Our first camp back as a team since October 2019 was a massive success. You wouldn’t believe the excitement everyone had coming into it, fully vaccinated, with an energy to work together more than I’ve seen before at a camp or race. This camp is conducive to this great camaraderie because of so little stress around racing, and amazing weather and training conditions here in Oregon.

Day 1

Briefing in the lodge. We watched a 3min clip of some World Cup skier before almost every ski to get technique ideas flowing.

The focus of the camp was on-snow volume, with an emphasis on technique. Beyond that, it’s a great opportunity for us to take advantage of a big staff to make sure we’re ready for a long summer of hard training. This means physicals, mental health support, informational meetings, and training plan conversations. We’re all very thankful to our coaches for setting all this up for us in a very convenient manner, and not letting it consume the camp. We just had a few key meetings after dinner, and got tons of time to enjoy time with our teammates and talk about other stuff we felt was important. This involved natural conversations about stuff from technique to movies. Sometimes we just needed to chill; those big days really take a lot of energy!!

We did a ton of skiing together. This facilitated learning from one another by watching and talking about how we ski.

You’re gonna see a lot of sunny pics, because that’s when I had my phone out more, but it wasn’t always perfect!

Rain :( The skiing was still amazing though!!

…with a surprise sighting of Mogul, Bernie, and Dakota!

Easy to smile big when it looks like this

More time spent chilling when the sun comes out

3x5km classic intervals (pacing project) (photo: Matt Whitcomb)

Casual debrief, athlete-athlete (Matt photo)

This was my favorite workout of the camp ^ (3x5km L3). This format started last year as a way to practice individual start 15km pacing, and I think it’s a really good way to experiment with different styles of skiing and efforts, with the goal to produce good times on a set 5km lap. This makes it really similar to many 15k races we do in the winter. The day we did it was sunny, so the snow slowed down appreciably as the workout progressed, but I still really enjoyed trying to start controlled and finish a little faster like a race. Most of us skied alone to work on our own tactics, but it was still productive to talk afterwards about our individual approaches. There’s a lot to learn from your teammates, and we figured that out in a big way at this camp. There was always such a positive flow of information between us, even without pushing from coaches. I think that’s really a testament to our current team culture: how we feel comfortable enough with everyone to get really in depth about our thoughts on any given day. I really enjoyed everything about working with the team these last two weeks; the level of commitment, professionalism, and fun was extraordinary.

Last day OD skate. Skied with a bunch of different people, finished it with Zanden.

Something about having each other’s backs?

I want to give a huge thank you to all the staff that made this camp a massive success! Thanks T for strength, Jen for PT, Alex for sports psych, Jess for nutrition, Dr. Heather for medical consultation, Megan for amazing cooking, and of course our incredibly hard working coaches Matt, Chris, Kate, and Jason! Without them, this camp wouldn’t be nearly as smooth or productive. Also a big thank you to Sue Foster, Rion, and Mt. Bachelor nordic for the above-and-beyond hospitality and grooming! The training on snow there is as good as it gets. if you ever have a chance to visit, take it, you won’t regret it.

Now I’m going back home for some rest and extra time to catch up on school. Summer classes started on the second day of camp…gotta get on that work.

Still hoping to get a World Cup review blog up at some point, maybe when I have a little easier school/training week.