A sprig of bamboo marking the course.

The warm temperatures recently have created a sickly sheen of repeatedly melted and refrozen snow over the landscape here. It feels like spring with temperatures well above zero and slushy, wet snow. Which means, to me, that it's time to move to colder latitudes. Perfect timing, because tomorrow I fly up to Helsinki Finland. It's been a good stay. Particularly because, moments ago, Kris Freeman finished a really exciting 50km classic race in 12th place. It's been thrilling to be part of the US team here and to be involved in this amazing event. I've been impressed with how much effort goes into an event like this, both from the organizers and the teams. No one hears about the support staff, you only hear about the racers. But the support staff basically enable us all to race to our potential. I managed to take some photos of a few of the people we have keeping the US Team running. It's hard to get pictures of these guys because they're never sitting still.

I don't know if these guys went to school to learn how to stand around and look intimidating, but they sure do a good job of it. From L->R: Aaron Saari, Physical therapist. Per Erik Bjornstad, wax tech. Roar Lillefjell, wax tech. Luke Bodensteiner, USSA god. Patrick Hammer, team, um, meteorologist. I haven't actually met Patrick yet, he just flew in a day ago or so, but I hear he's the meteorologist. You can tell Norway brought a big cheering crowd in the background.

Per Erik Bjornstad, wax tech. Per Erik is super nice and fun to talk to.

Randy Gibbs, wax tech. Randy did most of my waxing on this trip and did a spectacular job; I'm looking forward to working with him again at U23's soon.


Matt Whitcomb, Continental cup coach. Matt has beautiful eyelashes. And that's Compton's comment, not mine.

Pat Casey, Continental Cup coach. If Pat wasn't, you know, married already I'd have a huge crush.