New Zealand Update

I’ve returned home to Bozeman after spending most of August in the Southern Hemisphere only to find that summer is over.  The leaves on the Sumac trees in the back yard have started to turn their stunning shade of fall red.  It’s always exciting to witness the change of seasons – especially the change from summer to fall, which means winter is around the corner.  Wait, didn’t I just get back from winter?? 

We left on September 12 for the Wairou snow farm on the South Island of New Zealand.  After 20 hours of travel we arrived in Queenstown, and drove up the winding gravel road to the Snow Farm.  It’s the one and only Nordic skiing venue in NZ, and they have certainly set a high standard.   The trails are perfect, the scenery is breathtaking and the food served in the dorms is top notch.  The day-to-day happenings consisted of the usual training camp activities.  Ski, eat, and sleep, Scrabble or Bananagrams and repeat.   The training went very well and everyone worked hard on improving technique and building our fitness levels. 

We also were able to participate in the New Zealand Winter Games.  There is something very strange about doing a ski race in the middle of the summer.  To sum it up - I felt unprepared - and I hate feeling unprepared!  The first race made me very nervous, even though I knew my result wasn’t going to mean much in the grand scheme of things.  I survived the three days of racing and though it didn’t feel great during, I could tell that it definitely brought my fitness level up.  After that interval sessions started to feel pretty good – or maybe a better way to say it is, ‘less barfy’.

 Another highlight was the two days that we spent in Wanaka.  For an adventure on our day off, the team split up into three groups. One went to Queenstown, one went to Dunedin and the girls (the Distaff) went to Wanaka.   We tasted wine at Wanaka’s Rippon vineyard, spent some time at the spa, toured Wanaka by bike, ate some delicious Thai food.  It was fabulous!  The next day we did a long run through Mt. Aspiring, National Park.  We saw New Zealand’s own alpine parrot, the Kia bird.  The sighting of the Kia was exciting to be sure, but unfortunately the circumstances were a little morbid.  The Kia was munching away on a dead cow that had apparently plummeted to its death from the steep cliff-ish hill it was grazing on – Cowabunga! 

Looking forward to a little R&R before our next training camp in Mammoth Lakes, Ca. 

Shayla on Skis.

Beautiful sunset at the Snow Farm	Racing at the NZ Winter Games
	Ladies hanging out in Wanaka