Beitostolen!

My last couple weeks at home flew by and it was hard to leave when I was surrounded by wonderful friends and family, a blazing wood stove, mid winter ski conditions in Stowe, delicious Craftsbury Outdoor Center meals, cases of Maple Greek yogurt from the Green Mountain Creamery, and of course my own bed.  But the winter season has finally arrived and I couldn't be more excited!

On Friday my parents drove me to the Burlington airport with bulging heavy bags in tow.

This will be my first year not coming home for Christmas so big hugs were necessary! 

Packing for the winter abroad was quite tricky, especially finding space for all the important travel necessities like VT maple syrup and coffee

Maple syrup for sponsors and friends as well as a 5lb bag of VT Coffee Company beans took up a lot of space in my bag.  I managed to fit it almost everything I needed into my bags but I forgot my winter boots so hopefully my feet will not be too cold until I find some Norwegian kids boots or something else to keep my little toes warm.

After a 18+ hour travel day home from Canmore several weeks earlier, this flight over the pond was quick and easy.  When the flight attendant announced we were landing in Oslo, I was still konked out in a Tylenol PM induced daze but it was great to be back in Europe!

Only in Scandinavia can you find candy and Swix ski wax together in the check out line at the grocery store.

Our first stop this year is Beitostolen, Norway which is a resort town about three hours from Oslo.  Apparently last week was really warm here and they lost almost all of the natural snow but there is still a 5km loop of snow saved from last winter.  The temperatures have cooled off and yesterday it was fun to have very firm classic tracks for some fast kicking and gliding.

Here are Rosie and Sadie partway up the biggest climb of the course.

I have started the last few winters way above the Arctic Circle in dark northern Finland.  Beitostolen has many more hours of daylight and seeing the sun above the horizon is always nice.  Here is the view from the ski trail at 9am. 

We are staying in condos that are a short walk from the trails and taking turns cooking for the team.  My condo tried to make burgers a couple nights ago but we accidentally bought ground pork instead of ground beef.  We were a little alarmed by the color of the meat until Peter, our Swedish wax tech translated the package for us and we realized our mistake.  The coaches raised the bar last night with a gourmet Italian dinner.  Randy made his famous bruschetta, Peter cooked the pasta perfectly, Cork made two types of pasta sauce from scratch, Fish made a giant fruit salad, Grover provided the veggies with a green salad, and Oleg was there for support and entertainment.  Our team is a family on the road and this meal was a great example of the wonderful atmosphere we share.

Bruschetta and fruit salad

The Norwegian National team girls invited us over for "bolle" after dinner.  Astrid Jacobsen who came to one of our camps this summer baked three different kinds of bolle or traditional Norwegian rolls which included cinnamon buns and rolls filled with chocolate which were served with brown cheese and hot chocolate.  It's really fun to get to know skiers from other countries and the Norwegian ladies are so nice and welcoming!  The warm bolle fresh from the oven was also incredible!

Thanks Astrid!

We begin the season this weekend with the Norwegian Opener FIS races here in Beitostolen.  Can't wait!

Hot laps on Frozen Thunder

Around and around and around the 2km loop of "Frozen Thunder," a track of white at the Canmore Nordic Center, in Canmore Alberta.  We skied lap after lap of the trail but I stayed psyched and enjoyed almost every lap, consumed with the novelty of being on skis again.  The snow had been saved from last winter, buried in a huge ditch and covered with wood chips during the warmer summer months.  In mid-October it is laid out around the loop providing some of the earliest skiing in North America.  The loop took anywhere 5-12 minutes depending on the snow conditions and intensity of skiing and we skied for three to four hours every day.  This may sound boring but when you finally get to put away the rollerskis, you're surrounded by beautiful mountains, and have nine straight days of sunny and warm bluebird skies, any complaints are few and far between.  The transition to snow is always a fun time and I always find lots to think about as I try to remember how to glide the long boards across the snow.  Even with  a couple weeks of on snow training intermixed thoughout the summer, I usually feel like Bambi on ice for the first day or two before I get my ski legs underneath me and feel my technique come together.  The familiarity comes back quickly and this time of the year always reminds me how much I love to ski.  Rollerskiing might be similar in movements but it doesn't come close to comparing with the speed, glide, variability, challenge and fun of actual snow skiing.  The Bow Valley and town of Canmore in the Canadian Rockies is also beautiful spot and an awesome location for a training camp.  After a busy time in Park City filled with meetings, testing, and other events, it was nice to "relax" during this camp.  When we weren't training we could usually be found walking to Beamers coffee shop for fast internet and hearty muffins, hanging out at chez Chandra Crawford drinking tea and practicing yoga, or enjoying the classy and cozy digs at the Rocky Mountain Ski Lodge.

Here I am skiing behind my teammate Noah Hoffman.  Frozen Thunder was just a strip of white trail but great ski conditions. (USSA Nordic photo)

Sun and smiles every single day of camp!  The clouds didn't surface until the last morning when we woke to rain and snow at 4am for our drive to the airport. (Noah Hoffman photo)

Canmore has a wonderful and welcoming ski community.  As soon as we arrived in town, Chandra had the entire team over for dinner and cooked a delicious meal that ended with pancakes and maple syrup.  Yum!

Towards the end of the camp we competed in the Frozen Thunder Classic Sprint and it was lots of fun to put on a bib and go hard!  It's a great opportunity to do a low key race and get some of the kinks and nerves out of the way before going to Europe and the big show.   (Noah Hoffman photo)

The day after the sprint we had a 10km TT on Frozen Thunder for a chance to also ski a distance race on the snow.  By the end of those back to back workouts, my hip flexors were screaming with pain, another reminder of the transition back to snow.  But I was happy with the efforts and it left me very fired up for the actual start of the race season. (Fasterskier photo)

The last day of camp we had an overdistance workout on the schedule.  We started with a couple hours of skating on the snow and then Chandra, Jessie, and I switched to rollerskis and double poled on the bike path to the town of Banff for lunch. Here are Jessie and I with Cascade mountain looming large in the background.  (Chandra Crawford photo)

High Altitude Training

The final camp of the fall started as an altitude training camp in Park City, Utah!  Living at just over 1000' in Craftsbury it is always a big adjustment for me to go to Park City, Utah which is located at about 7000' and the condos where we live on top of Empire Pass are at over 8000'.  I used to really struggle at altitude but with more experience, I'm learning a lot about how my body acclimates and how to best train and race in the thin air.  I still prefer sea level of course but training camps like this have built my confidence in my ability to race at higher altitudes and last year many of my best races happened at altitude.  It is still a totally different experience though and I was quickly reminded of that when tasting blood at the end of a sprint time trial at Soldier Hollow, seeing my heart rate soar as we climbed higher into the mountains on trail runs, or feeling like I needed a little extra recovery after a couple long rollerski workouts.  It was an awesome camp though and great to have the entire team back together training hard and feeling fast even without too much oxygen.
    

I'm happily addicted to VT Coffee Company's Dark Roast and so I brought a big supply of beans with me to Utah.  The VT Coffee Company motto is "Coffee Roasted for Friends" and I have enjoyed sharing it with friends!  Every morning the first person awake in the condo starts the brew and we begin our days getting fired up for training over a cup of coffee.  

TEAM! So fun to be back together with my winter family!

It was not just the US Team though at this camp and we were joined by almost all the top skiers from across the United States.  Training hard with that many athletes training hard is inspiring and this shows the momentum our sport is gaining in the United States.  To join this community and continue this push, please support XC development through the National Nordic Foundation's Drive for 25 here: https://www.grouprev.com/idasargent. 

Here is a group of ladies skiing intervals around the rollerski track at Soldier Hollow.  In this picture I'm skiing fourth in the line, following my USST teammates Holly, Liz, and Kikkan, and being followed by skiers from Minnesota, Alaska, and Idaho.  

I've said this before but one of my favorite parts of traveling to camps and races is exploring new trails and roads while doing what I love outside.  My favorite workout of this Park City camp was a combo rollerski and running workout where we rollerskied from Salt Lake City up Emigration Canyon and then East Canyon and then switched our rollerskis for running shoes and ran over the mountains to Parley's Summit.  The whole adventure took almost four hours and every step covered new ground for me.    

Just as important as it is to keep the mind fresh with new trails, it's important to keep the mind challenged with new drills and training techniques.  We're never too old to learn new tricks and improve in different ways!  One afternoon the coaches set up a difficult agility course for us on rollerskis which involved skiing backwards through a slalom course, skiing figure 8's, 180s, double jumps, skiing very tight circles around a cone, and "Crazy Legs" which is pictured above and involved crossing one leg over in front of the other while skiing forward. 

Since the US Ski and Snowboard Association is based in Park City there are lots of USST athletes training in town from all the skiing disciplines.  It's fun to get to know skiers of different kinds and share stories as we all train toward the winter months.  Here I am in the ice bath with Emily Cook, an Olympic aerialist.  

Allen is the new chef and dietitian for the USST and we were very lucky to have him cook us some awesome dinners and lunches during the camp.  I was super psyched to see him using VT maple syrup in his recipes including some delicious maple sweet potato fries and maple roasted brussel sprouts with bacon.  

It was also fun to hang out together as a team when we are not in training clothes.  Holly, Liz, and Jessie made this delicious dinner bursting of fall flavors with apple chicken sausage, pear salad, and tahini roasted squash.  Evenings like this excite me for the start of our winter adventures together as a team.  I think we're ready to hit the road full speed!

Fall favorites and exciting news!

While I may be a skier and obviously love winter, fall is my favorite season!  I love watching the leaves turn especially when the colors burst so vibrantly that you can almost see the change happen. I love the fall aromas of apple or pumpkin baked goods, deliciously paired with a cup of hot tea.  I love having to fire up the wood stove for the first time of the season while still needing to add that extra blanket on the chilly nights. I love waking up in the crisp and even frosty mornings and starting the first training session really cold and then warming up as the early fog lifts and the temperature rises, unveiling another beautiful day.  I love the sound of geese flying south overhead and the crinkle of fallen leaves underfoot, simultaneously audible when playing outside.  I love the excitement knowing that the ski season is just around the corner and remind myself of this whenever my rollerski pole tips slip on the cold pavement or I'm stuck behind a leaf peeper driving hopelessly slow.  As the foliage hits its peak and the weather cools, there is no place I'd rather be than in Vermont.  We're only a week past the autumnal equinox but the Fall already feels in full swing busy with training and other excitement.

Yellow, orange

and red!

So many awesome colors as the foliage hits peak in the NEK

I have very hard working parents who live closely to the land.  They grow or hunt almost everything they eat and heat the house solely with wood.  When my dad broke his hand a week ago he was still trying to ride his bike, harvest the gardens, and finish the woodpiles.  One armed wood splitting is pretty dangerous though so I was happy to come home and help.  It's a great strength workout and the satisfaction when the wood cracks and falls with one solid swing made all the other unsuccessful hacks worth it.  

Fall is apple season!

Applesauce, apple crisp, apple pie, apple cider

And an apple picking trip isn't complete without maple candy.  These sweet, melt in your mouth treats are the best taste of fall!  Anybody who hasn't tried them before is really missing out!!

Most importantly, I love VT maple syrup!  

I'm very excited to announce a new partnership with Butternut Mountain Farm, a Vermont based maple syrup farm and distributor.  Butternut Mountain Farm started as a family sugaring operation at the end of a dirt road in Johnson, VT.  In the 1980s a couple of poor seasons forced them to buy syrup from other sugar makers to fill all their orders.  They have continued this practice and today, as well as tapping their own trees, the family farm plays a key role in the VT maple syrup production.  Vermont leads the nation in maple syrup production and Butternut Mountain Farm distributes over half of that crop.  Maple syrup is a staple in my diet and I love it so much I drink it straight.  Maple syrup is great in anything and challenge you to find  food it will not improve.  It has a lower glycemic index than honey or other sugars, it's a great source of antioxidents with high levels of polyphenols, zinc, and manganese and it's delicious!

Check them out today at www.butternutmountainfarm.com!

Lake Placid Training

Fall is in the air!  The trees are transforming into lovely combinations of oranges, yellows, and reds.  We've had to cover vegetables with blankets and row cover in the gardens to protect against the first couple frosts of the year, the harvest moon will be in the sky tonight, and that added excitement which accompanies the nip in the air is running through every Nordic skier's veins.  Every year autumn is kicked off with the annual Lake Placid training camp.  As the weather cools and the leaves start to change, we up the intensity with a camp full of hard sessions in the Adirondack mountains.   It's the perfect setting with lots of mountain trails to run on, quiet roads for rollerskiing, a rollerski track at the Olympic complex for speeds and sprints, and of course Whiteface Mountain providing enough vertical to fill the muscles with lactic acid while bounding or rollerskiing up it.  This camp is one of my favorites because its close to home and there is always a great group of skiers working hard together and pushing the level with every training session.  This year wasn't any different and we had an awesome group of athletes from Craftsbury, Stratton, the USST, National Training Group juniors, and more.  For me its fun to have both of my teams training together in the same place!   In twelve days we trained close to 40 hours including two overdistance workouts, two speed sessions, four intervals workouts, and one uphill rollerski race.

Children at Play!  Absolutely!  Thanks to everyone for their hard work making the training a success.

Caitlin Patterson (Craftsbury GRP) leading everyone at the start of a classic OD (Matt Whitcomb photo)

Jessie, Liz, and I during a distance double pole workout (Bryan Fish photo)

Max bounding intervals up the alpine trails on Whiteface Mountain was the first hard intensity session of the camp.  This workout is great to do with a big group with everyone pushing each other along and there were lots of lactate levels recorded in the low teens on this day proving that we had found the pain cave.  (Bryan Fish photo)

We did a lot of agility work on rollerskis which was fun and a great way to warm up for speed sessions.  Becoming more comfortable and agile on rollerskis allows you to have a better feel for the movement and make technique changes easier.  Here I am practicing doing a 180 degree jump and then some backwards skiing. (Matt Whitcomb photo)

There were plenty of mountains to run up and we did a 3.5 hour run over Big Slide and Yard Mountains which finished with a cold waterslide adventure.  (Andy Newell photo)

The Craftsbury team rented houses in town that had a great sun deck for soaking in the last of the summer rays.  I stayed with my US Ski Team teammates in the Olympic Training Center.  It's dorm style living and can be a bit boring at times but its perfect for recovery between sessions with a cafeteria open for 14 hours each day, ice baths and contrast baths available, foam rollers and a PT room, and very few distractions for easy napping and resting.  

We had a few opportunities at the camp to connect with the local community.  The Adirondacks are one of my favorite areas and the perfect place to be a Nordic skier so it was fun to share the experience with some young kids in the area.  One afternoon we participated in a Fast and Female Power Hour and discussed goal setting and then did yoga with 35+ young girls.  Here are all of the F&F ambassadors at the event.  Awesome ladies to train and hang with! (Abby Weissman photo)

We did a school visit at the Lake Placid Elementary School and had fun playing games at 3rd grade gym class (Matt Young photo)

And the Lake Placid camp wouldn't be complete without the Climb to the Castle rollerski race.  It's a 5 mile race up the toll road on Whiteface Mountain which has an average grade of 8%.  It's a hard grind that finishes with screaming legs and a steep pitch through a wind tunnel.  The finish line is usually obscured in fog/mist/rain/sleet and the head wind is so strong that it's hard not to worry about being blown backward with each tiny step forward.  Major toughess points are awarded for crossing the finish line.  The best part is sipping coffee and eating cookies in the castle after the finish, knowing there are 365 days until you have to do it again!  We made it though so onward to the next challenge! (Erika Flowers photo)

Race to the Top of VT

This Sunday, August 25th, is the Race to the Top of VT in Stowe, VT.  It's a running, biking, or hiking race up the toll road on Mt. Mansfield with 2564 feet of climbing over 4.3 miles.  There isn't a much better fitness test out there than a constant sustained uphill grind.  I've done it the last two years with my Craftsbury teammates and saw my heart rate max out at over 200 beats per minute both times while I coaxed my legs along to push just a bit harder.  After the finish we hit the Long Trail and run to the summit of Mt. Mansfield for the gorgeous views before descending for a post race BBQ.

Near the finish in 2011

This year due to a foot injury which is bothered by uphill running, I'm disappointed to say that I might have to skip the race.  But whether or not I can climb the mountain, I will be at the race supporting my GRP teammates as well as Liz Stephen, another fellow Vermonter and US Ski Team teammate.  This year, the Race to the Top of VT, is a fundraiser for the VT Winter Olympic hopefuls in biathlon and XC Skiing. Vermont has a long tradition of success in skiing and currently has six Vermont natives who are members of XC and biathlon National Teams.  This list includes Susan Dunklee and Hannah Dreissigacker for biathlon and Liz Stephen, Andy Newell, Sophie Caldwell, and myself in Nordic.  All six of us are training hard this summer with goals of qualifying for the Winter Olympics in Sochi Russia and then racing for the medals there in February.  Our VT roots are helping us along the way and providing the toughness and strength for these final months of preparation.

Please join the journey and support our Olympic dreams at  http://www.crowdrise.com/vt2014winterolympichopefuls/fundraiser/idasargent

And for more information on the Race to the Top of VT visit this race website
http://www.rtttovt.com/

We hope to see you there!

August Garden Tour

The gardens in Craftsbury are exploding with fresh produce!  Every day there are more veggies to pick and the Outdoor Center kitchen staff has done an amazing job creatively using all the ingredients into different dishes.  Tomatoes, cucumbers, snap peas, beans, beets, peppers, and some greens are in the salad bar every day.  Pizza day features lots of new toppings featuring handmade pesto.  We're freezing chard, kale, and more to have local greens this winter.  We're up to our ears in zucchini and summer squash.  There is fresh mint at our house for refreshing summer drinks.  Blueberries, blackberries and raspberries are weighing down the bushes and can be picked by the handful.  The cider press is set up next to the pizza oven.

My parents are avid gardeners and I was spoiled growing up with an abundance of fresh produce all summer long.  I like to think I've inherited their green thumbs as I've come to appreciate the process of gardening. When you plant a little seed in the spring it's hard to imagine how it will germinate and grow into blossoming plant.  It's a challenge to try to improve the harvests from year to year and experiment with new crops.  Last year our carrots were short fat stubs lacking their normal length so I tried tilling the soil more than normal making it easier for the young roots to reach into the dirt.  Only a few beets came up in each row last summer but those survivors were giant monster beets which likely stole all the nutrients from their neighbors so we increased the spacing this year hoping to give all the seeds enough nutrients.  I still have lots to learn but I've come a long way from my five year old self who accidentally pulled up all the onions when asked to weed in those rows.

This is the exciting time of year in the gardens, when the baskets are brimming with a colorful bouquet of vegetables.  It's the rewarding time when the fights with the black flies of May, the rain in June, and the hot sun in July become worthwhile.  A lot of energy and time in the dirt is required to nurture productive plots of earth.  It's truly a labor of love!  When I grown up I hope to have large gardens of my own but at this stage of my life it would be next to impossible.  The weeds will take control if you leave for a few weeks for a ski camp somewhere and sometimes the veggies won't wait an extra day for their harvest while you try to rest between sessions.  For this reason, I feel very lucky to be in Craftsbury during the summers and working together with many of the athletes in a cooperative garden crew.  Pam and Amy took control of the gardens last year and have done wonders turning the old jungle into a beautiful and productive farm.  New land has opened up room for expansion and every year we are able to provide more and more of our own produce for the kitchen, aligning with the sustainable mission of the Center.  Here's a photo tour of the Craftsbury gardens.

Welcome to the garden

The rhubarb bush sill looks huge but if you look closely some of the leaves are dying and it's getting past its prime.  Earlier in summer is the best time to hit up the rhubarb.

Walking onions

Bunch onions

Chives

Here's a big row of parsley.  There are lots of other herbs as well including basil, thyme, dill, and cilantro located close to the kitchen so the kitchen staff can easily pick fresh handfuls to season the wonderful meals

Echinacea is great for the immune system and also blooms into this pretty flower  

Here is one of the garlic beds.  Garlic is planted in the fall and harvested in August once its shoots begin to turn yellow.  We harvested all the garlic last week and are drying it in the garage before we braid it for storage

The Elinor's house garlic haul for the year

The overall quantity of the garlic harvest is very high but there is lots of variety in the size of the bulbs.  This diversity is likely caused by all the rain at the beginning of the summer as garlic prefers drier soil.  Luckily some of the garlic stillgrew into big white heads.  

Beets!

Pickled beets are my favorite part of the salad bar

Kale is a prominent crop in the COC gardens.  It's a great vegetable to grow in northern climates as its hearty leaves are very frost resistant so these plants will likely keep producing for another couple months.  And although the nights have started getting a little cooler this past week, we're luckily not quite to the frost stage yet! 

Purple kale

Dino kale

The rainbow chard isn't looking very impressive in this picture but that's because it was very recently harvested for the dining hall.  We pick several big boxes of chard and kale for the kitchen each week, enough to see it pop up in the meals every couple days.

We've had a bumper basil crop again and Caitlin and Liz have been very busy making pesto and freezing it for later use.

Tomatillos in the front and peas in the back. 

Caitlin picking beans in the bean arch.  I think this design for the beans was another one of Amy and Pam's great ideas.  The beans are easy to pick and it looks really cool too.

The apple trees are all weighed down with fruit and it looks like its going to be a great year for apple picking.  I tried one yesterday and it was still a bit tart but getting close to ready.  Here's an apple tree which is probably extra productive with rich soil since it is next to the compost bins.

New this year is the Edible Pizza Garden which features pizza toppings only feet away from our outdoor oven

It used to be just a rocky ledge but Amy and Pam initiated the project of turning the space into productive grounds that look much nicer too with some flowers planted among the pizza toppings.

Here are a few different kinds of basil for fresh toppings on Margarita and other pizzas

Some spicy peppers

New this year as well are the green houses in Wilbur's field where there are lots of tomatoes and peppers growing

The tomatoes are just ripening and there is nothing better than a fresh juicy tomato.

We planted more tomatoes and peppers this year so I think we will have to have a salsa party soon

Spicy peppers

We have lots of different tomatoes like these purple ones and sometimes the baskets of tomatoes after picking are a rainbow of reds, yellows, oranges, purples, and greens.

It's almost like eating candy to pop a handful of these in your mouth!

Next to the tomatoes and peppers are the zucchini, summer squash, and cucumber patches.  We often pick over 100 cucumbers at a time!

The zucchini and squash are growing so quickly and explode to over baseball bat size if they aren't picked at least every other day.  Luckily we have hungry pigs who are more than willing to gobble up any that get a little too big.

Here's one of the winter squash patches with Elinor's house in the background.  These will not be harvested until the fall but its exciting to see lots of flowers and healthy leaves.

We have a few rows of carrots in the garden at Elinor's.  They're not quite ready yet but the baby ones which we picked while thinning were great and much longer than last year's harvest

Our experimental crop is cantaloupe this year.  They had a slow start and we don't have any melons yet but there are flowers so my fingers are still crossed.