Quick Trip Home

Between our training camp in New Zealand and our training camp in Norway (where we are now!), I had just under two weeks of time at home, in Vermont. As far as jet lag goes, I had no idea what to expect when I returned home. I had heard a handful of jet lag horror stories about returning from New Zealand, so I arrived home expecting to be messsssed up. I won't say I was fine, but I don't have any horror stories. I think I basically walked around like a bit of a zombie for a week or so and my sleep schedule was the opposite of what I expected it to be, but somewhere in there, I think I recovered. With such a short period of time between training camps and a travel schedule that consisted of basically flying around the world within two weeks, I had one goal while I was home: to recover. I tried to be smart about training and in this case, that meant doing close to nothing. The first week I was home, my training consisted of playing with my sister. I hadn't seen her since early June, so we went for some walks, tried going for a couple runs (one that turned into a walk when I got to the bottom of the driveway), did some yoga, tried to stay awake during the day, and ate a lot of blueberries.

A walk home from yoga with some sunflowers for Lil Mama

Summit Sisters hike up Bromley

Great group of girls on top of Bromley

Rock Art on the AT

Little Rock pond on a beautiful day

Posing on top of the cliff jump with my cousin, Alexa

Riding down the alpine slide with Jessie and Annie (Jessie photo)

The second week I was home, I slowly started to get back into the groove with training. I was feeling pretty good, but I wanted to feel really good by the time I arrived in Norway, so this still meant cutting some workouts short, starting an interval session only to stop it early, and taking an extra off day here and there. Luckily, there were a lot of other activities going on while I was home that kept me occupied while I was resting. The annual SMS camps were happening last week, so the SMS T2 team jumped in a bunch of easier workouts with the kids, gave some talks, and enjoyed a few meals with the youngsters. I wasn't there at bedtime, but from what I could tell this was the best behaved and most motivated group I've ever seen at the SMS camps!

Some of the girls at the BKL camp showing off their growing muscles

Agility workout with the girls

Signing camp T shirts

Happy campers!

Posing with Francesca, who won one of my old jackets for winning the name game!

The most exciting event that took place while I was home was the wedding of one of my best friends, Mae Foster (now Hickory). Mae has been a friend of mine for as long as I can remember and everything came together for a beautiful wedding weekend in southern Vermont. We had a blast setting everything up for the wedding and then having so many of our best friends in one place to celebrate. Congrats Mae and Ben Hickory!

Wedding setup at the Ben and Mae barn with Anya, Mae, and Ellery

Collecting flowers the day before the wedding with Ellery

Bridesmaids selfie at the rehearsal dinner

Couple of my favorites on wedding night

Happy to see my cousin Anya

The wedding party and the beautiful bride and groom

Playing with the Foster cows (and Anya and Ellery)

My handsome wedding date

The day after the wedding, I did some last minute packing and then hopped on a plane to Norway. It was a fairly easy travel day and we jumped right back into camp mode when we arrived. We can rollerski out our doors and each day we ski by the beautiful fjords and lakes surrounding the area. I'm loving being back with some of my teammates who I haven't seen since June and I'm looking forward to a productive camp the next couple weeks. More from Norway coming soon!

Skiing with some cows on the roads of Norway (Kik photo)

Just hangin with Jess after a strength session (Kik photo)

Loving our Craft and L.L. Bean summer gear (Jess photo)

And of course the beautiful roads too! (Matt photo)

Can't Stop, Will Stop

While I love my job as a ski racer, I still have mornings when I don't want to get out of bed and workouts I dread or would rather just skip. I feel very lucky to be doing what I'm doing right now, and a camp like New Zealand confirms my love for skiing over and over and over again. It's inevitable to have those days when you wake up to pouring rain and have to drag yourself out of bed to go roller ski, but in New Zealand I was having the opposite problem. Well, I think calling it a problem is a stretch. I was so excited to get up and go skiing each morning that it was hard to stop. Finding the balance between these two extremes is important because it's easy to under do it when you don't want to get out of bed, and it's easy to overdo it when you can't wait to get outside to ski each day.

Let us go ski!

Between the time change, our fresh legs, and the excitement of being on snow again, the first week in New Zealand I was waking up early each day and couldn't wait to get on snow. I was following my training plan by going easy, but it was very difficult for me to stop each session after the designated one to two hours written on my training plan. I'm someone who prefers to train based on how I feel versus how many hours I have written in my plan, but this was a long camp, so even though I was feeling great, I tried to stop skiing when I was supposed to.

Skiing with Matt around "The Loop"

Morning ski with Sim up by the Bob Lee Hut

The gals sporting our Friends of Liz Skida hats (Simi photo)

A "family" ski one afternoon (Simi photo)

One of my favorite skis of the camp with Jessie

By the second week of camp, I was glad I had followed my plan because a case of the tireds was beginning to kick in. I don't think it's a bad thing to be tired at the end of a big training camp. In fact, it's probably just the opposite. The goal of a camp is to put your body under a heavy training load and then to let it recover and bounce back even stronger than before. The tricky part of this formula is not allowing yourself to get so tired that you dig yourself into a hole. I know I'm someone who can get tired pretty easily, so when the tiredness started to set in, I was just a little more careful. I didn't try to push through the tired and pretend it didn't exist. Instead, with the help of our coaches, I tried to monitor the tired and make sure it didn't get worse. The good thing was that I was still eager to get out of bed and go ski each day. It just meant that I needed an extra cup of coffee, needed to trade an interval session for an easy distance session, and that I needed to cut a couple workouts short even if I didn't want to. But it also meant that I came out of the camp really freaking tired, but not buried-in-the-bottom-of-a-deep-dark-cave-at-the-bottom-of-the-ocean-tired.

Skiing into the sunrise with Matt, Paddy, and Sim (Simi photo)

Sunset ski with Matt and Jessie (Ida photo)

A final moment on The Loop before hopping on the plane 

This camp reminded me of all the reasons I love skiing. It also reminded me that more isn't always better, but being smart about training is almost always better. The three weeks of excitedly lying in bed each morning until I was allowed to get up and go ski will carry me through any more rainy mornings or grueling strength sessions that I struggle to get motivated for this summer. Not wanting to stop is a better feeling than not wanting to start, but knowing when it's time to start training and knowing when it's time to stop training are equally as important. So with that, it's time to go home. 'Till next time, New Zealand!

Sunrise ski the morning before catching our flight (Simi photo)

Simi photo

One of the more beautiful evening skis we went on (Noah photo)

Good company makes for good skiing (Noah photo)

Cheers! (Anouk photo)

New Zealand Week #2

Somehow we only have two days left of skiing in New Zealand. It seems like yesterday that we got here and took comfort in the fact that we had over two weeks of skiing ahead of us. Then just like that, it's over! I suppose that means we've been enjoying ourselves. It's always a good sign to be sad you only have three days left rather than be counting down the days until you get to go home. I've said it already, but the Snow Farm really is the ideal place for a training camp. Aside from a couple days of rain or snow (that we happened to time nicely with our off days), we've had ridiculously good weather and training.

One of the many gorgeous mornings at the Snow Farm

A lot of training leads to a tired Sophie, which leads to a few more falls than usual

Getting ready to go for a ski with Ides (Noah photo)

Anouk and Liz sporting their Friends of Liz Skida hats!

The past week we've been able to do a little more exploring off of the rock. Our new outerwear sponsor, L.L. Bean, came to New Zealand for a couple days of shooting photos. They took pictures of a few training sessions and then we went down to Wanaka for a photo shoot in their casual wear. It happened to be a beautiful evening and we were able to watch the sun set over the lake. Big thanks to L.L. Bean for making the long trip over!

Simi, me and Jess on our way to the L.L. Bean photo shoot. Loving our new down jackets!

Evening on the lake in Wanaka

Functional and comfortable :) (Noah photo)

And a jumping photo in Wanaka (Noah photo)

Soaking in some sunshine at our L.L. Bean photoshoot (Jessie photo)

Our other day of adventuring was on our off day. On Monday morning, we chained up the vans for the trek to Queenstown. When we left the Snow Farm, we were in the middle of a snow storm. Some slow traffic, one broken chain, and two and a half hours later, we finally made it to Queenstown where the sun had started to come out and the ground was dry. We enjoyed exploring a new town, eating some tasty food by the water, and taking the gondola up the mountain to go go karting. The drive back was dry, beautiful, and took half the time, so it ended up being a successful adventure.

Paddy and I enjoyed an off day beer for our Grandpa John

Ben found a kiwi to ride

The chairlift ride up to go go karting (Anouk photo)

Some SMS T2ers in Queenstown (Jessie photo)

Dorked out and ready to do some go karting! (Jessie photo)

So here we are, tired and happy after two amazing weeks of skiing. We've put in a lot of hours and had a few really tough workouts. I'm exhausted, but the thought of leaving New Zealand already makes me sad. I'm going to miss the perfect skiing, delicious food, our french buddy Anouk, and having all my teammates just down the hall, but I guess that means we'll just have to come back soon! See you in a a few days, USA!!

The perfect ski with Jessie this morning

Jess catching some air

Me attempting to do the same

See you back at Stratton!