I have just returned from my final training camp at Eagle Glacier. Looking back at my logs I have been up there for 33 camps starting in 1993 when Jack Novak, who was up with us for this camp, was one year old. It was a solid week with 24 hours of training that was interrupted by one day of a stomach bug that knocked me out hard. I bounced back well though and finished the week strong.

The first time I was up there was the summer before my junior year of high school and my high school coach John Clark who ran the only summer training program around at the time took a group of us up. I remember the groomer wasn't working so he took a mattress spring out and dragged it around by himself to make a 1 or 2 kilometer loop. Hard core! It has changed a lot since then but it is still the same amazing setting on a glacier 30 minutes from my house. I feel so lucky to have been able to spend so much time up there doing what I love. 

The race season ended today 4k in to the race. A pretty lame way to end an otherwise very good season. On the flight out here my ears got plugged and my right ear would not pop for 2 days. In that time something festered and left me with a sinus infection. Nothing major. Everything but going hard is fine. My head just feels fuzzy and once I have to go aerobically hard I have nothing. At least there is a reason... I've got a few more days before going home so I get to help the coaches out tomorrow to make myself useful. I'll have more of a wrap up to the season coming up but just wanted to let all those who have been following me this year what is going on. Until then.

Yesterday was a rough. I just didn't have the next gear when it counted and never felt great out there. It has been a long season and a lot of travel this past month. Vancouver to Europe to Anchorage to Ft Kent over the past 3 weeks. Looking back I think all that travel and long racing has left me out of balance. A frustrating way to end an otherwise really good season. Still three race to go and the classic race and the hill climb at the end of the series are really good opportunities.

Yesterday was rough. For whatever reason my body took a good hour to feel normal. I almost didn't make it that long. The course here is brutal. Pretty much the first 1/3 of the 8.3 k loop we raced is up hill. Then a few more significant hills are mixed in the next 5 k that makes for one of the toughest courses I have seen. I dig it. To add to the abusiveness of that the snow here is pretty tricky. Big variations of dry to wet, firm to mush to ice. I also learned last night that the snow they make here is from lakes so there is a lot of organic material in there that make structure clog up quickly. Very challenging waxing venue and yesterday showed with all the people dropping and guys who are usually on top finishing back in the field. I got hit with a little of that as well. I'll spare you the details but my #3 pair in testing ended up being my best ones by a bit and it took two ski changes (we were allowed 3) to figure that out. On to my race...

The start was rough and I was in the accordion at the back 3rd of the pack that finally snapped and I just had nothing. People would come up from behind and I could do nothing to stay with them. Just felt like there was no power left in my body. I knew I was in for a really long day and seriously considered pulling out of the race midway into the second lap. Then I started to suck it up and remember that this is Holmenkollen. Who knows if I ever get to race here again and I will not let myself drop out in the biggest race there is. The next ski change I got on a faster pair and my body started to come around. I managed to pick off quite a few guys over the last 30k of the race but by that time any hope of a good result was long up the trail and it was just an inner battle. The crowd out there was unbelievable, all 50,000 of them, and I heard quite a few American voices along the way. 

I just now got back from dinner and drinks at the US Embassy here in Oslo following Kikkan getting 2nd in the sprint this afternoon. Pretty awesome. 

Tomorrow morning I make my way back to Alaska for 4 days before heading to Maine for the 50k Nationals and SuperTour Finals. Two more weeks and season complete.