Supertour - Day 1 + 2

Hi from the states!

Day one of our trip went by slowly, traveling down the highway to Minneapolis. (by the way, we're here ok, mom, sorry I forgot to email...) The drivers were tired by the time we arrived, but the kids were still haywire. Something to do with being cooped up in a car for eight hours, who would have guessed? Anyway, we checked into the hotel at around 9:30. Between a quick shopping run done by Jamie and Alison, the team meeting/snacktime and the creative remodeling of the tiny hotel room to accommodate four rather large guys, the lights didn't get turned out until close to 12:00. 

miscellaneous junk

the stack of unwanted furniture in the corner

alex, doing...something

my stuff, under the sink

Day two saw an early morning trip to the Mall of America. The mall was lovely at 10:00 in the morning, as there was barely anybody there. We had most of the stores completely to ourselves, save for the slightly bemused workers. As Alex and I visited Pacsun, the girl at the front inquired as to "what the heck you guys are doing here this early in the morning?" Our reply was simply to glance at the empty store, meet each others eyes and grin. Alex and I had a successful shopping trip, which was a surprise, since we both agreed that we're about as at home in a shopping mall as Corey is at a choir concert.

Amelia and Anais, on the other hand, were reportedly the terrors of the mall. They were on a mission to visit (and buy up) as many stores as humanly possible in two hours. 

From the mall, we went back to the hotel to eat lunch and regroup before heading to the venue to preski.

Minneapolis is seriously lacking in snow, and so the course at Theodore Wirth Park consists of a 3.3 km loop that will be very skied in by the time the races are over. The snow conditions are weird. It's artificial snow, and I suspect that they've put fertilizer on the course in order to keep the snow, as I could feel the cold buffer of air that tends to rise off the trails in that kind of conditions. The course is fairly nice; it reminds me of Windsor Park, but is on the whole more technical, as there are lots of sharp turn sections and some longer uphills. I'll try to get the course preview video we shot up on youtube at some point.

start/finish area

windy top section

a longer uphill

another windy top section

fun (and wickedly icy) downhill

finishing stretch

After heading back to the hotel, a serious stretching session and dinner, we had the team meeting. Corey waltzed into the room positively glowing. "It's not what I'm used to," he commented regarding the coaches meeting, "they didn't have course maps, charts or anything. I just walked in and they handed me a beer!"

From there, it was straight to the wax room. I hooked up the GoPro again, in the hopes of stringing together some sort of video to send back to everyone at home, but it's going to have to be a project for when I have some more time. Here are a few shots of the action, though.

hooking up my "chest cam'

removing grip

pretty...

fun with rotobrushes

more alex. 

alan and corey. there needs to be more pictures of these guys, as they do the lion's share of the work. unfortunately, the camera only points in the direction i'm facing...

 Now it's off to bed. Racing starts at 10:30 am for the girls, and the rest of us not until around 12:00, so it's an easier morning. However, Do's been snoring up a storm, so we're passing out the earplugs and making contingency plans to force him to sleep in the stairwell. More updates to come, time allowing!

- Red River Nordic race team, from Minneapolis