The Olympics

We went to Vancouver, and to Whistler, and it was awesome. That one word cannot express the incredible experience that I had over the course of a few short days.

Part of the fan club: Tanner, me, Rachel & Colby with Kikkan.
I started out my trip by heading down to Seattle for a long weekend before my quick jaunt up to the Olympics. It was a wonderful and relaxing to see my brother, Maggie, Bryce and even Eric. Everybody came over on Saturday night for a delicious homemade macaroni and cheese dinner (made by Andrew) and to watch the first night of the Olympics. Sunday was spent working on Andrew and Maggie's new house, which is lovely by the way. Bryce happily contributed to the effort and showed us the ropes at the local Home Depot, one of his favorite spots in town I think.

We spent a large part of the long President's Day weekend moving things to the house and cleaning up the copious quantities of junk left behind by the previous owners, and finding a few gems along the way (and some grow lights). We also had the opportunity to watch quite a bit of the Olympic coverage. I cannot say I was particularly impressed by NBC, but it seems to be about what I have come to expect. I was just sad they have massively limited the availability of live coverage on their website.

On Tuesday afternoon I drove up to Vancouver with Rachel Samuelson and her parents. The trip proved uneventful and before we knew it we were in downtown Vancouver in a sea of red hockey jerseys and people walking all about the city center (centre?). We picked up our tickets and made our way to the Hudson's Bay Trading Company. Here we found the most crowded store I think I have ever been in. There was literally a line to get in to the shop. This was grand central station for tourists wanting to purchase Olympic merchandise. After our shopping extravaganza we headed to the plaza where we could get a glimpse of the Olympic Torch. We were really at the Olympics!


We drove east of the city to a suburb where our hotel was located. On the way, we stopped to eat dinner at a Greek restaurant, which turned out to be a delicious. After dinner we checked in to the hotel and turned in for the night. Falling asleep proved difficult, as the big day was finally upon us!

We awoke early and drove to the bussing center where we hopped on the bus at 6:20, with our coffee and muffins in hand, and headed towards Whistler. As the sun came up we could see that it was going to be a bluebird day, and the drive up to Whistler did not disappoint. I need to go back to the area to climb and ski!

We arrived at the venue and donned our black skirts with pink K's, our Alaska flags, American flags, rubber boots and pink Kikkanimal hats. We were ready! The march up to the venue was around a half mile. I suppose this separates the nordic fans from the curling fans-- but for us it was a walk full of anticipation and Rachel playing the Olympic fanfare on her iphone. Yes, we were ready to be ridiculous all day long. When we finally arrived at the stadium, the venue was alive with spectators and all the world's best skiers zipping around preparing for the prologue. I cannot describe how exciting it was to see all of the skiers that I only get to follow through articles or online videos right before my very eyes-- the fastest skiers in the world!

When the prologue finally got underway, I was incredibly nervous about Kikkan's race, the line between success and failure in the seeding race is so fine, a slight mistake can end your day after only three minutes of racing. It was an odd prologue with the sprint World Cup leader, Petra Majdic, falling into a ravine on the edge of the course and racing as the last bib, qualifying 19th. Kikkan skied a perfect prologue, qualifying for the heats as the 10th fastest finisher.

Kikkan in qualifying.

Alaskan fans are the best!
The heats began with Kikkan's quarterfinal first-- featuring, my Norwegian hero, Marit Bjørgen, among other speedsters. Kikkan finished third, putting her qualification in jeopardy. Rachel and I sat nervously through the next four quarterfinals, watching the times and feeling nervously nauseated as each heat finished and Kikkan was still in position to qualify. Finally, or agony was ended, and Kikki slipped in to the semifinals! Guaranteed to be her best classic finish ever.

Kikkan's semifinal was packed with talent, and she was unable to find her way in to the finals, but she ended the day 8th overall, an amazing result. The women's final had Bjørgen powering to victory, looking stronger than the field in all of her heats. Kowalcyzk was second, and the crazy Majdic third-- who was later to reveal that she had three or four broken ribs and a collapsed lung. I still cannot believe her doctors allowed her to race! The men's race was dominated by the Russians, two young men (that I had never even heard of!) won gold and silver. The illustrious, and notorious, Petter Northug claimed the bronze.

The bus ride back was also pretty, however, I think we all dozed off a bit, it had been a long day after all. We returned to Seattle that evening, where Maggie had a delightful dinner waiting for me. One last night in Seattle and then off to the airport first thing-- I had to be to class by 11:30am, quite the morning commute. It was a beautiful flight-- until we hit southcentral, as Anchorage greeted us with rain and nasty weather conditions. What an adventure, the Olympics for only one day? It was totally worth it. See you in Sochi!

Still goofy after all these years!

Tired.

Life has been exhausting lately. In the last month, I started college full time again, I moved, I was sick for two weeks and I have been working almost full time through all of this-- oh and I did two ski races too. All this has left me completely drained for energy, but still feeling better than I have been, as we have turned the corner towards the light season again.

I have one more week before I head south for a little much needed respite, including a visit to the Olympics in Vancouver. I do not think it has really hit me that I am going to be at the Olympics. Getting to see the Olympics in person is something I never really thought I would have a chance to do. Now I just need to get through another week before I get there.


At the start of the Hickok Pursuit


Almost finished, thank goodness

January

Hmm. Does anyone still read this? Did anyone read it in the first place? Who knows. On some level I enjoy the writing, but clearly that level has remained buried as of late, as I have not been writing anything! I suppose I have been quiet as I feel that I am following that old adage of: if you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all. Frankly, life has been beating me down these last fews months, so I have been keeping quiet. But I have been out and about doing a few things:

I raced yesterday at the Hickok Pursuit, despite being sick all week. I think this was a bad idea. Somehow, or another, I survived and my place and time were not too terrible. But I sure felt like hell for most of the race. I started school this past week, and I should be doing homework right now, but instead I am rambling on my blog. Previously my blog was reserved for recounts of exciting adventures, but I really have not had many as of late.

No pictures, no stories, no nothing. Life is boring. Bring on February, more light and the Olympics.

Whew, Awesome Weekend

I have had an epic and rejuvenating last day. Last night was my first ever boulder competition-- which went pretty well, all things considered and leaves me feeling excited to keep climbing and improving. And today was the opening race for the Anchorage Cup, and the sprint relay was very fun as usual, particularly the win in the coed bracket with Erik.

The boulder competition was set up allowing all climbers 2.5 hours to climb as many problems as they wanted, with scores calculated by tallying the top five point value climbs completed. This type of format means that strategy is a large component in garnering a high score. Additionally, on-site completion (climbing a problem bottom to top on the first try) was used as a tie-breaker. I am sure I made some mistakes, not warming up adequately, burning out on some big problems that I never actually completed, etc. Next time I try a competition, I will certainly plot a better path to high points. But I suppose most of figuring things out is by actually doing competitions.

I ended up third in the women's division, which was good, although it was a very distant third. Both of the women above me in the standings climb really, really hard, so next time I will have to try to bridge that gap a little bit. Climbs completed were roughly: v6, v4/5, v4, v4 & v3/4, not bad for my first try. The competition also provided a fun social event, talking to lots of other climbers, and particularly seeing guest climber Chris Lindner climb some incredibly difficult problems-- and making it look easy.

This morning I reluctantly rolled out of bed and headed over to Kincaid for the sprint relay, always a fun day of racing. The first race of the day was the women's relay, which I skied with Judy from work. Judy is one fit lady, she is old enough to be my mom and she still gets after it on a regular basis. We started strong, but faded out and finished in sixth. My lungs were burning and my arms felt limp and dead after the first race. I was starting to question my sanity deciding to race twice. I tried to regain my composure while the coed race started. Erik went first and tagged off to me in a strong position. I maintained our slot and Erik came around to tag for the final leg a few seconds out of the lead in a solid second place. Somehow my lungs seemed to have recovered by the last leg, and I was able to make an attack on the climb over the tunnel. As I came down the final hill, I slingshotted around Kristy (who was leading) and kicked it in to the finish. Not too shabby-- but still time to do a little more training. Now I have the racing hack and I am feeling sore, but stoked for the winter!


Crusing on the first lap of the women's relay


Tag after the first leg of the coed relay

It's that Time of the Year Again...

The holidays are here. I have particularly mixed feelings about the season this year. I suppose it is a good thing to have a few days off of work, to see my brother and his wife-- those are the things I am looking forward to. The rest of it, the gifts, the craziness, the stress, the particular loneliness the holidays bring-- well those are all things I could do without. To make matters worse it is the cold and more crucially, dark season up here. Cold I can tolerate, but the darkness, that gets old fast.



I have been getting out in the limited light, however, I have not been bring my camera and thus have zero pictures to post. Today I tromped up to Bear Point out in Chugiak. It was a wonderful view, the clouds even cleared so I could see the bigger peaks up the Peter's Creek Valley, but it was getting dark as we hustled down the mountain at 4:00pm. Less than a month until things start to get lighter, not darker. One more week of school as well. This is good in that I will be happy to not have to go to my evening class-- but it will also mean a little cramming in anticipation of the final exam. Something I should probably be doing right now.

Life of Laura

It has been quite awhile since I posted. I am back to work, taking a class at UAA and just generally in a fairly mundane daily routine. Today I have a few minutes to write-- as it is my day off, and I am sick. Fortunately not too sick though, I think I should be feeling pretty well again after a day or two.

We are having a bizarre fall so far. September was chilly and we saw lots of snow in the mountains quite early. Then the last few days have been warm and all of that snow melted! Lots of folks are getting antsy about skiing, but it is still early. Although I have to say I do not care much for the darkness coming without snow to brighten things up. Likely more to follow as winter adventures start to occur.

New Dog!

Yesterday, my parents and I headed out to the valley to look for a new dog at the Mat-Su Animal Shelter. We walked a few labs, and settled on the final dog, a small girl, half yellow lab and half golden retriever. Her name is Takona, however, Mom and Dad plan to change her name. We are in the discussion stage, and hopefully will agree on something before too much longer. She seems to be a nice and friendly dog, but with limited experience being out and about. Here are a few pictures of the new loving little girl:


Dad has a new friend


Relaxing in her new home


A close-up