I've been ridiculously stoked since arriving in Vancouver this afternoon. Here's why:
As I write this, I'm sitting looking out on a gorgeous little town tucked into a mountain range (where you can essentially ski up to the hotel,) looking forward to racing on the exact course that has been graced by the feet of the best in the world.
IKOWRIGHT? THISISSOAWESOMEIKINDAJUSTWANNAFREAKOUTAAAAASDFHGJKDL...
...
Let's try this again, and maybe I'll tone it down a bit.
Day 1 started with the usual early morning grogginess in the airport. This time, however, we had to navigate the streams of vacationers heading off to the four corners of the globe for spring break. At 5:30 am, the terminal was as full as I've ever seen.
The flight was pretty uneventful, which is definitely a good thing. I mostly slept.
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| from the plane... |
Arriving in Vancouver, I was struck right away by how gorgeous the city is. Even at this time of year, the grass and the trees are a vibrant green, although I've heard that this can be chalked up to the oceans of rain that fall on the city annually.
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| Stanley Park |
The drive out to Whistler was even more breathtaking. The pictures don't really do the scenery justice, but I was glued to the van window for the entire ride. We were also interested in scoping out the road for Corey, as he is planning on racing another Iron Man here this summer. He did have some choice expletives to utter, as the hills just kept getting longer and steeper.
like, seriously. I want this place to have my babies. twitpic.com/cdha4zWhistler Olympic Park is flat out sweet. Turning off the main highway, you follow a windy road uphill for ten minutes, and suddenly on either side of the car, there are ten foot tall walls of snow, with barely a hint of a transition from bare grass. The first thing to be seen when nearing the clubhouses, (yes, plural - there's three of em) is the massive ski jumping set up.
— sean carter (@chasethecart) March 22, 2013
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| NASA's looking into this method for launching satellites... |
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| You can't see behind my hand, but I'm grinning like the friggin' cheshire cat. Maya is unimpressed with my interpretation of Lewis Carroll. |
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| Alfalfa called, he wants his hairstyle back... |
The team sprint course was much shorter then we were expecting, only 700 meters in length with one sole uphill. Ben and I spent about an hour analyzing the course, going through various different lines on the turns and fine tuning our exchange zone technique. We left with even bigger grins on our faces, looking forward to tomorrow's race.
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| The middle clubhouse, with a few wax trailers on the side |
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| I'm going backwards into the exchange area. Why am I doing that? |
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| SO. COOL. |
Since we couldn't check into the hotel until 4:00, we headed to the grocery store, where we ran into what seemed like a good half of the rest of the cross country skiers at the competition. Alex and Jimmy Gunka had a good chat over the romaine lettuce.
As it still was too early to check in, we decided to explore the town.
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| Lisle and I were excited to check out this awesome play structure |
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| struttin' |
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| "are we gonna get in trouble...?" "who cares, let's climb on this thing!!" |
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| we're thinking of trying out for Sochi... |
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| Gondola just off the main walkway. |
After that, we checked into the hotel, dealt with bags and generally settled in. More posts to come!
- SEAN
Edit: Lisle says to declare that she's awesome. Consider it declared.
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