Variety is the spice of life

Today we played the annual Nordic vs. Alpine soccer game in the dome.  It's a rare thing when the Nordic team beats the Alpine team in soccer, but it happened today so we celebrated with a Nordic team picture. Many of us gave the "We're #1" sign, except Marine who gave the "We're #2" sign. She must have been confused by the fast action of the game.

Later in the day, it was mountain biking at Kincaid Park.  I was happy to hear Marine say that riding Kincaid's single track bike trails was the best mountain bike ride of her young life, especially considering that she has friends back home who are World Cup mountain bikers, and her family has a home at the bottom of the Col du Tourmalet, one of the most famous climbs in the Tour de France.

Andrew Arnold and Marine Dusser

Andrew Arnold, Marine, Andrew Kastning, Me

Rollerski Life

Here we are, doing our thing this morning:

Today was a day of drills. Andrew demonstrates what he wants from the boys.

The girls must have gotten together and decided pink/purple were going to be the colors for the workout.

I've been told there are some people who think Alaska is all igloos and polar bears.  While there may be some truth to that, the buildings in the background should be sufficient proof that not all our buildings are made of blocks of ice. On the other hand, I got chased by a polar bear right after I took this picture.

Coach Andrew, Marine, Synnøve, Patricia.

Hope

This is team-bonding weekend for the UAA Ski Team.  We all (alpine and nordic) drove an hour south of town for a hike up Point Hope on the south side of Turnagain Arm, after which most of the team stayed overnight for camping beside Sixmile Creek.

Racing the train down the highway.

The nordic team with the exception of Patricia, Marine, and Coach Nicole.

Andrew Arnold pointing out beluga whales in Turnagain Arm.

Do you think the coach is fired up for this season?

Descending back to Hope.

The entire team (alpine and nordic) minus Marine and Sean.

Travels

Here's one of those blog posts that has little to do with the UAA Ski Team, except that the activities described herein kept me from making it to UAA practice:

We recently rode our bikes from Anchorage to Seward - 130 miles.  It's the farthest I've ever ridden my bike in one sitting. We caught the train back home afterward. It was nice.

And last week I missed practice because I was out in the desert doing this:

Back in the Saddle

I joined the team for a little specific-strength rollerski action today.  It was good to be back with the group!





Lukas



Good News!

The first time I met Nicole De Yong was some time in the mid-1990's. Nicole's older sister, Kristy, was a member of the East High School ski team, and I had been asked by East's legendary ski coach, Harry Johnson, to show up at practice from time to time that winter to help out with some technical advice and other "special projects" as needed.  Before the state high school championships, there was a team spaghetti dinner at the De Yong house. After dinner, brownies and ice cream were brought out, and they were the best brownies I'd ever had!  I was told that Kristy's younger sister, Nicole, had made the brownies. Nicole was not yet in high school at that time, so I wasn't following her racing too closely, but I'll never forget those brownies!

Eventually, Nicole ended up on the UAA Ski Team and worked her way to the top of the college circuit, finishing second to her teammate, Mandy Kaempf, at the 2005 NCAA National Championships in Stowe, Vermont. She continued racing after college on the Nor-Am, Europa Cup, and World Cup circuits. As recently as this past winter, Nicole was one of the top racers in the US, with a win at the Owl Creek Chase and a 5th place in the American Birkebeiner Worldloppet race.

As I write this, Nicole is spending some time parked in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, Canada. She's on her way north from Sun Valley, Idaho, where she's been an athlete / coach for the past several years.  She'd already be in Anchorage by now but she blew a head gasket on her Subaru engine on the Alaska Highway in Watson Lake, and had to get her car towed to Whitehorse for repairs.

Nicole is on her way to Alaska to become UAA's new assistant nordic coach, and this team is very fortunate to have her!  Nicole brings her enthusiasm for the sport, her World Cup racing experience, and perhaps most importantly, her maturity and warm, friendly personality to this organization, and the team is certainly going to benefit from her involvement. Andrew and I are very excited to have Nicole join the coaching team this year.  With any luck, she'll manage to get her car fixed, get back on the road, and we'll see her in a few days.  Welcome back to UAA, Nicole!

Here's photographic proof that this coming winter won't be Nicole's first time giving feeds in a UAA jacket.  Here she is in 2005 or 2006, giving a drink to her UAA coach, Trond Flagstad, at the national championships.



Slapshot

I was out rollerskiing around the city in the rain this morning when I came across a few UAAers doing the same thing.  Why is it that I am reminded of Denis, the Chiefs goalie, every time I hang out with Étienne Richard?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XbL7lG0Su8

Changes

Migration. 
The sun turned to rain a week ago and it seems it's going to stay that way for a while.  The bears are starting to move from the fishing streams to the blueberry patches. It snowed in the Brooks Range last night. The birds are starting to think about flying south. And the UAA skiers are returning to Anchorage this week. Things fire up around here starting this weekend. I'm looking forward to it!
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Hey, check out this cake.   Happy Birthday, Patricia!

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Dévouement.
Next time your teammates start bitching about the condition of the ski trails, remind them that if they lived in the Gaspé, they'd be making their own damn tracks.
click here: Étienne Richard dans son habitat natal.



Tropical Training Camp

The UAA Ski Team blog needed to escape the record heat and sunshine in Anchorage (check it out here) for a little two-week training camp in Hawaii.

"training camp" mostly revolved around biking

On the road up Mauna Loa

 A lot of the lava around here is only a few years old.



Though the UAA head nordic ski coach grew up at high altitude in Colorado and has a natural affinity for low-pressure air and an ability to breath easily and comfortably at high altitudes while under heavy workload, the UAA blogger did not, and thus needs to occasionally climb 11,000 volcanos by bike to stay in touch with his inner nauseausness.


The best snorkeling required a little hiking.

 

There was time for the beach, too.
 

Competition

I have spent a little time racing in Europe in my day, and I always thought it was pretty competitive over there.  If you were a few percent behind, there were likely to be a lot of people between you and the winner on the result list. But apparently it's only gotten more competitive since then. By the looks of this photo, if you were just a couple seconds behind the winner, you got beat by a bunch of Schwarzwälder running fans, including some old geezers and little kids!  Fortunately, it looks like Lukas (127) was on the right end of things.

But what I really want to know is, did the race course go up or down the ski jump in the background at some point?

Videography

The UAA Ski Team Blog is still trying to find its way into the 21st century, but UAA Ski Team is technologically much more advanced. Thus, this video from Andrew:

http://vimeo.com/71465866

Camp Fuwa

In recent years, many Seawolves have spent time training at the UAA Ski Team's satellite training facility and European Headquarters in the heart of the Germany's Black Forest.  Raphael Wunderle and Laura Rombach honed their skills there during the summers in preparation for the grueling winter college circuit. Toby Schwoerer developed his incredible climbing skills doing laps up and down Feldberg. There are reported Lutz Klausmann sightings from time to time in the deepest, darkest, remotest parts of the Black Forest. Davis Dunlap made a trip there last summer to test the Schwarzwälder training venues and found them to be satisfactory. This year, "Camp Fuwa" is in session once again, as Lasse and Viktor have made the trip south from Scandinavia to run, rollerski and bike with Lukas around Schwarzwald's hills and valleys.

Three men, three goals, same training. Viktor's trying to work his way up through Sweden's national team program, Lasse's hoping to ski in the 2014 Olympics, and Lukas would sure love to win NCAA's next year.

Meanwhile, here in Anchorage, life is good:

European Vacation

I can't be everywhere.  I can't know everything. 

That's why I rely on my minions to send me dribs and drabs of information; little gems of knowledge and insight that I can't get while kicking around southcentral Alaska in this glorious summery sunshine.  And from time to time, my minions send me something notable and relevant.  Something interesting and compelling.  Something blogworthy.

For example: 

I already knew that Vicki and Lucky traveled long distances earlier this week to reunite with each other, crossing several international borders to do so.  They wanted to do some ski training together, they wanted to witness the Tour de France's epic 2xAlpe d'Huez stage in person, and they wanted to visit Marine in her native habitat in the Haute Savoie.  I had seen this picture on the interweb - a picture that leaves nobody feeling shamed or inadequate.  Just two guys sitting on the couch in Marine's living room:

Question:  Why would anyone hesitate to put a picture like this on the interweb?
Answer: They wouldn't.  It's a very nice picture.

On the other hand, there are some pictures that don't make it on the interweb so easily.  Maybe the people in the picture don't want these kinds of pictures floating around in cyberspace for all to see. Maybe they don't even know that certain photos were taken in the first place. And this is where my minions come in handy.  They send me these pictures so that I can keep you, the loyal UAA Team Blog reader, updated with the information you need to keep current on all the latest UAA Ski Team news.  For example, the picture below - a picture which was taken just hours ago.  If you know anything about the UAA Ski Team, or even if you don't know much about the team but have been keeping up with the blog, you will immediately understand what's going on in this picture.  If you don't understand what's going on in this picture then maybe you need to start paying a little closer attention:

 

Summertime Rolls (Part 2)

For the past couple of weeks, I've wracked my brain for a UAA Ski Team blog topic, but there's just.... nothing.  When most of the team are out of town and the remaining athletes are training with their respective summer training groups here in town - Alaska Winter Stars and Alaska Nordic Racing - and even the head coach goes on vacation to Colorado, there's not much left but sunshine, sunshine, warm weather and more sunshine here in Alaska.

So I'll post a few pictures for now.  But between now and late August, the blog posts will likely be few and far between because there's not much UAA Ski Team news for me to report on when everybody's doing their own thing for the summer.

Here are some photos I found on Facebook:

Andrew spent the weekend at the Fireweed 400 bike race between Sheep Mountain and Valdez.

A typical scene from the road.  I think this is probably Richardson Glacier.



It's my understanding that Davis is the proud new owner of this airplane. And yes, he does keep it in his driveway at home.

Davis in his element.

The Black Knight.  "It's just a flesh wound!"

There's only been about one rainy day this summer and this was it, so here's a picture of it.  Hiking near Anchorage.

Scenes from the trail...

Chugach rock is notoriously rotten.

When it's sunny I just can't bring myself to go in the office for work, so I set up my office on my deck.  I've spent a lot of time this summer at my "deck office".

And finally, the craziest of all:  When I finished "serious racing" a couple of decades ago, I was so happy that I'd NEVER have to go rollerskiing again.  And I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I'm actually beginning to like it again.  I've gone rollerskiing three times already this summer, and it's only July 15! I might even go again next week!  Here's a scene from the rollerski trail along Turngain Arm.  What's not to like?