I realize I haven’t updated in a while (sorry about that); so here’s what’s been going on. After Nationals in Maine, I flew home for a quality 6 days in which I hung out with my little sister, got caught up on work and laundry, and then packed up to head to Europe.
Since I’m going to the Junior World Championships (in Estonia with pre-camp in Finland), Scandinavian Cup races (in Latvia and Estonia), some races in Norway and World Championships (Oslo, Norway, at the famous Holmenkollen venue!), I’ll be in Europe for about a month and a half. That’s some serious packing!
Heather Mooney was an AWESOME roomie (though I moved into a single room when I caught a cold)
The bathrooms here are sweet because you can do laundry in them and the room has a drying rack in the hall to hang clothes on. Which is good since I didn't pack many clothes.
Travel went as smoothly as possible; I had three flights going from MN to New Jersey to Copenhagen to Helsinki, where I got picked up with some teammates and driven to our hotel. We are staying at the Scandic Inn in Vierumaki, Finland. It’s a tiny little village about 26 km from Lahti, where the world cup venues are. The village is actually a pretty sweet golf getaway in the summer, as well as a training place for athletes from many different sports. The cafeteria where we eat (and experiment with different foods such as reindeer meat) also serves athletes that look about our age, though their sports range from track to cheerleading.
The map of Vierumaki
The bottom floor of the hotel has a dance floor and disco bowling alley, where the U.S. challenged team Canada to a bowl-off. Turns out some of the U.S. can really bowl!
Our hotel is really, really nice and it’s good to be away from the big city for some relaxing and low-key training before the big races. We can walk about 200 yards out the door and right onto some rolling, gentle, perfectly groomed ski trails, which is totally awesome.
Yep. The Scandic inn is fancy, all right!
However, travel took a much bigger toll on my body than I had anticipated. I ended up getting a slight cold – nothing big – but one that prevented me from training yesterday and today. I’ve been drinking fluids like it’s my job (which it is) and hopefully with a little more rest I’ll be 100% so I can train on the race venue before my first race arrives.
After some travel incidents and lost baggage, we finally have our entire team present and (I think) with all their luggage. Tomorrow we’ll pack the vans and take a ferry across the Baltic Sea to Estonia, where we’ll be staying about 45 minutes away from the race venue in Otepaa. Hopefully travel goes smoothly!
