They say a picture is worth a thousand words. So this, a collage of every CXC picture I have from last year, has to be worth a truckload! It makes me smile big when I look at it, because it’s such a mashup of great memories. A bit of goofing off, a bunch of training, and a lot of just going fast! This, folks, is basically a visual interpretation of why I ski!
Click the pic (and then maybe click again) to see it bigger…
Pictures from a perfect off day, spend in the waters of the Presque Isle River in the Porcupine Mountains.
Sometimes, you just need to take a little break from skiing, and focus on having fun. So on Monday, with no workout scheduled, Kuz, Karl, J. Diggs, Kelly, Audrey and I went in search of adventure. What we found was breathtaking, and exactly what we were looking for. And when Tuesday rolled around, we were ready, game on, to throw down on some hard uphill v1 intervals. Sometimes, you just need a little reset button, in the form of a relaxing dip!
the swim
the crew
the brave
the plunge
the VICTORIOUS!
Gus and his harem.
Box Jumps: Love the Burn.
The 09/10 CXC Elite Women's Squad. Helmets and bright bibs for safety!
This was his Birthday present from his dad.
Mush Kelly, Mush!
Agility Work.
By Kristina Owen
Cold all day, and dark between 4pm and 10am. I’m not sure I like it all that much.
Stuber looks like a winter fairy princess, with diamond crusted eyelashes.
Girls team practicing starts.
Wait a sec…does Jojo look a little intense? Let’s zoom a bit, shall we?
Ohhh yea. Givin it, every day, every practice, every start. Heck yea.
No Babies Here.
In the last college ranking list that Playboy magazine published, they listed University of Wisconsin-Madison as the biggest party school in the nation. There were many reasons why Playboy felt that they had earned this distinction, but their annual Halloween festivities were high on the list.
I mention this because it’s a measure of how tame my life has become. Heather and i are down in Madison for the weekend, which happens to be Halloween weekend, the weekend of biggest party of the year at the biggest party school in the country. And what are we doing? Eh, you know, fitting skis at the local shop (Fontana Sports), doing some clinics, training, hanging out with Yuriy, and going to bed early. We didn’t even bother to bring costumes. I know…seriously lame.
And we’ll be doing it all again tomorrow, so if you’re in the area, be sure to say hi. We’ve got a clinic in the morning at Badger park, and we’ll be at the west branch of Fontana all afternoon.
New toy: a pressure mat for more precise ski fitting. Apparently there’s only two of these out there. One belongs to the Canadian national team, and the other to Salomon USA. It’s seriously cool stuff. If you want to see it in action for yourself, i’d be willing to bet that it’s going to be out in Yellowstone for the Fall Festival expos.
Coach Natalie: “I want you to start with a thin layer of Toko green base, and then we’ll cover with a few layers of Toko blue…”
Wednesday night trail work is pretty much THE social even of the week on the Hayward calendar. Every week, a group of sweet people get together to go over the trail with fine tooth comb. Seriously, i’ve seen gardens in waaaay worse condition than that trail. Golf courses, even. It all becomes worth it when we have a bad snow year again, and can still race on 5″ of snow.
Unfortunately, we finished up the last of the new classic trail this week, so our weekly get to get-togethers are over for now. The classic trail goes all the way to OO now. In addition to making the classic race less crowded, it’s also another low snow year precaution. Generally, the north end of the trail gets just a little more snow than the south. If we have another year like 2 years ago (where they had just enough snow to hold the shortened race from telemark to OO) they’ll be able to send the entire race out the skate track and back on the classic, for a full marathon lenght. Pretty sweet, eh?
Heather needs a Hayward boy! Unfortunately, this frog did not turn into him…
