The 12 Days of Davos

Davos, Switzerland often feels like our home away from home in Europe.  It's the first World Cup venue we go to after starting the season in dark Scandinavia.  The mountains, sunshine and snow is something we dream about through November.  This year I was planning to be here for 12 days but after a poor snow year in Europe plans were changed and I'm spending 24 days in Davos, first for races and then for the holiday break before the Tour de Ski.  But since there isn't a Christmas song with lyrics for 24 days, I'll stick to the 12 days of Davos.  

On the first day of Davos, Switzerland gave to me....

1 leaning gingerbread house- Even on the road and away from home we've had no problem being festive and finding Christmas spirit.  We've made cookies, opened stockings, decorated with lights and candles, and yesterday afternoon we had a blast building and decorating a gingerbread house.  It's not quite straight and has LOTS of sugary frosting holding it together but we built it totally from scratch and it's still standing!

I think we are all expecting it to topple at any moment but it's still standing!

The finished product!

2 Skate Sprints: After the World Cups in La Clusaz, France were canceled, Davos took on the challenge for a second weekend of racing.  This meant we had back to back skate sprints on the exact same course!  A uncommon opportunity to try something one weekend and then improve on it the next weekend.The first weekend, I qualified in 19th which was one of my strongest skate qualifiers ever.  I finished third in my quarterfinal just missing out on a lucky loser spot into the semifinals to finish 16th on the day.  The following weekend, I almost crashed on an icy corner in the qualifier and in such a tight field I figured my day was over.  But luckily I just sneaked into the heats with a 29th place finish.  In the heats I actually crashed, face planting a couple hundred meters from the finish when Norwegian Heidi Weng and I clicked skis.  So I didn't find the improvement I was looking for on the second try but each sprint heat is such a learning opportunity and the experience of aggressive head to head racing gave me some new things to focus on in my next sprint.

Racing the qualifier with an American flag in the background.  USSA CEO Tiger Shaw, board member Liz Arky, and team supporter Levi Hensel came for the weekend and it was great to have their cheers on course! (Marcel Hilger photo)

3 Meters of Snow! Just kidding it's more like 3 inches or maybe 3 centimeters but it is enough to cover the ground so we can count it as a white Christmas. 

4 Skis for Waxing- I spend most of the winter traveling with over 30 pairs of Fischer skis, ready for every snow condition and race course.  It takes a full time wax tech to prepare the skis and keep the fleet in good shape and I feel extremely lucky to have an awesome staff of waxers on our team.  They work extremely hard to provide us with fast skis and I must say it was really fun to tuck by a Norwegian in last week's sprint.  For this break we are on our own for waxing so I'm keeping it simple with just a pair of skate skis and a pair of classic skis. We've nailed the classic wax so far, even on an icy klister cover day and a day of heavy falling snow.  But that said, I will be happily awaiting the return of our coaches and techs!

5 Kilometers of Skiing- There is a 5km manmade loop of skiing in Davos right now which was prepared for the World Cups and is in great condition.  We spend most of our time training on this loop but last week we took out our rock skis for a crust cruise up Dischma vallley or "Sunny valley" as we like to call it.  The coverage was thin in spots but it was a blast!

Sophie, Liz, and I took a selfie while Simi prepared the timer shot

Crust cruising up the valley

6 Americans in Davos- Liz and I are renting Anna Haag and Emil Joenssen's apartment together that is sitting on the ski trails so it couldn't be a nicer spot for the holidays.  Simi and Sophie have an apartment just a few minutes of skiing away.  Jessie's family is here also staying close by and Kikkan and her husband Jeff are staying in the hotel where our team stayed for the races.  It's great to have so many teammates around to spend Christmas with!

7 Hockey Goals- Jeff and Kikkan had connections in the Davos WC organizing committee and got the team tickets to a Davos professional hockey game.  We were in the second row directly behind the goal!  The play was very fast paced and exciting and Davos ended up losing 4-3 in a shoot out after regular and overtime play!

Liz, Kikkan, and Jeff watching the game

8 Pancakes for Breakfast- It has been a very nice change to have a kitchen and to cook for ourselves.  While we can't ever complain about having meals prepared for us, cooking is fun too and it's always nice to choose what you want to eat.  We immediately prepared spicy food with dinners of chicken curry and mexican.  We also had an incredible pancake breakfast our first morning here with stacks of pancakes topped with yogurt, maple syrup, fruit salad, and brown cheese from Norway.  And of course the delicious breakfast was accompanied by steaming mugs of Vermont Coffee Company coffee.

9 Days to Change the Race Venue- There is a new FIS rule this year that venues have to make the call nine days prior to the first competition for whether there will be enough snow to hold the races.  And with very limited snow across Europe, this rule has been called into use.  It was uncertain whether Davos would be able to hold any races here but slightly cooler temperatures arrived and the race organizers were able to make snow on top of a pass and truck it down to the race course!  A huge thanks needs to go out for all the work that they put into making these races happen.  And then nine days before the La Clusaz, France weekend, those races were cancelled and Davos stepped up to host a second weekend in a row!  There were rumors that the Tour de Ski was also in jeopardy but now since we are less than nine days away, we've received official word that the Tour is on as planned!

A huge thanks to Davos Nordic for hosting back to back World Cup weekends in this stadium (FIS Cross Country Photo)

10 Tree Branches- Here's our Charlie Brown Christmas tree that actually reminds me of a smaller version of Christmas trees I've had at home.

11 Extended Family Members: I miss being home with my actual family for the holidays but as Christmas orphans we have been taken in for quite a few wonderful meals and the recipients of incredible Swiss hospitality.  We had homemade pizza for lunch with Esther Bottomley and Valerio Leccardi after a long ski one morning.  For the second year in a row we had Christmas eve dinner with the Capol family who live 45 minutes from Davos.  And on the 25th the Diggins family invited us over for a delicious Christmas dinner.  Thank you to all for such wonderful hospitality and making us feel at home here in Switzerland.

Christmas Eve with the Capol family where they cooked a turkey for us so we would feel at home!

And a very merry Christmas with the Diggins family

12 Days of Training: There are exactly 12 days off between the last World Cup in Davos and the start of the Tour de Ski.  This is a pretty long break from racing for us so it's nice to have an opportunity to train a bit and prepare for the rest of the season.  In normal race weeks we are focused on the weekend races so it's nice to have the opportunity to do what we all love and just go out and ski!  Happy trails!

Lillehammer World Cup Weekend

This photo from Eurosport commentator Mark Rhode pretty much sums up my feelings for the three day mini tour weekend in Lillehammer, Norway.  The racing started with a skate sprint on Friday, followed by a 5km skate on Saturday, and finished with a 10km classic pursuit on Sunday.  Sprint days are usually an awesome day for the team but this one turned out to be one of the worst.  Sadie was the only one who qualified on our team and we were all left disappointed and trying to grasp what had happened.  But luckily we had another race the day so we shook it off and moved forward to the first distance race. Unfortunately Saturday didn't go much better for me either but luckily a few of my teammates had better races and Jessie, Liz, and Sadie all scored some points!  And even on a bad day racing in Norway is still very fun!  Fans line the entire course and chant your name as you ski by.  The atmosphere is a big party and it's always exciting to see such enthusiasm for Nordic skiing! Unfortunately after the race on Saturday I started to feel worse and worse and I started to wonder whether the headache and cough I was feeling were just side effects from the race or my immune system failing me.  When I woke drenched in a cold sweat early Sunday morning it was starting to be more obvious.  The thought of watching Sunday's classic pursuit was much less enticing than actually being on the trail hammering so it took some serious convincing from coaches to not put on a bib that morning.  It was the smart decision, though, and I have been resting up and already feeling much better.  Sunday's race was the first World Cup I have ever had to sit out for illness so I'm thankful for a strong immune system and looking forward to more races this weekend in Davos, Switzerland!

Simi and Erik skiing up the long hill on the course which was about 4 minutes of solid climbing which was followed by a ripping fast downhill that was extra fun with screaming legs.  (USSA Nordic Photo)

And even while living on the road in a hotel room and duffel bag, the Christmas spirit is high!  One of my favorite parts of travelling at this time of the year is seeing the different Christmas decorations around the world and the streets of Lillehammer are lit up every night!

I finally get to open the advent calendar which my mom gave me before I left home!  It's not an easy item to travel with  so one day I opened the window and there wasn't a chocolate but a couple days later I had two chocolates waiting for me!  

Christmas spirit and in Lillehammer

The 'Birkebeinere' statue in town honoring the two year old future king Hakon Hakonson being carried on skis across the Norwegian mountains in 1206.  

Ruka Classic Sprinting

It's pretty common for me to lay in bed counting sheep on the nights before a big race.  Nerves always seem to settle in the night before the competition and then clear out the next day when it's time to go.  So I wasn't too surprised to toss and turn on the eve of this season's first World Cup.  But this time my nerves were fine and I was just plain excited!  I was ready to get the season going and couldn't wait to get on the start line!  Normally we have a few warm up races before the first World Cup which help get into the winter routine but this year we came over to Europe later and didn't have that opportunity.  Go time was happening at a big time in the classic sprint in Ruka, Finland.

The courses in Ruka are some of my favorites with big uphills and fast downhills.  I have had good results here in the past so I was hoping for another good day.  The morning of the race dawned with unseasonably warm weather for northern Finland.  The temperature hovered around the freezing point and the techs were furiously prepping klister skis.  By the time I started testing, the firm tracks had broken down and were washed out on the sides and glazed on the bottom and over the tops of the hills they had filled with powder.  Every crazy variable was swirling together and producing my absolute least favorite classic conditions.  On the gradual parts of the hill where I normally like to stride hard it was slippery and necessary to feather the kick and then on the steeper sections where I like to put my head down and run, the skis were icing and I was ending up on stilts as I crested the top.  My normal warmup was thrown out the window and I spent every possible moment testing skis trying to find a balance between enough kick and keeping the skis gliding free.  I wasn't sure what to expect as I ran to the start line.  Our techs did an awesome job giving us great skis and for the tricky conditions.  But it was still the type of snow that you had to work with and not against.  For the qualifier, though, I fought the snow and ended up striding furiously and frantically.  I barely squeaking into the heats in 27th place which was far from the start I was looking for.

But luckily I had another chance and this time I was able to put my excitement and adrenaline aside and ski the way I knew I was capable.  I started to remember how to race and as the day went on it felt better and better and I was more and more comfortable with what I was doing.  I stayed more relaxed testing skis for the heats which took a lot less energy.  As the slowest qualifier in my heat, I had the last lane choice and on the outside I had by far the worst lane and I ended up last off the first corner.  But I stayed patient and took openings when I found them and kept fighting for every tenth of a second, pushing hard over the top of the big climb and into the finish.  I was third in my quarterfinal but scored the first of two lucky loser spots advancing to the semifinal.  The same thing happened in my semifinal with the final lane choice but again I was able to pick off a few places by the finish.  So once again I was a fast heat so I got another lucky loser spot and advanced to the final.  I tried the same strategy again for the final but the pace had picked up and couldn't put on the same moves over the top of the climb  It was incredible to be skiing with those fast ladies and to be in the fight all the way.  My 5th place finish was a personal best World Cup result and an awesome confidence boost at the start of the season

Before I could even get my warmups back on in the finish area, my teammates, who had been on course cheering, arrived with hugs all around!  It made me even more excited for the winter ahead of travelling and racing together.  Everyone's strength shine on a different day and rallying around that teammate on that day propels the whole team forward.  The classic sprint was a great day for me but congrats to Sadie for a 17th place in the 10km the next day!

Here are a few photos from Ruka. The World Cup continues this weekend in Lillehammer, Norway.  Thank you for all the cheers and support!

Striding it out in the qualifier.  Our new race suits are really easy to spot so look out for the starts and stripes this winter! (Toko US/Nordic Focus Photo)

Here's the start of my semifinal heat.  I'm in the far lane so only a little of my black suit is visible in the back. (FIS Cross Country/Nordic Focus photo)

Here's a shot of the big climb back into the stadium in Sadie and Kikkan's quarterfinal heat.  The fans were awesome and the cheering on this hill was so loud!  (FIS Cross Country/Nordic Focus Photo)

Ruka is infamous for the darkness so it was a really nice surprise to have a little sun one day.  This is the alpine mountain behind town that also has moguls runs and aerials jumps.

The sunshine was brief and this sunset picture was taken from my walk home from lunch.