Winter Wonderland

ahhhhhhh!

The past week I have spent in the Canadian version of "Winter Wonderland"-otherwise known as Silver Star B.C. From the day we arrived, last tuesday, we have been lucky enough to have clear cold sunny days every single day. A sunny day in Silver Star is truly unbeatable! Following our first series of races in West Yellowstone, we decided to put in a a solid block of base training before entering into these next series of races. 

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On top of Silver Star Mountain Resort

This down week has been really nice for me. Conveniently enough my semester of school ended this week, so I have been taking advantage of my spare time to hit the books and finish off my finals. In one of my classes I was required to give a presentation, so I got one of the girls on the team to video tape it and then I added it onto youtube so the class could watch it back in AK. My professors have been super awesome, letting me take tests and do presentations at my home away from home. My STATS professor even set up an online chat so that she could help me figure out what the heck chi-squared meant! I am constantly impressed with the APU education system.

Skiing in the sunset

One of the things that I did for school this year was write a marketing plan for a teammates headwear company, E'KLAAR Headwear. It was really fun to explore new possibilities around the city and try to find new markets for her stuff. The APU elite team has recently signed E'KLAAR Headwear as a  sponsor for our team- so it has been fun to see how fast the word has spread about her hats, headbands and sport scarves. So when you see those bright pink and blue colored hats we are wearing around all the time- those are the guys! You should go check out her website, she has lots of fun stuff! www.eklaar.com

During this off week between races, I have also gotten the chance to get to know my new skis. I have always had a small collection of skis I travel with, because I had one pair of "magic" skis that I would literally pull out for every condition, every race, EVERY time. Unfortunately I broke them last year in Europe, so I have been forced to move on. In doing so, I added four pairs of new "stranger" skis to my fleet that I have been playing around on with the coaches throughout the week. Maybe I didn't replace the "magic" ski yet, but I think I am getting damn well close:)

Testing w/ coach, Erik Flora

Races are coming soon, two more days! Sovereign Lakes did some work over the summer on their venue and trails and came up with a new sprint course. Luckily it is much more hilly, and a bit longer- so I am super pumped for that. Saturday will be the classic sprint, and then Sunday we have a 10km. skate distance race. Lots of fun to come!

Practicing my lunges for this weekend

Hammer on!

Results should be posted pretty quickly from the weekend races at http://www.zone4.ca/default.asp

Rock on!