First Race of the year!

Sprint Classic today in Steamboat Springs. Just a smaller national points race to start the year off, or finish 2010! Funny I know! Locked up a 5th place finish. Only mildly disappointing for me, I really was hoping to jump out to a fantastic start today. I made some silly mistakes on the top section of Howelson Hill in the first run, led to me accumulating a penalty and jump penalties because I was slower than death. I just didn't properly set myself up for the couple gates after the second exit, they were really turny and I was really straight. I will take away the third fastest second run time though! I skied clean, but I was still to straight up top. Things to work on this week I guess! I am looking forward to heading to euroland this thursday! Get ready to RUMBLE!

Happy New Years!

Steamboat Springs training!!

The last couple days I have been training in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Days one and two were awesome. I was really having a great time, and besides that, I was reallyy shredding. I put up some super fast times. A few of them were actually the fastest times of the day! OHRA! Today however was not the greatest of days. It was our first day on Howelson Hill, and I did not have the greatest of days. But lets not focus on the downers. The best of the day is that I jumped like I have never jumped before. So I am quite stoked. I have totally revamped my approach and technique involved with jumping. I am walking away from today a very happy man. Watch out Shane Anderson, Cory learned how to jump and is hot on your tails!!

Twitter?

Well its official, I am on twitter, check it out!! I will try to keep both of these updated, but I might be more consistent with tweets! So whatt who carreess?

FOLLOW!

Spread the gospel! Tell all your buddies to follow the blog!!

I'm on my waayyyy!

So it begins....I woke up at 4am this morning to catch my 9:55 flight from Boston to Denver, lading safely at the Denver International Airport. I am super stoked to find that Denver now has free Wifi! A welcome change since the last time I flew through here. I have about three hours to kill until my next flight and so far my trip has been eerily smooth. I suppose I will find out what I forgot pretty soon! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

first tracks...

Finally got to take a couple of runs in this weekend. I went home from UNH for thanksgiving break and, was able to get some turns in. Props to the guys up at Cannon Mountain for making some high quality snow for opening weekend. It felt great to get the boards beneath my feet again. I took a few easy free skiing runs on friday morning, followed by a couple basic drills in the afternoon to start to get the form pieced back together. Its amazing how quickly it comes back to you after being off snow for months! Saturday was too crowded so I did some quick drills and free runs in the am then called it a day. It would be a huge bummer to get hurt running into somebody on opening weekend. Huge thanks to Cannon Mountain for their support, skiing wouldn't the same without some good cannon snow! Also bought the first couple tickets for the season this weekend, heading to steamboat on christmas, and off to europe on January 6th. GET STOKED TO SKI!!!!

oh and thanks mom :)

Summer?

Summer is upon us here in the wonderful white mountains of northern New Hampshire, and I am hard at work preparing for the upcoming year. I have been all over the place getting my stuff together for the fall semester at UNH! As well as trying to organize myself for this winter. I have been training very hard this summer in an aggressive effort to gain a little weight as well as learning how to jump...finally. I am chasing the ever elusive sponsor, if I can find one or two this next season could be FANTASTIC! We shall see, in the meantime, here's a little hello from the knee dippin', zippin', trippin', whippin', kid..

Fifteen years?

Where will I be in fifteen years? I have a pretty good idea, but it is always bound to change. I think that I will be doing research at a university or major company in the sports industry. Of course that is what I hope I am going to be doing, so you never know. I hope that I am living in a place similar to here, easy access to the outdoors, especially the mountains. Hopefully I will have won a couple ski races along the way as well....

Technology?

Well, for me, technology has played a huge part in my life, as well as created a whole new world for me to live in, an alternate reality of sorts. Before I had all the technology, a computer, an ipod, a cell phone, all that other stuff, travel was a difficult task to suffer through. The endless plane rides and 18 hour car rides to Michigan were horrible. I would sleep through half the trip, and read the other half. I had to bring two or three books just to keep me occupied through the entire trip. Talk about trouble. Then, when we finally arrived at our destination I had no way of keeping in touch with all of my friends back home, I was gone, fallen off the side of the earth to them. Now with the advent of social networking sites such as Facebook, not only can I keep in touch while I am gone, but I can also keep in touch with the people who I meet when I travel. The ability to maintain long distance friendships across an ocean is incredible! The people I meet there are more than just people who I know, they are people who I talk with frequently, real friends! This is something that I place a high value on. The ability to communicate is something that I have certainly never had trouble doing in person, and now, have no problem doing 24/7. Maybe I am just another member of the technology generation, that is true, but I am also a member of what I like to call the "Maximizing Potential" club. If I can do it, the by golly I am going to do it. There is no point to purchasing a new computer with all sorts of incredible capabilities, and then plugging it into the wall and letting it sit there collecting dust while you go on living your plane old life. I think that access to technology is something that is going to become more and more popular, even more so than it already is. Our culture is going to have to learn to embrace technology and all that it can do for us. In the coming years we are going to see more and more people in the older generations using the newest technology and staying up to date. The attitude towards technology is going to see a huge shift from "its a tool", to "it is a critical part of our life." If you thought were in the technology age now, just wait, we have only just begun.

About me!

For those of you who are not already well aquainted with me, my name is Cory Snyder, and there are a few things that you should know about me, before proceeding, with out reading this, reading my blog could be detrimental to your health, well maybe not...anyways. Thing number one, Meagan Shamz, yup. Thing number two, I love skiing, period. Thing number three, music may just be what keeps me ticking. I also am fascinated with the inner workings of the human body, especially the muscular system. I would like to be a physical therapist after I go to school. I am also one of those weird people that gets a rise out of pushing my body to the brink of exahustion. Don't ask why, I just do. I like the way your body feels after an hour of hill sprints on your bike or the way your legs feel like jelly after a 30 mile ride. Thats just me. You know what else is me, eating. Boy do I love food. If I could be a food tester slash VO2 max tester, that would be the perfect job! I actually just created a new page, devoted entirely to odd bizare and or just plain old interesting or tasty, or not so tasty, foods that I run into along the path of life.

I'll leave you with a little question here, what are the three things that keep you ticking? Think long and hard, they may not come to you as quickly as you think. Have four or five, no problem, the number is different for everybody!

The Dual Prooo Slalom!

Today was definitely a highlight of the trip for me! It definitely did not seem that way when it began, but it sure did turn itself around. When we got to the hill today for the race and upon checking the start list, I discovered that I was paired with Shane Anderson. For those of you who don't know who Shane his, he won the three races at nationals, and he also has two world cup podium's. So I was at least a little nervous. As it turns out, racing against Shane was the best thing that could have happened. In the first run, I actually beat him, in time! Although as it turns out one course I skied was faster, but still I beat him. The second run, I didn't beat him. However my second run time was faster than his first run time, and My first run time was faster than his second run time. SOOO, when the race was over I was in the leadd!!! However I had to wait for FOUR HOURS before the results came out. They went like this "In sixth place, Jack Long, in a tie for fourth place, Jeffery Gay and David Hobbs, and in third place Charlie Dresen, in second place, Shane Anderson (by this point I was freaking out!) and your winner, CORY SNYDER!!!!" I won, how crazy is that, no penalties for the top 4, I was legitimately faster than everybody. I am incredibly psyched!!! Right now its off to bed before our early flight tomorrow!! WOOOOHHHHOOOOOO

GS!

I am not quite sure what to think of my performance today. After the first run, I sat second in just raw time. The snow was extremely hard so the skiing was oddly familiar and I definitely took advantage of the hard snow and the turny set and laid down a sweet run. There was one point where I could feel myself accelerating onto a straight section. The jump was not to big and most guys were overshooting without even jumping. So I really only jumped a little and I cut it just a little too close. My second run was not quite as fast but still clean and The jump, unfortunately, went just about the same. Overall I ended up 5th, so I am definitely happy with a career best finish today. I was hoping to get you a few photo's from today, maybe tomorrow. Tomorrow is the classic and I am definitely super stoked to rumble tomorrow. I always love a good classic :)

UM visit/WHITEFISH!

UM made a pretty big leap up my college list today...The campus reminds me of UVM minus the environmental friendliness. I took a tour of the Health and Human Performance lab's and did the usual admissions meeting/tour. It was very cool to see the HHP lab spaces and what machinery they have available right there on campus. It looks like they do some pretty cool stuff there. They had an altitude chamber, a heat, chamber, a water scale, and assorted pieces of machinery measuring power output and other such statistics. The campus as a whole is pretty big, but at the same time the buildings are close and the campus screamed "SINGLE SPEED BIKE" to me. The whole city of Missoula has bike lanes built into the street and from the notes I was able to take it looked like there is never a shortage of things to do out there! Its pretty late so I don't want to talk too much, but I had to blab about how much I loved that campus. I definitely want to visit another school and their lab to compare but UM looks pretty good right about now! So goodbye from the "fish" and we will talk tomorrow after the TELEMARK GIANT SLALOM!

UM visit/WHITEFISH!

Missoula!

I made it to Missoula in one piece after one really long day of travelling. We got up at 3:30 to make it from my uncles house in Stowe, VT to the Burlington Airport and our flight at 6:02; rough. We had a short layover in Chicago, but I had to check one of my carry on's through to Missoula because they ran out of room on the plane, so we couldn't eat the lunch that I had packed, which I was really looking forward to! Oh well, we have had worse. Then we had a miserable 4 hour layover in Denver. We got to the airport so early that we had to walk around for a long time before they even had our flight listed in the Departures screen. That sucked. When we finally we able to find our gate, which for the record looked like it had been added on as an afterthought: It had the appearance that It was formerly an equiptment or a boiler room or something along those lines, we had a gate change and we had to walk to the other end of the termianl. It was great to get out of Denver. The flight from Missoula to Denver is quite senic and the parts that I was awake for were pretty amazing! I managed to accumulate around four hours of sleep today :) We did not have any problems with our baggage or rental car and our hotel is sweet! Its a shame we are only staying here for one night. It has a hunting cabin appearance with all sorts of modern amenities such as giant flat screens and ihome's in EVERY ROOM!! Plus it's called the C'mon Inn, how could we have not chosen it. My uncle has a friend that knows all the good places to eat here in Missoula and we ate a spectacualr dinner at the little Brew Pub. It was really quite tasty! Tomorrow I have some meetings at the University of Montana so I am busy writing down all fo the questions that I want to make sure I ask. Well I have now been kicking for what feels to be about 19 hours so I am going to hit the hay!

Nice knowing you!

Th last couple days!

So I am very sorry about not being able to update my blog, the internet has been, shall I say difficult.....But the last couple of days have been kind of rough anyways. The GS on monday was good, 14th place. I was very comfortable on the GS hill at Steamboat and I already miss it. The drive from Steamboat to Keystone was amazing. The mountains were clear and prominent as ever. Our lodging here in Silverthorne is somewhat less than ideal. There are group showers, smelly rooms, with 8 guys. The last three races have been a little ugly. On Tuesday I sort slid out in the Sprint Classic on Howelsen Hill, lost a lot of time but still ended up in the top 20. Yesterday I only made it through 12 gates in the classic. I got kicked back off the jump and landed on my butt...not so fun. Today I made it all the way down, I felt fast but my time did not show it. I did lose some time off the jump doing a little "powder skiing." There was one steep pitch and when I was skiing it I had a very high line but I did not take the gates tight enough so I ended up skiing a lot longer line than all of the other competitors. The skate just felt slow. I training between 400-600 meters, the skate at the finish of the classic today was a little over 3300 meters. I was gassed, and that was after of skiing around 431 meters downhill.....it was crazy. I am excited for tomorrow, we have a GS, in the last one I made the flip 15 so I am stoked to try and put down two solid runs!

Sprint Classic

Today was the first of seven races here in Colorado, and the first of three in Steamboat. Todays race was on Howelsen Hill. Th course started on a narow pitch then dropped off onto the first of two steep sections with a large left footer, as is usually the set on Howelsen. There were four gates on the pitch then one on a little flat onto the jump. Now the jump on Howelsen is always big, and this year was no exception. Except the jump line was very large. In the first run, only one man and one woman made the jump line. Needless to say I was not that one man. The second run was better, but there were still very few men to make the line. The first run I skied pretty solid. i was fair on the top section, but I skied the bottom section much cleaner and I had a great start position for the second run. Th second run was clean just like the first, but I skied the top section much better. You can see the results of todays races on www.live-timing.com! Tomorrow is the GS on Mt. Werner!

The Classic take 2!

Here I am in Oslo Norway! Yesterday was a pretty crazy day! It all began with the classic....It was an epic course, almost the same gates as the GS two day earlier, except the finish was a little different, okay a lot different. After coming over the jump, we skied over the last roll the same, however four gates after that we went into this tiny little wrap. The thing was tight, a few people got squashed in it! When you came out of the wrap you went into the skate section. We crossed the hill then went up the next trail over for about 30 feet, then turned around and came back down around behind the finish line, up a hill and around a corner to the finish. It was pretty hilly and pretty turny. Not as long as I would have liked, but still an appropriate length for a classic.I skied the top section well, no problems, however when I reached the jump I hit a patch that had not been slipped wide enough and lost a ton of speed. I know it wasn't slipped wide enough because a lot of other people had the same problem that I did! So I didn't even come close to the jump line, well about a meter away.... oh well I know what I need to do to make jump lines, and it's all in the head! So after the classic almost immediately after we caught a bus down into the valley where, since we were the only ones on it, we got a free taxi service all around Rjukan! Then we caught a series of busses back to Oslo where a room mate of Roy's picked us up! He took us to see the Holmenkollen jump, it is under construction but the actuall jump is done. That thing is insane, it is enormous! it's the biggest hill I have ever seen, it's huge...We went back to his house, ate a delicious dinner and listened to them talk about the "good ole' days".....what a fun time. My flight leaves at 2 this afternoon and I should be home by 9! WOOOOOHOOO!!!

The Classic!

Spint Classic!

Today was an excellent day for me! I achieved goal goal #1 for the trip, beat Harald Kvaerner. He is a Norwegian who I met in 2008 and has been very helpful to me. It was pretty crazy in Rjukan today. There were banners and flags all over the hill, the local schools took the day off and came to watch the race, I signed about 20 autographs, and Madi signed a girl's forehead! Pretty cool! Here comes the kicker, tomorrow the race will be broadcast on the Norwegian channel NRK2. Unfortunately it is not available on the internet, but Roy did get some good video of my run. It was pretty cool to have the camera man run up to you when you finished your run and to see yourself on the big screen. On to the race. I love this hill! It has excellent terrain, little dips and rollers all the way down the course. I especially liked the snow here in Rjukan, it was rock solid ice. Everybody seemed to be having trouble on the course, however I particularly liked it. I am well suited to skiing on ice and laid down two solid runs. I ended up in 21st position. If I had made both the jump lines, I would have been somewhere around 16th or 15th, which would have been fantastic. The four skiers in front of me all were in the same second tier as I was although they all had less penalties. So it basically comes down to the fact that I ski really fast then get nailed with penalties.....So my goal for the rest of the year and especially tomorrow in the classic is to ski clean. If I can do that then I should end up with some very good results! Tomorrow is my best event so I am very much looking forward to a grueling classic to test myselft!

Spint Classic!

Rjukan!

After our numerous adventures yesterday and last night, we have had a pretty normal first day in Rjukan. We walked to breakfast, only about five minutes here. We trained on the sprint course, the one you can see on the YouTube videos by FRANZZZZ. it is really cool, there is a lot of terrain and it is pretty fun to ski. We ate a normal lunch, and tuned our ski's in a normal ski room, and now I am sitting in a normal cafeteria typing a normal blog. The rest of the team is back at the condo, but they we lucky enough to find a place to tune their skis before I was even done eating lunch so I will just wait here until dinner in an hour and a half! There are also opening ceremonies tonight, WOOOO. We didn't get that in Bjorli! Then again there was a lot of things that we didn't get in Bjorli....

Tomorrow is the GS. We did a little bit of free skiing on that hill today and I really like it. It has super sized rollers. There are big rolls that drop into steep pitches, then flatten out and drop off again. There is only one big long flat, but after that it should be very fun. The really know how to build jumps here in Rjukan and the GS jump is big...i might actually be able to make this jump line!!! Who knows, wish me luck!

Train....

Well here I am on a train from Bjorli to Rjukan. Our first train is from Bjorli to Lillehammer, that is the one I am on right now. In Lillehammer we will switch onto a new train from Lillehammer to Oslo Center. In Oslo we will, find an ATM because I have about 24.50kr left, or about $4. We have had to spend our money on larger expenses because our credit cards don’t work in some places. It’s screwed up. So first we find an ATM. Then we need to catch a bus to Rjukan, our final destination. Our train ride should be around 5 hours, and we are exactly 2 hours in right now (when I am righting is different from when I am posting, there is no internet on the train). Then our bus ride should be about 4 hours. I think that we should get into Rjukan around 7 or 8 tonight, if everything goes according to plan. I hope it does, I’m not sure I can take more than 9 hours sitting on my but. The train ride isn’t so bad. Norway is an amazing country, we just passed the Kjitfell downhill site, it was insane. IT looked like a cliff with snow on it and like seven or eight layers of B netting; scary. I will stick to telemark, no downhill for me! I almost forgot how incredibly boring travel is. I can hardly believe how tired I already am at 10:30 in the morning. I think I am going to take a nap now, it sounds very pleasing after working on French for the last 2 hours!

The Classic!

Well today was quite the interesting day. We awoke to the news that indeed todays race would be a classic, as the temperature was -25 celsius. The race time temperature was -20, a mere half a degree warmer than the -20.5 minimum for a classic race. So it was. As it has been, the snow was just a styrofoam block. Frigid, i can't even believe how cold it has been. This morning wen we got to the hill, via hotel van, Lorin, Erika, and Madi were left stranded for 15 minutes because their stuff was stuck in the back of the van, the car door was frozen shut. So all of their helmets, bibs, boots, you know, things that aren't really all that important were stuck in the back of some random van, Roy eventually got it out by somehow banging the back of the van with some sort of blunt object, maybe a stick of some sort. Another story for another time. On to the course, it was my favorite of the three here in Bjorli. The start was at the very top of the hill, about 5 gates higher than the GS start. it was a turny course set by the Norwegian coach Ivan. There was a flat wrap just above the sprint start, and then, A WAVE TRACK. So much fun, and also a great way to gain speed before going into a steep. I had a good speed after the wave track and was able to carry good speed over the knoll and over the flats to the jump. I made the mens short line, and I was inches away from the mens long line! I will consider that my best jump of the year. I am finally getting the hang of how to jump! Harald gave me some advice today and I think that in Rjukan I will make a jump line or two. The skate section at the bottom of the course was average, and I was not impressed. For a classic it was awful short. I wish it was longer, I could have made up some time!! Oh well, the skate in Rjukan is supposed to be killer, perfect! I am all packed up and ready to go tomorrow at 8:00. It is going to be a long day of traveling, all the way back to Oslo by train, and then to Rjukan by bus. It should be 9 hours total, miserable. Oh well, perfect time to get my homework done!!

The Telemark, and the adventure of skiing on styrofoam .

BRRRRRRR.....it is really cold here. Im not sure what makes -10 in Norway so different from -10 in Franconia, but holy cow was it cold. The walk home just icing on the cake today! We had a hard time slipping the course because the snow was so hard. The water content of this snow is so low that it has the effect of being across between ice and real styrofoam; hard and sticky. Not wet sticky, but the opposite, cold sticky. I would compare it to a cold telephone pole. Let's pretend that your skis are your tongue, when you put your tongue on the frozen telephone pole, it sticks. Well the same thing was happening to me today with my skis. Everyone had the same problem. It is so cold that the snow just ins't fast. Did I mention that this type of snow has the tendency to make giant divots or bumps in the snow. That being said I spent the first run fighting the ruts, trying to no avail to cut down the line, it was just to bumpy. I jumped like a frog, and still missed the line. The course leading up to the jump is flat, and I am afraid that I am not big enough to carry good speed over the SLOW flats of Bjorli. Oh well. i finished in front of my start number always good. Second run started out much better. I took a tight line going inside the ruts, at the expense of my forearms, so I was faster, but still not enough to make the line, I missed by about a foot (the Norwegian who was at the jump told me, I wasn't looking down). After the jump was where I ran into trouble. I hit one of those bumps, except this one was a cross rut from the first run with a bigger hole right where I landed after being bucked by the rut. Needless to say that the following second consisted of me skiing on one leg, me skiing on no legs, me skiing on my face, and finally me hiking to finish the race. DFL, but I am still happy because I skied very well on the top section.

Tomorrow is the classic, one run of pain. That is as long as the temperature does not drop below -20.5, in which case it will be a telemark like today. Either way I am going to attack and try to make my last race in Bjorli my best!

First Race

Well, today was neither the best of days, nor the worst of days. A 28th place finish is not exactly fantastic, however for the first race of the season for me, it is as to be expected. The first fun was not an overly challenging set, however it definitely presented a unique set of challenges. The top section had three gates on a steep followed by a delay set on the transition on the the flat section of the course. I did not have trouble there, but I lost a lot of speed in those flats and the did not make the jump line. I am just not quite big enough, nor did I have a good wax, to carry the proper amount of speed to make the jump line, which only three people made all day, so I don't feel to bad about that. I also had a poor angle of the jump which led to me hitting a large bump and getting tossed off line, lucky for me there was a long delay set after the jump so I was able to get back on line quickly. But it cost me a lot of speed and the bottom of the course was deathly flat and the snow was verryyy slowww, the slowest section of the course. I had low speed through the wrap and my skate started slowly, but I am a fairly good skater and made up a little time there, but not much. Second run looks about the same as the first, nothing especially fast, with fewer mistakes. The second run set was simple, and me the thinker waayayyy over-skied it. Things to work on for tomorrow, better edge angles, ski the set. Things to work on for next year, GET BIGGER!!!

Wish me luck tomorrow in the Telemark!

Training Day One

Today we had our first day of training in the fresh Bjorli snow!!! We got about a meter of snow here in Norway and to the runs in the course were insane!!! It was also really cold here, like 10 degrees. The first couple runs were okay, one run and slip, but as the day wore on the course got very bumpy. The run to the course was a mess too as one hundred ripping tele skiers shredded to the course, eventually everyone stopped trying to ski it and we just slid all the way down to it. I feel like I skied very well today. The piste isn't overly challenging, nor was it very hard. But it was just as fun. We were able to get a ride to the hill today! That was fantastic! But we still had to walk back, the Dane's brought all of our gear. The sky's were clear and I got some great shots of the beautiful hills of Norway! The sky's were finally clear after yesterdays snowstorm, and the mountains here are absolutely amazing. It is unbelievable how suddenly they rise from the flats. This truly is an amazing country. Today I ate lunch at the same table as reigning world cup overall champion, Eirik Rykhus, that was pretty cool, he doesn't say much, but I guess he lets his skiing do the talking. Tomorrow is the first race, a sprint classic, so will will be up early to be on the hill. I don't have any FIS points now so I will probably start at the very back, if not last. Hopefully I can get a few good runs under my belt so that I can raise my start position. Right now i am about to embark down to the wax room to work on my skis, its a mess down there, this photo was this-morning, and since then the Norwegians and French have arrived so the amount of skis in there has risen significantly! It is hard to find a time to work on your skis with all those people in there! Wish me luck tomorrow!!

First day!

Today was amazing! I slept for 12 hours last night and i almost missed breakfast this morning. In norway they eat an odd assortment of meat and bread for breakfast, so I was stuck with cereal and a roast beef sandwich. We took a long time to get ready this morning and finally got to the mountain around 11:30. There is a 20 minute walk from our hotel to the ski area :( it sucks. The only team that has a car is the swiss team, lucky ducks. They shared it with all of the other teams today but we didn't get up in time. Today there was like two feet of snow so we made some EPIC powder turns. So amazing! The snow was a little bit like cement and the hill is sort of flat, but it was still an amazing day. The food is okay...we had soup last night for dinner, it was all they had left, but it was pretty tasty. This morning for breakfast we had soft boiled eggs and meat..it was interesting to say the least. I am loving it here, the conditions are interesting, our wax room is tiny, but the snow is sweet and must admit, its better than being in school :) Tomorrow we have an official training day so I am pretty excited about that! The walk really sucks, its a long ways to walk in ski boots...I hope we can get a ride over there over the next couple of days. But I am in a single hotel room, so that is pretty sweet, and wait, oh my god, the floors in the bathroom are SWEETTT!!! They are heated, it is sooo niccee when you get out of the shower, as well as to dry your stuff out at the end of the day. It is still snowing, and I am getting hungry, so until another day!!!

NORGE!

Wow, it has been the most hectic yet laid back day of travel I have ever had. After Iceland, I hoped on a quick jet to Oslo, only 2.5 hours. I met up with the rest of the ski team at the baggage pick up in Oslo. From there we bought train tickets and then the fun really started....we waited three hours for our train to leave. at around 14:45 (2:45) our train pulled in, and we loaded four bags and four very large ski bags onto the train car in, oh, about 15 seconds. No sooner had the last person stepped onto the train did the doors shut. Time for some more fun! A 5 hour train ride from Oslo to Durbin, where we took skis off the train in record time, only to carry them across the platform and load them right onto a new train. That train ride was only an hour....thank god. We were the only people who got of in Bjorli, the first place we are racing. Only one catch to the only only ones, well along with the Slovenian team that we met in Oslo,we were the only ones at a tiny train station in the middle of Norway, fun I know...did I mention that there was a foot of snow on the ground? ONly the better to slow us down and soak us to the core while we waited for a hotel shuttle to pick us up, but now finally i am safe and sound in Norway after a long day of travel. Training runs tomorrow and maybe a little jog in the am, that doesn't look very likely though, its snowing like a banshee outside!!! WOOOOO!!!!

Hello from Reykavick!

So Iceland, kind of a buzz kill, I get here and its dark, as in 6:30 in the morning and its like pitch black, no light anywhere, it’s miserable. So I walk inside, and wow, it is a beautiful airport, like amazing. There are all sorts of asymmetrical walls and giant sculptures and it was just a good-looking airport. One of the nicest I have ever flown through. Then I got to security…The American security measures do not comply with the European Union standards so we have to take every piece of electronic equipment out of your bag…and guess what I did, pack ALL, and I mean every last piece, of my electronic equipment in my carry on, so here I am getting patted down after going through the metal detector, and I get an airport security dude, who looks at me, gives me the old come back here. I ended up basically unpacking my carry on putting it through a scanner, then repacking it…talk about flustered. All in all my stay in Iceland was relatively uneventful, just the way I like it, I have to say, the airport was pretty damn cool J

One lucky idiot...

I just happen to be the luckiest idiot on the face of this planet. I took out my camera on the way down to take a photo of the back of our car being totally packed full of stuff. Upon taking out my camera, I noticed that camera felt a little light. I'm an idiot, I left the battery, and the charger in the wall, charging, at home. So we jumped off the highway and found a camera store, $75 dollars latter we got back on the highway with a new camera and charger. Ugh, what an idiot, maybe I should have started packing on friday when my parents told me to? I hope thats the only thing I forget. When we finally arrived at the airport, the real luck kicked in. My ski case weighed exactly 50 lbs when we weighed it at home. When we got to the airport we were every nervous about the ski case going overweight and being charged an overweight charge of 50 lbs. We had the nicest check in lady ever, we asked how much my bags weighed because the weight was weighed in kilograms. She said that she didn't know, she hadn't even checked how much the bags weighed, after our tags were attached to the bag! we were underweight anyway, so i guess it doesn't really matter how much my bags weighed...once again proving how lucky I am.

So there is exactly one hour until I leave school for Norway, and quite honestly I am freaking out! I am in english class, and we are doing a really cool assignment, one that I was really excited to do. My mind on the other hand is on a completely different planet. I just looked up at the clock and my mind started racing. "One hour, so much to do, drive down, repack my murse, survive Boston rush hour, check in weigh my bags, (I am a little nervous about that one, one of my bags weighed exactly 50lbs at my house.) and pass security. Its quite a bit to think about. I have also been thinking about the essay that I am going to try to write on my flight. I want to have it done in two hours, seeing as I have about seven hours to fly across the atlantic ocean to Reykavik Iceland! So for now goodbye ap comp class, I will see you in about 12 days, when I return. I hope you are as exited to hear about my adventures as I am to live them!