Bend Oregon Recap and Beyooooond!

 I’m on my way back to Toronto for one final visit with the fam, on my way through to Thunder Bay, which conveniently falls on my Mom’s Birthday! My wonderfully, awesome brother is picking me up from the airport at midnight in the middle of his exam period…. You’re the best! Right now I just can’t wait to go to bed. It’s been a full on day of sitting and people watching as there isn’t much else to do in airports. You should check out my friend Jennie Bender’s blog post about traveling in airports, it’s pretty hilarious and yet so true!HERE

By the time I reached Atlanta, Georgia (this means I basically flew across the Americas), everything became rather humorous. I noticed, from my middle seat, on the decent into Atlanta,  the amount of trees still standing. It looked like a giant field of broccoli the whole way down, even amongst the residential areas. I thought it would be much more urban but it turns out Atlanta likes it’s trees. Good on you Atlanta.  Once we landed and the seatbelt sign was turned off I noticed I had about 15 minutes to catch my connection. This was just as the flight attendant starts explaining how huge the airport is and to view the screens to find your concourse as they just opened up a new wing of the airport. Yippeeeee. Luckily, there was a tram to take me across the airport to catch the flight. I was that antsy person skipping stairs on the escalator with multiple “excuse me’s” and speed walking the moving sidewalks. As I finished rushing over to the gate and working up a good case of the travel sweats (eww) I realized boarding was an hour before take off. Que the Smoothie King. I went to get a smoothie from a place that looked like Booster Juice, but instead landed myself at “The Smoothie King” and turns out in Atlanta the large looks a lot like this:

I never get a large, in anything, what was I thinking? Note to self, read fine print to realize how big 20oz of orange juice, bananas and mangos really are. It’s bigger than my head. I drank the whole thing.  It was delicious.

But enough about my travels, Bend was great. Really, a sweet camp with a great group, quality training and a lot of laughs. I promise to just load up on pictures now....

It was great to see my good friend and Team Hardwood Alumni Alana, now a member of the AWCA.

One day Michael had REALLY slow skis and I had REALLY REALLY fast skis so we were able to catch a ski together on a very nice day. Michael here soaking up the greatness. Thank you Fischer for making uber fast zeros.

Skiers in the morning, Sluggers by the afternoon. Here’s Emily Nishikawa killing it at bat. “That’s a nice slice” or something like that. I realized this was my first ever baseball game. I think I did okay… I made contact with the ball! But also stopped a ball with my shin. Ouch!

One day it snowed forever! A one-armed Kate managed to make a snowman to “guard” the boys' ride home.

Snow snow snow. It snowed aaallll day.

Oh, and day one, we broke a window. We had good intentions when we got locked out but it didn't turn out so well. Quick fix.

My first SUN DOG! I have never seen or heard of it before but was quickly educated after I called it and upside-down rainbow. A pretty cool site.

 View from one of our houses.

Coffee at Thump, a local coffee shop. MMMMM.Wishes are written and hung throughout Thump.

We finished off the camp with a Beck concert at the downtown Amphitheater. Annika got a prime view.

Enjoying Beck!

Thanks to the Alberta World Cup Academy for taking me on this last week! Now to get back to Thunder Bay and put in a few solid weeks of training with the new 2012/2013 NDC team. Can’t wait to see everyone! Next we will take part in the LSSD training camp held in Thunder Bay.  Hopefully I’ll have some adventure before then. Like redecorating me room…..? What?

Erin.

A Jumbalia Of Sorts

This post will be a bit random with the topics and photos. There are a few things to catch up on since the new training season has begun. First off, I want to say thanks to the great team we had last year up here in Thunder Bay. As a whole it was one of our most successful seasons. We will see many changes for the 2012/2013 season but before I jump into that take a look at these pretty faces:

Team NDC 2011/2012

First change: Coach Eric Bailey has retired from coaching after being with NDC for 8 years. He was my coach for the duration of my stay thus far in Thunder Bay (3 years) and I've learned many, many lessons from him as an athlete. We are sad to see him go but I truly wish him the best in his future. Taking his place as the new head coach is Mark Doble. It's always an adjustment working with and getting to know a new coach but I have a lot of confidence in working with Mark. He's ready to take on this team and it sounds like it'll be an exciting year.

click-clack in Moreno, Italy.

Our new team has been named and we will continue on with 11 athletes: 9 returners and 2 newbies.  All three girls are back and I'm stoked to continue on with our pack of speedy ladies. *Que beyonce, "All the speedy ladies"*

Other speedy ladies in TBay:

A bunch of us after the Lakehead University Athletic Banquet this spring where we got all dressed up and watched the LU xc ski team clean the crap out of the awards ceremony. I was there as date and support of Harry since I'm not actually on the team, but it was a perfect excuse to get all fancied up. Congrats LU!

AND NOW.... I'M IN BEND, OREGON.

This picture really doesn't do the ski site justice (yes this is a downhill photo but the xc is behind me).
I joined on with the Alberta World Cup Academy for their on snow camp for 12 days of wonderful skiing. We are skiing in the mornings and continuing with dryland in the afternoons.

This afternoon's run in an Oregon National Forest. The weather changes so fast from mountain to town and morning to afternoon.

Bend is a really cool town with a pretty awesome vibe. A lot of local shops, eateries and plenty gorgeous properties to feast my eyes on. We are only 2 hours or so from the coast and 20min from Mount Bachelor where we are skiing. Another cool part about this camp is the number of not only people, but women who have congregated here to train all in the same week. We took part in a sprint workout this morning and once everyone clusters together there were easily 30 women taking to the trail head to head. Americans and Canadians all together, it's so great.

We've also been creating very extensive meals in our house as we have the kitchen equipped to do so. And I took pictures. This is from a seemingly famous cook book in Canmore called Whitewater. I don't even remember what it was called but it has ten layers.

The device.

 Each layer has a base of goat cheese, pesto and mozzarella.

 Layered roasted veggies...sweet potatoes.

 Zucchinis. 

 Eggplants.

 Peppers...above the threshold. (and many more layers of delicious surprises not pictured)

 Mmmmm just baked.

The spring-form pan the house conveniently had worked perfectly. We plated the dish with homemade tomato sauce, and lemon/basil aioli. 

More cool stuff to come in the next few days. 

Later!

A Trip Through Time

Prelude: I wrote this about 2 weeks ago but didn't finish it and therefore didn't post it. My next post will be current! Keep reading... there are PICTURES! click on them to see biggy size :)

It's funny how something you haven't done, gets done by avoiding something else. This morning I'm prolonging a long run since it's raining. I decided to take an extra hour to let it warm up and drink my coffee. Yesterday was so warm. Oh well, that's the thing about this athlete thing... literally rain or shine... or hail, or thunder, or blizzard or tornado, you go out there because it's what we do. I would like to say I'm gung-ho about training everyday, but when bad weather hits, I'm glad I have teammates to go with. Today I may be on my own, but that won't be for long as team training will resume in a few weeks.  Until then we are going on a trip through time..

NATIONALS

We finished the season in Mont. St. Anne, Quebec. How do I sum up this week? ...(huge sigh)... FINALLY! I finally had a week of racing that I'm truly proud of this season. It hadn't been the most stellar year for me but things went much better and I skied to a few good races. This event hosts 5 races in 7 days, beginning with the Club Sprint which was one of the most fun of the week. I raced with team mate Mary Thompson as we represented our club roots at Team Hardwood. Before I go any further you have to know this week was the warmest I've ever seen at a National Champs. +10 easily each day, and sunny. Am I complaining? Not really... but it melts snow. And then it's all everyone talks about when it gets uber mushy and the track doesn't hold up. It's one extra thing to think about but I really don't mind skiing in this weather because A) I get a suntan,  B) Our wax team did a superb job everyday, C) I kind of secretly like skiing on klister for some reason I've yet to understand, and D) everyone has to ski in the same conditions.

Here's a rundown of the races:

5km Classic- Biggest surprise of the week. I hadn't gotten any splits out there to let me in on where I stood throughout the race but was pleasantly surprised when the results posted an 8th place,  4th Canadian. This turned out to be my best distance result as a Senior Women to date. I'll take it.

Photo Credit: Event Site

Photo Credit: Event Site

10km Skate- This day was a messy one. It was the warmest race I've seen and people were literally racing in their skivvies. My coach said to me right before the race, pace it like a 15km to start. The snow was so soft that poles punched through very easily and you had to ski light... or die. Dramatic, yes, but the probability of over heating/bonking/falling on the downhills in the mush were rather high.  At the end of the day I pulled out a 23rd. Nothing to get upset over, but it could have been better. I just tried my best to keep everything moving on this "special day." That's the thing, no matter the conditions, it's still a race.

Skate Sprint- The event staff injected fertilizer into the snow to help it firm up over night. And firm up it did! It was a brand new course by the time we began qualifications and I had some fast skis. Yessir I did. I came out in my best qualify position, 8th and 8.29 sec behind the leader and Olympic gold medalist Chandra Crawford. Exciting? Yep. Terrifying? Surprisingly so. I felt great and was pumped by the result but then I got a dose of the nerves before the heats and I skied a little too spastically to automatically move on to the semi-finals. I lunged for the line and got 3rd in my quarterfinal heat, but our heat was too slow overall to move on, and I was out. A mixed bag on the day, I'm racing fast but was surprised by my reaction to the success. Que something to address with my sport psych.

Sprint Qualifier. Photo Credit: Martin Kaiser

Quarter Final Heat. Photo Credit: Event Site

30km Classic- My 3rd 30km to date and wowweee what a race. Teammate Andrea and I worked together with Alysson Marshall to pull out a solid race. I came in at 9th, 7th Canadian, with Andrea right there in 10th. The course was 5x5km and by the end there were no tracks left. Even if there were it was faster to ski outside the track. For the last race of the year it was not too shabby.

A little shake for a job well done. Photo credit: event site

The efforts of the week put me in 3rd Aggregate for the Under 23 category. Part of me was sad the season was over because I felt like I was finally racing fast. At least it left me motivated for the new training season. But I took April to relax and work a bunch in Thunder Bay.

Team Hardwood girlies together again! L: Mary Thompson, me, Anna G-W, Alana Thomas

More to come on my current adventures in the next few days.....
E.