Summer has flown by and suddenly the days are getting shorter, the workouts are getting more intense and there's slightly less sweat stinging the eyes. That can mean only one thing, ski season is soon approaching…

I realize it's been a minute since I last touched in, so there's a lot to cover! After an epic journey around Argentina in July, I returned to Stratton eager to rollerski. I had a few days to unpack, do laundry, recover from jet lag, then pack again for a mini training camp up at Green Woodlands in Dorchester, NH. Although I felt pretty content staying put in southern Vermont, I had been looking forward to a Green’s camp since last summer when we visited the wilderness for a few days of biking and running.

This summer, we enjoyed just as beautiful weather as last year and jumped right onto our mountain bikes as soon as we arrived to camp. Bob Green is the landowner of ~25,000 acres in New Hampshire. He has built his own bike and ski trails, which he opened to the public for recreation access. The trails are phenomenal; smooth and flowy downhills with a few technical sections that are hard enough to challenge you but straightforward enough to not get hurt on. The entire team plus many of our summer guest athletes hit some high volume hours exploring the trails at Greens.

During camp, we made an afternoon trip into Lyme, NH for some double pole ski intervals just so we didn’t totally lose touch with our ski focus. Then, on one of the last days, we made our way up into the White Mountains to cap off our volume training camp by running along the Presi Traverse. This was my fourth time trekking along the Presidential range and by far the most beautiful weather I’d ever experienced up there. Lots of fun was had out there by the crew!

Eat, sleep, train, repeat.

Back in Stratton, the team had a few hard training sessions before we hit the road again to do some outreach in the Vermont ski community. The team made a brief visit to Waitsfield, VT where we joined the U16 National camp at GMVS (Green Mountain Valley School). The campers traveled from all over New England and the Midwest to attend the weeklong camp. We hopped in one of their workouts as we battled it up App Gap in the hot and sweaty, humid weather. That afternoon, we ate lunch with the kids and gathered for a Q&A about skiing, school, balance, and life. It was so fun to see the next generation putting in the hard work and really great to visit with juniors from Minnesota!

Before leaving Waitsfield, the team took advantage of some new running trails and went for an over distance run up Sugarbush resort and along the Long Trail. Lucky for me, I had a special visitor who made the long run fly by!

My dad traveled to Vermont to visit me for a few days. When I attended UVM, my parents came to visit me once a year, but my dad hadn’t spent a solid chunk of time in Waitsfield or in Stratton so it was fun to show him around.

We packed a lot into 48 hours in Waitsfield but had to make the drive back south to Stratton for our T2 team fundraiser. In early August, we hosted an uphill running race up Stratton Mountain Resort. Racers got to challenge themselves to one heck of a mountain and one of the sweatiest days I’ve ever had, but the smiles, laughs and water jugs at the top were all worth it.

It was incredible to see the community come out for the event and meant so much to my teammates and me! The contributions go a long way to support our team for travel, lodging, race fees, wax fees, coaching, and so much more in the winter. We might still be a few months out from natural snow falling from the sky, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have it on our mind… A few weeks ago the team traveled abroad in search of snow. If you're interested in a recap from my 10 days of training in the Oberhof Ski Tunnel, you can read the blog I wrote for Gear West.

I returned from the Oberhof camp a few days early to attend the wedding of one of my closest friends. Although it's challenging to balance all social opportunities with the intense rigor of training full time, I'm grateful for the relationships that I have and want to support them the same way they support me mid-winter. It was a beautiful wedding that brought together many friends from college whom I hadn't seen in many years.

Recently, Lina, Lauren and I have been getting back to work in Stratton and are looking forward to when teammates, Jessie and Julia return from their camp in Australia this week. The leaves are starting to change in Vermont and with crisp mornings I'm feeling jittery to get going on some hard training sessions. Unfortunately, I found out the hard way that I had been running on fumes for some time and I came down with a mild cold. This type of pause is hard for me to acknowledge, but also a good sign to me that I need to slow down a bit. I'm willing to accept that notion and am looking forward to a few more consistent weeks of training in Stratton before packing up for a fall altitude camp out west!

Back in Vermont for three weeks but still haven’t unpacked and moved in? No one should be surprised… Vermont has been absolutely popping off the last few weeks, making it bittersweet that I haven’t been around as much as I’d like. I drove back to Stratton on June 4th but have only spent a handful of nights in my condo with teammates and roomies for the year, Lina Sutro and Lauren Jortberg. There have been too many extra adventures to go on!

I have been able to jump into interval sessions with the girl squad we have. Skate intervals at Ball Mountain Dam, bounding up the mountain, double poling in Weston, and speeds on the steep and windy roads. In between these intensity sessions, I’ve been bouncing up north to do some biking.

In memory of pro cyclist, Moriah Wilson, I spent a solid amount of time this month in the woods and on the roads with my boyfriend, Thomas, and other Dartmouth skiers. We honored Mo by grinding out a 130 mile gap ride in the Mad River Valley of Vermont; we biked 6 gaps in the Green Mountains, one of which is home to the steepest paved mile in America (Lincoln Gap). We also embraced the beauty found in the woods around Burke, VT, where Moriah was from. I never met Moriah, but from what I learned during the hours on the saddle and memorable gatherings held in her honor, was that she was tenacious, determined, gritty, and an unbelievably positive and happy person. She was driven, but always had a smile on her face. She will forever be remembered in the ski and bike community and my heart goes out to anyone mourning this loss.

After returning south to the team in Stratton, I leaned into my own community. The SMS ladies went to visit the women’s Vermont Fusion Soccer team, which is a summer program for college female athletes to continue working on their skills and develop while not in school. We joined the girls for lunch and spoke to them about women in sport, sports psychology, strength, goal-setting, managing nerves and pressure, and a whole lot more. This was the second year we’ve visited with Vermont Fusion and both years have been incredible opportunities to meet some very talented young women.

Meanwhile, I had a few goals of my own that I was hoping to soon achieve. Last winter, after missing an olympic team and feeling pretty upset about the direction my ski season had gone in January, I really felt like I needed something else to focus on and get excited about. I loved (and still do love) ski racing, but I felt like I had other opportunities waiting for me. After consulting with my sister and her husband, Marit and Nick, they persuaded me to sign up for a road half marathon this summer. As a native Minnesotan, the obvious choice for me was Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth.

I put June 18th on my calendar and ever so slowly started incorporating some more running into my training. This was back in February/March while ski season was in full swing and I was having a great time racing, so it really only encompassed about 2-4 runs a week that were 3-8 miles. After ski season officially ended, I gave myself a few days off and then picked up the running again. My legs faced a little bit of a shock in April, but not nearly the same shock I’m used to experiencing when I go months without much running in the legs. As I traveled through Europe this spring and then started focusing on ski training again in May, I continuously sent sporadic text messages to Marit and Nick, requesting running workouts in preparation for my half marathon.

They prepared me so well. They knew I couldn’t handle too much mileage but that I did have some power and speed in the legs from skiing. They concocted the perfect, semi-committed, super spontaneous training plan that I was looking for. I tested the waters in a few races like the Pole Pedal Paddle in Bend, OR and Women Run the Cities in Minneapolis. Finally, I put the finishing touches on the scheme last week on the track at the Manchester rec center.

Last weekend, I traveled back to Minnesota for a brief 72 hour trip. I got to spend a few extra days with Marit and Nick and pestered them with questions about the upcoming race. I also sandwiched the trip between my mom’s birthday and Father’s day. We gave them no break as they spent the weekend parenting and supporting the running race with cheering, meals, and race-day feeds. 

Duluth brought us impeccable weather with 52 degrees and sunshine at the 6am start; then blessed us with a 10 mph tailwind as we ran 13 miles down Lake Superior. It was so fun to see the running community, as well as the crossover with the ski community, come together for an epic day. The pacing from Marit made sure I didn’t blow my chances in the first three miles of the race. On the flip side, cheering from the crowd as I ran the final stretch into Duluth motivated me to keep turning over the legs even though they wanted a break. This perfect storm brought me to the finish line with a new PR in the half marathon in 1:16:13, by far exceeding my hopeful expectations of running sub-1:18:00.

The little adventure of mine was exciting but I had my teammates calling me back to Stratton for more ski specific training. I traveled back to Vermont for four days of roller skiing and a wonderful birthday celebration.

The small birthday bbq with the team was everything I wanted and made it bittersweet to say goodbye to my teammates and friends. But I have some more excited adventures coming up, this time to a whole new part of the world for me. I am currently in route to Argentina to join Thomas and his family for camping in the mountains, city exploring in Buenos Aires, and cultural exploration on a ranch. My Spanish is pretty  rusty since I last used it my Junior year of high school so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that all goes smoothly.

Two weeks of intense training on snow followed by two weeks at home; summer has arrived and I’m here for it! I kicked off the training year with my SMS teammates and new head coach, Perry Thomas, in Bend, OR to ski at Mt. Bachelor. I love heading to Bend every spring. I spent three summers in college training in Bend and have great memories from the town, people and adventures there, so it’s always special to be back.

Lina, Lauren and I stayed with a host family, the McColgan family. They were so generous to allow us to stay in the apartment above their garage and enjoy the peace and tranquility of life just outside of Bend. Although we had to drive a decent way to Mt. Bachelor each morning, it was nice to feel at home with their warm hospitality and fun to feel more like a local.

The training at Mt. Bachelor was incredible, although much colder than we’re used to for Spring skiing. Temps were getting down down to 20 degrees at night and we frequently found ourselves skiing in fresh snow. This was great for keeping consistent, high quality conditions for the camp, but also had us feeling a little bummed not to experience the spring skiing we were looking for.

Luckily, the Bend weather gods didn’t punish us too hard and treated us to a couple of sunny, warm days. We even made it out for a crust ski around Broken Top mountain. I’ve done a decent amount of crust skiing in my days, but this had to have been the best ski in terms of crust conditions, company, weather and views. I was on cloud nine!

Back on the groomed trails, we filled our training time with lots of volume, a few threshold sessions, speeds, and technique work. I also spent a good chunk of my energy toward testing my new Salomon skis. I’m very excited to be working with Salomon this year! I had been racing on Rossi skis for almost a decade, so I’m also feeling a bit nervous about the change, but overall believe it will be worth it in the long run. It’s extra fun to be able to ski around and test skis with my teammate Jessie. She’s already been so helpful with all of my questions as I learn the new skis.

The afternoons in Bend seemed to fly by with busy hours spent working on my computer. In the evenings we enjoyed the trails around town with lots of trail running, mountain biking and strength sessions. To top it all off, we were able to visit almost all of my favorite restaurants and breweries in Bend.

Mid-way through the camp I jumped into the Pole Pedal Paddle - a race that includes downhill skiing, nordic, road biking, running and kayaking. In 2019 I participated in the race as an individual. Although it was a fun experience I decided it could be fun to try it with partners. I raced in not one, but two different relay teams. On a coed team I raced the nordic event, then zipped down the mountain in time to race the running leg for a full female team. It was such a great way to be part of the Bend outdoor community and embrace the craziness of such a wild event.

By the end of the camp I was definitely feeling tired and ready to head home for a little down time. In theory, I always think that time at home is going to be relaxing but I seem to fill every minute of my days when in Minneapolis. I kicked off the weekend with Women Run the Cities 10 Mile running race with my sister, then went back to her house to help her with a big landscape project. Finally, I topped off my first day home with the wedding of my good friends Vivian Hett and KJ Johnson. The wedding was such a fun evening celebrating the couple that I introduced to each other 10 years ago and it was great to see so many friends from high school skiing.

We made our way down to Red Wing, MN for a beautiful weekend along the Mississippi River celebrating Jessie and Wade. Again, it was a perfect opportunity to see so many friends come together to celebrate the love of our two friends. The venue, flowers, dresses, food, drinks, dancing and company were all amazing!

I finished off my time at home with a few extra days around the house supporting my mom’s knee replacement surgery and squeezing in as many Minnesota things as possible. This included a very special evening at Gear West with my friend Abby Drach launching her women’s athletic clothing brand, Indura, in the shop. Abby designs and sews herself some really impressive products. Her cute, form-fitting sports bras and stay-put shorts can now be browsed on the racks at Gear West so you can try them on and pick your favorite pattern. I can’t speak highly enough of her Stay-Put shorts that have an elastic grip around the leg holes to prevent from riding up, pockets on the side, longer on the in-seam and mid or high rise options to make you feel comfortable, fashionable, and fast! Even Outside Magazine had praise for the shorts as they were included in their summer guide.

After all the time running around the city, I was feeling ready to get back to a slower pace of life in Vermont. Last week, I drove from Minnesota to Vermont and kicked off the first week of summer training with my team in Stratton. We hit intervals at Ball Mountain Dam, lots of biking, classic speeds, and more intervals bounding up Stratton Mountain. It feeIs good to feel back and I'm ready to keep the busy summer rolling. It should be a good one!

After Spring Series in Whistler, CAN I traveled to Negril, Jamaica with my mom and aunt for a girls trip over an extended weekend. I had never been to the Caribbean so I was in awe by the blue water and tropical climate. I went from 30 degrees and rain to 80 degrees and full sunshine pretty quick which meant a lot of sunscreen.

We walked along the beach every morning, chatted with the locals, ate fresh papaya and tried various types of jerked meat. We also spent a lot of time sitting on the beach, reading our books. After four days of this I started to get quite restless as I am not one to sit still for too long, but it also was such a great break from the usual business of the ski life. Alas, by the time we departed the island I was ready to get back to a bustling schedule.

I spent about 48 hours at home before departing for another trip, this time to Europe. Despite making the travels across the pond many times, I had never been a tourist in Europe until this spring. I met my boyfriend, Thomas, in Geneva where we traveled into the Swiss Alps to meet friends for some mountain adventures. We went backcountry skiing, Nordic skiing, hiking and biking. The town of Bagnes, SUI sits in a valley right below Verbier Resort. With access to great skiing up high and summer conditions down low, we had the best of both worlds. We even attempted the sport of water foiling, which is a mix between surfing, skateboarding and pogo sticking. Our mornings and evenings were spent doing activities while the afternoon was usually dedicated to work. I couldn’t take 4 weeks off from work so continued to work for my part-time job remotely throughout the trip. Luckily, there was always something to look forward to at the end of the day!

On Easter, we continued our travels down to the coast of Italy to a town called Portofino. We stayed at an agritourismo - a little farm up on the hillside that harvested olives and honey from their beehives. Thomas decided in March that he was ready to run a 50k in May, so we also incorporated some running during this part of the trip, exploring the little peninsula during an 18 mile run.

Exhausted from the run, we were ready to get back to tourist life and hopped on the train toward Florence. On the way, we made a pit-stop in Pisa to get some tasty sandwiches and capture one of more basic photos I’ve ever taken in my life. Such a cool town though!

We made it to Florence and immediately I was taken away by the cathedral, art and food of the city. I don’t think I can pick a favorite place during this trip, but Florence is definitely one I want to return to. Two days was not nearly enough time to see everything, although we did get around the city quite a bit.

We explored the Florence cathedral, baptistry, basilica de Santa Croce, basilica de San Lorenzo, saw the David, and strolled around the gardens. Also, Florence seemed to have a gelato shop every third shop on the street so we had our fair share of gelato too.

I was feeling overwhelmed by the art and history in the city. It had been a while since I had taken a European history class and although Thomas knew a fair amount Da Vinci and Michaelangelo, we decided to do some learning too. We found a podcast on Spotify by Dr. Rocky Ruggiero, an American professor who has lived in Florence for the past 15 years running study abroad programs. Ruggiero has over 200 podcasts about the buildings, cities, frescos, and other renaissance-related cultural items. His podcasts walked us through the mosaic in the Florence baptistry and the story behind the famous families buried in the Basilica de Santa Croce. His podcasts were both informative and humorous and I highly recommend them for anyone exploring central Italy in the future.

From Florence, we hopped on yet another train toward Venice where we met Thomas’s mom and her friends who were showing their art at the Venice art show. They say never visit Venice when it’s raining. The first day we were on the island it rained the entire day, but we made the most of it! We were told to get lost in the city and we definitely did that. We ate fresh seafood and listened to more of Rocky’s podcasts. Finally, we went to the art show at a palace on the Grand Canal, which exhibited artists from all over the world.

A quick trip to Venice was all I needed as I felt myself bonking from all the frescos and mosaics. They were absolutely gorgeous, but over a week of museums was enough for me. From there we traveled to Tuscany where we visited the cities of San Gimingano, Sienna and Pienza. San Gimingano is considered the Manhattan of the Middle Ages with numerous towers built throughout the city. Siena seemed to have been lost in my history textbooks so I was fascinated to hear how much of a thriving metropolis it had been as a rival of Florence back during the Renaissance. Meanwhile, Pienza brought us some of the best cheese and wine I have ever had.

While in Pienza, we were surrounded by three other smaller towns that were known for their Pecorino cheese and Nobile wine. Still prepping for a 50k coming up, we explored these towns during a 16 mile run through the countryside of Tuscany.

This vacation was everything that I needed at the end of a busy season - it gave my mind and body the time to rest and relax, which it was craving in March. During our last little stint in Tuscany we had a rainy day. I suddenly found myself feeling restless and anxious to get out the door. I was craving exercise and didn’t care that it was cold and rainy. I took this as a really good sign that I had spent April doing exactly what I needed to do. I was recovered and antsy to get back to training. I started craving endorphins and the structure around a training plan. Although I was sad to be saying goodbye to a European vacation, I was also very excited to be getting back to the US to start the new training season.

I spent one week at home in Minnesota visiting with friends and family and slowly starting to get back into a ‘normal’ routine. A few days ago, I traveled out to Bend, OR to meet up with my SMS teammates for our first training camp of the year. We will spend two weeks training on snow at Mount Bachelor in the mornings and biking and running on the trails in Bend in the afternoon. The training in Bend is so much fun and typically brings us spectacular spring days, which leads to the perfect way to kick off the training year.

Despite not making the Olympic team this past year, I’ve continued to have more fun with this sport than I had in a really long time. I’m loving my teammates, excited to continue working with Coach Pat O’Brien as well as our new head SMS coach, Perry Thomas (whom I trained under during my senior year at UVM). I am looking forward to the upcoming goals I have set for myself, despite them being scary and full of challenge. Play time is over, time to get back to work!

As the ski racing season concludes I feel exhausted, exhilarated, still heart-broken, yet inspired. This winter really has been a roller coaster; the lows of missing an Olympic team and getting sick with Covid were unpleasant, but the highs that I experienced in recent weeks gave me something to hold on to.

After returning from Europe at the end of January having recovered from Covid, I didn’t know what to expect from myself both physically, mentally and emotionally regarding ski racing. There were no more Olympics to qualify for and my body felt exhausted. However, being in New England for eastern Supertours felt like home and I was able to relax, look forward to the racing with few expectations and enjoy the little moments.

Making my way to Lake Placid after international travel had me anxious about racing in frigid wind chill temps around -15 Fahrenheit and nervous about what type of shape I was in. To my astonishment, the cold kept zero spectators from the venue and I was blown away by the turnout of ski fans cheering on the hills! I didn’t have the best sprint qualifier, but used the energy from the crowd to have fun in the heats and made my way onto the podium - a pleasant surprise! The following day was a skate 10k mass start and again I found myself nervous, not sure if my fitness would hang on for that long of a race. I was timid at the start of the race and let the lead pack ski away from me. However, halfway through the race it hit me that I was racing scared and that I had absolutely nothing to lose at this point. I started really going for it, dropped the chase pack and made my way around the technical, twisty course, just feeling good be outside, surrounded by friends and family, ski racing. In the final half kilometer I had one of those magical moments in athletics that I will carry with me forever. I was in second place by 20 seconds feeling content with that. Coach Pat hollered at me that I could win. My first thought was, ‘no way - that’s not possible,’ my second thought was, ‘hells yeah I’m going to try!’ With what felt like the entire New England ski community cheering for me on the final hill I made a move that carried my speed all the way to the finish and crossed the line in first.

Feeling jubilant after racing in Lake Placid I was no longer anxious or nervous about another supertour weekend in Craftsbury. My brother was racing at the UVM carnival and my parents had made the trek from Minnesota to watch. Similarly, I found myself running into friends and ski family over the weekend, all of whom put a smile on my face. This relaxed, positive energy that I felt from the crowds carried me through another very fun and successful weekend of racing.

Surprised with my own performances on the supertour, I wanted more. I traveled to the Midwest with my parents to prep for the Birkie. I skied with friends, did intervals with local athletes, raced the Mora Vasaloppet and continued to feel energized by the people around me. I will admit that is was difficult during these weeks to watch the Olympics progress, something I'd spent the last decade dreaming about, but that doesn't mean I held back in my cheering from afar. It was amazing to see Team USA perform so well at the biggest stage!

​Birkie Fever just might be the death of me someday. I can’t help but let it get to me! With that, I’m guilty of spreading the contagious energy. Teammate, Lina, and boyfriend, Thomas, both flew into town for their first Birkie experiences. I still can’t decide if I had more fun racing and partaking in Birkie festivities, or watching them fall in love with the event. Thomas completed his first cross country ski race as he skrrtted his way through a jigsaw of Korteloppet skiers and ended up second in his wave. The shot of blue liquor that he took on Lake Hayward was part of the experience, but Thomas admits he might not need to repeat that in the future. Lina broke a pole in the first 100 meters of the Birkie, having to fight her way back to the pack over 50k. The girl still crossed the line with the biggest grin on her face and has already agreed to coming back for more Birkie weekends in the future!

Meanwhile, I cherished every person cheering on the course. Even after dropping my feed bottle at OO and facing many ‘close call’ moments of losing the lead pack including a crash 3k to the finish - I felt strong and happy to be there. The roar of screaming fans hitting me as I raced up and over the bridge onto Main Street will never get old. I’ve experienced some impressive crowds on the World Cup but nothing can beat Hayward, WI on Birkie Saturday.

At this point, Vermont and Minnesota feel like home to me. I have a community in both states and appreciate everything that they bring to me. They make me feel loved and support me no matter what the goal. Coming home from Europe this year had me feeling immense gratitude for not only my close support system, but the entire cross country skiing community. The excitement around the sport that I felt in Lake Placid, the love that I felt in Craftsbury, and the FEVER that I felt in the Midwest this winter, all reminded me how much I love the sport. During one of my darker moments along this journey, the people around me pulled me up and left me feeling happier and more excited about pursuing my athletic goals than I think I’ve ever felt.

I ended the season with a trip to race the sprint World Cup in Drammen, NOR, then to Sapadda, Italy for Europa Cup Finals, and finally Spring Series in Whistler, CAN. Some of these races were amazing (like winning in Italy) while others were bleak to catastrophic (nearly last in Drammen and exploding a ski binding in a crash in the 45k at Spring Series). Despite this continuous rollercoaster ride, I couldn’t help but find myself smiling through it all and having a blast with my teammates, friends, coaches, and supporters.