Tour de France Camp O'12

NC at it again dominating the hardest HC climbs of the Alpe's while jumping in the morning and watching the big boys mix it up in the afternoon.  In this years edition of the Nordic Combined TDF we managed to knock down:

Col du Madeleine, Col du Glandon, l'Alpe d'Huez, Montee de Courchevel (some on rollerskis), Cormet de Roselend, Col du Petit St Bernard, Col de la Croix de Fer, Col du Telegraphe, Col du Galibier

for a grand total of 14,500 meters of climb over nearly 600km. 

This year we also had fellow Nordic Combined Olympians Jed Hinkley and Carl Van Loan, the proprieters of "Olympian Tours" bring several guests who rode with us and made some helpful donations to the National Nordic Foundation. Also supporting this effory was Fast Big Dog racing who through in some sicky kits and water bottles as well as Park City Cole Sport and Honey Stinger. 

Now the B team is training in Oberstdorf, Germany for several days and the A team is headed to Sochi to try out the new jumps and compete in some comps this coming weekend!

Here is a little video that mr @skifletch made to commerate our epic week.

Video from Val Di Fiemme

Highlight reel from the pre-world Championship event in Val di Fiemme, Italy from February.  My first podium since Vancouver and some sweet racing with Mikko Kokslien and Akito Watabe.

Looking for the US Noco boys to fire it up in Lahti, Finland tomorrow at 9am est in the 2 man team relay.  Team 1 is Bryan and Taylor Fletcher, USA 2 is Brett Denney and Nick Hendrickson.

Go boys, go USA!

Shoulder Season Training...

Training this time of year is bitter sweet... You are motivated to ski faster than ever but tired from training all summer.  The weather can suck for running/rollerskiing but there's not enough snow to ski.  Athletes start traveling to get on snow and most everyone else tries to maintain fitness waiting for the white stuff or at least the sun to come out.  My life is defined by trying to balance getting enough on snow training before the opener in Kuusamo and not spending to much time on the road before the first comps getting stale.  Though it might sound weird two weeks in europe before a race can be bad if you've been doing this game for over a decade.  I'm going to chance it this year and as a result I find myself anxiously hoping to back country ski or skate or jump soon but in the meantime killing time and making my workouts by improv as illustrated below:

Best punch line for:

What do you get when you put a Biathlete and a Nordic Combiner side by side on a treadmill doing classic?

Win's a 2010 Bjorn Dahlie jacket from me and some kind of squarehead triple stripped Adidas thing from Teela.