There's No Place Like Home

It snowed here in Anchorage...finally!  Yesterday I ran for an hour in the swirling, blowing snow, and it was hard to contain my joy.  It was no longer a challenge finding a good footing on the formerly icy back roads, and the rocks and debris that has littered the ski trails since our January Chinook brought rain was being covered in a fresh blanket of white.

On the 29th and again today my teammates raced in France, and I was here in Anchorage.  They raced well, two cracking the top ten in both the 10km skate and the 15km pursuit.  I was happy to learn of their successes, but it stung a little to be reading about it from home.  However, as I reminisced about my trips to Europe, my races there, and the many good times I've shared with those teammates, I was never more certain that my decision to be home this time around was a good one.

I can feel that I'm back on track.  My mind is clear, and my training is going well.  I've trained twice each day since I came home, have stretched, taken daily naps, gotten 9 + hours of sleep every night, and have baked bread (my second favorite thing, next to skiing).

                                                    

This morning I woke up to clear skies, sub-zero temperatures AND perfect classic tracks.  The trails were almost completely vacant, and I only had one near miss with a ornery moose.  This afternoon I expect much of the same- perfect grooming and lovely weather- as I head out for my second workout.  Tomorrow is my day off and should be perfect for a little celebration.  Yep, it's Super Bowl Sunday, but while much of the country will have their eyes on the game, I'll be skiing with over 1,000 other ladies at the Alaska Ski For Women, the largest women-only ski event in the U.S.  My mom and I are doing it again as a "mother-daughter team," and just like last year, we'll be dressed in costume.

So here's to more snow in the forecast, a great weekend (whether you're skiing in costume with 1,000+ other women or watching football), and homemade bread!  Thanks for tuning in...  

Pushing the "Reset" Button

Sometimes the best option in life is to stop what you're doing and start over.  It's refreshing beginning with a clean slate, putting past expectations, goals, and disappointments aside.  But as I recently discovered, starting all over again can also be incredibly difficult, especially when it means letting go of your plans and drastically changing course.

I am a ski racer, which means that the winter months should- and most often are- packed full of skiing, whether it is traveling to a venue, prepping for a race, training or competing.  From mid November thru March I am 100% ski racer.  This season, however, will not look like the rest.  It started as most have, on the SuperTour circuit in the western United States and Canada.  I came home for Christmas and then competed at a less than normal U.S. National Championships.  I was named to the U.S. World Cup team competing in Whistler, B.C. Canada and also to the U.S. Under-23 World Championships team, both teams I hoped to make.  After a cold Nationals I flew to Vancouver, B.C. and drove to Whistler to prepare for the World Cups, which is when my life began to change.

Since last spring I have experience sporadic rough periods of training and racing.  My immune system seems prone to illness and my body has gone in and out of feeling good during training.  I have trained a lot, certainly not too much, but I have taxed my body nonetheless.  The fact is, you can't expect to be a world-class ski racer if you don't train hard, and this inevitably promises both good times and bad.  In hindsight, this period was especially hard, and it will likely be the account that down the road I tell others, similar to the numerous stories that have been told to me over the last few weeks.  

The World Cup in Whistler was a continuation of this frustrating trend, just as several of the SuperTour races had been.  I didn't ski like myself.  My body wasn't firing the way it should, and I finally came to the conclusion that it was time to press the "reset" button.  It wasn't time to give up, give in or quit ski racing.  No, it was time to take a deep breath, sit down with my coach to reflect, release, and make a new plan.  In brief, that is what I did...

After the races were over in Whistler, I decided it was best to make a change.  Rather than getting on a plane to France for U-23s, I made the tough choice to go back to the drawing board.  I was not in the position to meet my goals in France, and it was unlikely I was going to make serious gains while I was there either, so I let go of my dream of a medal at Under-23 World Championships and with the blessing of all my coaches, booked a flight home. In Anchorage I could sleep in my own bed, train twice a day, and prepare myself to meet a new set  of goals.

In the interest of mixing things up, I chose to stayed in Whistler an extra two days with my Dad and my fun-loving relatives who had come to cheer me on.  In the time between letting go of my former race plans and beginning anew, I took the opportunity to rent some alpine skis and spend a day skiing the slopes of Whistler and Blackcomb with my family- a refreshing change of scenery and company!

Now I am back in Anchorage with a clear mind, a new "road map" back to my old racing self, and renewed sense of purpose.  I have let go of the frustrations that came from not meeting my expectations and have embraced the challenges of elite sport.  I have pressed the reset button.  Stay tuned...

US Nationals, The Cold Weather Conundrum

This week has been a US Championships like no other I can remember, and according to the Anchorage Daily News it has also been a pretty abnormal beginning of the new year. The ADN article, Cold Wreaks Havoc, in today's paper cited data from the National Weather Service, reporting that Anchorage is experiencing the "deepest cold wave in a decade." In some parts of the city we've experienced ten consecutive days of "double-digit negative temperatures," and yesterday was said to be the coldest day of the winter thus far. But this isn't news to the 300+ ski racers in Anchorage this week for US Nationals. Every day we've gone out to Kincaid Park in hopes that the mercury will rise and a race might go on as scheduled.

The volunteers have worked tirelessly in the cold, and it is evident that if the weather had cooperated this would have been a flawlessly executed championship week. The website is perfect, the banners are all in place, the courses are marked, and the stadium is set up. Months and months of planning went into this event, and it's a shame that the temperature has put such a damper on the week.

As for me, I knew it was cold when I began experiencing cold-induced asthma symptoms for the first time in my life. I've skied in the cold for as long as I can remember and raced in low temperatures a fair amount, but this week my lungs decided they'd had enough. In a pre-race intensity workout a few days prior to the first race, the freestyle race, which was shortened to a 5km, I developed a lump in my throat. By the end of the workout I was wheezing, coughing, and knew something wasn't right. Then on Monday, when the temperature was just warm enough for us to race (somewhere between zero and minus four Fahrenheit), I felt it again in my warm-up. I raced the 5km freestyle, had a hard time doing so, and have had a bad cough and tightness in my throat since then.

The symptoms are subsiding slowly, but yesterday I went to see an asthma and allergy doctor. Unfortunately it's hard to test for cold-induced asthma without doing a field test in cold conditions. I had the routine asthma tests done, which proved I didn't have normal, everyday asthma, but now it's time to work on getting a cold-weather test done when I'm skiing hard. The reason this is so critical is to determine whether I need to use asthma medication in these specific conditions. If the tests indicate I do, I first need to have a doctor's report and the test data on file with the US Anti-Doping Agency, USADA. The medications are banned substances for athletes without a special waver (a TUE form), but they can alleviate asthma symptoms and are approved for use by athletes with documented asthma. What I experienced this week was frustrating, and it would be nice to know for sure the status of my lungs when it comes to functioning properly at cold temperatures. The good news is that I will likely be racing in warmer temperatures for the next little while at least, if not the remainder of the season. I've had no problems in moderate temperatures, so I have no reason to believe this will flare up again. So I'll pursue a cold temperate, ski-specific field test and continue to take extra good care of my lungs.

Today is the last day of the championship week, and the classic sprint race has been moved to today (after being canceled the last three times it was scheduled to be held). It's an important race for World Cup and World Championship team selection for sprinters, which I am not, so I will be sitting this one out letting my lungs mend further. I hope to get out to watch the races and to log some time on skis. For the past two days I've done hard workouts on the treadmill at the gym near my house. Thanks to The Alaska Club for a great sponsorship and a warm place to exercise.

So I'll continue to keep you updated. Until then, stay warm!

January in Alaska

So today was the first race of the 2009 US National Championships, except it didn't happen!  I wasn't planning on racing the sprint, because I'm more of a distance specialist, but for all the sprinters it was a bit of a letdown.  The temperature has to be above -4F for an organizer to legally put on a race (according to the International Ski Federation guidelines), and during the warmest part of the day today it might have hovered around that temperature.  Otherwise, most of the city was in the negative double digits all day.  Right after 1pm they called off the race and rescheduled it for tomorrow.  Knowing it was going to be a cold training session for me, I had a leisurely morning, arriving at Kincaid Park just as all the racers were leaving.  Most had warmed-up assuming the race would go on as scheduled at 11:30AM and then proceeded to cool-down after it was postponed to 1PM.  Then before the 1PM start time many were well into their second warm-up of the day when the race was called off.  So most of my teammates warmed-up and cool-down twice and didn't race once today... but at least they were prepared!

I had a great easy ski around the beautiful trails, taking care to go easy so as to be gentle on my lungs.  The cold air can really damage them which could really mess up my week of racing, so I've been careful to dress really warm and cover my face when outside.  Besides the occasionally cold limb, digit or exposed patch of flesh, it was wonderful out on the trails.  They were surprisingly vacant for a championship week.  The sun was low on the horizon, illuminating the frost-encrusted trees, and the sky was a tie-dye of pink, orange, and yellow.  Alaska may be cold this time of year, but it's also beautiful...

Up and Running...

Welcome to my newly designed site.  It's been cold in Anchorage for the last week or so, and I've spent some of my inside time working on this website.  As you can see I began working on this early this past fall, but lost steam.  So one of my New Year's resolutions is to keep you updated on a regular basis without the hassle of long, infrequent emails.

I'm preparing for US Nationals.  This year (and next) they're being held at Kincaid Park here in Anchorage, just a fifteen minute drive from where I live.  I'm feeling pretty spoiled to be skiing on my home courses and sleeping in my own bed at night.  I can't feel too pampered though, because Alaska is showing everyone how cold it can be up here in the middle of winter!  We're only managing to ski once a day because noon is just about the only time it is sort of warm enough to ski.  Yesterday that was -10F and today it was a balmy -6F!  It has to be warmer than -4F to hold races (according to the International Ski Federation rules), so my fingers are crossed for a warming trend.  

So the 2009 US National Championships begin in just two days.  Here's the schedule:

January 3rd, classic sprint

January 5th, 10km freestyle women, 15km freestyle men

January 7th, 5km classic, 10km classic men

January 8th, freestyle team sprint

*I will be racing on the 5th, 7th, and 8th and will skip the classic sprint to focus on the distance races, which are my strength.

Until then I'm testing skis, getting lots of sleep, and baking bread and cookies to bring to my coaches. 

Tune in soon for updates!