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Saturday, January 2, 2010

Dear 4th Grade: Happy New Year!

So, you must all be back in school now? How was your holiday break? How are things in Lake Placid? All is quite well here. And I too had a great time with family during Christmas. But, I am back on the road again. For this week I am in Antholz in the South Tyrolian region of Italy. I am staying at the top of the valley right next to the nordic and biathlon center; I can walk out the door of my hotel right on to the ski trail! Again, I am staying on another lake - but this one a bit smaller and frozen, so I can ski on it.

A trail behind the hotel rises above the lake towards a pass which is on the border of Italy and Austria. A local's favorite is to hike up this trail, enjoy a hot drink and some cake at a small restaurant at the top, then rent a sled to take you all the way back down to the lake. Today, I just classic skied up to enjoy the view:


Looking back towards my "home" for the week - Hotel Seehaus:


This week I am back to a normal training schedule - a session in the morning, some good pasta for lunch, a nap and then another training session in the afternoon. It has been good to rebuild my strength and stamina after racing and traveling a lot this past month. The gains I make in these current weeks will help me race faster over the next month and are a part of the step process towards racing well in February.

After our full Olympic Team re-assembles at the Ruhpolding World Cup [see my schedule in the right hand column] we will be back here for the 6th World Cup. It will be exciting to have our whole team and staff together again, especially for the women since there has only been a few of us racing over here. And looking ahead towards Ruhpolding, we will enter our first women's relay before the Olympics. All the races are in the afternoon and evening that week, which makes it much more enjoyable to watch online back in the US without missing a good night of sleep.



Ciao!

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