Yesterday was the first day of fall but in the past month I've gone from summer to winter to summer and finally to fall. I'm ramping up the training intensity and getting excited for the changing seasons. I returned to Craftsbury last week from an training camp in New Zealand where it was the tail end of winter in the southern hemisphere. After almost 30 hours of travel crossing 16 time zones we were treated to two and a half weeks of incredible skiing with a variety of conditions from fresh powder to hard track crust to soft slushy klister skiing. Since it is actually winter, the snow is usually faster and much more representative to what we race on, making the long travel down under well worth it. We had almost 35km of skiing at the Snow Farm, New Zealand's only Nordic ski area. The camp focus was volume with four or five hours of training most days but we jumped in some FIS races to keep in touch with some summertime racing and found a few times to get off the snowy mountain for some running and strength training. It was a great but hard camp so I left feeling quite tired and ready to chill in my airplane seat for another long travel day home. Now I'm back in Vermont for the next month before the last US Ski Team camp of the year in Park City. After a taste of skiing and racing in New Zealand and now a few leaves changing colors and a frost on the forecast for the weekend, I'm excited for fall training and the last prep period before the season! Here are some pictures from New Zealand and more. Thanks for reading!
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| The sunrises and sunsets in New Zealand are phenomenal. Here's the end of our first day in New Zealand at the highpoint of the Snow Farm trails. |
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| And sunrise the next morning! |
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| Switchbacks on the Merino Glen trail, the loop that is closest to the lodge. We had amazing wintery conditions for the entire camp and thanks to the Snow Farm for great lodging and tracks! |
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| The sunny side of the valley has less snow but still a nice white ribbon of trail for us. |
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| Liz and I chasing Grover on a powder ski around the Top Beat Loop. |
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| An afternoon group ski logging some kms! |
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| An early morning crust cruise |
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| Skate threshold intervals with Liz and Jessie. Training together as a team is one of the biggest benefits of these on-snow training camps. Learning from each others strengths helps us all get faster. |
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Simi and Noah rocking the hardware after the 42km Merino Muster World Loppet race
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| 10km Classic distance race with a lot of pack skiing |
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| Tucking it out |
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| Jessie leads the train into the pain cave on the last lap |
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| 10km Classic podium sweep |
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| And classic sprint! |
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| Sweater weather down in town off the mountain. |
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| Spending some beach time down in town on Lake Wanaka. You know you're in a great spot when a 30 minute drive takes you from ski trails to the beach. |
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| Yes! Made it out to the Kirsty Burn hut! |
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| Fresh snow halfway through camp! |
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| And back to summer! I beat the jetlag ripping some hot laps on the new Craftsbury singletrack with Pat. |
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| A day with the family at camp! My parents are replacing the roof on our family camp so I helped carry the tin but it was a beautiful day to be out in the woods. |
