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!!