September Snow

The UAA Ski Team had another successful week of raining.... oops, I mean training... this week. Our team is comprised of 50% returning athletes this year, and 50% are new to our team.  In other words, 50% of our team thinks that it only rains in Alaska.  That is, until today, when it started snowing.

The team let me practice with them three times this week, so I was able to join them for skating intervals on Clark's Road on Wednesday.  The road was re-paved this summer, so it's a perfect place for rollerskiing.  It's steep enough and long enough that the team was able to do 12-minute intervals from bottom to top, but not so steep that it's impossible to ski back down. I heard a rumor that Viktor has been calling it "the best rollerskiing road ever". But then again, Viktor hasn't rollerskied up Hatcher Pass yet.

Lukas

Patti

Marine

Viktor

On Friday, I was able to join the team for a hike in the hills above town.  Andrew was looking for a place that would allow 50% running and 50% hiking, and hopefully not too muddy, so Near Point was our destination.  Neither I nor Lasse bothered to mention that the trail up to Near Point has one of the biggest mud bogs in the Chugach Range.  I don't know if this team would know what to do if they didn't have to slog through some mud during each workout.  It would be completely unfamiliar territory, and would probably only confuse our skiers.

Davis

We almost lost Viktor here.

Davis, Galen, Viktor, Lucky

Put your own caption here:

Anchorage is down there somewhere.

Today was the day for a long rollerski - 3.5 hours for the men and 4.5 hours for the women, on a loop around Anchorage's multi-use trail system.  This has been a hard week of training, finished with a long workout, so Calisa, Rianne, Molly and Sylvie were kind enough to prepare a deluxe, post-workout waffle breakfast for the team at Andrew and Calisa's house.  I can tell you that after the 4-hour mark, the main topic of conversation among our group was waffles, sausages, and bacon, and how much we love them all!  Our workout ended at Andrew and Calisa's door, where we were able to barge straight in and start snarfing down all the food in their house.  We started the workout in an inch of new snow, and it was snowing for the first hour of our workout.  But the snow gave way to sunshine for the last hour of our workout.  So the team got to see two kinds of weather today that we have not seen much of yet this year.  Winter isn't far away...

Patti & Marine

Cara

Maya and Cara.

I think Karina is pointing at the sun, wondering what it is.

Still smiling after 4 hours, 15 minutes

Thank you to Calisa, Rianne, Molly and Sylvie for the delicious brunch!!