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Notes from the North
Notes From 68° North
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\r\nHello from Munio, Finland. Don’t bother looking for it on a map…you probably won’t find it.
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\r\nWe arrived here in Munio on Monday afternoon. We had a nice, uneventful trip here, via Salt Lake City, Chicago, Stockholm, Helsinki, Roveniemi, and then a nice three hours drive further north to Munio.
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\r\nMunio is quite nice. Hardly a bustling metropolis, but the skiing is excellent and the weather, thus far, has been very mild and sunny. Actually, yesterday was the first time we Park City residents had seen the sun for an extended period in over two weeks.
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\r\nThe ski area here (about 75 yards from our front door) is great. There’s supposedly over 50 K’s groomed and skiable. I can’t verify that, as I’ve probably only skied about 25-30 K’s of trails thus far. The truly impressive thing is that everything I’ve skied so far is lit all night, which comes in handy for our afternoon workouts. Electricity here must be cheap. They have about half a dozen giant wind turbines working on a ridge right in the middle of the ski area.
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\r\nThese windmills are awesome. I find them to be really neat looking and a true engineering marvel. People who oppose them for ascetic/pollution/environmental reasons don’t know what they’re talking about. If I ever have several million dollars sitting around looking to be spent I’m going to pepper the Vermont country-side with these things. And I’ll be sure to put a couple in my very own back yard to avoid any negative ‘NIMBY’ accusations.
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\r\nBut I digress… Daylight here in Munio (a couple hundred kilometers north of the arctic circle, right on the Finland/Sweden border) is a little on the short end but not as bad as I was expecting. Starting the morning workouts at nine ensures that we have good light, although a little dusky to start. Our four o’clock afternoon sessions are totally dark, but with more trails around here with lights than most American ski areas even have trails, we really don’t have a problem.
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\r\nThis is a pretty fun place to train right now because of the number of good skiers kicking around. The German, Japanese, Belarussian, Ukrainian, Estonian and others are all here, as well as multiple club teams from Finland, Norway, and Sweden. Oddvar Bra has been spotted on the trails. This news really made my day, because Oddvar’s “Classic Skiing with Oddvar Bra” is one of the greatest film accomplishments of all-time. I’m not just talking about ski films, either. I’m talking across the board, all genres of movies. If you haven’t seen it, and want to improve your classic technique, it’s a must see. Two thumbs up from this guy. His technique film has truly stood the test of time. Not sure where you’d find a copy these days…
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\r\nAccommodations here at the Munio Olos resort are quite nice. We’re a pretty small group at the moment, with just five athletes, two coaches, and a member of the USST sports science staff. We have, for the whole crew, what can only be described as a traditional Finnish log cabin duplex. We have both halves of the duplex, and in staying with the tradition of the traditional Finnish log cabin duplex, each half has a large Finnish fireplace and a sauna. We like to gather in the sauna and beat each other with birch branches, in the traditional Finnish method. There’s really nothing like beating sweaty, naked teammates with switches to build team harmony…
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\r\nWe have felt a little cut off from the rest of the world for the last couple days. The phone line to our cabins was cut a couple days ago, for no discernable reason. At least, the reason isn’t discernable after going through the Finnish to English translation. So we have no phone or internet (if you’re reading this, we got our line back). The tv’s work, but we have only Finnish and German channels. The one highlight is German MTV, which might get the MVP over the next couple weeks for providing entertainment. Today is Wednesday, and we’re trying our hardest to get news on the election. The German news channels are covering it pretty closely. Right now the electoral vote stands at 254-252, Bush’s favor. We think we’re waiting on Nevada and Iowa as well as, and at this point the only one that matters, Ohio. It’s hard work following this stuff in a foreign tongue, but we’ll persevere and stay the course…
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\r\nOutside entertainment here is scarce, but being a November training camp we’re not really seeking too much excitement. We’re reading a lot, and have recently engaged in lots of political discussions. Some of the reading material I see around me right now include “America (The Book)”, By John Stewart and the rest of ‘The Daily Show’ cast and writers (highly recommended), David Sedaris’ new book “Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim” (also recommended), Phil Jackson’s book about his experiences with the dysfunctional dynamic that has been the LA Lakers, a couple John Grisham books, and lots of magazines including “Scientific American”, “Atlantic Monthly”, “Men’s Journal”, “Esquire”, and others. We also have a left over copy of the “Times Herald” from our trip over. It’s the last English newspaper we’ll see for a few weeks. It’s too bad, because the daily New York Times crossword in the Herald is great way to spend some lazy time.
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\r\nWe’re only a couple days into this camp but everything is going well. Everyone’s healthy, and some of us completed our first intensity session this morning. There are a couple races this weekend and we plan to do at least one of them. I’m excited to kick off the season. I’m pretty sure none of us have high hopes for these first races, but the preparation provided by these races should be invaluable leading into the first world cups in two-and-a-half weeks.
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\r\nStay tuned to the site. Once we get a phone line we’ll be posting regularly. Also, don’t miss your chance to get some great US Ski Team garb. Go to Ebay and type in ‘US Ski Team’. All items listed by ‘vidarusst’ are items being sold by Team Today. All proceeds will go directly to Team Today. Happy trails…
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Written By: andrewjDate Posted: 11/4/2004Number of Views: 231
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