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.

On Porter Mountain

 I had big plans for lots of blog posts last week during US Nationals in New York. But then my computer died. I couldn't figure out why. For more than two days, I couldn't turn it on. No matter what I tried, it simply wouldn't start, and I assumed my four year old computer had simply done all the computing it was going to do, and it was dead. 

But then, near the end of the week, after giving it a couple days' rest on the dining room table, I pushed the power button, and it fired up!  It seemed real strange to me that my computer would act this way. But then, I realized, my computer was just looking out for me. My computer knew there was no way in hell I had any time to write any blog posts in the evenings, because Trond was working us (Chasé and me) so hard, all day long, and all night long, too. Day after day, night after night, never a rest. He kept ordering us to wax more skis, scrape more skis, glide-test more skis, brush more skis, and get out and do more glide tests. It never stopped. My fingers were worked down to the bone from all the waxing and scraping; even if I'd had time to get back to the team house to write a blog post, there's no way I could have typed anything with these nubs. 

But now we're back to Alaska. Back from a successful week in New York. And I'm recovering on Kodiak Island this evening, in a torrential rainstorm, and my computer works just fine. 

The Olympic 50km course went around the Porter Mountain Loop. I highly recommend it.

Modern ski racing at the elite level is rarely contested racing loops of more than five kilometers. A five kilometer loop is just big enough to contain two pretty big climbs and a couple of little climbs, and the downhills are designed to lose elevation quickly and efficiently so the racers can get back to climbing. This is quite different from race courses in the old days, when the generally accepted dictum was that a race course should be one-third uphill, one-third downhill, and one-third flat. 

Trond gave us coaches a little time off mid-week at US Nationals so we could go for a ski on the old 1980 Lake Placid Olympic trails. It was a real treat! You can call me sentimental all you want, but I miss the old racing formats, where a 10km race was typically held on a 10km loop. I remember races in which there wasn't much snow, necessitating multiple laps. And I didn't like the feeling of going over the hills on the first lap and knowing that I was going to have to do the same loop AGAIN!  What a drag it was when you had to do a loop multiple times! But now, almost all elite races (except sprints) require multiple laps around the same loop. Even a 5k race (when there's plenty of snow) might be two laps. I feel bad for the kids these days. They sure do a lot of laps!

One of the old split-timing buildings on the Hi Notch trail. Coming down from Hi Notch, the racing trail is steep, narrow, and has a sharp turn. In 1980, good downhillers could gain time on the competition by being able to snowplow less than the others, and crash less frequently than the others. Downhill speeds were much slower, so the crashes were more frequent and less severe than in the modern age.

The most famous, most historic World Cup ski race in the world, at Holmenkollen, used to be a one-lap 50km race. Then, for most of its history, it was twice around a 25km loop. But now it's six laps around an 8km loop. It's a very different undertaking. 

Trond and I were pretty excited to get out on the old Olympic trails. Every time we race here, we find some time to get out away from the new 5k race trail. Our old friend, Barney Hodges, took us out for a spin around the old trails, and University of Vermont coach Patrick Weaver joined us. I used to race against Barney and Patrick when we were all in elementary school. Barney from Middlebury, Vermont, Patrick from Lennox, Massachusetts, and me from Lancaster, New Hampshire. It was great to get out skiing together again after so many years!

Barney Hodges, Patrick Weaver, and Trond Flagstad

We're Going Racing!

 Finally!  We're going racing!

We've raced a few times this fall, but it's all been a warm-up for this.  Tomorrow's our first RMISA college race. It feels a little strange to me that our RMISA race is concurrent with the US National Championships. But nevertheless, here we are in Lake Placid, New York. We've done a lot of training to get ready for this. Let the RMISA racing season begin!

Changing planes in Seattle

When landing in New England, a Dunkin' Donuts highway stop for breakfast is mandatory.

We found a package waiting for us when we got to our team house in Lake Placid.

It was Christmas all over again!

Garrett and me.

My friend John Estle is in Italy, and was given a tour of the US Ski Team waxing truck, and he met Erling's dad, Per-Erik, who was slaving away over a thousand pairs of skis for the American team.

And here's Erling, opening Christmas presents from his family, delivered to our wax cabin by Alayna Sonnesyn, whose skis were being waxed in Europe by Erling's dad last week.

Pre-race planning at the women's team house in the evening.

Hey, look who showed up in Lake Placid!  It's friend-of-the-Seawolves Mark Paprocki!

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Bonus photo:  I didn't manage to get this blog posted before today's race. Corbin was third RMISA skier today (10th overall). Congratulations, Corbin!

To The Arctic!

On my evening walk along the beach, in Utqiagvik, Alaska.

 One of the things I like most about being associated with this team is the opportunity to get to know so many different characters, who come to this organization from near and far. As skiers, we have a lot in common, but we also bring our different experiences and perspectives to the group. Sharing our varied cultures from the places where we spent our childhoods makes for interesting road-trip conversation.

This year, our roster is heavy on Norwegians from north of the Arctic Circle. I've never been to that part of the world myself, but I've long been curious about Troms and Finnmark. I've always wanted to see the place for myself, but never managed to get closer than Kiruna or Hattfjelldal. I'll probably get there someday. Or maybe not. 

Sunset at the cemetery

But Alaska's a northern place too, and a big portion of our state lies north of the Arctic Circle. My work frequently brings me to western parts of the state, but it's not often that I get a chance to go north of the Brooks Range. I've always been drawn to the north. Ever since I was young. Growing up in the northern Lower 48, near the Canadian border, I was always curious about what things were going on to the north of me. I was less curious about what was going on to the south of me. 

Skiing out onto the ice and going straight will get you to the North Pole.

A few weeks ago, I had an opportunity to travel to Utqiagvik, the northernmost town in America, for a work assignment. The town lies at around 71 degrees north latitude - around the same latitude as our teammates, Erling, Hermod, Henry and Hedda's homes in Norway.  I'd recently heard a few comments from them that they had never seen so much daylight in December as they'd seen in Anchorage, it being significantly south of their hometowns in Norway. 

Flying north to Utqiagvik, I was curious to see how dark it would be in mid-December at 71 degrees north. I travel around to rural and remote villages weekly for work, and I never get tired of seeing the places and meeting the people. But a trip to the Chukchi Sea coast was something I was genuinely really excited about. I hadn't been there since 2014, and even in just those few hours, the place had made an impression on me. I was excited to go back, and this time I would spend the night!

A polar bear hide leaned up against the public library.

Nothing says "Chukchi Sea" like whalebones and an umiaq.