Climb to the Castle (and more photos)

A small crew of SLUSKIers headed down to Lake Placid on Friday for the annual Climb to the Castle, a rollerski race up the Whiteface toll road. Myself, sophomore Eric Lustgarten and first-years Adam Swayze and Reed Likly all hit the road after practice for the race. Big thanks to SLU alums (how weird is it to say that?!) Steve Vargo and Lanky for letting us crash on the floor in their apartment in downtown Placid. The weather on race day was incredible, with chilly morning frost giving way to blinding sunshine and views at the top of the castle all the way from the Green Mountains to the cityscape of Montreal, to the massive wind turbines near Malone. There was a pretty competitive crowd including the entire US Ski Team and US Biathlon Team, plus several other top racers from around the country. It's hard to judge rollerski races as a level playing field for competition, but it's not hard to see the benefits of this type of race. Not only are you pulling on a bib and racing head to head in a ski-specific environment, you're going straight uphill for five miles. More than any other race situation, technique comes into play as a limiting factor. I'm sure everyone that raced can think back to that one unfortunate moment where their technique and fatigue level, always teetering in a delicate balance, tipped too far in the wrong direction. Poles begin to slip, body position begins to get less aggressive, core begins to rotate, feet begin to step rather than glide, and so on. It happened to everyone who wasn't racing for the win, and even probably happened to some of those who were. Unrelenting races like this emphasize that breaking point. And in lots of ways, going past that point is the fun part. How much more can you keep hurting? Why not try to find out? When you fall apart, there's no hiding it in this race, so you better just keep going. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal. CLICK HERE for men's results. I don't have any photos, though there may be some online eventually. In the meantime, here's some photos of more great training closer to home: some threshold skate intervals and head-to-head sprint starts in the sunset at Brown's Bridge.

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Captain's Practice begins

After a few days of settling into school and life in the North Country, everyone got into gear for the first week of fall practice. An XC running race last week kicked off the SLU training season for many, and this first full week was a busy schedule packed with ski bounding at Seven Springs, rollerskiing at Browns Bridge, circuit strength and SUNY Canton intervals amongst other workouts. Though all we saw from Hurricane Irene was a day of drizzling rain, the whole week has been hot and humid, with haze thick enough to punch a pole tip through. It's a good thing we know where all the local swimming spots are, as we hit up about 4 different ones after training sessions throughout the week. Here are some pictures from the running race, rollerskiing and bounding at Seven Springs.

First-year Austin Meng (Truckee, CA) had a great XC race and probably turned a few heads when he smoked a few members of the cross country team. Those of us who weren't racing for one reason or another cheered, took pictures and threw water at people we knew. Like Eric. Teo and Eric hit the last field into the finish stride for stride. Smooth hilly roads with little traffic made Browns Bridge a nice spot for a ski. Not to mention the cold river running right alongside the road. Teo (in orange) has near-perfect bounding technique puts on a clinic with every ski-walking workout. We end every ski-walking/bounding workout with some sets of all-out sprints with poles. From L-R: Adam, Teo, Reed, Austin.

Look forward to some more updates as fall training gets into motion, and maybe a post or two from some new skiers on the team. Train well-