Day 1 of Canadian Nationals has come and gone. Waxing was beyond challenging – I don’t think anybody really had any good skis, it was more about not having bad skis. The trails at Callaghan are pretty sweet – they had 4 tracks set on all the uphills and there were running lanes on both sides. Pretty impressive really. Zach had the best result of the day, picking up 10th, despite not having trained for the last week. He thinks his back won’t really let him move for the next three days, so we probably won’t hear from him again until Sunday, but that’s okay. We’ve got a 10/15k skate tomorrow, which could be plenty challenging.

Today, the skate trails (there are separate classic and skate trails here) were like glue, hopefully the grooming and skiing on them will make them a little faster. No pictures from the races, but I do have a few from our stop in Seattle on the way up. We spent a day hanging out with Tony and it was pretty fantastic, it’s probably a different blog post though…

Hanging out at the Sonics game…

Seattle…

and stupid human tricks…

Just like Evelyn, I traveled directly from the Birkie to Europe. No Engadin for me though, I’m in Sweden preparing for the Swedish Championships. This year the races are held in Falun, which is just 45 minutes from where my mom lives so I figured this was my chance to go. My mom has of course been great help, from setting me up with a wax and support crew to helping the preparations with great food. Mom’s food is always the best.

My first week in Sweden I trained at the race trails at Lugnet in Falun. Even though there is no snow in the area in general, Lugnet offers great skiing on well groomed man-made snow. The race course is fairly flat with the exception of Mördarbacken which translates to the Killer Hill. Make no mistake, it is a killer hill. It starts out relatively easy but it gets steeper and steeper and it is long. The reward for going up the whole thing is a fast and fun downhill where you loose contact with the snow at least once.

After a few days in central Sweden I travelled north to my home grounds to see the rest of my family. Home to me is the little village of Remmarn where both my parents grew up and where my brother and I spent a lot of time as kids. This has been my “home home” spot for many years and it was inctredibly nice to be back for a few days. My brother Jonas (in the orange suit) and his friend Stefan were nice enough to set a classic track for me, so I took my skis and went out in the “wilderness.” Very relaxing!

Tomorrow it’s time to go back to Falun to start preparing for the races. I’m a little nervous but most of all I’m looking forward to racing in Sweden for the first time in eight years! I will spend  the fisrt few days of next week resting and getting my equipment ready. First race is on Thursday!!

Just thought I’d throw in an update from the land of clocks, chocolate, and trains that run on time now that I have finally accessed the internet (apparently wireless is illegal in Northern Italy where I was last week). (more…)