One step forward, two steps back

The foot problem has cleared up, whatever it was, so I should be back in action... Except there is no longer snow to ski on.  I am not super motivated to get back to training with rollersking and running being the only options, or a drive to man made snow, not much more appealing.  Instead I've been putting some big time into the minecrafting trying to get my nether globe done in time for the holidays.  I think I will finish the globe, but don't have a good idea for getting a Christmas tree in there.  Not much else new at this juncture, just need to figure out what I'm going to do with a week off over the holidays if there is still no snow to ski on.

When did this happen

Yikes, a lot to post about all of a sudden.
The most exciting news first, Kikkan Randall gets another sprint win in Davos!  Not just a win, she qualified first and proceeded to dominate every heat she was in after that, including the finals.  The showdown that everyone has been waiting for Randall vs Bjorgen has yet to happen as Marit did not make it to the finals.  Randall is now very much in control of the sprint standings, and if she can continue to make the finals when sprinting goes back to the classic technique I don't think anyone will be able to unseat her.
Elsewhere in women's sprinting, I'm quickly becoming a huge fan of Laurien Van Der Graaff, the young Swiss sprinter.  She has had two great sprint weekends now and her enthusiasm for the sport is pretty apparent.  I'm not sure what to make of Natalia Matveeva.  She was a standout Russian sprinter until 2009 where she tested positive for EPO and received a two year ban.  Now she's back and jumping right back to the top of the podium.  I hope she's cleaned up her act, but the Russian system is not exactly known for having the toughest of internal doping controls, so I'm kind of doubting she has gotten much pressure from her own ski federation to clean up her act.  That being said I hope she is clean, since she has a lot of her career still ahead of her and a repeat offender would not speak well for the efficacy of the doping ban (although it might speak well for the effectiveness of the testing.)  On the distance side Holly Brooks keeps getting better and better, and she also qualified for the heats in Sunday's sprint.  I hope she finds a way to stay over for the tour this year, she could have a good impact.
I had my first race this weekend.  Dave and I partnered up for the Breadsmith relays.  Not one of my favorite races on the circuit, since it seems like it is always cold and slow.  Maybe starting the race at 6:45 on artificial snow has something to do with that.  This year went far better than years past however.  I used my brother's new skis, and they felt fast and stable the whole time.  I actually took the lead partway through my first go and tagged off to Dave in first.  Of course Bjorn is a force to be reckoned with and the reason team Boom beat our team, named "without Bjorn".  He had a large gap on Dave by the next tag-off, and I couldn't bring back much if any time on Travis the second loop.  We did manage to bury the teams behind us though, and came in second.  Not good enough to win anything, but we still get the respect; to some people that's more important.
I have a minecraft server up and running now, so my efforts are a bit split between exploring the wonderful world of 1.0 and working on my snow globe on Iskidar's server, which I have the feeling won't complete before the Christmas goal.  It is a fun project to be server host, but also a frustrating one.  I have random login errors often, and am not sure why because they come and go.
On the least good news side of things I was awoken this morning with a sharp pain in my right foot.  It has dulled a bit as the day goes on today, but not enough that I would risk working out on it.  Maybe good timing, since it was raining out this morning and I feel the snow we have left is not long for this world.  I'll try to post again later in the week if the weather and my treacherous body sort themselves out.

It's ski season

The world cup is in full swing, and there is natural snow for skiing here in Northfield, ski season has arrived.  While West Yellowstone was mostly a chance to just get used to the skis again and put in plenty of km at elevation on amazing snow, it is the day to day training back here at home that makes a season.  I'm planning to race the Breadsmith Relays this weekend with Dave, so I've started to mix a bit of speed work into my training already.  I did 2x2km today, pretty much the same as I'll be facing this weekend.  As long as I don't go out too hard I think I'll handle it ok, although the cold, artificial snow always makes Breadsmith a tough race.
As exciting as the snow here is, the real news from the weekend was Kikkan's win in the sprint at Dusseldorf, followed up by a her and Sadie taking 2nd in the team sprint the next day.  Kikkan is the real deal this year, and if Sadie and Liz keep going the way they have been it will shape up to be a great year for the American women.  Seeing Crawford qualify for the final and just miss out on a podium was exciting too, a much needed result and confidence boost for her.  With more North Americans committing to a full season in Europe this year it should be exciting to see what they can do.  The men have been a bit slower to get rolling, and face a very deep and competitive field, but the Canadians especially have shown that they are capable of getting in the mix when things come together, so hopefully they turn things around.
In other news my network card went out last week, and my new card just arrived.  This allows me to host a minecraft server now, which I got up and running (albeit not in the form that I hope to have it running in, but at least it works).  As I have time I plan to add some mods, such as a wrapper, minimap tool, and bukkit.  I might also create a new server using the industrial mods I have been playing with on Iskidar's server, but since I already have access to those things on his server there isn't a lot of motivation for that.
I'm going to try to push the posting schedule up to Monday from now on, since by Thursday last weekends news really is old news.  We'll see if it happens, but at least that is the goal.