Saturday morning's workout was an uphill L3 continuous double-pole up the hill on Route 9N from Elizabethtown to Keene. It was between 45 and 60 minutes of on-time, with a great gradient; steep enough to maintain good threshold pace, but gradual enough to carry speed and feel the flow. At the top of the hill the team switched to running gear and climbed nearby Hurricane Mountain, making for about 2:45 of total on-time.
Here's Kate mid-way through the DP portion of the workout. Hurricane Mtn, the endpoint of the workout, is the grey bald summit far off in the distance, in the center of the frame.
Guys team on the summit of Hurricane. Thanks to the nice family who took the photo and emailed it to us!
We checked in at the campsite and set up some of our gear before grabbing lunch and heading to the ski jumps mid-day. We got to check out the ski jumping national championships at the venue, which are always cool to see. They line the jumps with a grassy astro-turf substance and we it with sprinklers, enabling the ski jumpers to use the hill just like they do in winter.
That little dot in the middle is a ski jumper flying off
Kyle hanging out with a hay-monster, or whatever that thing is...
We headed back to the campsite after the jumping activities and hung out enough to take a quick snooze or play some card games, and then headed out to Franklin Falls for an easy 1 hour skate ski with some agility drills and relays. Agility drills are the new "it" thing in the rollerski world lately, or at least the US rollerski world. We've been doing them for as long as I've been here, and it's cool to see it more and more. Lots of pictures are always being posted online from US Ski Team camps and whatnot, so there's a lot of sources for new ideas and challenges. The 180 is definitely the most exciting, but there's plenty of challenging obstacles.
Since we had a straight road to work with (as opposed to the SUNY Canton parking lot, where we did some earlier this year) we added a new aspect and made the agility course an out-and-back ski, with two-skier head-to-head showdowns. It led to plenty of craziness.
Kate and Taren duking it out
Phil and Calvin hitting the 180-spin to backward-skate section
A slalom straight into a sharp lefthand U-turn leaves Matt in the grass
After a delicious dinner at Lisa G's (I think we ate them out of free bread) we settled in for the night with nighttime activities like campfire stories, s'mores and (in the case of most of the guys team) headlamp-powered tree tipping.
We were up early again for day 2, a long easy ski-walk/trail run up the left side of Whiteface and down the right side via Esther and Marble mountains and the Flume trail network. The day was strangely hot and muggy for a mid-October day, but the thick air seemed to bring out the fall colors even more. We had a few issues of separation and getting lost (think arrows made out of sticks at intersections) but that's bound to happen at least once every fall...
Amazing colors and conditions for a hike with poles
What began as a hike finished with a trail run among the golden forests of the Flume trails
After the traditional stop at Lakeview Deli, the ride home was silent with passed-out bodies slumped across the back seats of the vans. We couldn't have asked for a better combo of location, weather and motivation to finish off a big week of training, up to 18+ hours for some of the upperclassmen when all was said and done.
We have no official practice this week, as most SLU students head home on Wednesday for mid-semester break, a much-deserved rest period to recover and absorb the last few weeks of great preparation.
1 comment:
well done!
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