I arrived home on Monday night, welcomed by green grass in Boston. Luckily, it snowed over night, to make it look more like winter at least. I spent a few days at home, hanging out with my parents and unpacking and packing as usual. At this point, I have packed so often that I could probably do it in 30min if I really had to. I drove up to Stratton and moved into the house I am living in with 5 other athletes.This weekend there were two races in Maine that I decided not to go to. Sometimes it is nice to stay in one place and just relax. I find that listening to your body and responding appropriately is one of the hardest things to do as an athlete. Although I did want to race this weekend, I knew it was best not to. It took me a while to learn this lesson. On Saturday I was pretty excited to do some Level 3 skate intervals up Danby road. Believe it or not, I missed doing intervals! With a crazy summer and fall, I missed out on all of the hard rollerski interval sessions. Once winter whipped around, intervals were cut down because of races. I wish I had taken a picture because there was about 1 inch of fresh snow on the road. With not one snowmobiler around, I laid down the first and only tracks out there in the powder. I finished off the day with a good strength session. Sunday was my lucky day. I had a 2.5h classic ski planed, so I decided to check out Wild Wings, a cross country ski area where I have never skied before. With tricky waxing conditions, I couldn’t find anything that worked well. Thankfully, a kind man working there lent me a pair of fish scales that worked like a charm. The ski trails winded through the woods with just enough snow cover. A kind man turned around my possibly miserable ski and I am very thankful. Again, I have no pictures…I will work on that for the next blog! Now rested from U.S. Nationals, I am ready to charge into 2 weeks of solid training before a double weekend of Super Tour races!-JKern