What does a cross country skier do in September?

I stopped by 'The Club' on friday and Kiera asked me when I would be back to stay for a while and hang out with her. What do I do when I am not at 'The Club'?'The Club' re-opened for the fall this week after the bi-annual two week closure for in-service. This week, all of my teammates are in town for our monthly training camp. The harder training of camp makes it so that I have only been able to stop by 'The Club' for a few minutes to say hello before taking off to meet my team for afternoon training.

When I am not at 'The Club' I am usually: running, biking, roller skiing or strength training. I am a ski racer and in order to be fast and improve I must train a lot. Sometimes, I work out 2-3 times a day and it takes all day. These are my hard days, on my easier days I may only train once or not at all and these are the days I am usually at 'The Club.'

My teammate Gus doing a strenth workout with 90lbs added to his waist.

That is the same weight or more that many of the kids at 'The Club.' Maybe I will try to do a pull up with you on my back next time we are at 'The Club.'

Waxing skis in September?

Skis are an important part of ski racing. I have over 10 pairs of skis. Athletes and coaches spend a lot of time on their skis. It is not unheard of for a pair of skis to have over $250 of wax put into them for a single race. Right now I am only working on my skis so that I can flex them and see how them compare to the new 2010 Salomon skis.

Kevin Johnson of Salomon USA flex testing skis

I am looking forward to being back at 'The Club' this fall. Unfortunatly I have some travel scheduled for the next few weeks so I won't be back at 'The Club' until October 10th. Still, I am excited for the trips. I am flying to Washington State tomorrow to visit my family and for my brother's wedding. My brother is a good person to have an adventure with and I will post some pictures of my trip.

After two weeks in Washington I fly to Lake Placid, NY for a 10 day training camp at the Olympic Training Center. I will post pictures and stories from my trip on this blog so keep checking for updates.