West Yellowstone
Audrey, me, and Kelly!
The skiing in West Yellowstone has been absolutely phenomenal! The coverage isn’t quite 100% yet, but there’s more than enough to ski on, our new skis are superfast, the weather’s great, the sky is blue, and the company can’t be beat. So far we’ve been alone on the trails, but starting tonight other teams are going to be trickling in. This is the second greatest part about the fall festival: getting to see everybody again. The first, of course, is finally getting off rollerskis and onto the real stuff!
Kelly, Stubs, and Audrey enjoying the sunshine!
Working Girl
I think I’ve found my calling in life…and it’s retail.
We (Stuber, Cook, and I) are down in Dousman, WI working the Superfit event at the Bicycle Doctor. Superfits are kinda a cool little program that’s new to the midwest. Stores sign up for a weekend, and we send a couple of coaches and athletes down to give a few clinics, a lecture or two, and lend our expertise fitting skis. It’s actually really fun. I kinda like walking up to random people and striking up a conversation…and from what i can tell, that’s about 90% of what it takes to convince someone to buy a pair of skis.
Another nice part is that working in a shop gives us a little more of a connection to the monetary worth of all the fabulous equiptment we use. Like, we’re selling new Salomon Equipe 10 skis at a special weekend price of $429 (reg ~$500ish). That’s a lot of money for a pair of skis, but when i think about how much i love my Salomons, it seems totally worth it. In contrast, the new Fischer hole skis are going for $649. Holey Moses! They’re both top of the line skis, so they’re roughly equivalent, but Fischer’s charging $150 to drill a hole in the tip? That seems ridiculous, and i’m not just saying that cuz i’m CXC.
I have to wake up early tomorrow morning to help out at the coaches clinic. Cook handled the one this morning, but I chatted a little with the participants beforehand. One of them came up to me and informed me that the Halloween picture is getting way old. I was under the impression that the only people who read this site are my mom and various friends..but as i’ve never met this guy before, i’m taking it as motivation to to do a little better job on updating. So i’m tired, and i need to get to bed, but for that guy, i figured i should manage to put a little something up tonight. Better on monday, I promise! (Sunday will be spent clinic, training, selling stuff, and driving back up to houghton to prepare to fly out to Yelly.)
Love Love
The athletic department here at Tech has this new thing going, where they send a camera along with traveling teams, and have them produce a little “vblog”. The men’s cross country one turned out really well, and I want to share it with you, so you get a little taste of why I love working and training with these guys so much. I’m not sure how to embed a video from facebook, but if you click the picture, it’ll take you to the right page.
Basically, I love these guys, and this is why:
Michigan Tech Mens Cross Country Team Travel Video (click the pic)
Annndd…the Muck Run is this weekend! It’s a Tech tradition, and a huge fundraiser for the Cross-Country teams. If you’re anywhere in the area, it’s seriously worth showing up for. Here’s the description:
5K trail race through mud, muck, and mire. Maybe even snow.
ALL PROCEEDS BENEFIT THE MEN’S AND WOMEN’S MICHIGAN TECH CROSS COUNTRY TEAM
Come on out to the annual Muck Run and support your Michigan Tech cross-country running team. It’s a Saturday morning full of fun, mud, muck, and costumes!
COURSE: Challenging trail 5K with rolling hills on the Tech Trails
PRIZES: for Best Halloween Costume, Best Residence Hall, Fastest overall Male, Fastest Overall Female, Age group winners, and Muddiest Runner! Plus, there will be great door prizes from local businesses.
T-SHIRT: T-shirts are available while supplies last!!!
RACE DAY REGISTRATION- Come to the trails between 8:30 and 9:30 am, be there by 9:30 am, RACE STARTS at 10 am.
Cost: individual (UPRRC, high school and college students)-$10, general public-$15, Team (minimum of 4 people)- $8 per person.
NEED A FORM? Contact any member of the Michigan Tech CC team or Joe Haggenmiller for a downloadable pfd…otherwise there will be forms available at various locations around campus.
It’s cheap, fun, great prizes, and a great cause! Really….why wouldn’t you come?
Minor Site Updates
Two little tweaks to the site today: The “Photos” and “Schedule” pages now have content on them. Whew! Only took two years to get those working….feels good to check that off the “to do” list.
One Week
That’s how long I’ve been sick for. One whole week. No Training. The closest I’ve gotten is a few walks and some technique drills in the parking lot. Seven straight days of sleeping, drinking buckets of tea, watching too much TLC, and spending waaaay too much time on facebook. I feel useless. I’m sick enough that there’s no guilt about not training, but not quite sick enough to sleep the day away. My housemates are all busy going to work or classes, and I’m just sitting here like a lump. This has got to end. It’s beyond frustrating.
Then and Now
Same workout, same hill, in 2007 and now. The differences aren’t all that obvious…a little in the arms, maybe something with the back? But somehow, it just looks better now. Which is reasuring. Hopefully it’s not just an effect of the snazzy tights…. 
Houghton “Get Your Nordic On” = HUGE SUCCESS!
The Houghton ski community is AWESOME!
Top View!
As you know, I moved back up to Houghton in May, and since then I’ve really been trying to get to know the community here. Well, on Wednesday, I met a ton of them! I ran a “Get Your Nordic On!” technique clinic for the American Birkibiener Foundation and Portage Health, and we had over 35 people show up! It was incredible!
We had all ages, all abilities!
The clinic focused on the very basics of good technique. We ran through a series of of drills, starting with basic body position and adding little bits and pieces until we ended with a complete stride. We did this for both classic and skate. It was a lot of information to absorb at once, but everyone was up for the challenge. There were smiles all around, and I think a lot of good progress was made!
Working on lateral weight transfer...
One of things that impressed me the most about the group was the sheer number of women who showed up. I counted 25, and that’s a ton! When I lived down in Hayward I was hugely inspired by the Ski and Tea women’s training group there. They get together once a week, ready to motivate each other, work hard, and do it with perma-smiles on their faces. With 25 women showing up for this little clinic, I’m pretty sure we have enough interest up here to do something similar!
Here’s a little video from the clinic, when we were putting together everything we had learned about classic technique, into a complete “ski walking” stride. HUGE thanks to Arnie Kinnunen at Portage Health, for promoting the clinic, and taking tons of great pictures and video!
Click Here!