Caitlin Compton

Hello from West Yellowstone, MT.
The CXC Team departed on Sunday Morning from Finn Sisu at around 10 AM, spent the night in Miles City , MT and arrived in West Yellowstone the following evening at around 4 PM. As a few members went for a quick evening ski Kristina Owen, Heather Zimmerman and I decided to wait until daylight for our first ski and went for a nice easy jog.
This is my 5th year visiting West Yellowstone, two as a Factory Team member, two with CXC and one with USBA. Although I was out here last year I missed the Yellowstone Ski Festival which I am looking forward to this year. I love seeing familiar faces on the ski trails that I have recently left in Minnesota or I haven’t seen since the winter before.
The snow is fairly thin right now but I would classify the skiing on the Rendevous trails as very good Rock Skiing! Sunday’s’ workout was two sessions of volume training with a skate aki in the AM and a Classic ski in the PM.  I have a big volume week coming up followed by my first “competition prep” week before the first races. I am really looking forward to measuring my fitness during these first races and mapping out a good plan to try and qualify for the World Cup races in Vancouver next January. Until then I have a lot of hard but smart training, diligent recovery and of course plenty of wax to put in my new Salomon skis that Tom Novak ground for me at Finn Sisu before I left .
Thanks again to the Valkava ski group for my last (hopefully) rollerski OD of the season, Tom for turning my skis into finely tuned (ground) rockets and to Avho for his great support and practical insights about the world of Cross Country Ski training and racing.