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Friday, March 25, 2011

LINK to Julie Foudy's presentation

My post on Julie Foudy's presentation, "Unlocking Greatness in Girls: Developing Leadership through Sport" has been one of my most popular. I blew through 13,000 hits this week (recording only since July) and am thankful people are interested in learning about the life of skier both on and off the trail.

The following link takes you to a page where you can either download the wedinar or view the presentation slides.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

"Wholesome Discontent" - Julie Foudy, US Women's Soccer Team Captain


This afternoon I had the opportunity to listen in on the webinar “Unlocking Greatness in Girls: Developing Leadership through Sport” that was presented by Julie Foudy, US Women’s National Soccer Team captain, two-time Olympic Gold Medalist and two-time World Champion. Among many of her current jobs, she runs the Julie Foudy Sports Leadership Academy, and it is from this position that she gave her presentation.

Right now I am feeling the classic signs of post-season trans-Atlantic jetlag and still reveling in the fact that I raced in Holmenkollen only days ago, so will only jot down a few points that I thought were important and good to share with this community.
  • Leadership is a choice. Choose to Matter. -JF
  • Leadership is personal not positional. –JF
One of Julie Foudy’s influential and quiet leaders from her National Team:
Mia Hamm Foundation  www.miafoundation.org
  • Find your own leadership style. -JF

Offer tangible examples about how to lead in life, “on the field” or “on the trail” even if you don’t think you have such leadership qualities. Here’s one example that Julia Foudy uses at her Academy: Emmanuel’s Gift www.emmmanuelsgift.com

Julie Foudy Sports Leadership Academy www.juliefoudyleadership.com
  • “Pressure is a privilege.” -Billy Jean King
  •  “Success is a peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to do the best of which you are capable.” John Wooden www.coachwooden.com

Dove self-esteem project – Dove Evolution http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U

Fact: Words are only 7% of your communication the rest is made up of your tone of voice and body language. -JF
  • Celebrate who started the goal. Recognize all of the different plays that it took to get the ball to the net. This includes everyone involved and isn’t just about who scored the goal. -JF

“Wholesome Discontent” = after success or set back it is the attitude to positively push your self and your team to be even better. This was the standard set by the Olympic Gold medal winning women’s soccer team and was a fundamental formula for their years of success. 

I think I will be emailed a transcript of the presentation and will post if possible. Enjoy and best of luck to the end of the season!

Sunday, March 20, 2011

SKIERS HELPING JAPAN

Thanks to Kikkan for contributing this website and information to skitrax.com and sharing it with the nordic world. 

My heart goes out to Japan, and especially to the ones whom I compete with. I have had a few opportunities to let them know that I am thinking of them and their country. Especially, now as all the world cup skiers prepare to finish their season in Europe and travel back home to see the devastation first hand for the first time. Missing home and family takes on a new light when compared to what that means to them as they fly half way around the world to return back to Japan.

I am glad to have found the website that Kikkan reported on:
I will take the time to learn more about it and would like to contribute in anyway I can.



Final Race in Holmenkollen!

Mass Start!
2pm (9am EST) Women's Mass Start 12.5km

I started the week knowing I still had some good racing left in me and started the Sprint race know I felt that good. But I also ended the Pursuit yesterday knowing I still had more in me. And in a few hours I am psyched to get to do it. The Pursuit was fun and was an exciting new challenge since this is only the third Pursuit I've started in this year. Except starting a little closer to the front put me right in the mix of the top women. With difficult shooting conditions skiing the loops felt relatively calm. I didn't have superb shooting, but for the day it was good enough. I was confident with my strategy going into the wind and knew what I had to do. Because of this I was able to be bit a more active out on the course and work for every position every chance I got. I had great skis and used them as best I could out there. Actually they must have been the best because they helped sail pass the likes of the Russians, Germans and French. I moved into the top 15 a few times after the range, which felt great and I used it as motivation for only a quick moment. Anything can happen in biathlon, so I continued to stick to my own pace no matter the place. I don't have a lot of experience in high level pursuits so I don't always know how much I have left for the sprint at the end, so I pushed it on the last lap anyways, just to see. I might have made an uphill pass too early and wasn't able to go "full gas" into the final homestretch, but that's okay. I'll take that experience. Especially since I get to use nearly 24 hours later in today's Mass Start. Yesterday was a great reminder to stay calm, go for each hit and enjoy super fast skis!

The other neat thing about today is that I think this is the first we've had 2 women starting in the Mass Start!! All together, we have had 3 women compete in the Mass Start this season. I've been doing this sport for awhile now and I am proud to be a part of this momentous step forward. So, cheers to today's race! 




Just a few shots from this week in Oslo:

The stadium takes on a new configuration for the biathlon world cup compared to last weeks nordic World Champs. 

Typical Scandinavian trail-side picnic.

Watched the Norwegian Birkebeiner on TV the morning of the Pursuit. This guy was being interviewed at one of the pit-stops during his race. I hope I can do a 54km race when I am that age!

Waffles and jam never tasted so good. Holmenkollen has been such an amazing experience, especially after being in Russia and after a long season, that everything is just a little bit sweeter here.  


The view from our wax room. We can look straight down into the shooting range. A bit scary really.

After the Sprint I took the T-bahn down into town to do my recovery jog on flatter terrain. I was in Oslo 11 years ago and Vigelund Sculpture Park was one of the neatest places. These two women are typical human sculpture's that form the sculpture park. The layout of the park makes feel more like a monument for humanity because collectively all of Vigelund's sculptures represent human emotion, interaction, growth and phases of life. 



Saturday, March 19, 2011

3 tykes and a fjord

Checking out some of Holmenkollen's trails and spectators after the Sprint on Thursday.

World Cup Final Pursuits today:
2pm (9am EST) Women
4pm (11am EST) Men


......Or you can watch anyone of these races happening in the world today:
Cross-Country World Cup Final Men's and Women's Pursuit races in Falun, Sweden
Norwegian Birkebeiner (I'm watching the finishers come in now)

Enjoy the final days of winter!

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Holmenkollen

Final World Cup schedule, local time:

3.17 Thursday 11am Women's Sprint
2pm Men's Sprint

3.19 Saturday 11am Men's Pursuit
2pm Women's Pursuit

3.20 Sunday Women's Mass Start 2pm
Men's Mass Start 4pm




Friday, March 11, 2011

Congrats to the US Men's 6th place Relay!!! - w/ photos

Lowell in the mix of it on the first lap.

Congrats to Lowell, Jay, Tim, Leif and the USBA staff for an excellent World Champs Relay!!!!

www.biathlon.teamusa.org

26 men's teams on the firing line.

Tim, Austria and Canada.

Amazing sunset and typical Eurosport shooting view.

Ecstatic Russian fans - Russia had a great home race placing 2nd. 

Photo finish! The results show the shooting results: USA 0 penalty loops + 14 extra rounds, 38.1 seconds beyond. Germany on the other hand, with 3 penalty loops and 16 extra rounds.

The boys getting their flowers at the Flower Ceremony.



Thursday, March 10, 2011

A lot more of Russia before the World Champs Relay

With three days in between our Individual race and the Women's Relay, I knew I needed to have a day to mentally re-charge, take a break from the range and normal routine in order to be fresh and excited about training and the final competition of World Champs. I'm back to the training plan today and am truly look forward to getting back out there after the Individual race. I felt much better skiing, so I know I continue to move on the right track even as the season comes to a close. Shooting still eludes me, but today is another day. Despite my challenges in biathlon, there is always another chance - another shooting stage, another loop, another race, another year. 

Yesterday I took the time to get back into town to see the Nature and Man museum in the morning and spent the afternoon classic skiing on a bunch of side trails off the race loops. Annelies and I joined up with the Canadian team to check out a museum that you could spend hours in trying to decipher the history of the Yugra region in order to gain a better understanding of life in Siberia beyond the snow, cold and sterile stone buildings of Khanty-Mansiysk. Siberia is perhaps one of the most interesting place skiing has taken me.

Their prize Siberian fossils are woolly mammoths.  


Did you know woolly rhinoceras even existed?


Typical native garb for a child. They look like small animals and their clothes are decorated with beads and colored cloth to ward off evil spirits. This children's display was the introduction into the incredible and mysterious arctic culture. Their creative dress and pagan rituals give a lot of color and spirit to this otherwise seemingly harsh and cold region.  





In the matter of an hour or so our tour guide led us through the people, customs, traditions and history of the region. Nothing unusual for a museum - artifacts, replications, old photos, etc. But one artifact stood out as a stark reminder of different this location in the world is compared to any other place I've been. Below is a map from the 1701 Chart Book of Siberia.   
It looks like an ordinary map until it was explained that the orientation is opposite than what we might think. The Moscow and Ural Mountains looked like they were on the "wrong" side. Maps at this time and place were drawn in orientation from the North Pole looking down to Russia. The west was now on the right, the east on the left, the north on the bottom and the south on the top. 

Display rooms of the native Siberian tribes quickly transitioned into rooms of a more recent past. During the Russian Revolution the Ob river valley was increasingly populated by political exiles. The Ob river valley is a confluence of many large and small rivers, as the map above, illustrates. These rivers also brought together many different peoples, often fatally, as the region was established and populated over the last century. 




A few decades ago oil became the dominate natural resource.


The museum also had a special biathlon exhibit for World Champs.


Zina Kocher, of Canada, Annelies and I and the endless sites to see in Khanty.


On the walk back to the hotel shuttle - the following contrasts seem to speak for themselves.


And now its back to training. The Men's Relay is tonight!
6:30pm local time 8:30am EST


Monday, March 7, 2011

A bit more of Russia before the next race

It has been great to be Russia during the Nordic World Championships with easy access to full race coverage in Oslo on Eurosport. Here's an aerial shot of the cheering crowds lining the course and filling the forest during the Men's 50km:



Advertisement and promotion of World Champs in Norway play heavily on the origins of skiing in Scandinavia and the birth rite of Norway. But, skiing here in Siberia offers a different vantage point of the origin of skiing outside of Scandinavia. Khanty-Mansiysk is named for the native tribes that inhabited this region. In such a cold, snowy northern climate, skiing is an natural part of the area's heritage.

I have not learned enough to extensively write about skiing in Siberia, so instead, here's an alternative example. At the end of Warren Miller's recent film, Dynasty, there is a moving and thrilling 7 minute story about skiing in Mongolia. Check out a personal account of this trek from freeskier Austin Ross's website. Or watch the movie.


....Является самым распространённым из славянских языков и самым....
Just copied this sentence, no idea what it means. So much of Russia is unfamiliar and isolated. Yesterday was an off day and a chance to learn a little bit more about this place.

Matryoshka - Classic Nesting Dolls



Pancakes. The Russian bliny served with sour cream, sweetened cranberries, honey and jam. And for the unfortunate one, sometimes stuffed with fish or meat. 

All these photos are from a walk from our hotel and venue to town and back. Nothing in particular was spectacular, but all together it gives a better sense of this far off Siberian city.









Armin and Annelies, and a view of the Siberian taiga beyond the city center.

On our walk through town kids played in nearly every snowbank.


Our staff: Jonne, Bernd, Per, Alios, and Armin.
In front of the Russian Orthodox Church.



This is what the city of Khanty-Mansiysk looked like before recent modern improvements, and still does once outside of the city center when you look beyond the green corrugated fences and down the small side streets:






The grocery store.


 Five Russian rubles - рубли́  = about .2 cents

And once again, the ubiquitous fur hat.

Interested in more? www.justrussia.ru