I have been in Ostersund, Sweden for the last 12 days. Our home here is Camp Sodergren which is located right beside the ski trails. When we arrived it was one of the few places in Europe with any snow and we spent the first week skiing on a 2km loop. At times we were sliding on a mixture of ice, sawdust and pavement but every few days more snow was added to repair the bad spots so we could ski.
Here is the view of the stadium when we arrived:
Snowmaking in progress:
They spread all the snow they had stored over the summer at the beginning of last week in preparation for biathlon races next weekend so we now have about 4km of steep race trails in good condition.
Our plans have been changing a lot due to the current snow shortage in Europe. We managed to do one race out of the three planned last weekend in Bruksvallarna. They ran my least favorite of the three, the 10km skate. My body didn't feel great and legs were heavy so I ended up in 51st spot. I was still having trouble sleeping from jetlag and I felt like I just hadn't bounced back from all the travel. Props to Alex, Lenny and Peri for great races!
We were supposed to race in Rovaniemi this weekend but the races were cancelled and we stayed in Ostersund and did some time trials instead. Yesterday we did a 8km classic time trial with some Swedish club/university teams and some members of their National Development Team. I felt way better than last weekend and finished 4th.
Today we did a sprint workout with our team. We did 2 qualifiers and 2 heats. It was fun to get into sprint mode again and got a chance to work on pacing and tactics with the other girls.
Ostersund is a great town with plenty to keep us entertained. We have had fun shopping and drinking cappuccinos at Pause, our favorite coffee shop. We also had lunch at Arctura - a 55m tall cylindrical hot water tank with a restaurant perched on top. This is an aerial view of the ski trails from our table.
Sunset on the lake during an evening jog;
In case you missed it, here is a packing video that the boys made last week:
http://www.devonkershaw.com/default.asp?mode=newsstory&id=149 Our stint in Ostersund ends tomorrow. We will fly to Stockholm and spend tomorrow night there, then fly to Kuusamo via Helsinki on Monday. We have a few days of training in Kuusamo then race the World Cups next weekend!
