Danger Is His Middle Name

Certain members of the team were lobbying for us to name the baby "Danger." We decided to go with something slightly less unusual; nonetheless, the team gave us this onesie (artwork by Matt) as a gift. Very thoughtful, and Finley looks pretty sharp in it, although he's still a couple months from filling it out.

PS - Any biscuits reading this will be glad to know that the team still has a healthy appreciation for Austin Powers. Groovy, baby!

Thanks

Those Mt. Ararat kids are multi-talented. Here's a photo that they sent to Ezra and me:

Break

First semester is over - exams ended yesterday. The last few stragglers left campus today for some much too short time at home. We're back in just two weeks - we leave for Fort Kent on Jan 2nd, and things start moving fast shortly thereafter. In the meantime, though, we'll all take a deep breath. I'll post an occasional update over the next couple weeks - or maybe just some baby pictures. Enjoy the holidays, all.

Mt. Ararat Ski Team

Ezra and I did a clinic with the Mt. Ararat HS and middle school teams at Pineland today. They're a great group - enthusiastic and athletic and fired up to ski. They're a relatively new program - they've only been around for a year or two, thanks to the efforts of a few volunteer coaches. It's so great to see new teams bringing kids into the sport - we need more of this!

We were lucky to have a great day for our clinic - clear and cold, lots of snow, and perfect grooming. We worked on some skating fundamentals and played some games on skis - good stuff. I think we had at least as much fun as the kids. Lots of potential in this group - keep an eye on these guys!

Great Glen Sprints

Great Glen Sprints yesterday. There was a good crowd, mostly college skiers - about 130 racers total. The weather started out windy and then turned into snow flurries as the afternoon went on - tough weather for coaches, but we came prepared and brought some donuts. The folks at Great Glen have a nice loop for sprinting, although the coverage was a bit thin on one section - most people ended up racing on rock skis. Ironically, there was plenty of snow on the rest of their trail system - just one bony hill that happened to be on the course. Interesting race format - everyone raced a qualifying heat of 4 skiers, rather than an individual prelim time trial. Subsequent heats were then seeded off of the results of the first heat, with winners getting a bye to the 3rd round. This was great - one flaw of sprint racing is that if you're eliminated in the first round, you've spent a lot of time and money for just a couple minutes of racing all by yourself. This format gave everyone at least 2 shots, and against live competition instead of the clock - much more fun. Time consuming, though - with so many people, the first round dragged a bit, and the organizers decided to cut the course in half to move things along. At that point, the race became a real test of speed, with each heat over in less than a minute.
So, how did our skiers do? Pretty well, I thought. We've only just begun working on the high-end fitness needed for such a short race, so it was exciting to see 6 of our 10 skiers advance to the 3rd round. Tom and Walt won their first heats, while Shem, Sarah, Forrest, and Niko battled through by winning their second heats. No one advanced further, unfortunately, but I was pleased with how good everyone looked. Niko was practically airborne with every pushoff; Forrest dropped two of Colby's better skiers in one of his heats; Sarah just plain overpowered a Dartmouth skier to win her second round. We don't have the speed to win sprint races yet, but yesterday showed that we're strong and fit. If our team can ski this well now, things look good for the races that count.

Sprint Prep

First race of the year tomorrow - Great Glen Sprints. Nothing at stake - just an opportunity to go through the process of racing and remind ourselves what it's all about. Bates, Colby, and UNH will have skiers there, so we'll get an early look at the competition. We prepped for the big event with a sprint relay today (a true sprint relay, with each leg 10 or 15 seconds long). Can't remember who won, but it was fun to mix it up a bit. Should be a good day tomorrow.

Early Morning Intervals

Great skiing this morning - last night was nice and cold, so the track firmed up nicely. I took a group down this morning for an interval workout - for various reason, some folks are still focused on threshold, while others are doing the VO2max intervals as planned. People looked pretty sharp today for Day 2 on snow. Jeff was skiing as well as I've ever seen him ski this morning, with a nice snappy tempo up the hills. He's consistently one of our fastest guys in pure speed workouts on rollerskis - if he can build the fitness needed to sustain that speed, we're in business. Another good day. When you're on snow, they're all good days.

First Ski

First ski today at Pineland. They got several inches and groomed 20k. Still soft, but good skiing. It's December 4th and we're skiing - that's good. Easy skate workout today - just getting the feel for it - skis feel like they're 8 feet long. Intensity tomorrow - sooner than is ideal when you're getting back on snow, but we want to have our cake and eat it too.

Snow!

First real storm of the year in Brunswick yesterday - looks like 8 or 10 inches on the ground. Probably more at Pineland - they started grooming yesterday afternoon, so we should have some good skiing there today. Sprints on the quad this morning - it was near perfect skiing on the plowed walkways until the sand truck came along and ruined our fun. After that we made our own little loop on the unplowed area - good stuff. Winter, at last.

Hero Hill

Hero Hill is a dirt road leading down to a sand and gravel quarry on the edge of town - one of the few long hills in Brunswick, and a great place for bounding intevals with poles. It used to be one of Coach Slovenski's favorite training grounds for the XC team - he's the one who named it - but no one's used it for years. Yesterday we resurrected the Hero Hill tradition, at least for a day. The workout was 4x4 min VO2max intervals for most of the team. Like the 30/30 workout, 4x4s are meant to increase VO2max, but through a more traditional method - moderate length intervals at 90+% of max HR followed by full recovery. Four minutes is long enough to get your heart rate up to the necessary level and spend some time there, but short enough so that you don't have to slow the pace and drop the heart rate. In my opinion, there's no workout that will get you in shape faster than bounding with poles for 4x4 minutes at VO2max pace. There's only so much that can be gained from this kind of workout, though - everyone has a VO2max "ceiling," and a well-trained skier can reach this ceiling fairly quickly. We don't want to be in top shape in December, which is why we've waited so long to start our VO2max training.

Now that we're here, though, we're hitting it hard - the team gave it a great effort yesterday. I jumped in and out of the workout to check out technique and give feedback, so I got a pretty good sense of the effort level: hard. Seems like it didn't take long for people to remember how to push themselves - in a few weeks, they'll still be pushing just as hard, but they'll be going a lot faster while doing it. Everyone was pretty worked by the end, and it sounded like they were still feeling it today, which is to be expected. We cleaned it out with a long rollerski today - same thing tomorrow, and then a day off on Monday should have everyone fresh and ready to go again on Tuesday.

30/30s

Yesterday was our first VO2max workout of the year. We've been focused on threshold and volume throughout the summer and fall - aside from an occasional race effort, we haven't done anything above threshold. The skiers have been patiently waiting for the chance to go hard - now the time is finally here.

VO2max (the maximal amount of O2 your muscles can consume) is largely determined by your heart's stroke volume (the amount of blood pumped in one beat). To increase stroke volume, you need to work your heart at near-maximal levels - 90-95% of max HR. The traditional way to do this is to do moderately long intervals (3-5+ minutes), usually on a hill, with plenty of rest between intervals. We'll be doing our share of this in the coming weeks; however, hill repeats aren't the only tool in our bag. Yesterday, we did short intervals on rollerskis - 30 seconds easy, 30 seconds hard, for 25 minutes total. If done properly, the skier's HR will gradually reach 90+% of max throughout the first several minutes of the workout. Because the easy periods are so short, HR won't drop significantly between hard efforts, and , for the last several minutes of the workout, the heart will be pumping near max regardless of whether the skier is going hard or easy. This allows the skier to rack up a lot of time near max HR, but without the high lactic acid buildup (and subsequent long post-workout recovery time) of a longer interval. Also, the frequent rest periods allow the skier to practice skiing at high speeds, as opposed to sustained hill intervals, where the pace is usually fairly slow. Nonetheless, 30/30s (or 60/30s, or whatever work/rest combination you choose) are a very hard workout, and our team is feeling it today. It's a good feeling - feels like race season. Lots more to come.

Speed Work

We're into a new phase of our strength training these days - I'm calling it a "speed complex" for lack of a more technical term. The first phase of the workout, the complex training, the skiers alternate moderately heavy lifting with explosive plyometric-type exercises to form a complex (some people define "complex training" differently, and would call this "contrast" training instead). The point is to stimulate the fast twitch fibers with the lifts to allow more of these fibers to be recruited for the plyos, thus training the muscles to contract quicker and with greater force. We've been doing variations of complex training for a couple months, and now we've added another layer. After the complexes, the skiers head outside for a series of short sprints on rollerskis. The goal here is to leave the freshly stimulated muscles with a ski-specific imprint - theoretically, this will help turn weight room gains into actual improvements in speed on skis. Track and field athletes have been using this method for years, so why not us? Here's a very brief clip of Walt sprinting past Appleton:

National Champions!

The runners weren't the only Bowdoin teams competing in the NCAA Championships last weekend: our field hockey team beat Middlebury to win the national championship on Saturday. The victory caps off a great fall for Bowdoin teams; almost all of our teams had great seasons, and several went deep into the postseason. Four qualified for the NCAA Championships (women's soccer was the forth). It's a good time to be part of Bowdoin Athletics - from what I've seen and heard, the support for our programs is as high as it's ever been, and our teams keep getting better. The future is bright for all of us.

XC Championships

Our runners competed in the NCAA Championships in Northfield, MN on Saturday. The men finished 20th and the women were 27th. John ended his college career in fine form, finishing 57th (7th New Englander), with Colman 207th. Courtney was 201st for women. It's hard to grasp the significance of the placings since the race was so big, so here's some perspective: there are over 430 D3 colleges in the US, and virtually every one of these schools has an XC program. Only the absolute best teams and individuals qualified for the championships - 280 of the best D3 runners in the country were packed into each race, and our runners held their own. Bottom line: our runners are fast, and we're proud of them. Can't wait to have them back with the ski team.

Ski team alum Jacob Scheckman '06 was at the race - he's in grad school in Minneapolis. Thanks to Jacob for the photos.

Colman - moving too fast for a clear shot.

A Good Week

It's been a good week of training. We're in the middle of a mini spike in volume, trying to take advantage of the upcoming Thanksgiving break by squeezing in a couple big weeks before we cut the hours back in December. Big hours and small daylight don't mix well, so it's been a challenge trying to fit it all in. The team's been great, though - people are showing up on time and executing the training well, and everything's gone according to plan.

We capped off this good week with a great OD rollerski, starting with one of our usual routes in Bowdoin (the town) and skiing to Nat's house in Hallowell. It's always nice to check out some new roads, and it's even better to have a destination in mind for a long workout instead of just skiing a loop or an out-and-back. People were surprisingly perky after 3+ hours - a sign that the base fitness is solid. Or maybe it was the chili. Naomi Schalit, Nat's mom, made us an amazing lunch, including some chili that people will be talking about for a while. This is a crowd that's used to eating the best college food in the country, so that tells you how high-class this chili was. I have a feeling that they'll be calling for another round next chance they get - consider yourself warned, Naomi. Thanks for the warm hospitality.

Morse Mountain

Morse Mountain is actually more of a largish hill, but it's about the closest thing to a mountain that we have on the southern coast of Maine. There's a nice rolling road that runs over the mountain and down to one of the most beautiful beaches in the state, if not the world. Both the mountain and the beach are part of a conservation area managed by Bates, but the property is open to the public for hiking, or, in our case, running. We did some long threshold intervals out at Morse today - the beach was deserted as we ran down from the mountain. It was a bright, windy day, with sand swirling along the shoreline - beautiful. The plan was to take advantage of the hills on the road, but some people were so thrilled to be next to the ocean that they just ran on the beach for the whole workout. I ran 2x20 minute intervals with Matt and hung in for a while before eventually fading. That's OK - getting dropped is always a good sign for a coach, or so I tell myself. A fine day and a fine workout. Wish I'd brought a camera.

Fun With Tires

Flat tire on the way home from practice today. It was cold and dark - perfect conditions for tire-changing. Fortunately, Forrest had changed a tire on a 12-passenger van not too long ago, so he knew the drill - he and Ezra seized the moment and started assembling the tools and whatnot. I helped by standing around with a frown of manly concern on my face. The rest of the team huddled off to the side while Elissa taught them a bizarre dance involving hopping on one foot and giggling - at least they were staying warm. Kind of a strange scene - "a bunch of kids in spandex changing a tire," as one of our skiers put it. Fortunately, we have people with skills on our team, and the new tire was in place soon enough. Walt came through with some muscle in the clutch, loosening some nasty lug nuts that wouldn't budge - the man is huge. We made it home just a little behind schedule - not so bad. I was impressed by how little this incident bothered the team - no complaining, just people hanging out by the roadside enjoying each other's company. As I later told them, if we handle every tough situation this well, it's going to be a great season.

New Zealand Part 2

More from Nick Crawford, living the good life:

Well, this will be my second and last update for the blog from the southern hemisphere. I’m fortunate because I was able to do some snow skiing back in August, but now am taking advantage of long warm days while the rest of the team is training in the dark. Also, the school semester is shifted down here - I finished up exams a few weeks ago and have a long break from school and more time to train through December. For training I was able to copy the team schedule through September and October pretty well. There aren’t any rollerski races in this country (only probably 10 pairs of rollerskis in the entire country), so I made up a few time trial courses and raced them with a fellow exchange student/skier I know. The last few weeks I’ve been doing some amazing traveling and hiking in the tall mountains known as the Southern Alps. Still quite a bit of snow above 3000 ft but no skiing on this trip. From here I have 2 more weeks of travel and then it's back to New England and maybe some snow skiing by then. I would highly recommend a trip here to NZ if you ever get a chance - the semester abroad experience has worked out great for me.

I’m sporting our awesome Bowdoin hat in front of Mt Cook (the highest mtn in NZ) and a big glacier.

Walking one of the many beaches here. This one was actually on a trip to a smaller island called Stewart Island.

New England Championships

Our XC teams ran at the New England D3 Championships on Saturday. Good day for both teams - women were 3rd, men were 5th, in perhaps the most competitive region in D3 cross-country. Courtney finished 44th for women; for men, John was 19th, just 11 seconds from 4th, with Colman 56th. Both teams earned at-large bids for the NCAA Championships in Minnesota this weekend. Congratulations runners!

Erg Test

Double pole erg test yesterday. We have a number of rowing ergs that have been modified - stood upright and fitted with a curved bar - to simulate a double poling motion. The upright ergs are a Dick Taylor idea that Marty wholeheartedly embraced - we have 6 of them - and that we've continued to use. It's not a perfect imitation of double poling, but it's not bad. One of the best things about the erg is its ability to measure power output. This allows us to test skiers periodically to determine whether or not their double poling power has improved. Our test measures average power output over 2 minutes. It's a short but brutal test, like an 800-meter run - short enough to demand a near-maximal power output, but long enough to really hurt. Just the thing you want to do at 7am.

The test results were mixed. Back in September, most of the team did a self-test with this protocol, so we had some baseline data - we saw big gains in some people, but losses for others. I'm not sure what this is all about - the results didn't follow a predictable pattern, which is not unusual with a small group of subjects. One potential confounder is that the test is long enough to require some pacing, and different pacing strategies could have had a big effect on the results. It's a new test, and I'm not yet sure whether it's valid or reliable. We'll have to keep playing with it to decide whether it's worth keeping. For now, we won't read too much into these results - we'll trust the training plan and look for other ways of evaluating our progress.

Duelathon Results

Results for the Duelathon are posted on the NENSA site.

3000m Test

We're in a rest/test week right now - yesterday was a 3000m time trial on the track. It was a rather odd session. Turns out that the gates to the track get locked at sunset, which is now ridiculously early, so we had to climb the fence to get in. It had been raining all day, and there were small puddles and wet pine needles on the track. Halfway through the warmup it was so dark that I was having trouble seeing the stopwatch, and by the time the test started it was hard to tell who was whom as they ran by. Nonetheless, the team gave a solid effort under strange circumstances. Results weren't quite what we'd hoped for - in hindsight, this makes sense. Our training has been focused on long threshold-level efforts, primarily rollerskiing and moosehoofing - not the kind of stuff that makes you fast on the track. The 3000m is a convenient test, because it allows you to compare results with other skiers, and our team has a history with this test. However, I'm realizing that it's not a good fit for the kind of training we're doing this fall - next year we'll switch things up a bit. For now, we'll consider this a hard workout and stay focused on the plan - more volume and threshold through Thanksgiving Break before getting into the higher intensity stuff. Upper body erg test tomorrow.

Thanks to Ryan Triffitt, ski team alum from '97, for hauling his aging body over the fence to help out with timing.

Duelathon Photos

Photos by Jeremy Huckins '05.

Jenex/Patagonia Duelathon

We hosted the 7th Annual Jenex/Patagonia Duelathon on Sunday, a combined running/rollerskiing race. The Duelathon was created by Marty Hall in 2001, back before duathlons were hip and no one knew what to call them - hence the unusual name. In past years, the race has begun with an interval start rollerski leg, followed by the running leg on the Bradley Pond trails. However, due to a strong grassroots campaign from race fans, we decided to hold the running leg first as a mass start. For various reasons, it made sense to use the Mt. Ararat High School XC trails for the run, and then transition to rollerskiing along the usual course.

The race started under clear skies, and John Swain of Colby quickly took the lead. Swain is a legitimate runner, almost as fast as John and Colman, and by the time he reached the sandy, open trails around the midpoint of the course, he had a sizeable gap on the field. Nat was leading the racers on his cyclocross bike - he's a pretty accomplished rider, but the loose sand on the trails was too soft for a cross bike, so he ended up throwing the bike over his shoulder in true cyclocross style and running like hell in a desperate attempt to stay ahead of Swain. It didn't work, but it was quite an effort - I wish I had a photo. Anyway, Swain ended up coming into the transition with nearly a minute lead, but his teammate, Matt Briggs, put up a great rollerski leg to close the gap and win by 11 seconds. On the women's side, Ingrid Knowles of Bates was several seconds behind teammate Kirsten Gill at the transition, but smoked the rollerski phase to win easily.

Overall, it was a very successful day. The team did a nice job running the event - it went flawlessly, and we got great feedback from the racers. Everyone seemed to enjoy the new format, which would not have been possible without the help of Mt. Ararat XC coaches Diane Fournier and Stu Palmer (Class of '86). We were also lucky to have generous sponsorships from V2/Jenex and Patagonia, which allowed us to give away some great prizes, including ski poles, gift certificates, and several fleece vests and jackets. Over half of the racers walked off with a prize of some sort, which is nice, but hopefully we can increase our turnout a bit in the future.

I know that there are some race photos out there somewhere - ski team alum Jeremy Huckins took several, and perhaps there are others. If anyone reading this has photos, please send them my way - I'll post them as soon as I have them. NENSA will be posting the results shortly - I'll link to them when they're up.

North Haven Time Trial

Still catching up from a busy last week...

Sunday was one of the more unique events on our calendar: a trip to the island of North Haven. Bates, Colby, UMPI, and several Maine Winter Sports Center athletes joined us for a 15k skate rollerski time trial. The event was the brainchild of Andy Shepard, who was looking for a way to combine a great experience for the skiers with a fun and inspiring event for North Haven residents to watch. Tom was our big winner for the day, beating a field of some very talented skiers, including a few of last year's NCAA qualifiers. As I've said previously, rollerski race results need to be taken with a grain of salt due to variations in ski speeds; still, this was a great day for Tom. He's been working hard and steadily improving since he came to Bowdoin, and this result should give him some confidence heading into the season. Forrest also had a great race, finishing a solid 3rd.

All in all, a great day for our team. I'm told that the event encompassed some of the most beautiful rollerskiing anyone had ever seen - fun, rolling terrain, great pavement, and amazing ocean views. What a privilege this was for our team! How often do you get to rollerski on a remote island off the coast of Maine? Thanks to Andy for creating this event from scratch just a few weeks ago, and arranging free ferry passage and lunch for the skiers - this was an experience that they won't soon forget.

Here's an article by Austin Ross of Colby with results. Photos shortly, as soon as I get ahold of some.

Finley James

Finley James Alsobrook - born Oct. 26th. 7 lbs. 11 oz. Pretty much the cutest baby ever.

NESCAC Championships

Late update on the XC team: the NESCAC Championships were held at Williams last Saturday. Both teams managed a solid 3rd place finish in one of the most competitive conferences in the country. John was 10th and Colman was 24th for men, with Courtney finishing 46th for women. New England D3 Championships coming up on Nov. 10th at Conn. College, with NCAA berths at stake.

New England Rollerski Championships

We brought a small group down to Cumberland for the New England Rollerski Championships last Sunday - Shem, Sarah, Forrest, Tom, Matt, and Ezra. It was a beautiful but unseasonably warm day, so it was fitting that the organizers, Coastal Nordic Ski Club, had designated this race as a "carbon-neutral" event. CNSC had purchased "cool tags" for each racer from a company called NativeEnergy - the money goes toward investments in renewable energy sources, which, in theory, will balance out the CO2 emissions generated by travel to the event. I know that the jury's still out on whether or not carbon offsets are effective at slowing climate change, but I think it's great that CNSC stepped up to try something creative and thought-provoking.

The race itself was a mixed bag for our team. Rollerski races are pretty unreliable measures of skiing ability, because ski speeds vary tremendously. Most people on our team ski on V2 910s or 920s, some of the slowest skis made. V2s are great for training, because, in my opinion, they provide similar speeds to snow skiing; however, they're not so much fun to race on. Consequently, our skiers were never really in the mix for this race - most of the competitors were on Marwes, which are pretty fast, and the lead group pulled away quickly. Forrest actually hung in with the chase pack for a few k, which was impressive, but he broke a pole tip and was immediately dropped. He skied without poles for a few k before getting a replacement pair, but it was too late to get back into the race by then. In general, the race was more of a chance for our team to get a good hard workout and to go through the process of racing - mentally preparing, warming up, figuring out pre-race details, feeling for the right pacing and exertion, etc. With a couple more efforts like this, we should have a much more relaxed and streamlined approach to race day when we get to the races that count.

After the race, we stopped by the Shepards' home in Yarmouth for a mid-morning brunch - good food and great company. Andy Shepard is a former coach of the Bowdoin Nordic team from way back - he's the keeper of some team history that I'm looking forward to unearthing in the future. All in all, a great way to cap off the morning.

State of Maine Championships

Good showing for Bowdoin XC at the State of Maine Championships at Pineland Farms last Saturday. Both teams won, beating an array of DIII Maine teams, including Bates, Colby, USM, and others. For men, John was 3rd and Colman was 10th, while Courtney was 5th for women, narrowly missing 4th after a strong kick in the last 200 meters. These guys are super fit right now - should be interesting to see what happens when we get them back into ski training.

Saturday was my first time checking out the trails at Pineland - outstanding. Great venue for an XC race, and an even better venue for ski training, from what I've heard. Can't wait to try them out for myself.

Uphill Climb Results

Results from the Sugarloaf Uphill Climb, finally.

Phil Soule Phlail

Bowdoin Nordic hosted the 2nd Annual Phil Soule 5k Phlail on Sunday. The race is a memorial event for the late Phil Soule, who coached several sports at Bowdoin for 39 years. Our team runs the event for the Athletic Department to raise funds for ski camp. A great crowd turned out this year, including countless members of the Soule family - we had 145 finishers and a good-sized group of spectators as well. Joey Luchini of Windham won the men's race in 16:49, while Bowdoin soccer player Dana Riker won the women's race in 20:21. In spite of some frantic moments, the race went well and everyone had a great time. The skiers did a nice job of pulling of this event, and we got a lot of positive feedback. There are a few things that we can do better next year, but I'm very happy with how it all went.

Sox vs. Cleveland, Game 1

Walt knows someone who knows someone, and somehow ended up with a free ticket to Game 1 of the Sox-Indians series - great seats, right along the 3rd base line. Things turned out pretty well last night - we're looking into the possibility of getting him a ticket for Game 2.

Long Falls Dam

The Long Falls Dam Rd. runs from North New Portland to (of course) the Long Falls Dam on Flagstaff Lake. It's several miles of smooth, little-traveled pavement over rolling terrain - perfect for a long classic rollerski. We did just this on Tuesday morning. The sun was back out, shining through the flaming trees and dappling the road with shade. Who wouldn't love a rollerski workout on day like this?

Bigelow Hike

The Bigelow Range is a series of 5 peaks in the mountains of western Maine. On a foggy Monday morning, we set out to hike/run the entire range from east to west. I'd estimated the distance at 17 miles, but soon saw on the first trail sign that it was closer to 19. Wet rocks and fallen leaves made for slow, slippery going, but we made good time to the summit of Little Bigelow, the first peak. The brilliant fall colors in the valley were totally invisible, blanketed by a thick white fog that gave us the eerie sensation of standing on the edge of an abyss.

As the team pressed on toward Avery Peak, I circled back to the van to shuttle over to the western trailhead. By this point, it was mid-afternoon, and Shannon and I started up toward Cranberry Peak, hoping to meet the team up on the ridge. Shortly after, I got a call from Ezra (yeah, we were hiking with cellphones - safety first!) - the team had covered about 12 miles but, with 7 miles of rugged trail to go, was starting to get worried about daylight, not to mention toasting themselves for Tuesday's long rollerski. We decided to have them skip Cranberry Peak and take the AT down to the Stratton Pond Rd, cutting 3 miles off the hike. This was a good decision - people were comfortably exhausted but still in good spirits by the time they finished. I'm sure that our group could've handled the full 19 miles, but the safety risks and the extra training load weren't worth the satisfaction of traversing the entire range. Maybe next year. In any case, we got what we needed out of the workout and came back to camp content and healthy. After a truly classy stir-fry dinner (our team can cook!) and some cards, we called it a night.

Uphill Climb

As promised, more camp details...

The Sugarloaf Uphill Climb is well-named - basically, you climb up Sugarloaf as fast as you can. The course gains 3000 ft in 3 miles, with some ridiculously steep pitches - you spend most of the race walking unless you're a fool or a genetic freak. Bowdoin Nordic has generally shown pretty well at this event - Forrest won by a wide margin a couple years ago. No Forrest this time - he was in Texas doing something related to rocks - so seven of us represented Bowdoin in his stead: Sarah, Shem, Elissa, Tom, Niko, Walt, and myself. This time, Sarah provided the big highlight for our team, taking 2nd for women and handily beating all of the Colby competitors. We already knew that Sarah has great upper body power - now we know that she has a great motor as well. Two big pieces of the puzzle. On the men's side, our team was solid but well behind Colby's top guys. Colby has quietly become one of the best men's teams in the East, and beating them will take some doing - this race reaffirmed that. Fortunately, this was a foot race in October, not a ski race in February. All in all, a good, hard test of our early fitness.

After the race, we made our way over to Embden for an easy recovery rollerski before settling in for the night. Mike and Louise Gilmore were our benefactors for this trip - they have a camp on a beautiful slice of the Embden Pond shore, where they generously invited us to stay. We cooked a fine meal of pasta with pesto and other good stuff and then turned our attention to the real competition: poker and ping pong. Sarah turned out to be the big winner once again - turns out that the wholesome Alaskan thing is just a facade, because this girl knows her way around the poker table. She dominated the game - Ezra insisted on hanging on till the bitter end and was pretty much trounced for his efforts. The rest of us went to bed with pride intact.

Fall Camp

Bowdoin's Fall Break has just ended, and we've just wrapped up a mini training camp. Six skiers plus coaches spent 3 days racing, hiking, and rollerskiing in the mountains of western Maine. I'll detail the day-to-day training in subsequent posts, but for now, here's a brief rundown of our camp:

Sunday: AM - Raced the Sugarloaf Uphill Climb. PM - Easy classic rollerski near Embden Pond.
Monday: OD hike/run in the Bigelows.
Tuesday: Classic rollerski on the Long Falls Dam Road outside of North New Portland.

Quality training (about 11 hours) was done by all, good meals were cooked, and poker games were won and lost. More later.

Open New Englands

Bowdoin XC took 8th in the women's race and 11th in the men's race at the Open New England Championships today. This was a huge event, with lots of D1 & 2 teams at the race, so these were solid finishes. Courtney was 74th, while John and Colman were 57th and 108th, respectively. Colman was the 4th Bowdoin finisher today - guess we won't be getting him back any time soon.

Rockhounding

We spent this fine fall morning running the trails and roads around Wolfe's Neck Farm. At the end of the run, we took a few minutes to search the roadside and shoreline for perfect rocks - bigger than an egg, smaller than a grapefruit, no jagged edges, no barnacles or algae, etc. The rocks are prizes for our upcoming road race, the Phil Soule 5k Phlail. Phil Soule was a former Bowdoin coach whose nickname was Boulder, so rocks seem like a more fitting prize than ribbons or medals and such. So, today we gathered up several dozen rocks, winnowed out a few that didn't make the cut, and left a box of our best for Lou McNeil over at Rhodes Hall. Lou is a carpenter at Bowdoin - he'll tidy up the rocks and make them worthy of prize status, and in just over a week, the race will be on.

EISA Fall Meeting

My first EISA meeting was surprisingly worthwhile. We met at the OTC in Lake Placid on Monday for a technique session with USST coaches Matt Whitcomb and Pete Vordenberg - they shared some of the drills and cues that they've been using with their athletes, and gave us a little feedback on our own skiing as well. This was fun - most coaches don't often have the chance to have others critique their technique. I don't necessarily agree with these guys on every single element of technique, but the basics are pretty similar regardless of one's philosophy, and this session gave me some new ideas and perspectives. I've been impressed by the dedication and openness of the USST coaches - these guys pretty much live their jobs, and I'm sure that they could have found other things to do with a few spare hours in the middle of a training camp. They chose to work with us instead, and I appreciate that.

Tuesday's meeting was a little less interesting but included some noteworthy developments. The one thing that will affect our team most is a change in the NCAA qualification process. The old system had skiers qualifying based on points scored in their best two races in a single technique. In the new system, we'll combine the points scored in the best two races of BOTH techniques (four scoring races total). This will require more consistency and versatility from the skiers, which I think is a good thing. I would have preferred to make this change next spring, because I like to take my time to discuss these things more thoroughly, but I think it's a good change nonethless. It'll work to our advantage, too - I expect our skiers to be strong in both techniques throughout the entire season rather than popping a couple good races in January and then disappearing.

UMaine-Farmington Invite

More dominance by Bowdoin XC - both teams won at the UMF Invite yesterday. Colman won the men's race and Courtney finished second by a few tenths in the women's race. John and several other Bowdoin runners took the day off.

New Zealand Update

Here's a report from Nick in New Zealand:

Hello from New Zealand. I've been here in Dunedin for about 3 months now studying at the University of Otago and trying to keep up the ski training, but the options aren't nearly what we have in Maine. I have done some cool things that you can't do in Maine over the weekends. I've done some great overnight hikes (called tramps), including one in Fiordland and around a dormant volcano called Mt. Egmont. I also drove up to the mountains for 3 weekends of skiing in July and August, which you definitely can't do in Maine. I went up with a couple of "mates" that I met down here, including one of Nathan's former Whitman athletes. For the most part we had great snow and lots of good skiing. Some of the highlights included skiing with the US Ski Team (and almost getting passed by the women's squad going up a hill, so i had to pick up the pace to avoid that), doing a 42k marathon and racing in FIS races, but there were mainly just the New Zealand and Japanese athletes in them.

Today was more of a typical day of training here, with a 30 minute uphill rollerski time trial in 40 degree rainy weather. It reminded me of some of those cold fall workouts we have in Maine, except I couldn't pop over to Thorne or Moulton for lunch afterwards. There are plenty of good hills to ski up around here but the problem is getting back down them, so I have come up with a few different schemes to bike or run down with the skis and boots in a backpack. Well, I'll keep you posted in the next 2 months as I have a busy time with finals and then an entire month to travel and train before returning to the US.

The wintery picture is from a weekend at the Snow Farm. Most of the time we had blue skies and blue extra wax.

The rollerskiing is from the Otago Peninsula just 15k from my apartment. Great scenery with potential to spot penguins and royal albatross sea birds but not so good pavement on the roads.

Multisport Athletes

These last few days have been good for Bowdoin nordies involved in other athletic pursuits. This weekend, the Bowdoin XC team dominated the Tufts Invitational, with help from Courtney, John, and Colman. Courtney finished 5th (3rd for Bowdoin), and John and Colman were 2nd and 12th, respectively (2nd and 6th for Bowdoin). Colman's on a mission to establish himself in Bowdoin's top 7, so he can go to NCAAs if and when the team qualifies - this was a significant step toward that goal for him. Also on Saturday, Forrest raced in the Colby Triathlon - he was 73rd out of the water but came back strongly in the bike and run to finish 5th overall, 1st in the men's 20-24 age group. Pretty solid. Best of all, the word is that Walt's crushing the ball off the tee these days. Marty would be pleased. Everything's coming up roses.

Emerald Pool

Emerald Pool, at the base of the Baldface Circle Trail, is one of the most beautiful swimming holes you'll find. Here's some post-hike recovery by Shem, Matt, and Sarah. Underwater video courtesy of Jeff Bush.

September Training

So - the Bowdoin Nordic team blog is up and running, thanks to Shannon, and I'm finally ready to get into regular posting mode. Here's a brief update on the team's progress so far:

No official practices until Oct. 1, according to NCAA rules. In the meantime, the skiers are organizing their own training sessions. As our only captain present this semester, Forrest has taken the lead on this, and the team has been out doing all kinds of good stuff: morning weight sessions, self-tests of aerobic fitness and upper body power, running, rollerskiing, a beach run at Popham, and a hike/run around the Baldface Circle trail in Evans Notch. The Brunswick September has been beautiful - a nice mix of warm and cool, with leaves just starting to turn. I'm hearing good things from people about these sessions - sounds like our group is both fit and dedicated, for the most part. There's lots of reason for optimism - last year was one of the best ever for Bowdoin Nordic, and we intend to continue moving forward this year. More to come soon.

Welcome!

Welcome to the Bowdoin Nordic Ski Team blog! I'll be keeping this blog updated regularly with news and information about the team. I hope you enjoy following our progress throughout the year!
-Nathan