I had heard how spectacular Bend, Oregon was in the month of May from teammates and friends for years. The stories of skiing in the sunshine, mountain biking through the pine trees, and running next to the Deschutes River were enough to convince me to get on a plane and experience the Mecca of spring training that is called Bend and see Mt. Bachelor for myself.
In case you haven't heard, Bend is a pretty happening place, it is a city of 91,000 home to 45+ breweries, has coffee shops on every block, some multiuser trails connecting beautiful parks, food trucks everywhere you turn around, not to mention the legendary Deschutes river coursing through it. And—yes!—it is bordered by extinct volcanoes. I would go there in May even if I didn’t ski.
Mt. Bachelor is 18 miles from Bend. It has alpine trails on its peaks and Nordic trails starting right from the base area that swoops through the cedars for seemingly endless Kilometers. Although to my eyes there was lots of snow, it was still only about 60% of normal snowfall. Because the temps usually got up to about 60 degrees it meant early morning practices and at a lot of cleaning of skis. For the first 1-2 hours of every morning, the refrozen snow was rocket fast, and I often logged 35+ kilometers of a morning.
With a still severely disabled/injured/messed-up elbow, I wasn’t sure how much skiing I would be able to do with two poles. However, Dave Celcoski at Focus Physical Therapy offered to help me out. My thinking was if I was going to entertain the idea of being a full or part-time Nordic-combiner, I needed to see if my elbow and body could stand up to endurance training again. Lucky for me, Bend had everything I needed to test out my elbow.
For the most part, I did distance skis in the morning on Mt. Bachelor and running, biking, rehab, and gym workouts in the afternoon. Dave was able to help me to regain strength and mobility in my arm as well as guide me as to how quickly I could safely progress. His Focus PT office was also in the same building as the recovery gym.
The recovery gym is probably the coolest gym I have ever trained in. It’s run by an ultra distance runner diva named Renae Metivier and it is geared towards endurance athletes. Though you wouldn’t know it at first sight, the weight room is in a repurposed car shop. It has the usual weight racks, spin bikes, and treadmills, but also plenty of open space, with an astroTurf floor to do drills on. Once I was done with my gym session and rehab, I headed to the recovery side of things. There were hot and cold contrast baths, an ultraviolet sauna, NormaTec compression pants, and the resident dogs whose ears needed to be scratched. To accompany recovery, they also offered cold brew coffee and kombucha.
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| The alpine area across from the Nordic Center. |
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| The end of a skate ski in the soft snow. |
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| Trees by the Metolius River |
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| Afternoon bike ride |
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| metolius river |
