NJ Trail Series 5K - Team OW best losers

First of all - March 4th is D-Day - Olof is getting into surgery and according to the doctor it is about 50% chance of his foot getting better. Until then he has gotten an ok to do about a 5k run once a week. Freely elaborating on that Whitney and Olof entered the NJ Winter Trail series. - a 5k race! Gratned non of us had raced for almost 2 years in running the expectations where very low, and just take it for fun.... but for some reason as soon as the bib comes on all I can think about is how am I going to win! Where is the best place for a sprint etc. Also I am very easy to predict because the tactic is always the same... stay with the lead group as long as possible and if you are with them to the end... win the sprint. And as my friend Micke wrote on his blogg "jag ar bra pa att tavla", when I now can compare myself to citizen racers etc, I have to say "jag ar forbannat bra pa att tavla". The biggest problem was that both Whitney and Olof are extremely out of shape when it comes to running. In the biggest hill which was between 2-3k the runners lightly tripped away from us while Olof at least fell like a rock through the field (I was seriously considering walking several times and my position fell from 3-to7 in like 200 meters). The good news is that runners are not good at "kora over kronet" - something you are toast as a cross country skier if you do not do. So 300 meters after the summit I suddenly was 2:nd again on a small windy single track towards the finish with no major uphills left. Holding on for dear life I managed to keep the 3 seconds I had in lead over the last 1.5k and keeping second.

Whitney also does a great race and is actually close to stealing first, even though she is in a brutal fall on the downhill and scrapes her knees and tear her pants, but gets beaten with about 10 sec over a tiny woman half her size. Overall team OW is extremly happy with the performance and excited to be on the trails. Click on the pictures below that takes you to an album with pictures from the day.

Night skiing

The general understanding of cross country skiing by the american public is about 0 (yes that is a zero). Skiing at night is a concept that one should not even try to start explaining. But here where grooming is often a little so, so - especially compared to the sweet home country, explorer-skiing can be a great way to spend some evening/night hours. Few things is as fun as heading out into "new" land (at least where you haven't been before) as the sun goes down and every bone in your body tells you to turn. Team OW theory is that the brain is trying to trick you and wants you to go home and lay in bed and eat cookies because it is "safer" and biologically better. Instead you turn on your headlamp and see where the trail takes you. saturday had some great night explorer skiing along the ridge between Mohonk and Minnewaska, and we actually got some first tracks down a trail which always is a highlight.

As you can see either Whitney has gotten a lot faster or we set the shutter speed on the camera to a lot slower... but in any case - night skiing is frikking fun!

Say hello to Johnny!

There has been some competitions on our blogg.

First of all - Our Jeep is named Johnny (which was the name we where leaning towards before the blogg post) but we also added the nickname Jebus - just so we can scream 'Save me Jebus!!!!" when things go wrong.

About the Christmas Cookies we only had 3 votes and all on different cookies. Therefore Micke who casted his vote first becomes the "judge" and the winner in the christmas cookie competition is "Redneck with bad teeth in yellow wife-beater and green lederhosen"!! - Hurreay,!!!!... but they have all been eaten by the cookie-monster now!

Santa Claus is coming... part 2 - "Miss Christmas Cookie"

Det ar sjukt juligt har i New York. - eller sa juligt det kan bli utan sno. Igar var vi och firade lucia pa samma satt som forra aret och det var lika grymmt att hora "glans over sjo och strand" av nagon som faktiskt kan sjunga. Idag var det jul-kaks bakande och sedan dekorerande. Efter bra response pa "name that Jeep" sa finns det nu 12 st finalister i "Miss Jul-kaka USA" att rosta pa.

1. Jul-Gran som ser verklighetstrogen ut

2. MC Echer Jul-spiral

3. Prickig klocka

4. Redneck med daliga tander, gul "wifebeater" och grona lederhosen

5. Kak-gubbe som blivit zombie och har massa blod runt munnen

6. Glad kak-gubbe

7. Julgran som inte ar gron

8. Bikini-kak-brud

9. Modern sno-gubber

10. omodern snogubbe

11. Normal julgran

12. tva-fargad julgran

Tag chansen att rosta fram amerikas vackraste jul-kaka!!!

Santa Claus is coming....

Team OW will celebrate Christmas here in New York. To get into Christmas spirit... The Diva, Grumpy Bear and Lil-Sis all got into (Johnny, Jebus, Jessabel ... those are the 3 finalists for the Jeep) and went to pick up a christmas tree. While Grumpy only occasionally woke up to either 1) complain about people doing things "sub-optimal" 2) bring out his credit card to pay for this "christmas spirit", after a long day of work the result is displayed above... A fine looking fir. If Santa don't come and put presents under this tree I am seriously going to question his standards.

Name that Jeep... (new family member)

For a long time we have know that Sally was getting old. Many years of chain smoking made her lungs sound like like ... well a chainsmoker when she made it up hills. So last weekend we had to put her to sleep. We all remember Sally as an old lady that gave us much pleasure in life and always did her best - sometimes with a little complaining to take us where we needed to go.

Now here is the new Family member. The Jeep - we think we have a name for her/him but are up for any suggestions. So help us name that Jeep.....

Team Davis 4th and 7th on Ladder 5k Run

The Davis sisters did a pretty strong performance on the 2010 Ladder 5 run on Staten Island. Whitney finshed 4th and Amanda on 7th place of the girls. There was age-groups and, all other different categories but it is a little against my principal to report those (like I actually won if only counting foreigners born on Tuesday in even weeks). The full results are here. http://www.nyara.org/nyara_races/2010/mn_race_ladder5.php#results
If the times looks like absolutly aweful for a 5k course it is because this is not your normal 5k course. Whitney usually breaks 20 min on a normal 5k but this one goes over a beach, on a twisty singletrack etc. so it is very hard to compare the time to anything else.

Here is the dynamic duo ready for fight.