I met Erik Flora, my new coach at APU this morning. Now, you may be thinking, she moved all the way up to Alaska without even meeting the coach first!? It does seem a little backward, but I had (and still have) good faith that Erik and I will work well together. And even though I only officially met him for the first time today, I have seen him around at races and heard about him, don't forget that the ski community doesn't have too many complete unknowns.

Yesterday I talked to Erik on the phone and we decided to meet at 8am at the APUNSC office. A couple of hours later Erik called me back and said, "let's meet at Potter Marsh and go for a classic rollerski instead of meeting at the office." Excellent, now THAT's my kind of meeting! I was quite pleased with my first impression of Erik, he exuded positive energy, which is great because, like most other simple mammals, I respond much better to positive reinforcements than negative. So I am looking forward to working more with him and hearing more of his thoughts on technique. He restrained himself to only making one comment on my striding this morning-- about starting the impulse of the kick with the hamstring. I was happy to attempt it. My hamstrings are mostly just big and muscular and stuck onto the backs of my legs so it was nice to think about them being useful for something. Maybe even redeem themselves for making so difficult to find jeans that are big enough through the thigh.

Tomorrow morning I'll train with the APU team... 8AM ski walking/bounding, 4PM strength! I'm re-entering the world of structured team training after two months of dawdling around on my own!