I don't even go to Harvard anymore...

... and therefore probably should have stopped posting months ago like I promised. But this is the only good way to let you all know that Harvard Nordic has no less than eight new team mascots:


Come visit soon!

-Schlutz

The downside to turning 21 overseas:

Your license expires without you realizing, just when you're done working and want to rent a car and travel around the country. But instead of realizing this when I was making a reservation with the rental company, I realized it yesterday, after getting up early and hitching a ride over the mountains to the next town over to pick it up from the airport. After pleading with the rental car lady for about 20 minutes and seriously wondering if I could get a New Zealand license for about 2, I decided to just make a day of it in Queenstown. I proceeded to enter lots of swanky shops wearing my sneakers, dirty jeans, carhartt, and backpacker pack, with which I knocked over several rich Australian tourists by the sale racks. Back in Wanaka last night, I frantically searched for cheap buses that could take me where I'd planned on going. So far I've only found a way to get to the west coast glaciers. The project for the rest of today is to find a way to get to most of the other places I wanted to go, including Arthur's Pass (of Lord of the Rings fame) and Mt. Cook. When I return on the 24th, I'll be getting on a plane back to Boston. I'm excited for the new year with a new team!

On the starting line at the Farm.

On a snowshoe expedition.

Rock climbing in skate boots.

-AM

Another beautiful day...

Thank you, and welcome.

After three moose, four bears, one flip, and a road trip across the country, I'm back on the East Coast. Summer training has been non-conventional (is that a word? I don't know...physicists are bad at English), and tons of fun.


Training....of sorts


Be sure to avoid the dead whale.


It's a rough life.


I succumbed to peer pressure...

Looking forward to seeing all of you in a few weeks. Let's rock things this year. Be sure to say hi to our new freshman when they arrive.

-TP

Life was good today.

Hey there Pterodactyls.

Hope that everyone is enjoying a most lovely summer. With this dreadful economy, typhoon-worthy precipitation, and fasterskier.com becoming harder to navigate than my income tax returns, I've managed to find some time to sit down and blog away.

Rather, I've compiled my summer into a video highlight reel:



For those of you who didn't appreciate country music, consider me your Missionary to the Church of Latter-Day Honkey Tonk.

My summer's been nice. Highlights have been:

1. Finally getting my resume laminated at Kinkos. They reported that it was the most professional looking document to me hand-written on the back of a KFC buffet menu.
2. World-record ascent of Whiteface via running shoes and mountain bike, Midnol-Midnol, 3:37:22. The folks at Guinness World Records have been rather lax in returning my repeated voicemail messages.
3. Coaching delightful kids. If you've never coached 6-12 year olds, do it. Just make sure to carry a bullhorn loudspeaker at all times, and wash your hands repeatedly.
   

I'll wager you all thought that graduating from college could never be so fun.




So be well, do good work and come back often.


D

I wrote a longer post but it got deleted

it had funny anecdotes about my mom and snapping turtles and everything. But now I am frustrated and will give a quick summer recap:

• I am in Lake Placid, NY
• I wait on/make friends with old people and golfers
  
• I'm living with Sherborn all-stars Kyra Hill (Harvard '09 and my best friend's sister so basically my older sister) and Spencer Tweed (Wisconsin '09 and recent Ironman Kona qualifier)
• I swam 4.8 miles yesterday
• We hike mountains and train lots
• I have no furniture and basically live on the floor
• I haven't used shampoo since May 7th

Pictures:Atop Cascade

Kyra and a rainbow

Spencer in the Tupper Lake Tinman

Love,
Meri

Sooooooooo, seeing as no one will post on the blog, I will make another super post about my amazingly exciting life. Wait, wait, wait.....my life is damn boring, I forgot about that. So I've been working, like a lot. The other day i worked from 8:30 to 9:10 with two 1 hr breaks. It was pretty brutal. I've been trying to find time in between working for workouts and its not easy. The weather hasn't been helping either. I complained last time on the blog and the weather continues to mock me. I tried to find a good picture of the weather for the past month but I thought it would depress you guys too much.

On to more interesting topics I recently watched Public Enemies and it was pretty good. I enjoyed it. It was really really amusing because some woman brought her like 3 year old kid to see the movie. I figured she might leave after the first scene where some guy gets his head smashed in, but she didn't. She continued to watch with her little child and even commented, "don't worry, he's gonna get shot." It was interesting. She finally left when he had to pee.

+ =

I've also taken up playing disc golf on occassion. It is a good time except for the small fact that I kinda suck. Its a really good excuse to go out in the back woods of Maine and throw a frisbee with some funny funny rednecks.

+ =

I have also found that roller skiing on crowned roads really really sucks as my wheels are not higher than the crown.

+ + =

That's all I got for now. I'll try to update if anything interesting happens.

Snow Report from New Zealand

According to the locals, this the earliest snow has ever arrived in Wanaka. As soon as I landed about 2 weeks ago and found someone who owned both skinny skis and a car I've been literally up above the clouds skiing at the fabled Snow Farm as often as I can. Unfortunately, this is only on the weekend, when I'm off work and can get up the 12 km mountain road with enough daylight to spare for a good workout. This is a minor drawback, however, because during the week I can go on runs during my lunch break that look like this:


I've worked out a deal with the owners of the Snow Farm where I'm instructing in the mornings and can ski in the afternoons for free. So far it's been mostly little kids for a Bill Koch-like program on Saturday mornings and the odd private lesson. My respect for for whoever taught me to ski when I was 6 or 7 has increased exponentially in the 4 days I've been up there, but it's all worth it.

50k of groomed trails.

Necessary gymnast/rock star pose.

With high school teammate Mary (Williams 06) who was in town for a few days on vacation. I haven't quite got the hang of the self-timer.

To everyone back home: I want updates of your summers! Now!
-A

PS- when I was taking a break at work today I was catching up on my Johnny Klister and found this gem: