.


1. The weather

It's definitely not beautiful Colorado and I'm reminded of that on a daily basis, but there's something about having a sunny day followed by a rainy day followed by a cold day followed by an unbearably humid day that makes you appreciate the good when you have it. Finishing our ski walking intervals feeling like we just walked out of a steam room because of the 98% humidity and complementing teammates on each other's butt sweat marks on our shorts makes us feel tough. Motivating ourselves to get out the door to do an OD when it's raining and all we want to do is stay in bed makes us tough. Alternatively, waking up to rain on a Monday morning and knowing we have the day off is also a pretty good feeling. Then, when the sun does come out and temperature is in the low 70s (which is actually not that uncommon), we really appreciate.

Finishing some ski walking intervals on top of Stratton Mountain on a beautiful day

One of the more scenic spots we ski on a regular basis

2. Our Group

I've said it before, but we have something special going on here. I feel very lucky to be a part of two incredible teams (SMS T2 and the USST). Between our three new female PGs and one male PG and our SMS T2 team of 5 girls and three boys, the boys are a little outnumbered. So everyone is happy. The girls have more people to do girl things with, and the boys can have two dates each for every team dinner we have. But in all seriousness, we're lucky to get along and all be good friends because that's not always easy when you have a group of very different people smooshed together and expected to function as one team. It's not realistic to expect everyone to be best friends each day, but what we can expect of one another is to be really good teammates as much as possible and that helps everything else fall into place.

Keeping things fun after a hard workout

Forward hips practice with bands (AKA Annie my horse)

You can follow my on the flats if I can follow you on the hills

3. Summer Food

Vermont is known for its Cabot cheese, Ben and Jerry's, and maple syrup, but that's only the beginning. Our team is now partial owners of a cow (thanks Erika!). Well, not really, but we bought part of some friends' cow and should now have enough beef to last us the rest of the summer. I'm also the official gardener for my dad's vegetable garden while he's gone for the next couple weeks. Who knew asparagus could grow six inches in a day?! I love eating fresh food in the summer and after a spending the winter eating out of hotel buffets, it's nice to have our own kitchen to experiment with.

The staples

Home of King Arthur Flour

4. Making Progress

 The goal of the spring is usually to have some fun and to rest. Although we rarely admit it, in other words this basically means the goal is to get a little out of shape. When we start out the summer, we aren't in the best shape of our lives and that's okay! It means that there's room to improve and it turns out that progress is pretty easy to track and a great way to make you feel good about yourself. We do a bunch of little marker tests at Stratton ranging from an uphill run test, to a double pole test, to an L3 skate test. We tend to see improvement on these throughout the summer, but you don't need a time trial to feel improvement. Eight pull ups is better than four, not blowing up during a L3 workout is better than blowing up, and knowing when to stop is better than digging yourself a hole. We might not have World Cup races each weekend to compare results, but it's pretty easy to track progress and it's a good feeling to be making little improvements, one step at a time.

Knock on wood, but a summer with two healthy elbows so far is progress in itself

Working hard in our double pole test

By the end of the summer, a three hour ski will be nothing!

5. Family

And last, but definitely not least, my family. I'm one of the lucky ones on my team who has a family close by. After a winter on the road and a spring full of adventures all over the place, I love being somewhere where I know my family is a 25 minute drive away and still have a bedroom at home that I'm always welcome to come sleep in (thanks Mom!). Last weekend I got to watch my little brother, Austin, graduate from Dartmouth and was able to spend a bunch of time with my whole family. As we all get older, I see my sister and brother less and less, so it's always a treat to be able to spend time with them.

Proud of you, brother!

Kisses for the graduate

Austin and Dad

Austin and my beautiful Grandmother, Twinkle

That's all for now!

Back to the East!

The day after Park City camp officially ended, the perfect PC weather we know made an appearance. I had decided to stay through the weekend to make up the testing I had missed when I was sick at the beginning of the camp, so I got to experience a few beautiful days. I think the highlight of the extra weekend was our trip to go skydiving. I had never been skydiving before, but Jessie is a big fan and had a group trip set up down in Ogden, Utah. Thanks to Ogden Skydiving for showing us a good time!

Getting ready to dive

Matt showing off his skydiving certificate

Ready to go!

Happy campers

Run at Deer Valley with Erika and Rosie

The Monday after testing, I flew back home to VT. After a day of rain, the skies cleared and we had a few days of beautiful summer weather. My SMS T2 teammates are starting to trickle in for the summer and I was able to enjoy some workouts with the Annies, Ben, and coach Pat. By the end of this week, just about everyone will be back! The goal of last week was recovery for me. By the end of the camp, I was tired. We did a lot of training, I came into it a little sick, and then I capped the camp of with testing and I was very ready for a rest week. After a handful of easy workouts with my teammates, I headed to Boston for a weekend off and one of my best friend's bachelorette weekends. It was a fun girls' weekend that consisted of pretending to be a city person, watching the Red Sox win, eating delicious food, and my first hot yoga experience ever. We had a blast and now I'm looking forward to being in southern VT for awhile and getting into the rhythm of summer training.

What's your goal for the season?

Treadmill testing with Matt

AP doing some double pole intervals with coach Pat following on the bike

A lovely run on the AT with Annie and Ben

Mae's bachelorette party in Boston

Oyster brunch

Red Sox game with the bride to be