Starting with the photo dump, with little captions to hopefully make a story. Some insights into early racing at the end if you so desire.

Walking over to training with the ski jumps in the background. First day in Ruka

Testing classic skis with Karel. 3rd year working with him!

View of the apartment after getting back from skiing.

We had great meals in Ruka thanks to a very generous donation from the Curran family to support Chef Tanya! She cooked us great stuff in the tiny kitchenette that was in each apartment. Such a pro.

First race prep day! With zak ketterson, fellow rossignol hero

First race! Ended up 48th. Not the best start, but I wasn't planning on much.

Post skate 20k pursuit with the boys. Moved up to 35th!

Ben flexing the new Kappa in Lillehammer

Walking the main street in Lillehammer. Very cute and christmassy!

Lillehammer 10k skate. Up to 32nd. Good trend! (photo by Sarah Brunson)

With Zak post race (photo by Sarah Brunson)

Core too because there was a day between races here

Race day ski picking with Karel (photo by Sarah Brunson)

20k classic, trying to stay relaxed in the pack (photo by Sarah Brunson)

17th in this one! Big step up! It felt really good. I was able to feel relaxed in the pack the whole time, and had good energy in the end to finish fast!

Methow Valley fans! Stoked to have a great cheering squad at this one

Busing to Beitostolen. Into the mountains!

Walking to skiing in some beautiful morning arctic sun!

Really sweet place. This is about 20 minutes of skiing from the venue. In the mountains.

Post-intervals with Kristen! She’s our new D-team coach and it’s so great to have another super elite coach to help with lactate testing in 5ºF and video and technique discussions!

Plenty of lasagna in Beito. We were getting dinner catered, but there ended up being enough leftovers so that it was basically breakfast lunch and dinner if we were fine with 8am lasagna.

Hangin with the boys. Sweet to be in apartments here!

Not all days were great sun and light. Gotta remember to post the clouds and snow too

No racing pics from Beitostolen, but it was cold! Flew Oslo-Zurich, so it was an easy travel day.

Little coffee station in the new wing of the hotel

Pretty cozy place to do Sediment Transport homework

Again, no racing pics, but Davos went great! It was the first 20k individual start, and I felt like I skied smoothly, both in terms of technique and pacing. That’s pretty key on this rolling altitude course, if you go too hard at any point, it can be hard to bring it around. I also got lucky because I got a ride behind Holund and Krueger for a little bit, but still felt like I struggled to push super hard at the end without fading in terms of speed. That last bit takes a lot of sharpening!

The trucks all packed up for the holiday break

We’re all ready too! Living with Ben and Jessie, and we already got our tree all set up.

Insights

My gut feelings about my racing this chunk of the season was that it was generally a little lackluster, but with some moments that really shined through! That’s been a little hard to deal with, mostly because it had translated to being a little on the bubble for Tour de Ski starts through Beitostolen. I’m really excited with my progression, though. I think my original plan (which I’ve had to remind myself of) is actually going well, and I’ve been feeling steadily fitter. I do still have to remind myself of that plan, or revisit my fall goals, because it’s easy to feel like I’m not getting the results I want. It’s a good exercise in patience and delayed gratification, and I still believe it’ll work out! But for now, I gotta just sit tight.

Beyond those feelings, it’s been a great start to the winter tour. We’ve had some amazing weather in some amazing places, and the team has had a great atmosphere and results to go with! It’s a really good momentum to feel a part of, and I can’t wait for all of us to really start popping big results!

I’ll have a tour review also, but for now thanks for looking at a bunch of pictures with not much thought!