Beitostolen

After only a day in Oslo part of the US team headed 3.5 hours north following twisty roads along lakes and fjords to the little town of Beitostolen for a week of training and racing.

Beitostolen is a small resort town with alpine trails and a World Cup Nordic venue.

It was really nice to see the sun and the mountains after a few weeks in flat and grey Estonia, Finland, and Latvia.

Here’s the view from our condo living room.

The Norwegian National Team spends a lot of time training in Beitostolen and we had a chance to race against quite a few of them in some Norwegian Cup races.  The first day of racing was a skate sprint and I ended up 5th in the final despite having led for the first part of the heat.  It was really exciting to be racing in the same heats as Maikan Caspersen Falla, Ingvild Flugstad Oestburg, Astrid Jacobsen, and other Norwegians who routinely do well on the World Cup.  The rest of the weekend racing included a 5/10km classic and a 10/20km skate.  The Americans as a team had a great weekend of racing with 9 or 10 top ten finishes and almost that many top five finishes.  Our cargo van is now loaded with lots of Norwegian glassware which were the weekend’s prizes.

When the races were finished we had more time to explore the other trails which traverse the higher plateaus surrounding town.  I love the double classic tracked trails that are everywhere in this country.

The whole team is together now in Drammen gearing up for World Cup races this weekend.  I’m racing in a 10km classic tomorrow and then heading back to Oslo to get ready for World Champs action!