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Ironwood Camp
After a hard intervals, nothing beats icing in the lake, and photo-ops with the local art.
We’ve been at camp in Ironwood for the last week. I’m not sure why, but this seems like one of our “chillest” camps so far. Maybe it’s because we’re missing a few people, or maybe it’s our sweet lodgings, or maybe it’s just that we’re all pretty much used to the swing of camp life by now.
We’ve been staying at the Wolverine Village, which was specifically designed to host Nordic skiers. Basically, it’s a perfect setup. Nice, scando style cabins, a great kitchen, and super thick down comforters. Not that those have been getting much use, what with the heat…but still.. They’re nice.
One of the things I love the most about Igor is how he brings new ideas to our training routine. This one was for the juniors…he attached old tires to belts, and made them drag them behind while skiing to develop strength. It’s a great idea, and one that many people have probably thought of, but how many actually get out there, find the tires, drill holes in them for the attachments, and don’t care how goofey it looks? Not many, that for sure. But stuff like this is what makes Igor so special!
The finish of our fun triathlon: blood and carnage
One of the highlights of our camp so far was the fun triathlon that we did on our off afternoon. We had three teams of four people, who each did a run, swim and kayak leg. The rules became progressively more lax as race went on. I’m proud to say that my team totally dominated….but we may have had a little help from a team of juniors who capsized the other kayaks. Whatever. If you’re not cheating, you’re not winning, right?
Brilliant Idea
Why isn’t there a craigslist-style website out there for used ski equipment? I mean…seriously. There’s a gap in the market there. Like say, if there’s someone out there who has just one classic marwe sitting unused in their garage, and wants to make a quick buck. There should be a place for them to advertise that. Or how about poles? Who breaks both poles at once? Nobody, and then you’re stuck with an “extra” shaft, just sitting around until you break half of another pair. If you could easily find a buddy in a similar situation, one of you could have a set again, and the other could be slightly richer!
And since skiing is such a niche sport, spread over a vast geographical distance, but the equipment is relatively easy to ship, seems to me like the internets would be the perfect place for such a market to live.
So seriously…someone with the coding skills (and without sponsors to piss of with resale implications) should get on this, STAT.
And if anyone has a used pair (I’d go for just one, too, but that’s probably hoping for too much) of Marwe Classics they’d like to get rid of, i’d be very much interested.
UPDATE: OK, as mutiple people pointed out, skinnyski.com has a classified section that pretty much does this. It’s not exactly obvious to to get there from the home page though, so I don’t feel too dumb for not knowing about it. I mean…i’m only going to spend so much time a day on the site, and if i have to click through 3 pages to find out it has a feature…well… It’s here if your interested, but i checked…no marwe’s right now 
LOST
Today blows. I go to get my classic rollerskis out of my truck this morning, and realized that i’m one ski short of a full pair. Either someone jacked one, or that dumb-blond move of driving over to the ski house yesterday with my tailgate still down has come back to bite my in the bum. Either way, if anyone in Houghton knows anything about it’s whereabouts, I would be extremely grateful. Like really, really grateful. Really. Cuz i’m broke as hell, and buying a new pair would be a pretty big blow.
It looks like this...but with bindings, KO on the front bumper, and about a thousand miles of wear.
Gratulerer Med Daggen!
Today is my darling mother's day of birth! Happy Birthday Mommie!
Pics from REG
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.
My little sister is getting married!
My little smoopie, Tanja Joy, is all growed up, graduating, starting her English Education career, and now, as of last night, she’s also engaged! Congratulations guys! It’s the start of a wonderful life together!
Can you imagine how cute their babies will be? And I'll get to spoil them, and then hand them back when they poop! The babies, obviously..not Tanja or Robbie. Cuz that'd be weird...
Excell Nerdery
Let me just preface this post by reminding you that I went to Michigan Tech and got a degree in Mechanical Engineering. I love skiing, but i really liked all that nerdy engineer stuff too. Especially large data sets. Basically, I love Excell, and well…ever once an a while, i totally nerd out and crunch some semi pointless data.
So when I saw this graph on Fasterskier...well...guess what happened next...
I found my FIS points list history, averaged the 5or6 lists a year, and plotted them verses my age. Semi interesting, especially noticing the general downswing in the time since i graduated and joined CXC Elite. But still…to be really relevant, i would need to compare against the others. So I downloaded some other histories I’m interested in, crunched them, and got this:
Well dang nasty, isn’t that a pretty graph? It’s kinda interesting to see some of the histories laid out like this. For instance…look at Compton. She’s doing very well now, but there was definitely a hump in there that she had to ride out. And Winters…she just quit CXC and competitive racing, but her history shows the same kind of straight improvement as the US team girls.
And just in case anyone else is as big of a nerd as I am, and doesn’t want to waste the obsene amount of time I did, here’s my excell file. (Click Here to Download)
Family Reunion
This weekend I flew back to Washington for a family reunion on San Juan Island. My family basically rocks. This isn’t a big huge fourth cousins type reunion, it’s just the immediate relations. They’re all skiers, engineers, or both. A reunion for us involves huge amounts of hiking, paddling, epic crochet matches, and visits to more national parks that you’d ever think could exist on a island of this size.
But tomorrow the crew is dispersing, and I’m heading back to the midwest. It’ll be tough to leave, but i’m looking forward to getting back to my new home in Houghton, and settling in a bit more. Plus, most of the Mich Tech girls team is back up there for the summer, so there’ll be plenty of training buddies! And as beautiful as this island is, the rollerskiing is absolute rubbish.
cousins, sticks.
The whole clan, sans cousin Kaelin
Youth Development
I think a lot of people think CXC is just the Elite team. While it’s true that we’re the most visible program, especially outside of the region, in reality we have programs spanning the whole development pipeline. We have a Masters Team, a Junior Development Team, Coaches Education and Certification Programs, an in-the-works Disabled program, and a very cool Youth Development Program. There is a significant amount of fraternization between the participants in the different programs. The Junior Development and Elite teams have camps together, the Elite are active in the Coaches Education, the Masters have the same coaching staff and race right alongside us at the Birkie, and we’re basically just one big happy family. I think that’s part of what makes us so successful…we all motivate each other.
It's all about the knee drive.
On Wednesday the Juniors and the Elite spent some time hanging out with our little brother/sister program, the Youth Development. It’s designed for kids ages 6-12. The Youth Devo program puts together sweet activities show these kids that skiing is fun. They’re the brains behind the hugely successful barne games that debuted at this year’s barne-birkie. With no snow in Stillwater in June, we spent the afternoon with a mass of energetic youngsters, doing a variety of dryland activities. Kids this age have a fairly short attention span, so we quickly rotated them through stations ranging from soccer and dead-ant-tag to hurdle drills and jumping mechanics. And afterward, the MN youth league (a partner program) treated them all to ice-cream at the local scoop shop. As I heard one of them say, it was “A perfect day!” Ok, that might have been in response to the ice cream…but they were all obviously having fun the whole time. And kids that have fun keep at it, which grows the sport, which is good for all of us. And plus, there really isn’t anything much more motivating that seeing a youngster loving sport just for the straight up joy of it. We all need that reminder once in a while.
Dead-Ant-Tag: When you’re tagged, you have to lay down a play dead until the other ants drag you back to one of the bases. Obviously, some are harder to transport than others…
New Clothes
We love it when Yuriy comes to training camp, because most of the time, he comes bearing gifts. And once again, we were not disappointed. He showed up on wed with a sweet new summer training uniform for all of us. They’re from Salomon, which I’ve always thought makes stylish stuff. And stylish is exactly how I’d describe our new shorts and tops. It’s probably the old orchestra-geek in me, or possibly I just find comfort in conformity, but for some reason I still get really jazzed up about large groups in matching attire. And seeing us all skiing along in our little uniforms just makes feel all kinds of proud and professional and part of something sweet. I love it.
New teamate Kelly loves them too...
We’re smiling, because this was the first day in a week that that the van hadn’t reeked of sweat. Yea for new clothes!
Click Here!