Rookie camp was a total blast – and the fun definitely didn’t end in Utah. There was a lot of stuff going on from June 20th till now, so I’ll try to keep it short while keeping in the good details. 😉
The newbies before an epic soccer tournament (photo by USST)
After all the testing, the Nordic rookies met up with the Alpine team, the Snowboarders, Moguls, and Aerialists for our Rookie Camp 2011; where all 42 newbies to the US Ski Team are introduced to each other, the staff, and the responsibilies and opportunies that come with the USST. I was especially excited to learn about the other sports and meet the rest of the athletes! Camp started early in the morning, with our wake-up call at 6:15 and meetings starting right after breakfast, but it was a short camp and we had a lot of information to pack in as well as some sweet team-building exercises like the ropes course and a soccer tournament (my team won thanks to some seriously skilled teammates and lots of trash talking).
Sadie giving me a boost on the ropes course (photo by USST)
USSA made a video, “Meet the Rookies” that I’ve embedded below. Somehow, myself and 11 other rookies didn’t get put into the video, but it shows a good chunk of the people at camp and some fun footage of the tramps and ropes course!
The crew getting some frozen yogurt from "yo dippity"
A few of the biggest take-away messages I learned were: always, ALWAYS remember to update your USADA (U.S. anti-doping agency) forms because if you aren’t where you say you’ll be and get too many missed tests, you can be banned from competition even if you’ve never doped! So paperwork IS important, apparantly.
One of the cool parts of camp was media training. We learned not only how facebook is pretty much taking over the world, but we also got to hear from Jeret “Speedy” Peterson, who won Silver at the 2010 Olympics. He said that although as an athlete you sometimes get asked goofy questions like “how many girlfriends have you gone through in the last year”? Just say “yeah I had a good run, the skis were fast, I was happy with how the day went…” just answer the questions you want to, and ignore the rest! A smart approach given that a lot of interviews are out to create a bit of drama.
The other exciting news for me was that I will still be able to take classes and get a college degree, even though it might be a little longer than most because most of the school will be online. USSA has a partnership with Westminster University, and I will be able to take classes in the spring or online and transfer the credits there and eventually get my degree. Yeah!
We may not have the vertical of the combiners...but Sadie and I still caught some air!
Anyone who has ever seen me around a foam pit knows that I absolutely ADORE foam pits. And I love jumping in them. So naturally I spent a bit of time in the COE’s “ramps and tramps” room. But when the aerialists and snowboarders started pulling complex flips it was time to sit back and wach amazing happen.
But once you get stuck in the pit, it's hard to climb out!
So yeah, there’s definitely a reason I’ve never been called graceful! 🙂
Not such good control up in the air....
After getting home, I was honored to be a guest at Carolyn Freeman and Santi Ocariz’s wedding! It was absolutely beautiful and seeing my teammates get hitched was super fun. It was also a big skier party!
Awwwwww! (picture from facebook)
I also got to see my lovely Stillwater Nordic ladies and jump into a Finn Sisu Junior’s workout while I was home. I was a part of the Finn Sisu summer training group when I was in high school and I absolutely loved it! So it was good to get back to my roots for a bit and watch the annual testing commence.
And now for some fun news – my Dad and little sister Mackenzie are in England right now with my Grandma, Aunt and Cousin! I’ve been getting some updates and pictures from them and they are having a blast learning a ton of history and seeing the Tower of London, the crown jewels, and riding on the London Eye. My Grandparent’s parents were born in England so it’s pretty special to my Dad’s side of the family to go see and learn the culture. So while half my family is wandering around London accross the pond, my Mom and I got to spend some time together and I worked at her store a lot and learned just how hard it can be to shrink-wrap a couch. 🙂
And then since I was missing my CXC family, I was happy to go back up to Telemark and start our next camp. We had a sweet 4th of July watching the Hayward fireworks show, although we got a little nervous when one of the fireworks shot into the ground and started the grass on fire! No worries, it burned out right away but it made the show that much more exciting. Soon the REG (regional elite group) camp will start and Telemark will be totally overrun with skiers. And I’m ok with that!
