Sweden so far has been awesome — the snow, the people and especially the coffee. We left the Scandic hotel and it was really nice. We ate every meal there and there wasn’t a meal without meat, and dinner and lunch always had rice, potatoes and coffee. We went shopping through downtown Falun and found three Nordic ski shops that had everything that you could want. Skiing here is huge; it seems to be the biggest sport after soccer.

The energy drinks here are also kind of sketchy. Some of them come in a glass bottle and are only about 5mL. Cork is hitting them almost every day.

We went to a club race about an hour outside of Falun. The trails were incredible — they were just a step down from Soldier Hollow. The boys skied ten kilometers and the girls skied five kilometers. In the club house we were watching the local kids go off and the J3’s were all bigger than me and every boy on this trip except for a couple. The all skied with perfect technique too, even the J5’s.

We were not allowed to ski the course before our race and we wished that we could of because the were incredibly hard. There were long climbs with fast downhills after them with a really long, sloping downhill back into the stadium. The boys did two five k laps. I felt on and took first with Alex Howe second and Patrick Johnson third. A Swede got fourth. The girls swept the podium Elise Moody-Roberts first, Ase Carlson second and Jamie Woelk third. For winning we received about five pounds of crackers. So now we have ten pounds of crackers that need eating. This trip has been non-stop fun and laughing. We have been training hard and through the first warm-up race, so it has not been all fun and games.

— Tad Elliott