November 16, 2008 (Anchorage, AK) – In one week I am going to get on a plane to start the race season and it makes me feel a bit like a kid before Christmas. I woke up early the other morning dreaming about the trip, and I couldn’t make myself fall back to sleep. I am counting down the days. I have already packed my bag. I kind of wonder why – why am I so excited for the season to begin? The short answers is, I want to race. But I think the longer answer is because I feel prepared, and because looking back on the preparation makes racing sound easy.

This spring, summer, and fall whirled by and they were filled with training. I spent the spring in Cordova where my husband, Alex, lives and took advantage of crust skiing that seemed to never end. When summer arrived I started to split my time between Cordova, where I could be with Alex, and Anchorage where I could train with my club (APUNSC). Throughout the summer I spent time skiing with APUNSC on a Glacier near Anchorage. I roller-skied a lot! I lifted weights and actually enjoyed it (usually I don’t, usually I just feel like I’m trapped in a dark moist place getting covered in other people’s dried up sweat). I ran and hiked and biked, I did interval, after interval to the point where the word interval lost the connotation of fear that I used to associate with it. I travelled between Anchorage and Cordova enough that the baggage handlers of the small planes that make the trip started to call me by first name.

When fall arrived, I took a leave of absence from my job as an environmental planner so that I could have more time to train, recover, and travel during the race season. At the beginning of October the snow fell at Hatcher Pass so I got to start skiing early. I love to ski and that’s just it. In one week I get on a plane, and when I get off my focus will be to ski as well as I can. Simply ski.