A Bowl of Cereal

Wendy and Bill Seline managed to evade their son's defenses and introduced themselves to the volunteer assistant coaching staff the other day. So that was nice. Apparently, they'd visited Anchorage earlier this fall, but Matt kept that a secret, too.

As if they've never seen skis before and don't know what they're for...

Pascale

Tuva

Matt

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After the racing is over and everyone's gone home for the day, that's when the coaches can go out and get a little exercise, too. Unfortunately, Toomas has been watching me eat breakfast at the team house lately, and it's had a bad influence on him. Toomas is generally a two-eggs-and-three-slices-of-toast-for-breakfast man. I'm a cereal-eater myself. A bowl of cereal in the early morning will reliably power me through until around mid-evening. Not so for Toomas. He found out he needs his toast and eggs.

Here's Toomas, five kilometers into a 20-kilometer outing. He had bonked about four and a half kilometers ago.

Toomas is never one to complain...

...but he was pretty pooped out.

Nevertheless, Toom is not gonna give up.

The final afternoon of a long road trip.

So I knew I could finally beat Toomas in our little sprint. I've been trying all week. Every time we come into the stadium, I lie and cheat and plan a surprise-attack to beat Toom across the finish line. So far, nothing has worked. This time, though, I was feeling fresh and Toom was worn out and seeing stars.  It wasn't really fair, I didn't think. So waited until the last moment, when I thought he wasn't paying attention or had forgotten about sprinting to the line. But he heard me coming, and without really any effort at all, he easily skied away from me in the final 20 meters. It was pretty humiliating.

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We finished up our business in Bozeman over the weekend. It's exciting to see the sun and feel its warmth. But for me, every descent of the 737 into the Anchorage Bowl after a trip down south is a reminder of why I love living in the north.