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Seeing as there are nine days until school starts back up, I figure its finally time for me to write my blog entry. Needless to say, I feel my procrastination skills are up to date for my return to college, though if you note the rate of improvement over last year's September 5th submission, you'll realize that by my third senior year I should have this in by the first week of August. Anyway, I started my summer by traveling to and a visiting an old exchange student who was spending the year living in the Azores, a group of islands in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. There I spent some time on the ocean, went hiking and got in some quality relaxation. After that I headed home to Alaska where I would spend the rest of my summer working and training. Once again this year I am working at a major tourist attraction in downtown Anchorage. This year, the installation of internet technologies at work combined with a substantial decline in Alaska tourism has meant that a fairly decent portion of my day is spent sitting back finding pointless things to do online. Luckily, the monotony is often broken by amusing elderly tourists who entertain me with their funny jokes. All in all, considering the fact that I'm being paid $4.23 to write this entry, I won't really complain about my job. Beyond working, I also go on runs in the mountains and do orienteering

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This summer has been quite boring, which has been nice in comparison to the constant go go go of Middlebury, with a few training camps thrown in the mix. I wasn’t able to find a steady job, and ended up doing random construction and landscaping projects that I could find. One of the jobs was to construct a patio out of large slabs of stone, which was basically a jigsaw puzzle that didn’t have a correct answer with 300lbs stones, all of which made training afterwards very difficult.
I just go back from a training camp on the north shore of Lake Superior. Claire Luby came along, but I haven’t seen Mommsen in a few weeks. The combination of the cool northern air, great trails, and big hills (which the rest of the Midwest lacks), makes this camp a great one. The best part of the camp is getting to soak in the world’s largest ice bath (Lake Superior) after every workout. Thankfully this year we stayed in a place with running water so we didn’t have to shower in the lake too. At the camp we ride on dirt roads and trail. Having left my mountain bike in Vermont, and being unable to find one to borrow, I had to try to turn my old road bike into a cyclocross bike. For those who aren’t bike mechanically inclined, normal road bikes aren’t meant to have wider cyclocross tires on them. I spent last Sunday in preparation for this camp coaxing my old dilapidated road bike back into working order, then trying to fit cyclocross tires onto that weren’t meant to be. The only solution was to sand down the rear tire until it didn’t rub, at least not too much. After quite a bit of work, I finally managed to squeeze the tire onto the bike
I leave in a week to start my trek back to Vermont and I can’t wait to get back. Hope everyone has had a great summer.

click to enlarge This is what I do in summer..

After having the soul sucked out of my body for 6 days during senior
week, I brought my laundry home to Cape Elizabeth, ME and got treated
for a sinus infection. (Hold on, I just leaned back in my computer
chair and the back broke off, it's cool though.) I left everything but
my dirty clothes and my rollerskis in my permanent residence in
Battell room 272; the room I lived in last year as an RA, the room I
lived in this summer and the room I will live in next year. By the end
of my junior year I will have been at Middlebury for three years and
all of them will have been spent in Battell. I'm living the dream.

At the conclusion of a brief stay at #41 Hannaford Cove Rd., Annie
(girlfriend: Middlebury student: junior: swim team: currently in
Ecuador until December 20th) and I took a middle-aged married couple
vacation to San Francisco where I promptly spent all of my money and
cursed the founders of the city for constructing everything on a 22%
grade. But really San Fran is a totally rad place and definitely worth
checking out if you have not. Unfortunately due to some legal
restrictions, I wasn't able to fulfill my dream of riding a
child-sized motor scooter across the Golden Gate Bridge, which in
reality was probably a good idea because the traffic around that area
is totally insane and had I succeeded I would most likely be writing
this entry form within the confines of an iron lung, so it goes. The
highlight of the trip was a tour of Yosemite, which might as well be
Jurassic Park.

Then my summer officially began. I went back to Middlebury to work in
Atwater dining hall, which was not really a good job. Somehow a
terrible rumor got started that I loved to slice deli meats and thus I
became the official meat slicer for all meat that needed slicing. In
the battle of meat vs. a modified radial arm saw the person slicing is
always the loser. But really working at 6am Saturday and Sunday wasn't
all that bad... On the bright side my lungs have received a nice, even
coating of non-stick spray. But living in Middlebury in the summer is
actually awesome. The student workers are a really good crowd and
after all the language school kids stop being so idealistic about
their language pledge, they can be pretty fun too. Training in Midd
over the summer is basically like living at the OTC minus all the
biathletes and the mind liquefying boredom; free food, amazing roads
and a full service fitness center all within a short walk (I never
walk). I think with a few modifications and some other Midd skiers,
summer at school could be pretty much ideal (deliberate foreshadowing
of next summer: look for it).

I finished working at the dining hall on Wednesday and I am now home
in Cape Elizabeth for two weeks before I go back to Middlebury for RA
training on the 26th, which begins with me driving a 15 passenger van
up to Breadloaf, a fitting welcome back to school and the ski season.
I am psyched. The team this year will be different, it will be small,
young and in some senses unproven. The loss of last year's seniors is
a huge blow in every sense. I will miss them every day, on the trail
and off. But their absence is a call to duty; we can no longer hide in
Simi Hamilton's golden shadow. And we wont. Our team is amazingly
talented and this pressure to step up is exactly what we need. This
season look for big things from people you always knew had it in them.


Forecast calls for heavy rain.

Yosemite- Giant Sequoia

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My winter...er, summer in Argentina

As everyone and everything begins to wind down for the summer, and gets ready for fall semester to begin, my summer is just getting started. I got on a plane the day after Middlebury Carnival in February, and have spent the last 5 months in Buenos Aires, Argentina for my study abroad, just arriving home to Alaska—and summer—one week ago. And I’ve never been happier to be home. The first time I have been outside of the US for an extended period of time, my absence made me realize and appreciate everything that we take for granted about it.

People always say that their study abroad semester was the best part of college. While I did enjoy many things about living and studying in a foreign country, I have to say that I really missed Middlebury and will be overjoyed to return this fall. I have mixed feelings about my study abroad experience. On one hand, it was a wonderful chance to solidify my Spanish skills by living, studying, thinking, learning, and interacting in a foreign language 24/7, something that is just not obtained by any type classroom environment, even at Middlebury. On the other hand, Buenos Aires is a 200-square-kilometer, dirty, busy, crime-ridden, densely populated city of 13 million people. It was the first time I’d ever spent more than 4-5 days in a city, and it was not the most pleasant experience. Needing 3 separate keys to get into my apartment (street-front door, and 2 locks on the apt door), maintaining a constant vigilance on my surroundings at every moment when in the streets, trying to find supermarkets, bus routes, and friends’ houses, was all a constantly tiring and frantic existence that I had never encountered before. To compound the hectic rhythm of a foreign city, my only “escape” was running in the park 10 minutes from my apartment. It was hard to leave the city easily; it is surrounded by nothing but more city-suburbs, then pampa (prairie) for hundreds of miles. There were innumerable times when I didn’t know how I was going to survive until the end of the week, only to remember that I had 12 or 9 or 6 weeks left to go.

Nonetheless, reflecting on everything now, I do not regret my experience. The day I left Argentina, I spent several hours with another Middlebury student who had just arrived a week earlier for her abroad semester. I was honest; I told her everything that I didn’t like about the city. But it also made me think about all the positive things I learned and experienced. I made Argentine friends in class that helped me out with not just academic aspects, but how to get around in everyday life there. Being enrolled directly in an Argentine university (despite the extreme frustration of having to deal with the bureaucratic aspects of an obscenely dysfunctional system) and in classes with only Argentine students shed light on new perspectives about things I’d never thought about before. In my geopolitics class, I was singled out every day to explain or comment on American opinions and perceptions that were often embarrassing. In return, however, their perspective on issues gave me new insight on outsider’s views and thoughts on global issues that we only hear about from an American media point of view. That kind of experience in invaluable.

I did get to travel quite a bit outside the city several times, giving me the chance to see Argentine life outside the city, which can be very different. In an exceptionally fortunate laundry list: I lived in one of the biggest, busiest, diverse cities in South America (and survived!) that has the longest avenue in the world (Ave. Rivadavia), the widest avenue in the world (Ave. 9 de Julio) and sits on the widest river in the world (Rio de la Plata); I visited the highest peak in the world outside the Himalayas (Mt. Aconcagua in the Andes Range); I biked through the 5th largest wine-producing region in the world (Mendoza); I visited 3 World Heritage sites: Iguazu Falls, the largest, most spectacular waterfalls in the world, also on the border with Brazil and Paraguay; Peninsula Valdes, the wintering and breeding grounds for Southern Right whales that frolic so close to shore you could swim out to them; and Glacier Perito Moreno in Argentine Patagonia, which rises nearly 200 feet out of Lake Argentina (the largest lake in the country); I spent 5 days in the southernmost city in the world (Ushuaia, in Tierra del Fuego) and went nordic skiing on at least 25 year old equipment; I traveled around Patagonia for 3 weeks; I drank more than my fill of THE best beer in the world (El Bolson brewery in the town of the same name. If you ever go to Patagonia you MUST go there. And unfortunately they do not distribute in the U.S.): and I left with more memories and photos than I can possible describe. Would I relive it? Definitely not. Do I appreciate the opportunity I had and realize how much I learned? Absolutely yes.

So, I now have 3 weeks left until I leave for Vermont, and so much to do. Unfortunately, my training is limited to biking and rollerskiing due to some IT band and knee pain while running. My PT forbade me to do anything that makes it hurt because if it hurts, it’s not healing, and running/hiking is what makes it hurt. Extremely frustrating circumstances given that I planned on doing mostly hiking/mountain running and biking before fall training at school, to fulfill my cravings for mountains. Hopefully I get the all clear before I head back. I’m more excited than ever for fall training with the team, meeting the new skiers, catching up with everyone else, and enjoying Middlebury to the fullest for my senior year (an exciting, but sad fact).

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Alaskan summers are renowned for being unpredictable. For the first weeks home from Midd we were hit with temperatures up past 80 degrees. Seeing as there was a grand total of 3 days above 70 last summer it seemed that mother nature was making up for what we never received in 2008. For the first time I saw my friends and I looking like normal people instead of the night crawlers that never see daylight. With the extended daylight hours I found myself hiking at midnight and kayaking until 2 am. I’ve spent the majority of my time working as a Physical Therapy Technician at the hospital and training. The possibilities of training venues in Alaska are amazing. I’ve enjoyed OD runs up mountain peaks right outside my back door to biking 200 miles from Sheep Mountain Lodge to Valdez in the Fireweed 400 cycling race. Even with the 80 degree weather I found myself stuck while crossing Crow Pass with a couple of friends due to a white-out and snow. Great terrain would not be complete without great training partners. It’s nice to reunite with friends that race for UAA, UVM, MSU, APU, Williams, Dartmouth and many other schools.
My first year at Midd was an educational experience of how to balance training and academics. Looking back on my mistakes from last year I can recognize the difference between training hard and training smart. I leave for the East in exactly one month; a fact that has snuck up on me the last couple of weeks. I grow increasingly excited to see my teammates and to welcome our incoming freshman. Though our team will be smaller it is my goal to not only see a motivated team but a united team as well. I hope that everyone is enjoying their summers and looking forward to the fall.

Links and Resources

Head Nordic Coach

Andrew Gardner

Gardner enters his fourth season at the helm of the men's and women's nordic ski teams. He came to Middlebury from Colorado Rocky Mountain School (CRMS) in Carbondale, Colo where he was Nordic Program Director. Since coming to New England, he acted as the wax tech for the 2008 Junior National Team, a coach at regional development camps and serves on the U23 NENSA board. Gardner is the coordinator for sustainability in athletics, serving on the college's environmental council. In the summer he enjoys road racing for the MetLife cycling team.

agardner@middlebury.edu

o: 802.443.5963

Assistant Nordic Coach

Patty Ross

Now entering her 23rd year as a full-time coach of Middlebury nordic skiing, Patty came to the College after four years of world-class competition. She was one of five American women nordic skiers to compete in the Sarajevo Olympics in 1984; she also competed internationally with the U.S. national team from 1983 to 1986. Patty graduated from the University of New Hampshire, where she was an All-East collegiate skier and captain of the Wildcat team. While at UNH, Patty competed in the World University Games in Sofia, Bulgaria. As a coach for the International Special Olympic Games, Patty received a Distinguished Service Award in 1984. She acted as a coach for the U23/ World Junior Championships in Italy in 2008.

o: 802.443.5006

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