Adventures in the Wild West, APU-Style!

Skiing- Silver Star, BC.

Check out the latest APU video by my teammate Reese Hanneman. This time I was able to help a little by taking lots of race video during the men's 10km classic race in West Yellowstone, Montana (my first time taking race footage). I also jumped into a few of the night skiing shots at the beginning of the film. Thanks, Reese, for the great portrayal of our most recent team adventures!

I'm sidelined with a cold right now, so rather than training, I've been drinking lots of tea, sleeping, and willing my body to get better in advance of the classic sprint and 10km freestyle races this weekend at Sovereign Lakes here on Silver Star Mountain, BC, Canada. Stay tuned for more updates!

Life on the Road: Snowstorms, good eating, fresh corduroy, and endless K's...

Life doesn't get much better than this...

Blue skies and picturesque trees- the view from the trails this morning.

I'm over two and a half weeks and four races into two months of travel, training, and ski racing, and not even a recent lingering head cold has been able to bring down. So far I've experienced no shortage of: abundant snow (and snowstorms), camaraderie, holiday spirit, great food, fantastic training, successful racing, beautiful scenery, fast skis, and plentiful amounts of fun! Since mid-November I've been on the road with my APUNSC team. We started out in West Yellowstone, Montana, where an incredible snowstorm made for an exciting Thanksgiving weekend of race postponements, stranded race timers and TDs, stuck and unstuck vehicles, closed and re-opened roads and passes, and a particularly memorable morning of playing in the snow, followed by some incredibly successful APU race performances.

West Yellowstone, MT: mid-storm.

It was a great beginning to our trip, as the team showed that we were not only an incredibly cohesive group, but a well-trained, focused collection of athletes.

APU Ladies having FUN! A deck-jumping, snow-loving romp in the bottomless West Yellowstone powder.

The APU ladies after cleaning up in all four races (over three days) of the West Yellowstone SuperTour.

APU athletes eating well. Celebrating Thanksgiving early (ahead of the opening races). Overwhelmingly the best APU athlete-cooked turkey day dinner yet!

After a solid block of racing and an over-distance workout on the Rendezvous Ski Trails in West, we packed up our bags, our hundreds of pairs of skis, our wax benches, our massive quantities of leftover food... and began the annual pilgrimage north to Silver Star Mountain in the heart of British Columbia.

We couldn't have been more excited to see the... 100+ km of twice-daily groomed trails, fairy tale village, and signature Silver Star snow-loaded trees. This place is truly Nordic skier heaven!

We're several days into our training camp here in Silver Star. Intervals have hammered out at the race venue at Sovereign Lakes, but I've been hit my a little cold. After hard racing in West and two lengthy days of driving, my body needed a little rest and was sure to let me know. Luckily, this bug was short-lived, as I was able to get out on the trails today (after a couple of days of rest). It was a perfect day to get back onto the trails, with temps in the mid-20s F, blue skies and beautiful views of the rolling hills below the mountain. It was also a great opportunity to test some of my classic skis, which were delivered to West fresh from the grinder.

Getting a feel for both my new skis and my recently ground skis is always critical heading into the season, so that race ski selection is streamlined on race day. With the help of the APU wax staff and the support top-notch grinders this process has been very productive, and I've learned a ton about my fleet over the last couple weeks. After having excellent skis in all four races in West, it felt good to get out on a few pairs of classic boards today to get a feel for them in Silver Star snow conditions. With some good testing and a great ski under my belt today, and my cold winding down, I know I'll be ready to hit the race courses at Sovereign in a little less than a week!

Thanks for tuning in! Until my next post, happy trails!

West Yellowstone!

Hi from West Yellowstone, Montana! Today was our first "official" day on snow here (last night some of us got out for a super fun, informal, shake-the-legs-out headlamp ski). We hit the ground running (well, actually skiing) with a little moderate intensity to spark the body and also got some fun, easy skiing in as a team. We're psyched about our new uniforms for the season, and coach Erik did a girls photo shoot today as we were heading back to the car.

Yep, we're loving being here (and celebrating teammate Sadie Bjornsen's 21st Birthday today, fourth from right in the above photo)!

Monday we're celebrating team Thanksgiving early, and Wednesday the races kick off with skate and classic sprint prelims. More to come from West soon! Thanks to Erik Flora for taking the photos.

Handcrafted, Full Bodied

On the road (and in the air) again...

The snow is falling in West Yellowstone, Montana, and we're on our way to the first races of the season. The West Yellowstone Ski Festival is the tradition start of the North American race season, with four competitions taking place over the Thanksgiving holidays. This year we will be racing a classic AND a skate sprint prelim (on the same day), a 10km skate, and a 5km classic. APU will be out in full force, sporting our new Swix blue uniforms (thanks, Swix!). This is the biggest APU team yet to attend the West Yellowstone SuperTour races, with almost 20 athletes in attendance!

Tonight we stay in Bozeman, MT after a long day of travel, and tomorrow we make a big Costco run for our week in West (including all our Thanksgiving food). After our opening weekend in West, we head to Silver Star, British Columbia- one of my personal favorite race (and training) venues. From there we'll compete in Rossland, BC before we have a short break for the Christmas holidays. During that downtime, I'll be flying back East to spend a week with my parents, brother, and grandmother in Vermont before US Nationals are contested in Rumford, ME at the beginning of January. The two month trip will finish off with more SuperTour races in Lake Placid, NY in the middle of January.

Since I'm going to be away for two months, the last few days has been hectic finishing up school, training, and preparing to leave. It's a challenge to pack for racing and Christmas, anticipating both cold and warm weather throughout my travels... but it's fun at the same time. Being on the road is exciting, as is the anticipation that goes along with the beginning of a new season! It's exciting, because I feel prepared to hit the snow.

I'm psyched to have a great team surrounding me, great coaching and wax support, top-notch and generous sponsors (in Swix Wax, Poles, and Accessories; Fischer Skis; Salomon Boots and Bindings; Rudy Project Eyewear; Nordic Ultratune Stone Grinding; and PowerBar). I'd also like to thank Carlile Transportation Systems- my main financial sponsor- for their unwavering support over many years. Also, big kudos to GCI- my telecommunications sponsor, hunting guide, Rob Holt- my Alaskan wild game provider, and my doctor, Ruth Higdon. Last, but not least, I am so appreciative of the love and support of my parents, extended family, and boyfriend. I couldn't be where I am without all the help and encouragement I receive!

To wrap up this post, make sure to check out the great video (posted above) that my teammate, Reese Hanneman, created recently (thanks, Reese, for letting me re-post your awesome video!). He's got some artistic talent. This definitely has my vote as the best APU ski film yet! Most of the footage comes from Hatcher Pass where we did much of our early winter preparations... Way cool!

SNOW!

Yep, winter has hit Anchorage! We skied at Hatcher Pass, north of Anchorage, last week, and I did intervals on the Spencer Loop on Wednesday. This afternoon I went for a distance ski on the Anchorage hillside. It was a beautiful evening for a ski...

Getting ready for winter...

Today I spent my day getting ready for winter in two ways... Just like every other Sunday, my day began with an over-distance (OD) workout. After breakfast, and as soon as it was light enough to see the trees outside my living room window (something that's happening later and later these days), I was out on the road rollerskiing. This morning I went right from my front door, completing one massive loop around the Anchorage Hillside, returning home just in time for lunch.

Just like every other day, the focus of my morning was training- getting my body in tip-top racing fitness- so that come winter and the start of racing season at the end of November, I'll be ready to ski fast. Today my OD was on classic rollerskis (no r-ski photos, unfortunately), but a few weekends ago I went on an awesome fall mountain run with my teammates. It just happened to be one incredibly photo-worthy workout that I just can't resist sharing (see below)...

Mountain run OD with the APU ladies (and Reese). Thanks Reese for the great photos!

2.5 hours cruising through some beautiful Alaskan terrain. I can't think of a better way to spend a Sunday morning! (Reese Hanneman photo)

Today was not one of the glorious, sunny autumn days of which we've had many. All the same, it was a perfect day for good, long workout! The fall colors that have greeted me on my last few Sunday runs are now gone. And on this particular Sunday- for the first time this fall- the forecast was for snow. Although it turned out to be not quite cold enough for that type of precipitation, it sure felt like winter isn't far off.

With the changing seasons on my mind, a different kind of "getting-ready-for-winter" activity followed my OD. My mom, boyfriend and I smoked and canned wild Alaskan salmon for the winter! Um...um!

My mom came down from Talkeetna for the weekend, and just as we normally do, we created ourselves a project! A while back we decided that this weekend was going to be salmon canning weekend. With 40+ new 2010 red salmon in the freezer from this summer's dipnetting trip and still a ton of salmon from '09 hanging around, we decided that it was time to get out the smokers and canners and get to work.

Last night we sliced all the fillets into strips, made a huge vat of brine, soaked, rinsed, and then air dried the fish to be ready for today's work. This morning we began the smoking process. While I rollerskied around the Anchorage Hillside, my mom took care of the fish smoking, and by the time I returned home we were ready to put the smoked salmon in jars, seal them up, and pressure cook them for 2+ hours.

Three pressure cookers-loads and 41 jars of canned smoked salmon later, we'd made another step towards winter-preparedness. OD down, salmon processing down... Today was a productive day!

Thanks to my super Mom and fabulous boyfriend for embarking on this great project with me! I'm pumped to eat canned salmon all winter long. It's, without a doubt, the fuel of champions!

The 3rd Annual Talkeetna Fun Run & Walk for Kids and Families

5 year-old Bethany Kehoe (above) participates in the 2010 Fun Run/Walk

On Sunday, October 3- with some much appreciated help from family and friends- I continued what's becoming a fall tradition, the Talkeetna Fun Run and Walk for Kids and Families. Three years ago I organized the first event- a fun, un-timed recreational run/walk- as a way to give back to the community that raised, nurtured and supported me throughout my formative years. Each subsequent year the event has grown, with sixty people taking part in the 2010 run/walk.

It was a gorgeous autumn afternoon in the Upper Susitna Valley, complete with yellow leaves, blue sky and sunshine. Participants, ranging in age from infant to adult, ran/walked either a 3 miles course or an out-and-back one mile through the Talkeetna Lakes Park.

The event was preceded by a group stretch at the trail head of the Talkeetna Lakes Park

One of the youngest participants takes a look at the prize table.

Great prizes and refreshments greeted runners and walkers at the end of the event thanks to generous donations from PowerBar, Great Harvest Bread Company, and Skinny Raven Sports. Participants enjoyed cookies, energy bars, and sports drink. Every kid was able to take home a prize, two families took home loaves of Great Harvest bread for their participation, and one family won the Great Harvest gift basket in the post-run/walk drawing.

Despite the short duration of my stay in Talkeetna, it was a wonderful trip and a great opportunity to reconnect with friends and family. Every time I visit I'm overwhelmed by the tremendous outpouring of support for me. I am so grateful for the interest in my athletic pursuits and the unfailing encouragement from the Talkeetna community.

In addition, it's exciting to see the new construction of trails throughout the area and community members making such great use of them. I feel so fortunate to call such a wonderful, active, inspired community my home!

A huge thanks to everyone who participated in the 2010 Talkeetna Fun Run and Walk for Kids and Families. An additional thanks to PowerBar and to Great Harvest Bread Company and Skinny Raven Sports in Anchorage for donating prizes and refreshments. Last, but not least, thanks to my mom, Karen, for helping to organize and set-up for this event every year. I look forward to another great event next fall. Until then, see you out on the trails!

Check this out...

I'm organizing this fun run/walk for kids event in my hometown with the help of my mom, the P.E. teacher and cross-country running coach at Talkeetna Elementary. It's a great way to have fun with the kids of the Upper Susitna Valley and to give something back to the community that has supported me so much over the years. It gets the community out on a beautiful fall day for a run/walk, some snacks, and great prizes!

Thanks to everyone who is making this event possible, and a special thanks to my parent's for helping organize and my personal sponsors: Carlile Transportation, GCI, and PowerBar, to name a few...

Please come join the fun. Mark your calendars!

Summer Training Alaska-Style

The view from the edge of Eagle Glacier, summer 2010.

What have I been up to...? My last true update was posted before 2010 summer training even began, after my little break at the end of racing season. I told you of my spring escapades, but never got around to filling you in on this summer's excitement. Since full-time training got going in late April, I've been logging double sessions daily, racking up 20+ hour weeks of skiing on the Eagle Glacier, spending my Saturday mornings doing long over-distance rollerski workouts (up Hatcher Pass and all over Anchorage), hitting the weight room for strength and core, and hammering out intervals and intensity workouts. Yep, this summer I've been training, because as the saying goes, "skiers are made in the summer!"

The first weeks of June, July, and August my APU teammates and I headed up to the Thomas Training Center on the Eagle Glacier for our summer on-snow training camps. This year marked my 9th summer of ski camps on Eagle, ten years since my first camp the summer after my freshman year of high school. Although I've lost count of the exact number of weeks I've spent up there, I'm pretty sure I'm well past 20 camps, somewhere in the range of 20+ weeks of on-snow skiing since my first time on the glacier at 14 years old!

It's pretty amazing to think that I've been skiing on the Eagle Glacier for a decade of my life. Looking back, I feel so fortunate to have had this incredible summer training opportunity. Every cross-country skier dreams of skiing year-round, and I know I have benefited tremendously from each and every camp on the Eagle Glacier. It's also amazing to think of how far I've come since my first camp. I am able to train so much more and at a much faster pace now than in years passed, and with each camp I make technique improvements (soft snow classic skiing being one of the most notable changes I've made over the course of my time on Eagle).

While camps on the glacier promise to be hard and exhausting, I find myself looking forward to the simplicity of training up there. Upon getting to the facility, frequently via a short 10 minute trip by helicopter, the pace of life completely shifts...

The Thomas Training Center is perched on a edge of the Eagle Glacier with the town of Girdwood, Alaska and Turnagain Arm distantly below. On a clear day, civilization is within sight from the living room window, but even with the hustle and bustle of humanity in view, our life on Eagle is different than it is when we're down below. For a week our lives are centered around ski training. There are no errands, no driving to and from training, and no grocery shopping. There is no internet. On the glacier we train, eat, and sleep. For a week out of each month during the summer, life is really simple, and we train with absolutely no distractions.

Skiing is our number one priority during each camp, and the training on the glacier is pretty incredible. The course is groomed prior to each session, and the main goal of every week is to get in a ton of quality time on snow.

The APU women's team post- hard interval workout on the glacier.

For me, camps are one of the highlights of the summer. Not only because this experience helps me personally become a better skier come race season, but because it's a great opportunity to learn to work together as a team. Both on and off the trails, we get to know each other better. We make meals together, wash dishes, watch movies, share bunk rooms, do intervals and speed work, and ski distance together. In my mind, camps makes us better ski racers, because we push each other on the trail AND learn to coexist and be good teammates in a communal environment.

After a good week on the glacier and a lot of team "together time," we jumped back into normal life and often into a "recovery" type week where we were able to mix up training with other, non ski-specific training activities. Some of my teammates headed out of state for vacations, while I chose to stay closer to home, throwing in local adventures whenever I could. Over the course of my "recovery" weeks I had some fun outside of ski training, including a dipnetting trip to the Kenai River where we fished for red salmon, some blueberry picking, a bike trip in Denali National Park, and a little packrafting (as seen below)...

This summer I've also enjoyed hitting up the local Saturday farmer's market whenever I'm in town and making bread. I come to look forward to my baking day all week. Usually falling on my "off" day, I enjoy experimenting with different recipes, as I gradually read my way through my shelf of cookbooks. So far this summer the bread of choice has been 100% whole wheat cinnamon raisin walnut swirl bread.

With August halfway gone, it's amazing to think that summer will pretty quickly be giving way to fall. Kids are heading back to school, and it won't be long before the first snow hits the mountains. Part of me longs for a little more summer. There are a few more mini-adventures I still hope to fit in before the seasons change. That said, it's been an enjoyable few months packed full of rollerskiing, skiing, biking, hiking, baking, packrafting, fishing, and life, and when the snow does finally fly, I'll be ready to jump whole-heartedly into winter and ski racing!

Enjoy summer while it lasts, and thanks for tuning in!

Check out the APU Nordic Ski Center in the news...

I realize that a thorough update is well overdue (and I promise that one is in the works), but until I get around to posting, check out the latest article on the APU Nordic Ski Team (my team of many years). We trained on snow on the Eagle Glacier at the Thomas Training Center for the first time this summer at the beginning of June, and the Anchorage Daily News did a great story on our first camp. On Monday we head up to the glacier again for camp #2, and I'm excited for some totally undistracted training AND lots of skiing on SNOW!

Back soon with a more lengthy update...

The finale, a new beginning, and a big thank you!

It's May. Up in the mountains the crust skiing is still amazing, but the remnants of winter are soon to be gone. The telltale signs are in town... The trees are beginning to bud, and the vibrant fresh green of spring is beginning to burst out over the formerly dull brown landscape. The new training year began two weeks ago, so nearly every morning I've been making my way up from springtime into the mountains in search of hard, crusty, fast snow to ski on. Crust skiing is something Nordic skiers looks forward to in the spring. At a time when the days are warm and sunny and the nights are clear and below freezing, the snow goes through a magical freeze-thaw cycle, turning any terrain that is still snow-covered into a firm surface perfect for gliding on.

My APU teammates and I are back into the swing of training for the race season still many months away, and we're doing our best to take advantage of every on-snow opportunity, since it's a matter of days before the last skiing will melt away, and we'll be on the roads rollerskiing. But before I get ahead of myself, I suppose I should make sure to properly wrap-up the 2009-2010 season and the short period of down time in between then and now...

After a great time in Europe, I traveled back to the US, stopping in Vermont for a few days to see my grandmother, skiing at nearby Bolton Mountain Nordic Ski Area for training. After a little rest from the travel, some great time visiting, and a little (or more than a little!) laundry washing, I was back on the road heading up to northern Maine- Fort Kent and Madawaska, to be exact. There I finished off the season with the 30km freestyle National Championship, followed by three more races. In the end it was four races in five days, a good, solid finale to the season.

30km skate National Championship in Fort Kent, Maine

On the day between the 30km and the last three races, I was an instructor for Fast and Female, a program designed to empower young girls through participation in sport. Chandra Crawford, a Canadian cross-country skier and 2006 Olympic gold medalist founded Fast and Female, which now organizes events throughout North America. This was the first US events outside Alaska, as the only other Fast and Female ski days have been in Anchorage and Fairbanks. Kikkan Randall, APU's own 3-time Olympian, has spearheaded the US Fast and Female events over the last two years. Once again, she (with the help of the Maine Winter Sports Center and NENSA) pulled together all the elite women racing in northern Maine and encouraged us to be ambassadors for our sport.

Well over 100 elementary-aged girls from Madawaska, Maine participated in Fast and Female.

The girls were divided into groups based on age and assigned to a few elite athlete ambassadors/instructors. Once we'd met each other, we made headbands (with the colored paper assigned to our group) to display our names, and we made up a team name and cheer- which we performed for all the other girls.

Fast and Female, along with the last four races in Fort Kent and Madawaska, marked the conclusion of my season, and after a fun, but tiring time, I was headed home to Alaska.

Once at home, it was time to get out and play... but before I had a chance for that a nasty stomach flu knocked me out for a few days. With that behind me, I set out making the most of my spring. I got out back country skiing a couple of times...

Practicing my tele skiing in Hatcher Pass, Alaska

Not long after I'd settled into the pace of life at home, I was back on the road, visiting Crested Butte, Colorado and spending some time in Moab and Lake Powell, Utah.

I crust skied in Crested Butte, despite the red dirt that had blown in from the desert and covered the snow. The conditions were surprisingly good, dirt and all, and the terrain for crust skiing was spectacular. For some variety, I did a little tele skiing and skinning (summiting Mount Crested Butte), as well as a little snowshoeing.

After a few days in Colorado, it was time to get warm, so off to the desert we went. We stopped in Moab for a night and went mountain biking the next day before jumping in the car for Lake Powell.

The four days in Lake Powell were hot and sunny, and I added more variety to my "off" season training with some swimming and hiking. The lake was largely vacant, as it's considered to be early in the season, which meant we had lots of space to ourselves. We camped on a beach across the lake from Bullfrog, a small establishment and marina, and during the day we hiked, boated, and swam. At night we roasted marshmallows over the campfire, grilled sausages, and told fireside stories. For this Alaskan, the cool nights were a nice change after hot days in the sun and sand so warm it hurt your feet. Despite my low tolerance for heat and having to put on endless amounts of sunscreen, I had a wonderful time in the desert.

Hiking around Lake Powell

Checking out the Defiance House Native American ruins in Lake Powell.

After a break jam-packed with fun and different activities, I am now back home. Two weeks ago we shocked our bodies back into routine with the 3rd annual APU team start-up camp. There was no easing back into training. Nope, it was a jump-right-in kind of week, complete with testing, hard intervals, lots of distance training and LOTS of skiing on snow in Anchorage. It felt a little brutal at first, but my body soon adapted, remembering that life's usually this way!

After the start-up week, the team buckled down and made last minute preparations for our 1st annual APU team fundraiser. Since the beginning of April, we'd been planning a huge end of the season celebration and fundraiser to help cover our racing expenses from the past year. We'd gone out into the community to ask for donations for our live and silent auction, sent hundreds of invitations, planned floral arrangements and decorations and slide shows, and on May 4th we had an incredibly successful event. Thanks to many generous donations, we were able to raise more than enough money to cover our travel and racing expenses from the season, with the remaining money going into our competition fund to help with our bills for next year.

This fundraiser was an incredibly eye-opening experience. It helped me realize just how amazingly supportive the Alaskan community and my own individual community is. After a long season and at the beginning of a new one, I'd like to take the chance to thank my family, friends, and supporters for everything they've done for me. I'd like to thank my hometown- Talkeetna, Alaska- for believing in and supporting me. I'd like to thank the people who attended the APU fundraiser, as well as those who made donations. I also want to recognize my sponsors, who have made it possible for me to be a ski racer. All of you are part of my community. You are part of my dreams and goals, and I can't thank you enough!

So now it's onward towards another season. It's time for more hard work and more training, and I'm psyched and ready to begin. Thanks for following and stay tuned!

Oh, the adventures I've had...

What a spring of skiing, racing, and traveling it has been! I started with the Birkie in Wisconsin, flew to Europe, and traveled (and ski raced my way) through Germany, Italy, France, Slovenia, and Austria. Unfortunately, the OPA Cup racing did not go as I had hoped, but I've had an incredible time nonetheless.

An Austrian cow, spotted on an adventure through the old city center of Salzburg.

Coming off some good ski "marathons" I was excited to tear it up in Europe, but things did not quite go my way. I had no way to anticipate how much a couple of long races, a lot of travel, and a little food poisoning would take out of me. And while I'm familiar with a lot of travel, I didn't really know much about my body relative to marathon distance ski racing. I know I can race fast, and I've done so in Europe. Unfortunately, this time around I wasn't in good racing form.

All I can say is that I really love traveling and skiing. I love Europe and miss it already. I've learned a ton, and I can't wait for more opportunities to ski race! So now I'm on to more racing (tomorrow I head up to northern Maine for the season finale). But first, a few of the highlights from Europe...

• Everywhere we traveled, we seemed to be in a blizzard. Ramsau, Austria, for example- it was a winter wonderland in mid-March...just the way I like it!

• I couldn't help but be in awe of the ski culture in Europe (I am every time). This beautiful little wax room, complete with boot dryers, was just outside the entrance to our hotel. Ski trails were everywhere. People skied to the grocery store...

• The "Sporthotel" where we stayed was 400 meters from Ramsau's World Championship XC Ski stadium.

Now onto a little non-ski related European fun...

• Castles were everywhere, as they tend to be in Europe. They never cease to amaze me, so on a day off, we took a little detour and visited the Hohensalzburg Castle (one of the largest medieval castles in Europe).

So once again my European travels have come to an end. I was honestly sad to leave the great snow and ski trails, the good racing, spectacular scenery, great food, and the camaraderie and fun! My travels were inspirational and make me want to train more and work harder so that I am able to continue this incredible life as a ski racer.

A roller coaster ride through the snow in Rogla, Slovenia.

The boys went five times each!

It was some serious FUN!

Thanks to everyone who has helped, supported, and encouraged me this season. Thanks to those of you who have housed me, sponsored or funded me, and cheered me on. I could not travel and race without you! Stay tuned for an update from northern Maine and the last races of the season...