Kris Freeman - big softie

All is well in Beitostolen. Kris had a good set of classic intervals a couple of days ago, and that was followed by a five hour OD the next day. The OD was a bit tough for the first few hours because the organizers were blowing snow on the course and had the big hill closed. But after a while Bjoerndalen and teammates showed up and the snow guns got shut off, so the skiing improved. I implied a causative relationship there intentionally, even though I have no reason to suspect anything of the kind. I have nothing against Norwegians - really! Besides, I’m flying over there in less than a week and I want to be let into the country.

Today Kris was a bit tired from the interval/OD combo, but he went for a decently long ski and will take tomorrow pretty easy before Saturday’s race. The schedule works well because tomorrow will be classic sprints on the course, so access will be limited.

All things told Kris is feeling quite well, and sounds ready to race. Pete reports that things are going smashingly well, from his perspective. So what’s all this about a big softie? A couple of days ago Kris said that he was sending me an article on diabetes. I remarked that he must be bored if he found time to write an article, and he said yeah, he’d pretty much just been reading. He brought four books and he was most of the way through the second one. I asked what he was reading, and he told me. I don’t remember what the first book was, but it was about a dog that died. Apparently that really made Kris upset. He doesn’t like to hear about dogs dying. If you want to get him to cry just show him “Old Yeller”. Anyway, this book had him all screwed up and emotional. Now I think he’s reading “The Bridges of Madison County”.

Actually, he’s on to a Western, so everything is good. That last line was a joke. He’s not really reading “Bridges of Madison County”.

Reprinted with permission from the Kris Freeman website at http://www.krisfreeman.net/. Copyright © Zach Caldwell and Kris Freeman