Monday, October 26, 2020
A Letter from Lizi!
Howdy, all!
My name is Lizi Barsness, and I am from Glenwood Springs, Colorado. I am a freshman at St. Lawrence University, and I am so excited to experience the winters out here. It will definitely be a novel experience! In high school, I was a part of the mountain bike team, ran track, and of course, nordic skiing! I am thrilled to be a part of this team and community, and can't wait to race at some point in the hopefully near future. Outside of skiing, some of my favorite pastimes are river surfing, traveling, making bad puns and jokes, backcountry skiing, drawing, and I am currently trying to learn how to skateboard!
So stoked to ski you all out on the trails!
Lizi Barsness
Monday, October 19, 2020
Maximum Wattage
Hi everyone,
This past week the team completed a volume week following our testing week. The hours ranged from 14-16 and we have been taking advantage of the nice weather while we still can! (We're past peak foliage up here, however the winter constellations are starting to appear on these chilly mornings!)
On Tuesday we had an OYO early morning run, and then a 90 min-2 hour double pole specific classic ski in the afternoon on Plains and Selleck Roads. We did drills going up Coon Road, working on getting our hips up, crunching down fast, and putting together a powerful double pole. The rest of the ski was double pole distance out on Selleck Road, which has pretty nice pavement.
Due to COVID restrictions in the gym, we have to reserve time in the Varsity room gym for 8 athletes to workout at the same time. This recently got changed to 12 athletes! We got a 6:30-8:00 AM block Wednesday morning and had a small crew for an early morning Volt workout with athletes cycling in and out. For a lot of the team that weren't able to access gyms this summer and during quarantine, this was a nice change of pace to have a somewhat normal strength session. Here's a photo of us in the gym- masks required of course!
In the afternoon, the team did a two hour distance skate ski with speeds at Higley Flow. These speeds weren't your everyday average speeds! The coaches set up a nice course in the parking lot at Higley where we weaved in and out of cones, hopping and testing our abilities around corners. It made the speeds much more interesting!
On Thursday, some members of the team headed out to Downerville State Forest to go mountain biking for practice, while others stayed behind to do a two hour distance run around Canton. I was part of the running group, and we made a nice loop starting on the Kip/Saddlemire trails, out to the cemetery in town, over and around the Remington loop, and back to campus in exactly two hours.
On Friday, we did the infamous classic intervals at Whites Hill in Parishville. It was rainy and chilly when we first started, but cleared up by the end. The intervals were ten minutes long total, which meant that ETown and Dana drove us down to the base once we reached the top, so we could finish out the interval sets using the uphill. I love these intervals because they end up being fun, long grind sessions, but our "pit crew" is always just around the corner to take you back down, so you can do it again. Thank you Dana and ETown!
On Saturday, we did an over-distance skate ski starting from school and skiing out towards West Potsdam and finishing near Hannawa Falls. It was sunny, but chilly when we first started; it warmed up quickly when we got moving. Most people on the team finished around three hours, but the week wasn't over just yet!
On Sunday, the team went to Higley to do L4 bounding intervals on the Raquette River Loop, which is behind the campsites on the end of the far right of the campground. ETown and Dana set up four sets of cones throughout the loop, indicating the L4 zones, and a recovery in-between (our heart rates were around L3 in the "offs" as most bounding workouts tend to go). This was a fun way to end the week, and really hammer out any energy still left in our legs. In the afternoon, between homework sessions, there was an optional OYO recovery session for the team to tack on more time for the week.
The team did a great job this week, and we're all looking forward to our upcoming recovery week! Starting today, we'll be doing an easy classic rollerski!
Until next time,
Gabby '21
Tuesday, October 13, 2020
Testing Week!
Hello again!
Coming up for our next installment of SLUSKI blog fun is an update on testing week! This past week has been filled with lifting, skiing, and running HARD. We are feeling very tired (happy and fuzzy tired, of course) after a tough week. Here’s an update on how everything went:
3k Run TT
Tuesday morning brought us the 3k run TT on the SLU track! One of my favorite tests, getting to watch a bunch of skiers run super duper fast. We were lucky with some pleasant 50 degree weather and a beautiful sunrise bright and early. To fit within current COVID guidelines, we split the women’s and men’s start, sending the Saints off at 7:15am and 7:30am respectively. It always hurts a lot, but the Saints had a blast going for it and running their guts out on the old oval.
Men:
Tim Cunningham ‘21: 9:51
Charlie Reinhardt ‘23: 9:58
Ben Carnahan ‘21: 11:00
Cam Brochu ‘23: 11:02
Women:
Claire Wagner ‘24: 11:22
Gabby Wangler ‘21: 11:24
Jada Balmer ‘24: 11:58
Robyn McIntosh ‘22: 12:18
Elizabeth Barsness ‘24: 12:37
Sydney Peterson ‘23: 13:00
Sammie Nolan ‘24: 13:18
Tuesday afternoon brought us some chill classic skiing at Raquette River Road, previewing our 7.5k/10k TT course for later in the week. Check out the wicked cool golden hour pictures.
Canadian Strength Test
On Wednesday afternoon, we had the standard Canadian Strength test. A grueling 10 minute long test, the Canadian Strength test always kicks some butt. One minute of pull ups, sit ups, push ups, box jumps and bench dips respectively with one minute of recovery in between each mode. To maintain proper social distancing, we split the team into groups of four that came into the team ski room to do the strength test at intervals of 30 mins apart. Always a blast to yell at each other to lift harder and faster.
Thursday afternoon brought us some on your own strength throughout the day and an easy trail run. Nothing fancy, just putting in the time!
Double Pole and No Pole Tests
Friday afternoon brought our beloved Double Pole and No Pole tests by Brown’s Bridge. A double whammy day: one 7-10 min uphill bout of double pole only, a brief ski back to the bottom as recovery, one 7-10 min uphill bout of legs only skate skiing. Pleasant weather and a bit of a tailwind brought us some fast times. On the men’s side, congratulations to Tim for setting a new DP record and Charlie for setting a new no pole record. On the women’s side, congratulations to both Robyn and Sydney for both setting new no pole records. When we say records, we mean SLUSki history records, not just personal records!
Double Pole:
No Pole:
St. Regis Uphill Run
Early Saturday morning, the team hopped into the vans to head to St. Regis for our uphill run test. Pleasant weather convinced a number of our athletes to shed the tarps. The nice weather made it a popular hike for locals and we had lots of cheering hikers during the run. We even met a St. Lawrence Alum! After a tough 30-40 minutes of uphill running through roots, rocks, and water, our athletes were greeted by a cheering Coach Dana Hatton and beautiful views on top of St. Regis.
Saturday didn’t end there: upon getting back on campus, the team headed to Make a Difference Day! A wonderful all-day event, SLU Volunteer Services organized shifts throughout the day for groups (teams, clubs, groups of friends) to get into the community and do some volunteer work. SLUSkiing grabbed some rakes and headed to a local community member’s house to rake and bag leaves in the yard. While the weather was a bit less than ideal (a lotta bit windy and a lotta bit rainy) the Saints put in some L5 raking to get the job done. Huge thanks to Volunteer Services for organizing a great event!
On Sunday morning, after our morning Dana hype train sponsored by the lovely dining service ladies (shout out to my faves Penny, Cindy, and Bailey!), we headed to Raquette River Road for the 7.5k/10k skate roller ski time trial. While it was chilly at the start, the sun came out during the warm up and made for perfect roller ski racing temperatures.
And on Sunday afternoon, the Saints hit the books. Homework grinding all day after a week of trying to survive the large amount of intensity training by getting more sleep than most college students can afford to get.
Thus concludes our testing week! It was exhausting, but super rewarding to see all the smiling faces day in and day out for a long week of training. Thanks for checking in and we will see you next time.
Until then, keep those hips forward,
Charlie Reinhardt ‘23
P.S. pictures going caption-less today because your's truly has royally messed up the formatting. Still getting the hang of this blog thing, much to learn!
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