Tredje Igjen

 Racing took place today at 9,000 feet above sea level, in the glorious Rocky Mountain sunshine.

Chase and Trond, at the office.

Chaos in the women's race

Dashe was fast today. Her first top-ten RMISA finish.

Garrett was fast today. Sixth place. His best RMISA result yet.

Less than one kilometer from the finish line, and Corbin is trying to win this race. But two Buffaloes were stronger today.

Enjoying the après-ski

How long will it be before Corbin gets tired of third place in RMISA races? Maybe we'll find out tomorrow. 

Don and Kallie made the trip over the mountain to see their son race.

Thanks for the peppermint patty, Corbin!

Answer Key

Everyone's been asking which Seawolves will be in the Olympics this year! You may recall that the staff of the UAA Nordic Ski Team blog speculated a few weeks ago about which Seawolves will be there. Here are the answers to the questions you've been asking:

Magnus Norøy will be at the Olympics. He'll be waxing cross-country skis for the Canadians.

Tuva Bygrave probably won't be at the Olympics. I didn't see her name on the list when I looked up the Australian team roster.

Lukas Ebner will not be at the Olympics. As recently as last week, he was riding his bike around one of the islands in the Mediterranean Sea.

Pascale Paradis will be competing in Biathlon for Canada at the Olympics.

Andrew Kastning will not be at the Olympics. Other commentators will be making the call.

JC Schoonmaker will be competing in his second Olympics.

Erik Flora will be coaching Team USA at the Olympics.

Peter Hinds will be competing for Slovakia at the Olympics. I'm no Slovakian Olympic Team official, but with two men on the Slovakian team, my guess is Peter will likely have lots of opportunities to be on the start line in Val di Fiemme.

Derek Dueling will not be suiting up to race for the Canadian team. But there's a rumor going around that he may be waxing for the Canucks. Derek, if you're out there, call in to the Blog and tell us what's up!

Hailey Swirbul will be competing for Team USA in Italy.

Toomas Kollo will not be at the Olympics. He will likely be somewhere along the Bering Sea coast of Alaska, exploring around.

Nevio Zeni has been spotted several times around Tesero and Predazzo by various traveling Alaskans since he was featured in this blog's Olympic preview edition in December. Nevio will indeed be in the Olympics, likely as a roving jack-of-all-trades. The word from the blog's paparazzi is that Nevio's wife operates a hotel in town. You can bet that Nevio will be in the thick of it.

Murphy Kimball will not be at the Olympics. But he will be going to World Juniors soon.

I can't wait to see how our Seawolves do at the Olympics this year! Good luck to all of them!

Parke's Back Yard

No matter where in the world I go, I always enjoy coming back to Anchorage. It's the place I chose to live when I graduated from college over thirty years ago, and I haven't gotten tired of it yet. I especially enjoy being on the Alaska Airlines jet on final approach to ANC when I know there's a lot of snow on the ground. And that was the case when we returned home from Utah last week.

Here's a graph I saw in the Anchorage Daily News last week. I liked this graph.

Nevertheless, if you're a member of this ski team, you're not going to be in Anchorage for long before you need to get on an airplane and go ski racing somewhere. And this week, the destination is Colorado - where rumor has it that there's never been a more snowless winter in the Rocky Mountains than they're having this year. Ski races are being cancelled, or relocated, and this weekend's race, which was supposed to be in Minturn, will now be in Frisco. I have to admit that I was not looking forward to leaving snowy Anchorage to come down here for a rollerski race around a parking lot or some such nonsense.

My house, in its best light - covered in deep snow.

But the situation in Colorado is a lot rosier than I had imagined. While it's true that we're scratching around on small loops, and every one of us has hit a few rocks with our skis the past couple days, it's hard not to enjoy the warm sunshine, and there's nothing wrong with the quality of the (admittedly meager) snowpack. 

Here's the forecast for this weekend. Not too shabby.

So today, we skied at Breckenridge Nordic Nordic Center. It was pretty good!  Yesterday, Hedda and I were skiing together at Frisco Nordic Center when we crossed paths with someone named Scott who used to ski for the Colorado Buffaloes in the 1980's. He told us the skiing was good at Breckenridge, and just like that, the Seawolves found ourselves at Breck this morning.

Erling

Erling again. Do you sense a theme here?

Hedda and Dashe

Naturally, Parke was our guide today, since he grew up in Breckenridge and knows all its nooks and crannies. He took us out for a little loop that topped out at about 10,878 feet above sea level. (That's 3,316 meters to you Euros and Canadians.) 

(Here's my GPS watch to prove it.)

Constance, Marit and me

Chase, Garrett and Corbin at 10,878 feet above the sea.

All things considered, I'd say we're surviving and thriving at almost 11,000 feet. This weekend we'll be racing way down low at 9,000 feet. The air down there is going to be so thick and packed chock full of oxygen!

Instructions

 Step 1: Get some new skis and flex test them on the living room floor at the girls' house.

Step 2:  Take them out the next morning and use them to get on the podium:

It's really as simple as that.

We are flying back to Alaska tonight.

Outlier

The UAA Seawolves love Soldier Hollow. And with good reason. This is where the 2002 Olympics were contested. The Olympics will be here again in 2034. The weather is almost always sunny, and it's usually warm, too. Driving to the venue from our lodging in Heber City or Midway is always easy. There's loads of parking. Huge, high-quality buildings and infrastructure. The snowmaking system covers the entire Olympic trail system, and it puts down a four-foot deep layer of perfect, firm snow in which to set rock-hard classic tracks. They have a well-organized race administration, a huge PA system, plenty of great race volunteers, expert grooming equipment operators... Nothing is lacking here at Soldier Hollow. It's perfect in every way. No wonder Johannes Klaebo comes here frequently for training.

And yet, I am not in love with Soldier Hollow. Am I missing something?  Am I a contrarian? I've been hearing exclamations of joy this week from all of us Seawolves - racers and coaches alike -  about the perfect tracks, the great weather, the comfortable apres-ski, the well-run race organization.  And there's no denying any of it. It's comfortable, well-organized, and we're going to have excellent competitions here this weekend.  But I find it a bit sterile here. A bit bland. I always have. There's not much mystery here. The race trails are laid out, back and forth, across a meadow of sagebrush that surrounds and overlooks the ski stadium. From the deck on top of the race building, you can see pretty much the entire trail system; you can watch the entire ski race from there.

Soldier Hollow is perfect. But I get bored easily. Soldier Hollow is not quirky. It's not mysterious. It's not flukey. It doesn't capture my imagination. There are no surprises at Soldier Hollow. I don't dream of skiing these trails. I've skied them plenty of times, and they're still the same trails, laid out across the same meadow. Make no mistake: it's a dream to be a coach or team leader for an event at Soldier Hollow. I'm always happy to see Soldier Hollow on our itinerary, because I know that we can expect a well-run, predictable event, and I know we'll enjoy ourselves here. But I've never fallen in love with Soldier Hollow.

We will be racing here tomorrow morning. We are ready.

Scenes From The Empire State

Here are some of the things that the UAA volunteer assistant coach witnessed while in New York last week:

Team meeting at the girls' house

Corbin skied fast. The US Ski Team was so impressed they invited him to race with them in Europe next month.

Discussing ski selection. Marit seems skeptical.

Hey guys!  I found Murphy Kimball's fan club! They said they only drove seven hours to see Murphy compete. 

Dashe. In the thick of it.

We spent a lot of time in this wax cabin.

Trond and Chase. Mixing drinks for the mass-start 20k.

Dashe. She never stops racing.

Murphy's fan club got what they came for. Murphy on the podium.

Erling is a good sprinter. So he got on the podium too.

When a significant number of your skiers qualify for international trips, you have to discuss logistics with the US Ski Team. Here's Greta Anderson.

Garrett

Vebjorn Flagstad - friend of the Seawolves.

Michaela Keller-Miller. Former Seawolf. Killer was fast in the classic sprint.

Hermod

Quincy Donley. She's never been a Seawolf. But she's a friend of mine, so she's in this blog.

Erling. At home in his element.

It was raining pretty hard on the classic sprint day. 

Our down parkas are really warm. But they're not waterproof.

Foul weather doesn't keep us from supporting our teammates.

Henry. Offering encouragement to Erling in the semifinal.

Shopping with Ian from Toko. Ian doesn't charge a delivery fee.