After a few days of 80 degrees and sun, we showed up for the skate prologue and were suprised with a hard packed, icy fast course! It came as a bit of a shock after an all-running warmup (the course was closed to athletes). Everyone felt -and looked- pretty uncoordinated out there for the first lap but things pulled together the second time round the course.

The next day we had a 10km/15km mass start classic, in the slush and rain! It wasn’t a super great day for me as I picked the wrong pair of skis and ended up doing more running than cross-country skiing. I tired out really quickly and although I pushed my hardest, it sure didn’t look that way on the results sheet! Sadie skied a really impressive race, pushing the pace from the second lap on and winning, with all results and race information for the week at http://www.2012supertourfinals.com/home/

Today, however, the sun came back out and we got our classic sprint on. I was super psyched to make it to the final and get to follow Chandra and Kikkan through the course – trying to keep up with them is hard but fun! Chandra showed us how it’s done by winning both the qualifier by a ton and then the final…all after winning the sprints and 30km at Canadian Nationals! Sooo impressive. And Kikkan came back from Red Bull Finals, which I’m putting here:

Red Bull Nordix 2012

If you’ve never seen skier cross done on cross-country skis, you need to watch this! The video highlights the jumps and rounds of this year’s Nordix in Oslo at the Holmenkollen venue.

The course today was hard and fast and icy, till the sun warmed up the tracks and it slowed down a bit. But it was still fast enough to make the twisting, winding downhill a very interesting experience!

On our day off in-between the 10km and sprints, the CXC team went on a little tour of Vermont, which was AWESOME! We saw maple syrup being made in the sugar shack, visited Lake Champlain Chocolates and saw Cabot cheese, and got hot cider at Cold Hollow Cider. And the we went to the Ben and Jerry’s factory!

This part of the tour really made my day. Week. Heck, it made my whole month better.

Waylon and Adam goofing off...(Simak photo)

Did you know that the top 3 best selling ice creams are: Cherry Garcia, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, and Chunky Monkey?

I’ve always dreamed of holding a tub of ice cream that’s bigger than my head. It was fun to try the Vermonster challenge but even with 6 of us, we couldn’t take down the entire tub in one go! It’s a gallon of ice cream with bananas, cookies, and various other toppings that all turn to soup by the end. We all got serious stomach aches later, but some things are just worth it. There are some people who would raise an eyebrow at my pre-race strategy of eating my weight in ice-cream…but I happened to have my best classic race in a loong time today, so obviously the sugar-high pays off big time!

Then the sugar high set in. And I couldn’t. stop. moving! It was pretty funny actually.

Tomorrow we’ll go do some serious hill climbing!

Just two weeks later I was roller-skiing in shorts and a t-shirt and still sweating! although a little disappointed to be roller-skiing this early in the year, the 65 degree weather and clean clear roads where quite enjoyable. I still wish it was snow.

Today I arrived at a sweet cabin in Canada.  I will be racing here twice and I’m pretty excited! it will be my first time racing outside of the USA. After the two races in Canada I’m heading to vermont for spring series. 

While spring is arriving at top speed around the country, I am at home in Vermont, awaiting my drive to Canadian Nationals, and watching the weather forecast of the next two weeks for Craftsbury (Spring Nationals) like everyone else. The 70 degrees and raining doesn’t look good, although I must say their 2.5k loop is holding strong. Over the past two years, the East hasn’t received the best luck while hosting National events. We DO have snow…at times….I swear!!

I love the sights, smells, and sounds of Vermont in the spring. We went to visit my neighbor down the rutted dirt road (it is mud season after all) who has a large sugar house currently in full swing. As we walked up their driveway, two very prominent work horses behind a thin wire fence greeted us. You better feel comfortable around horses, because you have to duck under the fence and walk through their domain to get any farther. In the background, the many cords of wood are piled next to the sugar barn, steam billows from the roof opening, and the forest has a web of blue veins carrying sap.

With only two people running the show, the sugar house process must be a continuous flow, literally. It’s actually quite amazing, not to mention mesmerizing, as the sap travels through many stages such as reverse osmosis and boiling before it comes out as Maple Syrup. It takes 35-45 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of maple syrup, and the yearly preparation with setting lines, cutting wood, clearing trails to get to the taps, is a tremendous amount of work. A short spring with only one freeze/thaw is not good for the business, as it is this weather pattern that keeps the sap flowing.

Meanwhile in other news, I have now seen my first (completely) naked nordic skier on a public trail, WELCOME back to Vermont!

Waxing in a barn for the Swiss cup, but these races are legit.  Remo Fisher (6th in a World Cup this year) was the man to beat today.  Congratulations to Tad today who went for it and gave it a good go.  He was 1 second up on Remo when he got me from 30 seconds back at 5km.  I hung on him for 2km and he made me hurt real good.  Warm out there today but we had some fast boards.  Strange conditions today.  Even at 55F my fastest skis today were with an s2 grind.  Typically a cold grind but if was great today with a little more structure.  I dropped off Tad and had a real hurt session before coming around a bit to hammer it into the finish.  I ended up 4th place today for me which I am very happy about although the time gaps were pretty substantial.  Excited for tomorrow’s 15km mass start classic race. Thank you to NNF, USST and Methow Opportunity Fund for making this trip possible.

The barns and buildings here in Switzerland are sweet.

Men’s Overall Results

Women’s Results

Women’s Podium: Becca (APU) 3rd place

Men’s Podium: Tad (Homegrown/USST) 2nd Place

It was an exciting few days at the Madison Winter Festival Super Tour Sprints this past weekend. These races were held on the streets of down-town Madison, WI where they trucked in tons of snow to make a sprint course that circled around the capital building,

Looks similar to my house in Canada... :)

I have to say that I was extremely impressed at the amount of hard work put in by CXC and all the volunteers. CXC has an incredible community of people that all give sooo much to this organization and it was great to be able to race here in Wisconsin’s Capital.

There were two sprint races; a classic and a skate. I placed 8th in the classic and then medalled the second day with a 3rd place finish!

CXC Podium Sweep on the girls side! Jennie 1st, Natalia 2nd! Good effort from all my teammates this weekend!

Thanks to Renee Callaway for all the great photos!

I am now in Hayward getting ready for the American Birkebeiner happening Saturday the 25th. There are lots of events to attend this whole week as everyone is getting ready for the big day, “Birkie Fever” they call it. Can’t wait!

Sweet views driving to Aspen

I flew out of Minneapolis last Thursday and arrived in Colorado for the first time since graduating from the University of Colorado in 2009.  It was great to be back and after a long but really cool drive through the mountains I arrived in Aspen Thursday night.  With a Classic Sprint and Classic 10K on Saturday followed by the 21K Owl Creek on Sunday I knew a busy fun weekend was in store.

Sprint Podium

Skiing at altitude is tricky and  since I lacked the ability to arrive super early and acclimatize arriving just before the races seemed  best.  The race venue right by Aspen High School offers very good trails with long gradual hills.  The 1.4 k sprint went really well and I was excited to feel strong sprinting at altitude.  The sprint was followed a few hours later by a 10k.  The 10k went okay and although I felt I skied okay the result was not what I had hoped for. Overall though I was very pleased with the day.

Sunday was the 21k Owl Creek Chase.  One of the largest improvement I feel I have made this year is becoming more consistent.  With that being said I still understand that not everyday can be great and I have to take the good with the bad.  Saturday was just one of those days.   The plan going in was to ski as relaxed as possible and work my way up.   Unfortunately, I never felt like I was able to get things going and struggled the entire race.  A rough day but just one race of many and time to prepare for the next one.

I haven’t raced in Madison since High School but I have great memories from racing on the streets around the Capitol and excited to return this coming weekend.  Saturday is a classic Sprint and Sunday a Skate sprint.  If you can make it to Madison this weekend for Winter Fest and the Supertour don’t miss it. There is going to be some exciting racing in downtown Madison!

While traveling, training, racing, working, and planning too much time has passed since the last time I blogged.  Santi and I have been working like crazy to plan one big adventure for this spring.  We are very excited to announce that after this year’s Great American Birkebeiner the two of us will drive down to Charleston, South Carolina to start our Ski Across America (roller ski that is).  We will be skiing from Charleston, South Carolina to San Francisco, California to raise funds for the organization Food for the Poor.  With only a few weeks to go until the start of the journey we are waiting to hear from sponsors, planning our fund raising stops, and tying up loose ends. We would like to give a big thank you shout out to V2 roller skis for being our trip roller ski sponsor!

Please be sure to check out our website at http://www.skiacrossamerica.com and Like us on Facebook (Ski Across America).   We both love to ski and we are very thankful for all the wonderful generosity that has been shared with us.  We feel that its time for us to do the same and help others who need it.  We would like to share a bit of food for thought with everyone regarding our journey and its mission. We found out that one U.S. dollar can feed a child for ten days in an impoverished country, and $36 can feed a child for a year.  Therefore, it is our goal to raise $36 for every mile we ski in hopes of raising $108,000, enough to feed 3,000 children for a year.  Any financial donation you can provide to the cause is greatly appreciated.

Thank you and happy skiing to everyone!

Carolyn Ocariz

After completing the Mini Tour in Minneapolis I decided that I was keen to keep racing, so I made some last minute plans and hopped on a plain to Ottawa, Canada to race at the Eastern Canadian Championships.

It was another 3-day mini tour, where they combine the results from a skate sprint, and skate 10km to give you a handicap start for a 15km classic stage on the last day. This gives you an overall winner for the entire weekend.

This being my 4th weekend of racing in a row, I was feeling a little tired and not quite sure how things were going to play out. Some days it was all I could do to get myself out of bed and to the race site. I did fairly well in the skate sprint, skiing a strong semi and BARELY missing out on the A-final with a lunge to the line. Finished 9th for the day. I finished 4th in the 10km skate, putting me in 5th place for the pursuit start of the 15km classic the next day. This race was a fight for 3rd place as the top two skiers had a large head start over the rest of the field. I skied a strong race and stayed with the chasing group until the finish, where I was out sprinted, crossing the line in 5th. Not too bad! I was happy with my races and excited that I was able to push through the fatigue and fight till the end.

Kate Brennan starting the 15km pursuit with me chasing her 2 sec behind

Minni-Tour Podium. (1st and 4th had to catch a flight)

Now I am back at home for a little RnR before I head back to the Midwest, in just over a week to compete at the Madison Winter Festival followed by the American Birkebeiner.

Race day was warm enough to race, but that was about it. The course was the same for both men and women, and the snow was so slow from the cold! It was a flat course punctuated by two short and steep bridges, but long enough that you could blow up too early if you weren’t warmed up enough. So I put in a pretty long and sharp warmup, hoping to ski fast enough to get into the rounds. That was my goal for the day, so I pushed the qualifier as hard as I could! And somehow, for 3 minutes and 37 seconds, I was the fastest woman in the world. But don’t worry – I didn’t let it go to my head. In fact, when the coaches told me I won the qualifier, I actually thought it was a joke! I refused to believe it, because I didn’t want to get too excited, since I was sure that once they’d fixed the timing mistake I’d be way down the list. But I guess they don’t make mistakes over here! I did a couple backflips on the inside and did my best to prepare for the quarterfinals.

Can I quickly say how amazing our wax techs and equipment are? The new Salomon soft ground skis, with Zach Caldwell’s S1-OX grind (I usually don’t get all nerdy about this, but if you’re interested…that’s the grind of the day) were awesome. I’ve gotten so much help and support this year from all over, and it makes all the difference come race day. So thanks guys!

I think I must have been on cloud nine all day…it was just so exciting! So many North Americans made it to the heats, and there was so much positive energy buzzing around it was hard to stay in race mode. But after falling so many times in Milan, I wanted to stay out of trouble and stay on my feet, so I got out to the front as soon as I could. In hindsight, it might not have been a super good idea to lead the quarterfinal since there was a headwind and it sapped a lot of energy. But it allowed me to set the pace and ski my own race, which was super cool.

In the semifinal, I got to experience one the coolest feelings ever. For much of the race, Kikkan, Ida and I were skiing in the front! USA was 1-2-3 and it was amazing to be a part of that. Kikk and I lunged at the line with a Russian and I squeaked my way into the A final. For the final, I was so tired after treating each round like it was my last (because I thought, each time, that it would be!) so by the time the gun went off my arms and legs felt like jelly. I tried so hard to keep up in the final 100 meters but couldn’t get my limbs to cooperate and ran out of energy. However, I was still psyched out of my mind with 6th place! It was a good day all around for top-30 results as Kikk got 7th, Ida finished 12, Dasha got 22nd and Perri got 24th. Women’s results are linked HERE. Results from the Men’s race are linked here: Devon placed 3rd, Alex got 9th, Lenny finished 12th and Andy got 22nd.   

Right after the race, we walked back to our hotel and started packing up. The distance crew  joined the Norwegians on a bus and drove the 8 hours overnight to Rybinsk, Russia. Dragging my bag through the snow to our cabin at 4:00AM in -18*C definitely didn’t make my top-10 favorite moments, but travel is part of the job/life and you just have to get over it. On the plus side, we’ve got the girls team all together again, in a house! It’s such a great atmosphere, I couldn’t ever ask for more. It only takes one person to shatter team chemistry, but to have a team where everyone truly supports each other and will always have each other’s backs…that’s something special, and it takes input from the whole team to make it happen. Which is why I feel so lucky to be on this one.

A few notes on racing in Moscow/the World Cup in general:

• Training with an air-warmer in is crazy. It’s a little like breathing through a straw…you’re fine until you think about it, then you freak out because you think you’re not getting enough air since spit and water are frozen all over the end. So, so gross.
• The cameras are EVERYWHERE. You start jumping around, dancing or do anything un-professional…and they will find you, and put you on the big screen. It took me a while to figure this out, while my teammates laughed as I was bouncing around the start pen.
• It is very hard to figure out just what exactly the Russian tv crews are asking you in the interviews. I think I gave one of the worst interviews in my life because I had absolutely no idea what the man was saying!
• When Moscow pumps out MJ over the speakers during your warmup, it’s pretty awesome. When a singing, dancing crew gets up on the stage and starts belting out songs in Russian, it gets even better.
• The shuttles to the venue are, on average, 30 minutes late. So plan to catch a 12:00 bus for a 2:25 race, and then you’ll probably make it on time!

One of the coolest parts about racing over here is that even through we’re so far from home, we’re all feeling the love! Thanks so much to everyone for being so supportive through the internet and phone calls…the cheering really makes a difference. We wanted to give a shout-out to everyone back home and “reenact” yesterday’s sprint for you. Edited by the one and only Kikkan: USST Moscow Shout Out 

And here’s another video put together by Newell while we were in Seiser Alm, Italy training. Kikkan and Simi took footage via camera and head cams, and you can see just HOW FAST we were sledding! Pretty fun stuff. Sledding with the US Ski Team 

Tomorrow we race the 10km skate in Rybinsk, and Sunday we race a 15km pursuit. Hopefully it warms up enough to be legal racing temperatures!