I’m still learning how much racing and training my body can handle during the season. It’s such a fine line! A little too much and you’re too tired and can start racing “flat”, which isn’t a fun feeling. It feels like no matter how hard you push, you can’t get…
I tagged Kikkan, pulling my arms above my head and gliding straight to protect myself and my poles from any tangles or crashes. Turning a 180 around the fence surrounding the pit crews, I was still gliding towards Jason and Marek, our techs, when I leaned down and unclipped my…
“I write down my goals so that when I get them, I’ll know I was brave enough to want them.” -Alexi Pappas It can be incredibly hard, goal setting. It takes guts to admit that you want something so badly it hurts, and then put everything you have towards getting…
It’s tradition for the girls to come back up the mountain and cheer on the boys in the last stage of the Tour de Ski. We always get to race first, which must be truly horrible for them (sorry boys), because they have to sit and wait all day for…
World Cup period one racing just…flew right by! How does that happen? Racing every weekend, I just slip into the strange but weirdly predictable World Cup rhythm. Travel Monday. Train tuesday (usually intervals and strength). Distance training wednesday and thursday. Friday is race prep; testing skis with my tech, doing…
November is always a really tough time to be a Cross Country skier. You’ve been training as hard and as smart as you can for months and months but there’s really no way to tell if it’s all worked out until you start racing! Even then, the first races of…
I recently had to clean up a lot of photos on my computer, and I went through a LOT of memories during this process. I realized just how much growing up I did on the road with various ski teams throughout my life. Here’s these photos of little 18 year…
I am not especially good at mornings. On a normal morning I stumble out of bed and blindly (I mean this literally since my contacts are not yet in my eyes) fumble around for the coffee. Only after I’ve had a solid 10 minutes to start sipping my steaming mug…
I would argue that the most important part of being a professional skier is not how much you train, but how smart you rest. Let me elaborate on that. If skiing fast were only about training the most hours, we could just compare training logs and not even bother racing….
“So, when you’re transitioning from double-pole kick to a double-pole, remember to take the extra half a second to get fully forward—” “Wait…..just….a second. Can’t….hear….you….” …over the roaring in my ears caused by my own ragged breath. This was the exchange with Coach Cork following the second to last interval…