About Me

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Boulder, CO, United States
From Minnesota to Maine to the sunny land of Boulder, CO, I have been competing as an athlete all my life and been working as massage therapist for six years now. Helping athletes with greater recovery, bounce back from injury faster, and helping one's body perform at it's best is what I aim to do. My love for sport, training and helping a body feel good and perform at it's best has driven me into a career in massage therapy. I strive for nothing less than the best...let me help you reach greater heights.

Sunday, January 30, 2011

Racing


We kicked things off this weekend with an individual race on Saturday followed by a sprint race today. The weather was uncharacteristic sunny and the course were a bit more forgiving then I anticipated. It has been a few weeks since my last race and I was feeling a bit nervous about racing again. After any break from racing I always fear that I am going to forget how to go hard or not go hard enough or just forget how to race, but once out the start gate everything comes together quickly and before I know it the fear is gone and I am complete race mode.
Once things started everything came together fairly smoothly. I am over here to get the best racing experience I can and to challenge myself to bring my level of competing up a notch or two. I feel like I am on track to accomplish both of these goals.
Yesterday's five misses for me on the range put me into fifth place. My ski speed seems to be fairly competitive, but the minute penalty with every miss in an Individual race is always hard to recover from. Today I had one miss with each of the two stages in the sprint. My ranges times lost me a little more time but I held my own on the ski course.
Overall I am happy with the weekend and am excited to make some improvement in the races in Rupholding. Consistent shooting with a little faster range time and skiing faster with every race is what I am after. Going for it! I am just so thankful for the opportunity to do so.
-BethAnn

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Friday, January 28, 2011



I have always loved going to coffee shops. It is a weakness of mine, some might say. I can sit and sip a hot beverage for hours and read, people watch, work on my computer or just catch up with friends. Today, while I am writing this update I am especially enjoy the view. I am overlooking the biathlon stadium in Oberhof, Germany. What a fantastic idea these Germans had. Who wouldn't want to sip coffee or enjoy a beer while overlooking beautiful ski trails and perfectly manicured biathlon range? This afternoon the range has but a few athletes on it, getting some last minute training in no doubt, before tomorrow race. The walls inside the cafe are covered with Olympic posters and well known faces of biathlon. No wonder so many Germans love biathlon, or is it because they love biathlon the reason why they have such a place? Hard to say. Either way I am enjoying taking this all in.
I am here for a short break before heading over to our wax cabin to prep my skis for tomorrow. The conditions should be good and thanks to some advice from my coaches over at MWSC, the waxing should be pretty straight forward. Now if I only spoke German! I am SLOWLY working on it. Anyone need someone to practice German with? If so, I am your girl...and let me know.
Things were quite lively here this morning with athletes of all different levels getting ready for the races this weekend. I saw a few different world cup athletes and all kinds of up and coming Germans. It is fun to be on such a busy range again. The area around the wax cabins was full of activity as well. My favorite sight was watching two girls unload a big case of beer, (it took both of them to carry it), from their van to the wax cabin. These Germans sure do love their beer! That is one way to make sure your wax techs are happy.
We are doing just fine however, without any beverages filled with hops. Coaches meeting tonight at five, dinner and soon after bed time looks to be the schedule for now. But first I better get started with my own waxing....
happy skiing to you all,

BethAnn

Thursday, January 27, 2011

The wohnwagen report


As our wohnwagen adventure continues here in Deutchland I plan to write a quick daily update to post here. In all likelihood I won’t be able to get online to post them every day but I will do so as often as I can.
Here is a little report on Oberhof for today.

Oberhof in a smaller size town about three hours North West of Munich. It seems similar to Lake Placid, NY because it is home to many winter sports including bobsled, alpine skiing, Nordic and of course biathlon. It was actually the first stop on the Tour de ski this year. It was home of the 2004 World Championships for biathlon and hosts a biathlon world cup every year in January. It opened its own ski tunnel a couple summers ago just down the road, so not only do you have skiing all winter long but through the summer now too. The venue is home to one of the largest stadiums, which is packed full through the World Cup with somewhere around 30,000 people for every race. The World cup venue is only one of about five or six different biathlon ranges you can find here. One of which is indoors with huge doors that allow you to rollerski in and out of. This range also provides a video screen of your target next to every point, allowing you to look at your shots with a quick glance after every shot. Home to many German National team athletes, Oberhof is defiantly not a bad place to be a biathlete.

Nestled in the Thuringer Forest, with Nordic trails headed in every direction, this small German villages has a great Nordic population of all different abilities. The towering pine forests surrounding the area are all heavily weighted down with heavy white snow and makes for beautiful skiing. And it’s often foggy weather has earned this place a nice name of Foghof.

We are getting ready for the German Cups races to be held this weekend. We will be starting off with a Individual race. I am excited to be able to get at least one of these races in this year. It seems there aren't many in a racing season these days.
For now I will have to wrap things up to keep my computer from running out of battery again. Until tomorrow, (I hope)....

BethAnn



Monday, January 17, 2011

A small tribute to a wonderful Grandfather,




After enjoying cheering on our MWSC Nordic athletes at nationals for a day or two I had an unexpected event happen in my family. My grandfather, “Bucko”, died after 93 years of a very active, healthy life.
When asked when the last time he went to the doctor Bucko would tell you February, 15th 1917, the day he was born. He lived a healthy and long life, enjoying showing off on the rink, skating circles around everyone in his old long blade speed skates. In the summer months he was often helping my grandma work in the garden or out on the golf course. He even managed to get a round or two in this past summer and fall.
At around 5’3” he was a small guy with great fire. I am so thankful to have had in my life for so long. Both he and my grandmother were the most supportive and loving Grandparents anyone could ever ask for. My last visit with him this past December my grandpa asked how my racing was going, as he did every time I talked with him. I told him it was well and I was working hard to keep improving and making the next step up in my racing career. I promised him I would make him proud and I intend to hold to that.
After finding out about his death I left X-C Nationals a couples days early to go back to Minnesota to be with my family for a while. I was sad to miss the last day of racing and disappointed to have missed out on all the fun at the Fast and Female event following. On the other hand I am so thankful I was able to meet up, even for a short while, with all 13 of my cousins and all of their 16 children. We had a wonderful gathering of friends and family to celebrate my grandfathers life.

I’d like to thank all those with MWSC and everyone else that was accommodating to my last minute schedule change. I can’t tell you how much it means to me.
As always, thanks for checking,
BethAnn

Monday, January 10, 2011

The races must go on


Last week Black Mountain in Rumford Maine held U.S. X-C Nationals. I decided to focus on races later on in my season and to skip out on this event this year. I did get the chance to go down and cheer on my fellow teammates as they hammered around the little white strip of snow that the races were held on.
I am not sure where winter has gone in New England but I do know that it is seriously late in showing up this year. Thanks to a lot of work from all the folks in the Western Maine area there was just enough snow to hold all the races. It wasn't always a pretty looking trail but it was one that you could at least ski on.
I'd like to say Congrats to all the MWSC athletes who raced last week. Great job and it was really fun to cheer you all on.
Hope you enjoy the pictures below from the races.
cheers,
BA









Sunday, January 2, 2011

Waiting on ol' man winter


The calender now shows a new year, which should put us right smack in the middle of winter, right? Well it hasn't felt that way here in Northern Maine the past few days. I am excited to be back up in Caribou and have been all reved up about getting a few weeks of good training in here. But between a lingering cold and the warm, rainy weather, I have felt a bit deflated. These are two things that are top on my dislike list, being sick and a snowless winter!
Despite the dreary weather and my marginal health I did manage to get out and check out the skiing that was avaliable this week at both Nordic Heritage and 10th Mountain.
I was at 10th Mountain on Thursday so I am not the conditions are the same, but while I was there the trails were in fairly decent shape. What I was most excited about was the shooting range. Half of the electronic targest for the World Cup are set up and running. The electronic targets allow you to clear and change targets by simply pushing a button. You can also program them to automatically rest themselves after five shots have been taken. This is really nice when you are shooting on the range by yourself.
Things are coming toether nicly up at Nordic Heritage Center as well. Quite a few more upgrades were necessary at NHC in preperation for the World Cup, so they aren't quite as far along as 10th Mountain, but all that they have done is looking great! The range has been moved back and left three meters in both directions. This creates a lot more room on shooting points one, two and three. The other half of the electronic targest are up but aren't hooked up just yet. The stadium area looks great, (exept for the lack of snow). While there isn't much for snow coverage anywhere in The County right now, I did manage to get a three hour ski in at NHC this afternoon. I was on my fish scale skis, that I love because I can ski in ANY conditions with them. They were perfect for today, skiing over grass here and there and probably a few rocks as well. Those skis can take it and I was very thankful for it.
I am here until around mid-week and then will head down to check things out at Nationals down in Rumford. The forcast is calling for cooler winter so perhaps Ol' man winter is still around. Let's just hope he can round up some badly needed snow for all of us snowbunnies!
Happy New Year to you all!
BethAnn