Goodbye blogging...

Blogging this year has been quite the journey. When I first heard that we were going to be blogging, lets just I was slightly less than ecstatic. I mean who wants to write about their life and then post it on the internet for everyone to read. A lot has happened since I first started blogging: I build a cardboard boat, I broke my phone so badly that you couldn't see anything on it, I took my first AP test, I went trapezing, I rebroke my phone, but this time somehow managed to fix it and I wrote a blog. Let's start at the beginning and talk about the evolution of my blog.

The first problem that I faced with blogging was what to write about. After going back and forth about what to write about, I finally settled on cross-country skiing. My second problem was how often we needed to post to our blogs. I was pretty confident that my life was nowhere near interesting enough to write about something different every week. When I chose cross-country skiing, I thought it would actually be pretty easy to write about because I came home everyday with a different story to tell someone. I soon realized that I couldn't write about all of my stories (you can't really have a blog about the latest ski team gossip).

Later in the year I started to figure out what I wanted to write about. I began to write more and more about the interesting things that happened to me. Even though, I wrote about some things that were not ski related (i.e. engineering & geoguesser), I was proud that I was able to stick to my theme most of the time. I learned a lot about blogging and just writing in general. 

I can honestly say now that I have had a great year blogging. My favorite part (sadly) was actually blog stalking kids in our grade and a few kids on my ski team (yes, I found a few seniors on my ski team's 9th blog, I was very dedicated). I am aware that it sounds very creepy, but I was just very curious as to what other people were writing about. I follow a lot of blogs and I feel like I have gotten to know a lot of people through their blogs. I hope that people have gotten to know me a little better after reading my blog. 

I have learned a lot about writing as well. I've learned how to write a narrative story that is (hopefully) entertaining to others. When I go back and read my first posts, I can see how much I've improved. My first posts were short (word wise), but felt like they were going on and on forever. I feel like my posts now are longer (word wise), but also more captivating. I am excited to look back (and cringe) on this blog in three years when I am a senior to see how I have changed. 

Today, I feel like I am a better writer and I honestly enjoyed blogging. Thanks for reading my blog. Oh and yes this will probably be my last post on this blog, but who knows I might get motivated and decide to start again. 

Goodbye for now... Photo courtesy of Julie Shipman
(From left to right: Rachael, Lucie, Josie, Aysia, Me, The other Claire)

- Claire 

The Off Ski Season (aka My TV Watching Season)

This month has been our off month for cross-country skiing. Over the course of the past month I have done very little physical activity. I went on a few short "runs", if you could even call them that. They were more like walks with sprinkles of running thrown in there.

I have spent my off month doing basically two things. Studying and watching TV. I am currently taking AP geography and the AP test is rapidly approaching. Even though I am well aware that I should be studying for that, I have been spending most of my time watching TV. I know this blog is supposed to be about cross-country skiing, but oh well. This is how I've been wasting time lately in the absence of skiing.

Monday: SCORPION! Scorpion is a show about a group of geniuses who work for homeland security and solve crimes. The team consists of Walter, Toby, Happy, Sylvester, Paige and Cabe. Everyone has their own special talents (i.e. programming, math, behavior analysis, etc.) that they add to the team. This show is so intelligent and incredibly entertaining to watch.

Team Scorpion!! (credits)

Tuesday: Pretty Little Liars and Shadowhunters. Pretty Little Liars is a very complicated TV show about four girls who are being stalked by "A". Shadowhunters is based on the Mortal Instruments series. For those of you who don't know it is about a girl, Clary Fray, who realizes that she is a shadowhunter (part human, part angel). She gets sucked into the "shadow world", which is the hidden world where vampires, werewolves and demons exist.

Pretty Little Liars (credit)

Wednesday: Survivor. Survivor is a reality TV show where contestants compete for a million dollars and the group votes one person off each week. It is a mental, physical and social game where they compete in challenges for rewards (food) and immunity (they can't get voted off).

Thursday: Grey's Anatomy and How to Get Away with Murder. I already wrote a blog post about this two shows, so I won't go into too much detail describing them. However, they are both incredibly good and I highly recommend watching them (just make sure you don't have anything to do because it will take up all of your time).

Friday: The Amazing Race. The Amazing Race is a reality TV show where teams of two race around the world competing in challenges for a million dollars.

Saturday: Netflix shows: Psych and House M.D.  Psych is a comedy show about a fake physic detective who solves crimes for the SBPD. The show is remarkably funny and I laugh watching every episode. House M.D. is a show about a doctor who only takes on extreme cases and solves them by treating them, instead of running labs. House will make you really frustrated at first (like who just treats someone for a disease they might not have?), but you will grow to love his (extremely sarcastic) sense of humor.

The pose is actually pretty cool in the show (credit)

Sunday: Quantico. Quantico is a TV about a group of FBI agents attempting to figure out who the terrorist is. Plot twist: the terrorist is working from within the FBI. The main character, Alex, has to race to find out who the terrorist is before they kill her friends.

So, those are my recommendations. I have more, but this blog post would be way too long if I talked about all of them. Thanks for listening to me ramble on and on about my favorite TV shows.

- Claire

I'm Joining the Circus

Ok not really, but I'm pretty sure some of my friends were seriously considering it after our first trapeze class.

A few of my friends, Josie, Rachael, Lucie, Aysia, Claire and I decided to go trapezing a few weeks ago. Yes that's right trapezing, like full on circus act trapezing. Josie's mom went to a class a few months ago and said that it was really fun. Josie brought up the idea a few weeks ago and we all wanted to go. Everyone was so excited because how many chances are you going to get to pretend you're in the circus?

For those of you who don't know what trapezing is... (photo credits)

We all met up and headed down to the trapeze place. We got to the class and it turns out we were the only ones there (yay private lesson!) . We went through training at the beginning of the class. It was fairly simple stuff, like how to jump off, how to hang from the bar, how to dismount. Well, it seemed simple at the time (before I was forty feet off the ground). 

Since, Josie's mom had done this before, she went first. She climbed up the forty foot ladder and trapezed. She made it look easy enough. 

I went next and honestly the scariest part was climbing the ladder. Note to self: don't say that the ladder is shaking because the instructors WILL come and shake the ladder even more. I made it up to the platform and then the guy swung the bar over to me. All I had to was grab it with my right hand, while holding onto the platform with my left hand. The guy was holding onto my harness, so I didn't fall. Anyways, I grabbed on to the bar with my other hand and jumped off the platform. 

There was another guy at the bottom yelling commands to you like "legs up, hands off, hands on, legs off, forwards, backwards, forwards, let go".  I would say my first attempt was moderately successful. I mean other than when I face planted because I tried to land on my feet (apparently you are supposed to try and land on your butt or back, I was not aware of this).  

Everyone else went and we all got to go a few more times before we learned how to do a "catch". A catch is when you hang upside down and the other person (the instructor) catches you. I was slightly terrified that I either wouldn't let go or I would jump at the wrong time or the guy would drop me. But none of that happened. It actually went pretty well. I let go and the guy caught me. End of story. It just wasn't incredibly graceful or as cool looking as the picture above. 

Anyways, I would highly recommend going trapezing at least once in your life. It was so much fun (once you got over the initial fear of dying) and I would totally go again! This was honestly one of my favorite activities that I've done with my friends and the instructors were really nice and funny. My favorite quote of the night was "Trapezing is a lot like dating, just keep your legs together and everything will be just fine".

I went trapezing!!! (video courtesy of moi)

- Claire 

Shondaland

Some of you may know the name "Shonda Rhimes", while others may not. Anyone who watches Grey's Anatomy, How to Get Away with Murder, Scandal or the Catch, knows who I'm talking about. Shonda Rhimes is the woman who continues to mess with my life every single Thursday (yes, I'm aware that I'm over exaggerating, but just go with it). Let me back up for a second. She is the writer of several hit shows on ABC.  Every single Thursday is Shonda's night and I watch her shows no matter how many times I say "I swear I'm never watching this again".

I only watch two of her shows, Grey's Anatomy (GA) and How to Get Away with Murder (HTGAWM). Grey's Anatomy is a show following a group of surgical interns, residents and attendings and is doing pretty well considering it's on its 12th season. HTGAWM is a show following a group of law students and their professor, which is only on the second season but has had more plot twists than I've ever seen in my entire life.

I first started watching GA with a few of my friends last summer and finished the first eleven seasons on netflix in a few weeks. This show will frustrate you in so many ways. First off, they will kill almost every character you like (spoiler alert: they all die) or have them leave the show in some other way. Secondly, they will ruin all of your favorite ships. You have probably been in love with Japril or Merder or Calzona for at least one period of time. Oh well, they will probably have some incredibly tragic breakup that will honestly make you scream and then hope and pray they get back together (which, sadly probably won't happen).

I feel you (photo credit: someecards.com)

Somehow they manage bring in new characters who you hate (like with a burning passion) and then a season later you love them. This will also happen with your least favorite (now favorite) ships. When the show first started I loved Cristina and Burke, then Cristina and Owen and now I'm team Owen and Amelia. Sometimes I just don't understand how I can hate a character so much and then love them a month later. So props to you Shonda. I feel like I should also mention that the show isn't just rage inducing. The show is also incredibly funny, has some great quotes and trust me you''ll get used to watching all the surgeries (check out my friend Claire's blog post about it).

Grey's Anatomy (photo courtesy of Yahoo TV)

The next show is How to Get Away with Murder (HTGAWM). This one is substantially more messed up than Grey's Anatomy. The show is about five law students who get chosen to do an internship with their teacher, Annalise Keating. Each season has one main case that they are trying to solve and each episode has another little case. As you could probably (actually probably not) guess, some of the interns are involved in these cases (like involved as in committed a crime). The show will keep you guessing who did for the entire season and you will be completely and utterly shocked when you find out who it was. However, everything will also come together and make perfect sense. I honestly don't know how she can keep track of these plot lines, they are so confusing sometimes.

How to get away with murder (credits)

I watched all of season 1 over the course of 24 hours. I had ski training the next morning and had to leave with 15 minutes left in the season finale. Let's just say I don't recommend doing that (talk about a cliff hanger).

I have yelled, screamed, cried, and laughed hysterically watching all Shonda Rhimes productions. If you don't feel like getting emotionally attached to every character, I would not recommend watching Grey's Anatomy or How to Get Away with Murder. However, you should watch them because they are really good and they will take you on a crazy emotional roller coaster.

Accurate representation of my life (photo credit: someecards.com)

- Claire 

Canada Part 2

After the race, we waited around for awards and the raffle. A few of the kids on Sun Valley got awards for the race and everyone got a prize from the raffle. That is everyone except for me. That was a bummer, but oh well.

Skiing at Shark Mountain (Photo courtesy of Morgan Smyth) 

The next day, we went on a ski at Shark Mountain, which was the back up site for the 1988 olympics. It was a fun ski, even though it was a little more like a photo shoot than a ski. We skied 10-15k and then we stopped and took photos for awhile.

Later that day, the Sun Valley coach, Mikey, found out where/when the world cup athletes were training, so we went and watched them ski. Which was borderline creepy, but also pretty cool.

Later that night at dinner, one of the kids, Keene, decided that we should all go around the room and say one nice thing about every single person in the room. He started the "game".  He went around giving strange "compliments" like "I like the way you can wear twelve layers and make it look like two". He gets to me and goes "You... you there... yeah you...", which prompted me to respond "Do you know my name?". At that point he just started randomly guessing names, which is really funny considering there were only two people on this trip who he didn't already know. Let's just say my name became Sofia for the rest of the trip.

The next day we watched the world cup sprints. It was pretty cool to get to see everyone race and Morgan (our coach) and Mikey used to race world cup, we got to meet a lot of the US skiers. We went and cheered decked out in USA gear with our posters. One of the USA girls, Jessie Diggins, got 6th in the sprint, which was awesome to watch.

Go USA!! (Photo courtesy of Morgan Smyth)

After the races, we got to ski the world cup course. The courses were a lot harder than they looked, the hills, turns, and corners were substantially more difficult than I thought they would be.

The next day we watched the races again. The second day was a skiathalon, meaning they start out classic skiing and then switch to skate. Mikey had checked out the course the day before, so he knew where the best points to watch were going to be. We would watch at point, cheer and then sprint to the next location and we repeated this process about 10 times.

After the races, we went to the awards ceremony. We made a tunnel for the winners to walk through and we actually got to meet some of them. Karsten, Anja and I got a picture with the winner from the race and the bronze medalist from the Sochi olympics, Martin Sundby from Norway.

Me, Karsten, Sundby, Anja 

The next day we went home after a long, but fun trip.

- Claire

Canada Part 1

Last week, I went to Canada with my cross-country ski team. Well, it was really just two of us and one of our coaches. We went to Canada to do a 20k race and then watch some of the world cup race for cross-country skiing.

We left early on Saturday morning on our first flight to LAX (yes, I'm aware that LA was out of our way) Once we arrived in LA, we proceeded to switch terminals, get stuck in traffic, go through security AGAIN and make it to our flight just before boarding, even though we had a two hour layover.

After another short flight to Calgary, we rented a car. On the plane we had somehow decided that I would be the navigator, even though I'm really really bad at directions. Our coach had printed out directions and the first step was to leave the airport on "Airport Trail NE". We ended up leaving the airport on "Airport Trail S" (which I noticed), but everyone said that we would connect, so I just went with it.

Long story short, we drove around Calgary for an hour looking for the wrong road and I was banned from ever being "the directions person" again.

We ended up getting to our hotel (which I found) around 9:00. The problem was we couldn't get into our rooms until the other team from Idaho (Sun Valley) arrived because we were staying with them. We waited around for 30 or so minutes until they got to the hotel.

They got there, we got our room assignments, and then ate dinner. That was when I met all of the Sun Valley kids. I thought there were a lot of them on that trip, apparently it was only a small fraction of their team. There were four girls: Anja, Katherine, Ellie and Lonnie. I shared a bedroom with Anja, Katharine slept on the pullout couch and we all had a connecting room with Ellie and Lonnie. There were seven guys: Max, Cash, Liam, Trux (pronounced trucks and it was a nickname), Tim, Danny and Keene.

The next day was the race. It was 45 minutes away from our hotel, so we left pretty early. We got there and as my coach said it was -3 out. Naturally, I kind of, sort of, maybe freaked out a little (ok, a lot) because I didn't bring that many layers. Turns out it was actually -3 celsius, so around 27 degrees fahrenheit. It was also snowing quite hard. To say the least, I was not looking forward to doing a 20k race in a blizzard.

We got out of the nice, warm car and started skiing around before the race. About ten minutes before the race I ran off to go find a bathroom and left Karsten with my skis. I got back and he had two skis in his hand was walking over to the start. I took the other two skis and headed over. We started the race on these tiny little trails and I noticed that I didn't have good kick on one of my skis. I ignored it and kept skiing. The race was hard and I'm pretty sure I've blocked the rest of it out. I finished the race and then saw Karsten. Who promptly asked me "Do you have one of my skis?". That was when it all clicked. He had accidentally taken one of my skis before the race, which was why I didn't have any kick on one ski.

Race Day!!! Standing from left to right: Danny, Trux, Tim, Max, Keene, Liam, Katharine, Lonnie, Anja, Karsten... Kneeling from left to right: Cash, Ellie, Mikey (The Sun Valley Coach), and me... Photo courtesy of Morgan Smyth  

That's all for now...

Check back soon for a part 2!!

- Claire

"The thing"

*** This actually happened a few months ago, but I never posted it and just found it again the other day

The other day several kids on my team decided to create "the thing". There were only a select few who had the privilege of knowing what "the thing" was. It was created at training one day when our team was divided into two groups on a run. One group ran slightly faster and the other slightly slower. The faster group, who I will refer to as "Group A" came up with the thing and quite sadly I was a member of "Group B". I did not get the luxury of knowing what this so-called thing was.

I learned about the thing at the next practice, which was weights. One of the girls in group b (my group) came running up to me yelling what's the thing and I was sitting there like what thing? She told me that there was some thing and no one would tell her what it was. Of course I didn't know what it was either, so I went up to Victoria and was like do you know what the thing is? And she responded "No, but I just heard about it" So we went around and asked everyone what it was. Every one in Group B had no clue what it was, and everyone in Group A wouldn't crack. Victoria and I decided that we needed to get them alone. So, we went to the person we thought would be most likely to crack. We cornered him and demanded an answer. He still wouldn't tell us.

We spent all of the next day at school going mad trying to figure out what the thing was. We were coming up with all of these theories. We started questioning whether it was actually anything? Maybe it was nothing that they just called "the thing" to mess with us. Then we thought this was some kind of hazing, but we then realized that some of the seniors were in Group B, so it couldn't be targeted just at the freshmen. We went absolutely crazy that was all we talked about for hours. We probably spent 5 hours trying to figure it out. Big shocker we couldn't figure it out. So, the next day at training we asked everyone again. Still no response. I was so frustrated, my mind was entirely occupied by "the thing", I thought of nothing else.

The day after that we asked one of the seniors "What is the thing, we been going crazy trying to figure it out" she told us the thing and we both sat there like really that's it. The thing was that Group A was messing with a senior in Group B who puts check marks next to each workout she has done. They would add check marks and erase check marks to mess with her. In the end it turned out not to be a big deal to us that is (the senior freaked out a little)  So moral of the story, if you have a secret "thing" and two people are dying to know what it is and it isn't about them, just tell them. And if you are a victim of "the thing" it probably doesn't concern you, so don't go crazy.

Every single time she does a weight workout... Photo credits

Dear, "Famous" Person

For this week's English assignment, we had to write a blog post directed at our "ideal reader".  This person should be famous and an expert in their field. Honestly, my ideal reader is my friends and my English teacher. If I had to choose someone "famous" to write to, it would be Jessie Diggins. Jessie Diggins competed in the 2014 Sochi Olympics for cross-country skiing.

Dear, Jessie Diggins

I doubt you know this, but we have actually met a few times. Before you begin to think I am some creepy stalker, I actually met you at fast and female (fast and female is an event that girls ages 6-18 can go to and meet/talk to famous female winter olympians) last year and the year before that.

I always knew that you were a great skier, but I didn't truly understand why until I met you. You were so good because you were willing to work hard to accomplish your goal. You knew what you wanted and what you had to do in order to get there. You are an amazing skier and it is so inspirational to see you skiing so well.

It isn't just your ability that I find inspiring, but also your bond with your team. The U.S. women's cross-country ski team has done so well in the past few years. Not only has your team placed well, but you also have a strong friendship with all of your teammates. The videos that your team has made inspires (mostly entertains) everyone I know who skis (so basically just my ski team). My ski team will always talk about the videos your team makes and how inspiring it is to see how close everyone on your team is.

I also admire how excited you are every time you win. I know many people who will win races and not even blink an eye because that's what they always assume is going to happen. I will see pictures of you on the podium and you always look so happy to be doing what you are doing (and doing well too).

See what I mean... (photo courtesy of her blog)

You are also very thankful of the people who helped you get to where you are today. When I was reading your blog post about your win at the world cup, you were sure to thank the people who waxed your skis and coach.

I am aware there is probably only a .000001%  you'll ever read this, but if you ever did I would just like to say how inspiring you are to aspiring cross-country skiers.  If you ever happened to stubble upon my blog, I would hope that it would remind you of what it was like to be a young cross country skier again.


- Claire

Ski, Sleep, Race, Repeat

The other weekend when my cross-country ski team went to Jackson Hole, Wyoming for a ski race. Once, we arrived we unloaded all of our gear from the van and got our room assignments from our coach. We were staying at the antler inn, a small motel 30 minutes away from the race course. I was staying with Victoria and Sydney (another girl on my team). We went to look at the race course 30ish minutes later. There was only one problem we looked at the wrong course.

We got back and unpacked all our stuff. Again, we faced another problem, we had two beds and three girls. In the end we decided to push the beds together, so that each person would have more room. Then came the problem of decided who had to sleep in the middle. We decided to handle it like we handle all other problems, rock, paper, scissors. Victoria ended up losing, so she got the middle that night and I took it the next.

Later that night, after we had all waxed our skis, we went out to dinner at a pizza place. However, Mila (another girl on my team) and I were still waxing our skis when they left for dinner. A few of the older kids on the team knew how to get there, so they waited for us and then we walked over. We got there and had to sit at a table by ourselves because the rest of the team didn't save us a table (thanks guys). Anyway, we ate pizza and went back to our hotel rooms.

The next day was race day. The first race was an individual start (meaning that everyone starts 15 - 30 seconds apart) and it was classic (the one that looks like walking). I remember thinking that the race was really difficult and I believe that I ended up getting 15th (maybe 16th).

After the race, our coach drove us out of town to go goat ( possibly sheep) watching. We spent almost an hour looking at the goats (possibly sheep) and they came up to the side of our van, which was cool. Our one problem was that Kate, Mila and I wanted to go see the new Star Wars movie at 4:00 and it was 3:30. We ended up making it back just in time to go see the movie with some of the other kids on our team.

The goats or sheep (no one really knows) Photo Courtesy of me 

The girls who saw the movie liked, but the guys hated it and thought it was too predictable. Anyway, we went straight from the movie to a Thai food place (Thai Me Up). It seemed inevitable that we would go to a Thai place at least once on this trip because of the abundance of Thai restaurants in Jackson. I'm not joking there were probably six Thai places in this tiny little town. I am not particularly fond of Thai food, so I was not stoked to say the least. Kate and I happened to order really spicy food (mostly Kate) and could hardly finish the meal.

Kate, Mila and I had not waxed our skis yet, so we tried to leave early to get a head start on waxing, but none of the older kids would let us leave (they waxed their skis when we saw the movie). They told us it was team bonding or something like that, so we wasted five minutes of precious waxing time arguing with them. We ran back to the hotel to go wax our skis only to find our that they put away everything we needed to wax with. We ran up to our coaches' room to ask him what wax to use and ended up ranting about the whole thing to one of our coaches for about ten minutes (thanks for putting up with our rants).

Anyway the next day was a skate mass start race (mass start is when everyone starts at once). Kate and I were neck and neck the entire race, which was good because I think it pushed both of us to go harder. I ended up getting 13th in that race, which I was really happy about. However, some of my teammates ended up getting hurt. One girls dislocated her shoulder and another kid sprained his lcl (which apparently is in your knee). Both of them are doing much better now. On the other hand, many of my teammates got on the podium and had awesome races (shoutout to Julia, Sydney, Leah, Skylar, Mila and whoever else I missed). Everyone else did really good as well!

A picture of my ski team after our last race. Photo Courtesy of my mom

All in all it was a good trip and I can't wait for our next race in Boise.

How Nordic Skiers Waste Time... (Nordic Conversations #2)

My cross-country ski team had a race a few weeks ago in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. We left at 8:00 am on Thursday and raced Friday and Saturday. The trip was interesting to say the least, especially the five hour bus ride.

Early Thursday morning my entire ski team loaded our stuff in a van and chose our seats for the next five hours. Three of my friends and I wanted to sit together on the bus and there was only one row with four seats, so we decided to claim that row for ourselves. That was a terrible mistake. Everyone loaded all of their cross-country skis into the van and little did we know that they all hung over the tops of our seats. I spent the first two hours of the drive sitting in a very uncomfortable position trying not to get hit in the head with ski bags. Once we were out of cell range (yes, I am aware how bad that sounds and no we are not entirely phone dependent people) my friend Victoria and I decided that we should look through our camera rolls on our phones to kill time. Her camera roll was full of cool, artsy pictures and mine was just screenshots of things I sent my friends (yes, I am THAT person).

The picture we stopped to take... Photo courtesy of moi. 

When we stopped to take pictures, I decided that I was going to move up a row, so I wasn't getting hit in the head with the very annoying ski bags. There was only one person in the row in front of me, so I decided to sit there. That was interesting because we didn't really talk...  I was just awkwardly sitting there on my phone, but I didn't have service so I just stared at my lock screen for almost an hour. Eventually, a group of kids on my team decided to play cards and the only card game all of us know how to play is BS. So, that was what we played. I was a little skeptical of playing BS because the last time I played with the team, I lost and ended up losing a bet (that I did not know about) too. Anyway, we played BS for an hour or so and then went back to doing our own thing. Oh and I won one round by the way, so you know that was fun...

30 or so minutes later one of the girls starts telling us a hypothetical scenario. She is setting the stage for us and begins her story. She said "Ok, so imagine you are biking to college..." She was immediately cut off by almost everyone listening because why would you be biking to college? Anyway she continues her story, "So, you are actually on a tandem bike with a murder". Again her logic was flawed and everyone made sure she knew that (why would you ever be on a tandem bike with a murderer?) She continued on again "You arrive at a gas station (we all asked why you would be at a gas station if you were on a bike, so she changed it to a gun show), ok fine you arrive a gun show" Very questioningly we said "Ok..." and she continued on "What do you do?". So, to summarize you somehow end up at a gun show with a murder who is trying to kill you. What do you do? Most of the kids on our team said that they would run and take a gun for possible protection.

Before you begin questioning our mental health (more specifically my friend's), I would just like to say that... Actually I have no real explanation for my friend's hypothetical scenario. Anyway, that was the story of our five hour bus ride to Jackson Hole. Check back for another post about the rest of the trip soon!

Nordic Conversations #1

Why Are European Countries So Funny?

This was Victoria and I. Photo courtesy of this website. 

After realizing how weird the conversations I have with my cross country ski team are, I have decided to start a new series on this blog called Nordic Conversations. So, this is the first in my series nordic conversations. This one happened just the other day and it was the time Victoria and I laughed so hard that our stomachs hurt and we couldn't breath over European countries.

It all started when we were waiting for Victoria's mom to pick us up from training. We have a European countries/capitals test in two weeks, so we decided to try and start studying. We went onto quizlet and found a European countries/capitals flash card set, so we decided to start using those flashcards. I began quizzing Victoria, it started out with me asking her what the capital of ______  is, but then at some point we just started uncontrollably laughing about European capitals.

Thank you Cassie25fh for making this quizlet

After thinking about it, we decided that the laughing fit began with me asking Victoria what the capital of Bulgaria is. She didn't know, so I gave her a hint. The hint was that it was the name of a girl we were talking about earlier. Sofia. So, to give you some back story, there is this girl. Her name is Sofia, if you didn't catch onto that yet. She is also a nordic (cross-country) skier, but she lives in Idaho. I met her last summer when both our teams went to Canada and went on a hike/run together. She told me that she used to be the 6th best alpine skier in the country for her age, but then quit because she had a bad season. I was severely questioning why she quit if she was that good, but let her continue with her story. She told me that last year was her first year ever nordic skiing. I had not payed that much attention to her races last year, but wanted to see how she placed this year. Two weeks ago we had a race in Yellowstone and I was shocked when she passed me by how good her technique looked and how fast she was going. I told this story to Victoria and she remembered that Sofia passed her as well and "made her feel bad about her technique cause she was so good". Sofia placed 7th in that race and we (Victoria and I) are still  questioning how she could have done so well if she only "started" skiing last year. Anyway, for some reason we both found that hint to be funny and we both started laughing. 

The next question I asked her was "What is the capital of Germany?"... She didn't know, so I gave her a hint. I said that the capital had a wall that was named after it. The ______ wall. She still didn't get it, so I said the fall of the _____ wall and she didn't didn't know and then I told her what it was (Berlin) and we started cracking up. I'm not really sure why we found this to be humorous, but for some reason we found it to be really funny.

Then I asked her "What is the capital of Brussels"? I gave her a hint, it's a food. She rapidly blurted out the first word that came to her mind... Hungary... Then we both started laughing again. 

Then I asked her "What is the capital of Switzerland"... She didn't know and when I told her what it was, we lost it laughing again for some reason I don't remember. The next one was when I asked her "What is the capital of Turkey?"... Again she didn't know, but it reminded us of another funny story. Earlier that day in geography I asked if Turkey was considered a part of Europe or Asia, our teacher said Asia. Right after without really thinking about it Victoria asked "What about Istanbul?", he said well that's apart of Turkey, so no. That one was really the breaking point we started laughing and couldn't stop for at least five minutes. We were laughing so hard we couldn't breath, our stomachs hurt and we were both crying from laughter. 

You are probably sitting here thinking that this was the stupidest post you've ever read in your entire life or you are wondering what is wrong with us. If I'm being honest I don't know why everything was so funny to us that day, but it was. If you're telling yourself that you've never had a day where everything was funny to you, you are lying to yourself because it happens to the best of us. Oh and if you're thinking we are really bad at geography as well, this was our first time studying for this test, so don't judge us too harshly. Also there were a lot more inside jokes that added to the cause of the laughing fit, but it would either take too long to explain them or I couldn't write about it because it was about something someone did. 

Claire 

How Geoguesser Ruined My Life

The other day after training I was talking to some of the guys on my ski team. We were talking about geography and they asked me if my teacher had us play a game called "Geoguesser" yet. I said no and asked them what it was. They told me it was a game that dropped you in a random place in the world and then you had to guess where you were on a map. You are able to spin around and see a full 360˚ view of where you are and sometimes it will let you move forward and backwards. You can choose if you want to be dropped anywhere in the world (this option will literally drop you in the middle of nowhere) or only famous places (Rome, London, New York, etc.) or even just the US. It also gives you the ability to challenge other people to see who can get closer to the exact location. I thought it sounded interesting and I said I was going to go home and try it.

A picture of their home screen. Photo courtesy of me from the geoguesser website

A picture of the actual game... Leave a comment if you know where this is. Photo courtesy of me from the Geoguesser website

I forgot about it until the next day when my friend (Victoria) came in to Pre-engineering telling me about how addicting it was. So, naturally I had to play it. Now I would just like to state that I am not usually the kind of person who plays games during class or games in general. Anyway I decided to try it. I was instantly addicted. We played it for the first fifteen minutes of class, until the sub came over and chewed us out for playing games during class. We had had two assignments that we were supposed to do, one was a project proposal and the other was to design something in SketchUp. Victoria and I really wanted to get back to playing the game, but we knew we couldn't until we finished all of our work. So, we decided to race to see who could finish the assignments (the best) first. We ended up finishing quickly and went back to the game. The sub came over again and chewed us out for playing the game again, but we told him we finished all our work and he left us alone.  About ten minutes later the sub came back over to watch us play and give "advice". His advice was terrible. I was dropped in stonehenge for one round of the game. I thought it was in Scotland, but the sub kept telling me it was in Southeast Asia. *Side note, Stonehenge is in England. Then, I was dropped in the Vatican. I was like "I think I'm in the Vatican" and the sub told me "Um that's definitely not the Vatican". I didn't really believe him, so I guessed the Vatican anyway. Low and behold I was right, I was in the Vatican. 

Then came next period. We had to take a test on our computers and we could do whatever we wanted after. That's right you guessed it... I played more geoguesser. While I was playing the kids behind me started asking what I was doing. I told them I was playing geoguesser and it was like the most addicting game ever. Then they started playing too. This was when I realized I liked the game so much, I started spreading it. 

I didn't get a chance to play it again until I got home. When I got home I realized that you could challenge people to games, but you had to create an account. I hate creating accounts for things, like if I download an app, but you have to create an account for it. I usually just delete the app. For some reason this was different, I wanted to challenge people, so I created an account. That night, I challenged two of my friends, my dad, my brother and my mom. I ended up spending the whole night competing with my friends and dad. It got super intense my friend and I ended up creating rules like no using google, no getting help and even time limits. The same friend and I even ended up competing to see how close we could get to the exact location. You might be thinking "Isn't that the point of the game". Yes it is, but this was different we were trying to as close as possible down to the nearest meter. I also ended up face timing with one of my other friends and playing with her for over an hour. By this point I was literally putting off homework to play this game. 

My record: 7.5 meters from the location on the map... I'm pretty impressed with myself :) Photo courtesy of moi

The next morning my friend Laisa, texted me asking if I had looked at canvas for our french class yet. I responded no and went to check it. She asked me if I saw "it" yet and even though I didn't see "it" I responded with oh my gosh anyway because I was clearly missing something. She text me back saying "I was sitting there reading it and I was like I wonder if Mrs. Hurner (our teacher) even told Claire". I was sitting there like wait, did she even tell me what? I went back and looked at canvas and it said "Claire is responsible for coordinating this effort". If you were wondering, no she did not tell me this. I got into class and the sub asked me if I was Claire O. I replied and yes and he started going over the lesson with me and I was like hold on what's happening. Apparently I was supposed to help the sub. I honestly tried for the first ten minutes of class, but then I kept getting sassed by these 8th graders, so I gave up. 

That was when I got an email for a geoguesser challenge. So, I accepted. That was a terrible mistake. My teacher tells the sub that I am supposed to help him and I just sat there playing geoguesser all period. It got to a point where there was a big geoguesser challenge going between half the class. This was the point where I officially accepted the fact that geoguesser has ruined my life. 

That is the story of how geoguesser ruined my life. I have the game linked in multiple places including here, so you should really give it a try. Or actually maybe not, just warning you it's addicting. 

- Claire 

Going up

My Roller skis

You remember when I said that Agony Hill was the hardest time trial ever. I stand corrected. This skate roller ski time trial was actually the hardest thing ever. EVER.

Last week, my coach told us that we were doing a skate roller ski time trial on Friday. I didn't think much of it when I first heard about it. Then again when I first heard about it, I didn't actually know what it was like. The next day at training I started asking around to see if anyone on the team had done it before. I knew the kids in my grade hadn't done it yet, so I started by asking the tenth graders. They said they hadn't done it either. Then I asked the 11th graders and they hadn't done it either. I then thought that this was probably a new time trial that he just came up with, but just to be sure I asked the seniors. Only two of the seniors on my team remember doing this... three years ago. One of them said that it was all uphill, 5k long and really hard. The other one told me that it was short and easy.

When Friday finally rolled around I had no idea what to expect. I kept getting mixed responses, some people said it was all uphill and really long and others said it was fairly flat and short. I decided to prepare myself for a mostly uphill, medium length time trial. My team met at a park near the place we were starting. Our coach told us where to go during the time trial or what the course was. I'm 98% sure that he said something along the lines of "Ok, so you're going to go up on this road and then take a right, then the road will curve left, but stay straight and then take a left, a right, and another right"... I did not have the mental capacity to memorize that and surprise, surprise I was going first. Oh well, I guess I was just going to have to go with it.

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, GO! And I just began the time trial. I started off on a slight uphill section and started going a little too fast. I thought to myself this isn't too bad. That was because that was the flatest (or most flat) section of the entire course. It got very steep, very quickly. I felt like it was never going to end. Ever. It was so steep and so hard that I couldn't feel my arms anymore and I was only six minutes in. Somehow I kept going and hallelujah I saw my coach. He told me before I started that when I saw him that meant I was almost done. I got a sudden burst of energy and skied really fast (actually I was still going pretty slow, but it felt fast), until he shouted "Nice job, you're almost a third of the way done". I slowed back down to my normal pace and thought "what the heck, you said I would be done when I saw you".

Anyway I kept going up. I just sat there thinking about how I didn't even know it was possible for there to be this much uphill. I thought they were exaggerating when they said it was all uphill. The next time I saw my coach I didn't speed up because I just assumed I wasn't anywhere near finishing. At that point I kind of thought it was just going to go on forever. I was right, I was only about halfway through. I kept skiing (in an immense amount of pain) for another ten minutes until I saw my coach again. As I got closer, I realized that two of my teammates were stopped next to him. That meant one of two things, they either died (meaning injured themselves) or that was the finish. It turned out to be the finish! I used all of my remaining energy to speed up to get to the finish. Once we all finished we piled into the van and drove down to the bottom. It was only 3.5 kilometers, but it was still the hardest 3.5 kilometers of my life. And yes this time trial was even harder than agony hill in my opinion and I wasn't the only one who thought so.

As I was trying to come up with a title for this blog post, I remembered what my blog was called and realized that I probably should have seen an all uphill time trial coming.

Pain Is Only Temporary

Your lungs will be burning, you won't be able to move your legs anymore and you will be dying of heat, but remember that pain is only temporary. That is what I will tell anyone before doing agony hill. Let me start off by saying that agony hill is the hardest time trial we do on my cross-country ski team. It is not a long time trial distance-wise, but it feels like forever. It is only one mile long, but it has over 1,000 feet of elevation gain. When I first heard about this time trial three thoughts came to mind: what the **** is that, do we really have to do that and this is going to suck.

The first time we did this time trial was in June. It was over 90 degrees in Salt Lake. I was sweating before we even started. I was starting first and I didn't know where I was going because I had never done it before. One of my teammates told me not to worry about where to go because I would probably get passed and I could just follow that person. She meant for it to be encouraging, but you could take it either way. I asked her where the finish was and she replied that it was just at the top of that hill *points to the top of the first of four hills*. Another one of the senior girls gave me a pep talk before starting the time trial... Although now that I think of it she might have been giving herself a pep talk and I was just standing near her... She told me or herself "pain is only temporary and it will go away once you reach the top, you can do it". I found that really encouraging and thought of it multiple times during the time trial.

 I don't really remember most of what happened the first time because I have tried really hard suppress that memory. However, I do remember thinking that I was done at the top of the first hill, which was really only about 1/4 of the way to the actual finish. Also, that I was chanting in my head pain is only temporary for the first two minutes, after that I gave up and was cursing the person who came up with this time trial and my coach for making us do this and the girl who told me where the *top* was and pretty much everything else in existence. I also remember how I felt when I finished... my lungs were burning, I couldn't move my legs and I was dying of heat, but my teammate was right in the fact that pain is only temporary. It might be a long temporary, but it still goes away eventually. 

At the end of September my coach informed us that we were going to be doing Agony Hill again on Halloween. Everyone groaned and complained about doing it on Halloween, but at least it wasn’t the day after Halloween (which apparently it was last year). Flash forward to 7:00 am Halloween morning. Before our coach got to the spot where he was supposed to pick us up, we were sitting there talking about how absolutely terrible it was going to be. Also about how we were not going to be able to walk later that night on Halloween. When our coach arrived with the van, we all piled in and drove down to Salt Lake. On the way down there we listened to some interesting music... It was everything from EDM music to Ed Sheeran to Eminem. When we got down there, I was determined to beat my time from last time (26 minutes). I felt more prepared this time because I got a better warm up and actually knew where the top was. I'm not going to bore you with the details of the actual time trial because my thoughts didn't change that much compared to last time. Other than the fact I skipped chanting pain is only temporary and went straight to cursing everything. Once I finished and got over the fact that my lungs were burning, I couldn't move my legs anymore and I was dying of heat (I way overestimated how cold it would be and wore pants), I realized I beat my time from last time by over a minute!

I was proud of myself for improving by so much. My advice for anyone doing this time trial is remember that your lungs are going to be burning, you won't be able to move your legs and you will be dying of heat, but pain is only temporary and the pain will end when you finish (even if it is 24 hours after you finish).

Trust me it's a lot steeper in real life. Photo courtesy of me

- Claire

Building Cardboard Boats!?! Part 2: The Race

So, I just wrote a post called Building Cardboard Boats!?! Part One. Hopefully you read it, if not I highly suggest you do because this post will make more sense after reading that one. Anyway, the class before the boat race, our boat totally fell apart. The front detached from the rest of the boat, so in a last minute effort to save our boat we used the remaining duct tape and attempted to tape it down. Once, we finished that we had to paint the boat and of course because we were one of the last groups to finish, we got stuck with a big bucket of white paint to share between three groups. I think there were around 8 groups (boats) in our class and the first five groups used up all the colorful spray paint, so our boat had to be white. This was the day before the race and all six of us (three groups = six people) were 100% convinced that we were all going to sink like the Titanic right as we got in the boat.

Flash froward to today, October 22, 2015. The day we all had to get in our boats that were falling apart at the seams to sink in front of an audience. I have this class second period and it is about a five minute walk away and the bus was supposed to leave five minutes after the bell rang. So, I asked my first period teacher if I could leave 5 or so minutes early to put on a bathing suit and get a head start walking over. So, one of the other girls in my class came with me and we ran to the high school. Once, we got there we went into the "Boiler Room" where we had been storing our boats and carried them out to a trailer and then got on the bus. On the bus ride to the pool our teacher informed us that the Ecker students were no longer coming to watch. That was such a relief.

We got to the pool and our audience was quite smaller than excepted, which was the entire middle school. It turned out to be just a few of our parents. We get to the pool and she gives us 10 minutes to make any final adjustments needed. Now we were in full panic mode, before it was just talk about sinking, but now we could actually sink. We made our final adjustments like adding as much duct tape as we could and of course decorating. One of the requirements was that it had to have a theme (ours was tropical), so we added air fresheners that smelled like coconut and fake flowers to make it seem tropical. We also had to have costumes our costumes were bikinis, shell necklaces, sunglasses and flowers in our hair.

Our Decorations

Then the first group went off... Only one boat made it across without sinking. We were now officially terrified. Our teacher told us that only one of us had to go in the boat, but we both decided to go in it anyway. In the words of my partner Megan "Yolo". Then, came the time for our race. The gun (just kidding it was actually a whistle) went off and we went. We start to push the boat in and Megan got fell into the boat before we finished pushing it in. So, then she had to get out and we had to push it all the way in and then she got in again. It was floating with her in it, but now came the real test, would it float when I got in too? To everyone's (including myself and my parents) surprise it floated. We were so shocked that we didn't sink that we didn't start paddling for a few seconds and just sat there yelling WE'RE FLOATING!!!!!!!!!! We then made it about 3/4 of the way there when Megan informed me that the front detached again. We started paddling really fast and made it to the end, before the whole thing filled with water!

Really surprising right?!? I was honestly shocked that we floated, in fact I think we all were. So, that's the very long story of building a boat out of cardboard.

The Race (Photo Courtesy of Eric Oberg)
Teams from left to right: Toby & Ben, Victoria & Sanne and Megan & I

Building cardboard boats!?! Part One

My school offers a course called "Pre-Engineering" as an elective in 9th. So, I signed up to take it. This class is only offered at the high school building, so I have to walk to the high school every other day for that class. After wandering around searching for it for a very long time, I found it. Guess where it was... "The CTE Dungeon", basically the basement at the high school. When I get into the classroom I realized that there are only THREE other girls. I knew that there wouldn't be that many girls taking the class, but I assumed there would be more than 4 of us.

On the first day of school our teacher assigned us groups, gave us a chunk of clay and told us to make a boat. My group consisted of a boy in my grade, myself and a boy in the grade above us. As we were building the boat the kid in the grade above me asked who I had for geography. I responded with my teacher and he said "Oh he is so hard, he always caught me cheating on his tests. That's going to be the hardest part about his class". I was so baffled by what he said that I just laughed and said "That sounds like a you problem, not a me problem".  I'm not sure what motivated me to say that, but let's just say he doesn't talk to me anymore. Once we finished building the clay boats, we put them in a bucket full of water and tested how many pennies our boat could hold. Our boat held about 30 pennies.

The next day in class our teacher informed us we were going to be building cardboard boats. At first I thought she meant little cardboard boats to hold pennies again. Then, she started talking about racing them and how it had to hold two people. Let's just say I was very confused. She then clarified that we had to build boats out of cardboard to hold you and a partner. The next day we got assigned partners and started working. My partner for this project is Megan.

Calculations for finding the waterline (Page 1 of 4)

Before we could begin making the actual boats we had to make prototypes that were to scale. Once we made the prototype, we had to calculate the "waterline" of the boat or in other words how far the boat would sink down. After, the most confusing lesson ever (I'm serious... I don't think I've ever been more confused in my life) on how to find the waterline, we had to go home and figure out all the calculations. After, four and a half hours of stress and confusion I figured it out (possibly... we'll see how accurate it is). According to my calculations our actual boat is supposed to sink down 3.5 inches.

After two weeks, two rolls of duct tape, a bottle of glue and a whole lot of cardboard, we finished our boat! We are still not entirely convinced it will float, but we'll see how it goes. Our boat race is this Thursday, I'll let you know what happens in part 2. Oh and did I mention my teacher invited all of the Ecker Hill students and faculty to come and watch the race. That will be interesting... Oh and the Park Record (our local newspaper).

Our "Lovely" Cardboard Boat

Au revoir  - Claire

Going Down

For dry land training for cross-country skiing in the summer we usually run, roller-ski (A video of a professional xc skier roller skiing) or do a strength workout. One day, we went on a roller ski. Roller skiing is supposed to be like cross-country skiing without snow, except there is one huge difference, you can't stop on roller skis (people on The Amazing Race attempting to stop). People always ask my teammates and I  "How do you stop?", our response is always "You don't". There are no brakes and no way (that I'm aware of) to slow yourself down once you start going fast on a downhill other than bailing out.

Anyway back to the roller ski, it was supposed to be a long, slow, distance roller ski. I was skiing with a group of girls on my ski team and it was really windy that day. Our coach to told us to ski along this road until we got to the hospital and once we got there we were supposed to turn around. On the way out to the hospital we had a head wind, which was not fun especially because it was all uphill, but it meant that would get a tail wind on the way back. We skied out to the turn around point and met our coach, who gave us some technique tips and told us to head back to where we started.

As I mentioned before the way out was all uphill, so the way back was all downhill. Again, roller skis DO NOT have brakes, so it is more than a little scary going down hills. We are going down this one hill and if you start out "snow plowing" for lack of a better term and continue snow plowing down the whole hill, you can somewhat control your speed (or you can just go for it, but I'm terrified of hills, so I'll just stick with the first option). About 3/4 of the way down the hill I decided to just go for it because the hill was about to level out. I stop snow plowing and just let my skis go down the hill. It's going fine until I remember that there is a big, yellow post right in the middle of the trail. I lost balance, but somehow manage to make it around the post. After I got around the post I thought I was in the clear, little did I know how wrong I was. After I passed the post, I hit a rock and according to my teammates flew about 5 feet in the air and 6 feet forward. I was fine... other than the internal injuries I was convinced I had but really I was fine other than being mental scarred for life.

Me Getting Ready to Roller Ski (Photo Courtesy of Ericha Oberg) 

Introduction

Hi my name is Claire. I am writing this blog as an assignment for my English class. This blog is going to be about my life including school, tv shows and cross-country skiing. If you are curious about what cross-country skiing is check out this website How to Cross-Country Ski

I got the idea for the name of this blog "Real Skiers Ski Uphill" from a bumper sticker on the back of a girl on my cross-country ski team's car. I always thought that it was funny and true for cross-country skiers (no offense to all you downhill skiers out there). Some of the posts on this blog are going to be about cross-country skiing, but before you start to think it will be boring just because you don't cross-country ski, I am going try to make it relatable to everyone. These posts will be about the funny and interesting events that happen during my cross-country ski team's training and during races. ***** I changed the name of this blog recently because I didn't want it to be just about cross-country skiing. I wanted it to be more general*****

I have been cross-country skiing for about three years now. Three years ago my parents forced me to start cross-country skiing. They would have to drag me out of the car to get me to go to practice. I hated it, but then one day I made a friend. She would make training so much more enjoyable and I would be excited to go, even though I wasn't really learning how to ski. Later in the year she moved I was sad, but it was ok because I actually started to like skiing now. Once she moved, I actually started to learn how to cross-country ski. I was learning how to ski more like a cross-country skier and less like a tourist.  The next year, I moved up to "Devo +" which was the ski team for 6th - 8th graders. I liked being on that team. The year after that (this year) I moved up to the comp team, which is the high school division for our cross-country ski team. The comp team is more of a challenge this year. I went from training 2-3 days a week for an hour a day to training for 6 days a week for 2 hours a day. The training is at a higher intensity level as well. When I was on Devo + and we would go on a run it would be a short 5k run at an easy pace. Now that I am on the comp team, if we go on a run it could be anywhere from a fast 5k to a slow 21k run.

Lastly, even though I was just rambling on about cross-country skiing, this blog won't be entirely about cross-country skiing. I'm not sure if I could write just about cross-country skiing everyday, even though I train almost everyday. So, don't be shocked if you see a random post about school or some TV show that I'm watching. Even though I ski for 2 hours a day 6 days a week, that is not all I do. School is very important to me and in my free time I am always watching TV. So again, even though some of the posts will be about cross-country skiing, don't be surprised if you see a blog post about something else.

A picture of my cross-country ski team before going to Canmore, Canada for a roller ski camp (Photo Courtesy of Ericha Oberg)