Ski Break!

The season is about to start for real, with race after race. We, the coaches, will not have a weekend off from racing starting in January and going straight through the middle of March. The athletes will have weekends off, depending on their team they don't race every weekend but the coaches go with whichever team is racing. I'm not complaining just explaining!

Anyway, with that long season on the horizon we decided to take a week off on our own to do what we love most, skiing! The reason we coach the ski team, organize races, time races, find world cup videos, wax skis, teach technique, support disappointed athletes, etc. is because we LOVE IT! The only problem is that in the midst of supporting everyone else we get less skiing that we would like, hence the trip!

Every year at this time we go somewhere, this year it's Reno and the Tahoe area for skiing. So far we've skied at Tahoe/Donner and Royal Gorge. Tahoe/Donner was a bit of a disappointment because it snowed 6+ inches (good!) but they weren't grooming (bad!) and they still charged us the twilight rate of $13 (bad!). I think it would have been friendly to lower that amount due to the not awesome conditions.

Royal Gorge on the other hand was amazing! Being a Leadville girl and then living in Laramie I'm always a little put out about paying to ski. Royal Gorge is beyond the normal at $29! We managed to find the cheap day and only paid $19 but that's still pretty hefty for a nordic area. The good news is that the snow was amazing, the trails were wonderful, the huts were fun and we had a fantastic time! We really wanted to ski out to the point where you can overlook Royal Gorge but those trails weren't groomed yet, leaving only about 90km of trails instead of the over 300! We couldn't quite get around the whole 90 but we gave it a try. It was beautiful and we had the perfect corduroy to ourselves, it just doesn't get any better than that! Tomorrow we'll try somewhere else and Friday is a special day at Northstar ($35 for alpine) so we'll alpine/telemark in the morning and break out the skinny skis in the afternoon. Once again, doesn't get any better than this!

Hope everyone is having a fantastic break and is getting well and/or lots of good training. Rest, eat, train, rest, eat, train, sleep... We're hoping for some rocking races when you get back!