Training with Claudia Nystad really brought up my energy and we did an awesome hard strength workout as well as some skiing on the glacier and running in the valley. Claudia is a German Olympic and World Champion in x-c skiing and all round super cool. www.claudiakuenzel.de

Big ups to the happy Austrian cows for hooking us up with awesome cheese and chocolate!

Things have been going well in Austria and despite being here on my own I've maintained my ineptitude for boredom. Good training, visits with Trond and Claudia Nystad, lots of computing (Fast and Female events are going to be incredible this winter!), the occasional movie, and polishing off a great book called "Born to Run" kept me occupied. In it author Christopher McDougall posits that corrective footwear and footbeds don't help us at all. That book spoke right to me when the inside cover explained that the adventurous book arose from a simple question: "Why does my foot hurt?"

I'm still working on solutions for my egregious extemities and figuring out which boots will work best for this winter as I continue testing of snazzy footwear from both Salomon and Fischer here before I go meet up with the team in Bruksvalarna, Sweden this weekend.

Meanwhile, back at home my sister won the Mountain Idol competition back home at the Banff Mountain Film Festival in which the Bow Valley's young mountain sports stars and role models under the age of 21 are presented with this cool award. Go Rosanna! blooger-rosanna.blogspot.com

I'm glad to hear skiing is good back home at Lake Louise and I hope everyone is loving the reunion with gliding it out on the white stuff.

Cheers,
Chandra