I scheduled both of my morning sessions this weekend on the spin bike so I could watch the finals of the French open. I did two and a half hours yesterday and four hours this morning. Unfortunately, both finals were over in straight sets (with Serena Williams and Rafael Nadal winning), so the matches didn’t take nearly as long as my workouts. The spin bike is the best mode for watching T.V. at the Center of Excellence because the treadmills are too close to the T.V. and the elliptical doesn’t have a T.V. in front of it.

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Today was supposed to be the recovery day between the three day block with two intensity sessions that ended yesterday and a three day volume block of 13 hours that begins tomorrow. However, since I missed my strength session yesterday afternoon, today ended up including quite a bit of training. I began this morning with physical therapy followed by an hour run outdoors. I then did yesterday’s strength session immediately following the run. I also iced my shoulder and did a contrast bath on my legs. In total, I was at the Center of Excellence from 9 to 2:30, which is probably too much for a recovery day. However, my energy and legs feel good, and I believe I’m in a good place.

This evening my teammate Ida Sargent and I babysat our friend’s Alex Moore and Carly Debenham’s three little girls while Alex and Carly went to a friend’s birthday party. I was very grateful to have Ida there with me. She was awesome with the girls.

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I did my first level 4 (race pace) intensity of the year today. After having struggled to get my heart rate and lactate up on my two previous intensity sessions (both of which were level 3), I was surprised at how easy it was to go hard today. The session was uphill hiking on one of the big roller ski treadmills. We used the roller ski treadmill because it goes steeper than the individual treadmills. Unfortunately the reading of the grade on the big treadmill isn’t accurate. Instead, they put a laser pointer on the treadmill and point it at the wall to get the grade. We were off the charts today.

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I had a pretty basic training day with two hours on the elliptical in the morning and an hour and a half total time for a session in the afternoon that was split between outdoor running and running on the underwater treadmill. I also had a good physical therapy session.

In the middle of the day I attended a presentation, or maybe it would more accurately be called a round table discussion, presented by the Director of Athlete Career and Education at the U.S. Ski Team, Lauren Loberg. The discussion was with Jarl Mohn. Jarl is an incredible person who has been a successful disc jockey, venture capitalist, and entrepreneur (including founding E! Entertainment and Liberty Digital) among many other things. Jarl has been involved with the U.S. Ski Team through the foundation. He heard about the mentoring program that Lauren has been trying to get off the ground. He thought the best way he could be involved was to do a group lunch session, so any interested athletes could sit down with him and learn his story. Now we can each follow up with him individually. Jarl flew in from Los Angeles just for this meeting.

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I had a frustrating intensity workout this morning. The workout was two hours long with an hour straight at lactate threshold (anaerobic threshold, level 3, a sustainable pace). I did the workout on one of the U.S. Ski Team’s watt bikes which are high tech devices used for aerobic testing.

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Today was the busiest day I’ve ever seen at the U.S. Ski Team’s Center of Excellence. The parking lot was completely full. The alpine women are required to live in Park City this summer (except for the A team). They all arrived over the weekend. My teammates were also all in the gym treadmill testing. The alpine ladies (and halfpipe skier Tucker Perkins) pulled the spin bikes outside to enjoy the beautiful day. I don’t quite understand why they don’t just go for a ride.

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I had a really fun and very busy day. I started off with uphill hiking intervals on the treadmill.

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I had a jam-packed day with training and hanging out with my friends from home, Laura Hatanaka and Barton Tofany. Barton and I started the day off with a 45 minute run. Barton is a great runner. He races middle distance races (400 and 800 meter races) on the track. It was my first run since Monday when my coaches and I made the decision to lay off my legs. Today my legs felt pretty good. It is still tough to run only on pavement. Barton and I may have run a little faster than we needed to go for an easy distance session. Barton’s GPS told us we averaged 7:13 per mile. I finished the workout off with an hour and forty five minutes on the elliptical.

When I got home Barton and Laura were lounging in the sun.

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I had a very busy day beginning with a two and a half hour spin on the trainer. I then got my second massage in three days. I had the massage therapist work exclusively on my legs. After lunch I had physical therapy followed by my first strength session in a week. It was the first real test of my legs since we laid off them on Monday. They feel good so far, but I’ll know more by how they feel tomorrow.

This afternoon two of my best friends, Barton Tofany and Laura Hatanaka, arrived in Park City for the weekend. They both were in my grade in the Aspen School District, and we’ve been friends since elementary school. Laura flew in from her current hometown of San Diego and Barton drove out from Aspen. I am so psyched and grateful they came to visit me!

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When I get excited about something I tend ignore other aspects of my life. This evening I got excited about a potential sponsor relationship and have spent the last four hours putting together some marketing materials. It is now after midnight, and I’m not going to get nearly enough sleep tonight. I like working late at night, and I feel productive this time of day. I hope I don’t get sick, and yes, I know that I said I was going to focus on getting more sleep this week. I also know that if I don’t train well and consequently don’t ski fast then no sponsor is going to be interested in working with me.

This is the ending to a long and busy day off of training. I started this morning at a meeting with Laurie Hamble, the U.S. Ski Team’s insurance woman. She is incredible and has been invaluable to me. Today we worked through the billing and insurance benefits from my shoulder.

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