Liberec, Czech Republic

    After a 7 hour van ride with minimal space and lots of back roads that aren't even on maps, the autobahn and city streets we finally made it to the DUKLA of Liberec. We were able to make that trip in 7 hours (normally its longer) thanks to the Czech Nordic Combined B Team coach Marek. He drives like any other European and thanks to our coach Martin Bayer a European at heart we were able to keep up. When we arrived we all got settled in our rooms, I roomed with Tyler Smith, we walked down the street to the restaurant where we would eat at for the next week and a half. While we were here we jumped both a 90m hill and a 120m hill (in the Picture the 120 is on the left and the 90 is on the right). Both of these hills are tons of fun and very interesting. The 90 has a bigger knoll than usual so when you jump it you are really close to the ground over knoll then you lift off around 40 meters. 

---

    While we were here we had the opportunity to compete in two local competitions which they referred to as friendly cups. In this competition the age ranged from me at 16 being the youngest age group up to athletes in there mid 20s on their national teams. The first day we did the jumping portion on the 120 and then a 10km race at a nice complex near by. The Second day we did the jumping portion on the 90 followed by another 10km race. This set of competitions was a new experience for me because i have never done back to back 10km races before.

---

Post race with team mate Ben Berend

Throughout our entire stay in Liberec we were able to get lots of training time in especially jumping on the 90m hill. We did this because this year the 2013 Junior World Championships are on that hill. We also did a couple of runs around the countryside in which we 'knew' where we were going. The whole experience here was super fun and we had lots of fun and good training time both jumping and endurance.

Running in the woods near Liberec

Local swimming hole that we would swim in after runs