Salt Lake #1

Hello from Salt Lake City, USA.

We arrived in Salt Lake Sunday night after a seemless short trip from Calgary. It feels great to not have to travel for a day or two to get to a competition. So far everything is going really well. We have been on ice each day and the ice is fast. Now I know most of you are reading from Calgary and you are like oh ya can it really be faster than our ice there. Well it can and it is. Today we did a 7 lapper with the opening lap at 8.4. But heres the thing, we didn't finish on 10.5, we finished on 9.1. So its fast. The main reason for the extremely quick ice is that the altitude here is quite high (around 1400m or more i'm not sure). We definitely felt it the first two days as your lungs feel constricted and also burn while skating. Today was better though and I think everyone is adjusting well.

Obviously though, we are not skating all day everyday. So after we get all the recovery activities out of the way, ie eating, napping, massage, physio etc, we have some time to check out the city and the surrounding area. We are lucky that Speedskating Canada rented us a couple vans so we can get around without walking and wasting energy. Yesterday we went on a quick drive around downtown and into the mountains surround the city. On the way through downtown though, we had to stop for a minute so I could run through a fountain. It was a bet and I made 50 bucks for running half naked through some random fountain at a downtown office building. I had to spend the next hour or so in soaking jeans (it wasn't warm out either) but I think it was worth it. There was lots of video taken so look for a video of it up on Jon's blog or on facebook. We also took a quick trip out to Park City in the late afternoon to check out some deals at the outlet shops.

Back to skating, we aren't sure yet which distances we will be skating but I post about that when we know for sure. Also, I'm sorry I can't post any photos, but I don't have a computer here.

Here is a math question for you to think about

Jess Hewitt+Ipod cranked+forklift backing up=