Great days to be a skier

Happy Holidays everyone! I know it's Christmas Eve, but all I can think about is being outside. My Grandparents are visiting, and they like it warm. My dad cranked up the fire in the furnace and the thermostat reads...hang on...81 degrees in here. I might pass out from heat stroke. Luckily, there's tons of snow outside for me despite the tropical conditions in my living room. A pretty good amount of VT ski areas were open when we got back for break, but the past few days have seen some nice fluffy powder and great skiing almost anywhere you choose. Steve came up for the Bolton Opener last Sunday (results HERE. I put SLU on my club but apparently it wasn't listed on the results?). I had been skiing there for 2 days prior and though conditions were great with wicked hard-packed skating, it looked like nobody would show up for the race. I was proved wrong on race day when a whole host of guys showed up from Team Rossi, UVM, Craftsbury and even CXC. The most well-represented crew though? Team SLUSKI, with Wolcott, Steve, Teo and myself, along with recent alums Issac Noyes and Angus McCusker. The race went well, and the next day Steve and I went to my home base, Sleepy Hollow, for some training on the St. Mikes Carnival courses. Should be a wicked steep hill and chaos for the classic sprint relay. Conditions were mediocre, but the next few days brought good snowfall. Yesterday I headed up to Trapps for some classic intervals. The plan called for 7 minutes: 6 being level 3 pace, with a 1-minute pickup of level 4 sandwiched in the middle. My goal was to practice the race course for the UVM carnival. The terrain worked out perfectly; I strode out the first level 3 effort on the gradual climbs at the low point of the course, hit level four as I hammered up the biggest, longest hill (if you raced it you know where I'm referring to), and kept it back to level 3 as I finished the climb and ended coming out of the woods into the stadium. After resting up and eating some lunch I went out again, this time with my summer training buddies/high school rivals Jared Supple (Colby) and Pete Hegman (UVM). We cruised around and I'm sure blinded some of the touring holiday guests with our vibrant displays of red, blue and green spandex from our respective schools. Different attitudes toward the sport, but it was obvious everyone was just psyched to be out skiing.


Tried out the self-timer on my parents camera at Bolton. Good skiing on Sunday, and even better conditions now I'm sure.

Dig the Hig

Higley Flow up and running as of Wednesday. Classic tracks and all today. NYSEF opener in LP tomorrow, then exams!

Finally

After some agonizing December rollerskis (the type no one really looks forward to), we finally got out on snow. With only a few inches falling in Canton, we headed south to the golf course in Star Lake to get some quality K's in. Though they weren't quite mid-winter conditions, I think it would be safe to say that everyone was pretty excited to finally be out on the white stuff. It was certainly encouraging to finally see some snow fall after what has been a very mild past few weeks. Hopefully there will be more coming, and with any luck, we may be racing in Lake Placid this weekend.

short clip from Stoneham

I think Adam has already done a great job of summing up camp but I am finally getting around to downloading some pics from the camera. Most of which are blurry since I just can't seem to figure out how to take action shots. Recently though I did figure out how to take short videos which seem to capture the moment better for workouts anyway. Here is one of the boys hitting the bounding intervals hard at Stoneham.

Culture clash

At around 8:00 last night Kyle, Connor, Bogden and I were in Cornwall, crossing the water to the USA. With our stomachs full of gas-station A&W burgers, we gunned our 15-seater gas guzzler over the bridge and blasted the Team America theme song as we rolled up to customs. That's when I realized how much I love our country. We do everything over-the-top and love every minute of our indulgent lifestyles. Of course, as a responsible team we do our best to shed the image of the typical lazy, environmentally destructive American stereotype. Every once in a while though, you just have to embrace your heritage. This was one of those times. We all needed some good old 'merrrcan time after a tough week of hammering it out Canuck-style in Stoneham. Intervals, s'il vous plait! Though we got our snow feet wet on a 500m loop for a few days, most of the week was devoted to hard training either by foot, rollerski or Go-Kart. Some of us (me) learned the hard way that Mariokart driving abilities don't hold up so well when you're in the real deal. All in all there was a positive atmosphere despite the lack of ski time. Some incredibly tough workouts stand out, like switchback rollerski striding intervals, a great 2.5 hour trail run and all-out bounding ladders, but a couple of us agreed most of the week felt like a consistent blur of naps, egg-frying and sore appendages. Mostly shredded quads, particularly for Lanky who (with a broken wrist) toughed it out with all legs all week. Maybe they don't have dollar menus or SUVs in every driveway, but our neighbors to the north know how to accommodate skiers. When it comes to training like, this I guess Canada's alright.


Smooth roads and no traffic made the local park a great place to train


Baby Calvin, taking some fashion notes from Wolcott


Kelsey and Andrew skiing the loop


We traded dinner duty each night: Wolcott and Lanky's kabobs

skiing?

After skiing on the manmade loop at Foret on Tuesday I had pretty much decided that it was not worth the 45min drive and battle for space that would be part of getting on snow. Since the point of training camp is training and not getting on snow at all costs (while it would be nice) I decided to focus efforts on utilizing the terrain and sites available for dryland. This went exceeding well and I think that even though our on snow time was very limited this was quite possibly one of the best training camps I have experienced and run as a coach. We are finishing it off with a hard bounding session we did this morning up the ski slope at stoneham, with a recovery run this afternoon. The forecast is for snow overnight but it won't be enough to immediatly open more Ks at Foret. I called and tried to get some time reserved on the loop for the am only to be told that they were full and no time could be scheduled.
So we are left with either a rollerski at Jaques Cartier park and then pack up and leave or pack up and head for Gatinue Park in Ottawa for a rollerski there.
We were going to head home on Sunday but given the conditions have decided to get back a day early so everyone can get caught up school work and resettled for the final drive toward the end of the semester.
At least it looks to be turning a little more winterlike with some snow forecast for Northern NY and other parts of New England. Hopefully we will all be on some quality snow soon.

Go Speed racer

Gokarting in Quebec city and a stroll in the Old Quarter. Andrew and I were trying to think of some suprise fun for the end of the week and I think we might have a new yearly tradition that involves stinking of gas and oil. It was not environmentally friendly but it was certainly fun. Wolcott and Beano made good on their trash talk winning overall and turning in the fastest lap time while finishing second respectively. It took me a couple laps and nudge from behind to figure out that the only real way to make an effective pass was basically to push the cart in front of you out of the way. We may have stretched the language barrier excuse a little far as most didn't seem to pay attention to the yellow caution flags that repeatedly came up as the less deft of us has to be turned around after spinning out by the swift footed attendants who appeared rather exasperated with us toward the end.
The absurdly warm weather made walking around the old part of the city comfortable at least. Sorry about forgetting the camera, but if you really follow this you have learned to expect that I often forget the camera and am not very good with it anyway.

Results from the kart race
1. Eric
2. Ben K
3. Connor
4. Hollis
5. Me
6. Andrew
7. Adam
8. Ben O
9. Tyler
10. Leah
11. Hannah
12. Margaret
13. Caroline