By: Timothy Cunningham
Mont-Sainte-Anne
The week of
sharpening
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| Team at top of Trail #24 at MSA |
Hello Saints fans
and/or parents and/or alums, it’s Timothy again! I’m the guy that enjoys that
running and hiking (AKA running) uphill stuff. Also food, but I think that’s just
me. In any case, I just spent the better part of last week up in Quebec, Canada
skiing with the nordic team in the balmy weather (right around 0*F most days..except more like -10)
on the beautiful uphill trails of Mount Saint Anne (MSA). Now I know I said
earlier this year that I liked skate skiing a little more on some beautiful
corduroy, but I took several days after biathlon trials and learned that
classic skiing isn’t totally a horrible thing, just occasionally really sticky, but more on that later. Hopefully much later.
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| Dottie and Jordan chilling at our team house |
Our week at MSA (from the 5th-10th) was
primarily a preparatory week for our first carnival this past weekend (the 13th
and 14th) at Colby College. Also known as a sharpening week, we
focus on preparing our minds and bodies for peak fruit ninja season. Not really
though, that would just be tomfoolery. We ski instead.
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| Lucy and Dana's adventures in the van ride |
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| Jackie and Gabby relaxing after a ski |
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| More team downtime |
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| One of the many bedrooms in our house at MSA! |
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| Dani and Waters watching 'Bill Nye' while Matt maintains his fire and TV |
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| Bob focusing on the tough driving conditions to MSA |
The drive from school to MSA was a long 8 hours! It was practically a whiteout with heavy winds. Day one comprised of an easy ski tour of the trails at MSA where I opted to ski the less hilly green trails, so that I could really enjoy the very hilly black diamond trails immediately after! Post-workout the group drove back to the house we were staying in at the base of the alpine mountain (at night they turn the trail lights on all over the mountain, which is beautiful if you’re into light pollution). I however, was loving the special green conditions, so I ended up skiing back to the house on the river trail. Unfortunately, that trail is almost all downhill. This is bad because that means its DOWNHILL and not UPHILL, which just isn’t as fun. It was also -5*F not including the downhill wind-chill, but in a sport that exists solely because of the cold, the temperature was more of an exciting challenge and thrill than a detractor, unlike the lack of uphill, which really was a downer. Ha. Haha…. Moving on.
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| Lucy, Dana, Jackie and Tim back seating in the transit for the drive to MSA |
Understanding that most readers at this moment have something more important to be doing, like skiing, or applying to SLU, both of which are exceedingly good choices, I will sum up the rest of the week with a few of the highlights.
Wednesday, we did a specific strength (Double Pole, Single Stick, and Herringboning quickly) workout in the above zero temperatures!
This was delightfully difficult but was made even better by some downhill
agility on the “S-turns.” A short day as far as volume is concerned but also
great prep for Colby.
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| Top of Trail 24 looking at the Alpine Mountain PC: Emily |
'
Going back in time a little bit, but Tuesday was the best day in my
opinion. The team ended up doing a group ski up trail #24, the longest and most
scenic black diamond trail. It was a nearly clear day on good hard packed snow,
so we just had to send it on the downhills, hitting top speeds of 39.2 MPH! I
clocked that using a GPS watch. Nifty little thing. We stopped for a picture at
the top to capture the fun.
That’s all I have to say about SLU’s awesome week at MSA! We look
forward to going for it this carnival season, follow our progress at…
Somewhere, probably BART TIMING? On that note I think I’ll probably go for a ski.
(Check out our next blog about our first Carnival at Colby soon!)
-Tim
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