November 3, 2008 (Aspen, Colorado) – After a beautiful four-hour drive over Independence Pass full of yellow aspen leaves and a bit of snow coming out of the tunnel, we arrived in Aspen ready to work hard. The Boulder Nordic Junior Racing Team brought three athletes to the fall select/development team training camp including: Wesley Geer, Katie Stege, and Jessica Jortberg, along with our coach, Eric Pepper. Aspen greeted us with a cool temperature reminding us that winter is just around the corner. When we first arrived we went for a short hour long run at AVSC to preview the course for the running race the following day. We stayed in a little hostel right in town which served our every need with three beds to a room and not much more for comfort.

We woke up the next morning ready to race. The race was part of the high school cross-country meet which was also open to citizens. Boulder’s own, Katie Stege proved herself by winning the women’s citizens race, and on the men’s side, all of the Rocky Mountain Nordic coaches represented well and demolished the field. Many members of the camp ran with their schools cross country team and joined us later in the camp.

Following the race we had a bit of down time and then we went for a 2-hour double pole roller ski. The coaches dropped us along the bike path in Carbondale which we skied on all the way to Aspen. This workout was a nice change for us, flat as opposed to the gradual incline of Left Hand Canyon. The path included a great view of Aspen and the Roaring Fork River.

On the last day of the camp we had a time trial up the Maroon Bells Road. We did two 3.1/3.5 km intervals up to the park. It was an overcast day with a constant drizzle throughout the time trial which seemed to be a bit of a disadvantage due to the slickness of the road. We ended the camp with the motivation to keep training hard in expectation of this coming season and it was comforting knowing West Yellowstone is less than one month away.