River Road skate rollerski TT

We certainly were not let down by the weather. Forecast was for clearing by midday but about 5 minutes before we were to start a steady rain accompanied by fog rolled in. About 30 sec after the last finisher it stopped. Results will be posted on the team info webpage probably monday but Zach successfully defended his title making it 4 for 4 winning this event every year since he was a freshman. I doubt anyone had faster times than last year due to the wet road surface. Caroline won on the womens side again as well.

The FLU has descended on SLU and that kept some on the team out of the event and probably out for the next week or so. Hopefully most of them can avoid catching it which unfortunately is rather difficult within the close confines of campus life. I suppose the best we can hope for is for it to run its course prior to Thanksgiving break in Quebec.

St. Regis mudfest, 2009

The conditions didn't really offer much opportunity for record breaking times this year. At some points the trail was over a foot deep of mud and pretty much the entire way up was a soggy sloppy mess. This certainly didn't curb the enthusiasm of this much anticipated team time trial though. Fortunately we got out of there with only a couple mild ankle strains. I was awake much of the night before listening to the rain pounding down and envisioning much worse. Zach took the win this year on the guys side, coming into the major part of the climb with Eric and Kyle close behind. For the women first year Kelsey Nichols held off Caroline by about 20sec for the win.

At the top we put in 350 pullups as a team for our 350.org action.

Make a Difference Day

With the St. Regis time trial looming on Saturday we had a relatively easy day today. Before practice we did some community service in Canton as part of the Make A Difference Day that students for St. Lawrence are encouraged to participate in. We did this a couple years ago but not last year, not sure why. Anyway as you see from the pics we spent about an hour and half raking leaves, moving some dirt piles and wood chips, as well as staining a tool shed at one of the newest village parks which opened this summer. Afterwards a short easy classic rollerski during which the weather managed to hold off for a change.

Mid-Semester Break Training

Stowe, VT
October 15

Inspiration

After a week full of 6:30 AM practices, interval sessions, and general strength, Ethan brought a bunch of us to Lake Placid for something like the "nordic combined dry-land championship." Despite the dreary weather, the scene was pretty cool--live music, good food, and a surprisingly high number of spectators.

We got there around 12:00, which was just after the first round of ski jumping. With some time to kill before the next

round (and the rollerski race at 2:15), we had some time to kill. We took advantage of the comp tickets we had and took the chairlift up to the top of the hill. From the bottom, both the small, a mere 90 meters, and the long jump, a bit more lengthy at 12o meters, were pretty daunting. It was not different up close. We took an elevator to the top of the mammoth 120 jump tower and wonderer around the top for a while. With the second round beginning, we made our way down to a spectators platform near the takeoff where the competitors were taking off. After shaking hands with Andy Newell (who is apparently on a first name basis with Steve) we descended the hill to find a stop for watching the rollerski race.

The race was also very spectator friendly--being a 10k on a 2k loop, there were a lot of opportunities to see the skiers passing by. Though the course was pretty technical and hilly, the level of competition was pretty high which made for an interesting race. In the absence of Billy Demong, Todd Lodwick cleaned up, making the win look easy. Freezing, we headed back to the van and took off back to campus as the sun began to emerge from behind the clouds.

Black Powder

I started seeing the term "black powder" in use about maybe 4 or 5 years ago. I don't often use the term but it certainly would characterize much of the awesome road skiing we have 15-30min from campus by car. I am really not a big fan of rollerskiing personally. It was never one of my favorite things to do for training and I would always much rather trail run or even a road run to rollerskiing. However after having grown up in Vermont, gone to college at SLU, and then coached a bit out west I can say with some experience that the rollerskiing we have nearby campus here is some of the best there is. For some reason the back roads in Northern NY nearly all get paved and are fairly well maintained or at least don't get beat up to quickly. These are the kinds of roads that in most states would be dirt or gravel or perhaps some chip seal if you were lucky. For this same reason the road biking is really good here to. The picture here is about 2/3rds of the way through a drop off point to point ski this past Sunday. The guys went for 3 hours and covered a little over 30miles. I would guess that in that time we saw perhaps 15-20 cars. It still can be dangerous but most of the time we have the road to ourselves.
It was a really great OD workout a slight rain, just enough to keep you cool. Of course I didn't ski much of it myself while running support with the van and nursing an injury I probably only got in about an hour, enough for coach though.

Fall Testing

We started official training this week which doesn't really change much other than I can be present and we do some dryland training tests. 3K on the track was yesterday, I think it went fairly well. We had a couple guys under 10min and all except 2 in under 10:30, the average is probably about 10:15, Zach outkicked Eric in the home stretch to take the win. It is impressive to see guys their size going that fast running, not the typical skinny runner build. The womens group this fall is a bit small with so many juniors and one sophomore in abroad programs. No really fast times but everyone under 13 and all except 1 over 12:30. I would have liked to see some times in the mid 11 range but those that ran that fast last year are not on campus this fall. What is great to see is that even with their lack of experience the first year girls all were under 13min which usually doesn't happen. Specific Strength tests coming this Saturday as well as the family weekend cookout. Next weekend will likely be the St. Regis hill climb which everyone gets pretty excited about.