More Lobster Roll

Lobster Roll results are now posted on the NENSA site, along with a write-up by Nat. Look for a more Nat-centric account on his Fasterskier blog at some point in the near future. Also, here's a picture of some of our skiers on the ferry, looking sharp in Bowdoin gear:

Lobster Roll

Today was the 2nd Annual Lobster Roll - a 14.5k skate rollerski race on the island of North Haven. The island has beautiful rolling roads with nice pavement and little traffic - great spot for rollerskiing. We had great weather and a great turnout - skiers from Bowdoin, Bates, Colby, UMaine-Orono and UMaine-Presque Isle showed up, as well as several racers from Maine Winter Sports Center. Our team held its own. Tom was 3rd overall and the top collegiate racer, defending his title from last year - word is that his homemade rollerskis are running slower this year, but fortunately Tom is faster, so it evened out. Other men: Woody 13, Nat 17, Spencer 19, Nick 22, Shem 27, Chris 32. Grace led the women in 14th and looked light and quick - her natural speed showed today. Erin was racing on a pair of borrowed rollerskis that were faster but less stable than the one's she'd been using. She adapted well, though, and finished 22nd in spite of tired legs and a crash. Overall, it was a fun and unique event for the team. Thanks to the many friendly locals who welcomed us onto the island and helped run the event, and especially to Andy Shepard of the Maine Winter Sports Center for putting it all together!

(I'll link to full results when they're posted).

Sprint Video

Ollie has YouTube skills - here's the first of many training videos:



With a little better camera work we'll have some good stuff to show off here.

It's interesting to note the wide range of speeds we have here - not necessarily correlated to past race results. Some of our skiers have figured out how to ski fast over a short distance and some haven't. There's a lot going on here, a combination of athleticism, technique, and power. All of these factors are trainable to a certain extent, so we'll be looking for big gains in the next couple months as we start focusing on speed development.

Phlail 08

Today was the 3rd Annual Phil Soule 5k Phlail. The Phlail is a road race held in memory of Phil Soule, who coached several sports at Bowdoin for 39 years. Our team is in charge of putting on the race, which doubles as a fundraiser for our Thanksgiving camp. We had great weather for a race - crisp and clear - and a decent turnout of a little over 100 runners. Paul Johnson won the men's race in 17:02, and Morgan Lake-Adams took first for women in 20:06. The team did a fine job - the event ran smoothly and we got a lot of positive feedback. Full results will be up soon at the Bowdoin Athletics site and Coolrunning.

Classic Time Trial

Informal classic time trial with Colby today - a beautiful fall day, perfect for a good workout. We met up west of Richmond on Dead River Road, a nice rural area with decent pavement and not much traffic. The course was a rolling 8.5k point-to-point that ended in Litchfield Corners. Walt and Matt Briggs broke away early and stayed together until the finish - Matt held off Walt in the final sprint to take the win. Nick put in an impressive effort to finish fourth ahead of some of the East's best skiers, with Nat and Woody close behind. It was a good day to be big and strong - the course looked hilly from behind the wheel of the van, but it turned out that most people did nothing but double pole (except Wilson, who earned everyone's respect by striding the whole thing with one pole - his left wrist is in a cast from a fall a few weeks ago). Still, a good hard effort and a chance to compete.

Rollerski results aren't particularly meaningful because of varying wheel speeds, so this time trial isn't much of a predictor of anything. However, what's important is that our team looked good today - the movements were strong and snappy, and the competitive fire was hot. Our technique and fitness are improving every week, and today looked a lot like progress to me.

Mystery Intervals

In a mystery interval workout, you're given a card with start and finish times for one or two intervals. Everyone else in your group gets their own card with different interval assignments. The group starts their watches simultaneously and starts running, and each individual calls out the start and stop times for their assigned intervals. Since you don't know what's on everyone else's cards, you have no idea how long the intervals or recovery periods are, or even how many you're doing - the workout becomes a bit of a guessing game, with some incentive to keep the intensity under control. It's a nice way to break up the usual routine, especially with threshold sessions that require a lot of "on" time.

We did mystery intervals at Pineland today in the late afternoon rain. The trails were in their usual immaculate condition, albeit a bit soggy - it won't take much snow before we're skiing, although it's a bit early for us to start hoping. We ran the flats and downhills and moosehoofed the uphills, using poles - the rolling terrain on Oak Hill was perfect for a good threshold workout, and we were solidly worn out by the end. People are feeling the volume of the last few days, particularly Tuesday's 4 hour rollerski/run - the rest of this week will be a bit of a grind, but things will get somewhat easier soon enough (at least from a volume standpoint). In any case, another good workout in the books.

Fall Camp

After a gorgeous Saturday rollerski in the Pineland area, we left campus early yesterday for the Sugarloaf Hill Climb, a 3-mile run up the mountain that's become an annual event for the team. Chris was our top finisher in 9th - nice effort by a young guy with a good motor. Like last year, Colby skiers dominated the race, but I was encouraged to see that we showed much better depth, with several skiers finishing in the mid teens. After the race, we headed to the Gilmore's camp on Embden Pond - with more skiers, quarters were a bit tighter than last year, but everyone settled in comfortably nonetheless. Most of the team went out for an easy recovery ski before dinner and a relaxed evening.

Circumstances conspired to change our plans this morning, and we drove up to Long Falls Dam Road for a long classic rollerski instead of hiking the Bigelow Range. After a 3 hour session with some good technique work the team was comfortably worn out, and we headed back to campus. It's been a productive couple of days, in spite of the change of plans - thanks to Mike and Louise Gilmore for helping make it happen. Tomorrow we'll do a combined rollerski/run workout in the Pownal/Bradbury area - by the time break is over, we'll have racked up some solid hours and be ready for a day off on Wednesday.

Open New Englands

The XC teams raced at Open New Englands in Boston today - this was a huge event with dozens of teams from Divs. 1,2&3 and hundreds of runners. Courtney finished 124th and Colman was 75th for men.
Women's Results
Men's Results

First Week

Our first week has seen some beautiful weather and quality training sessions.
Wednesday: specific strength on the scenic Androscoggin River Bike Path - double pole and single stick sprints uphill.
Thursday: treadmill testing. We increased the grade and speed every 3 minutes and recorded heart rate at the end of each stage. The goal here was to establish baseline heart rates for each stage - in a few weeks, we'll repeat the testing - if our training has been effective, the athletes should be able to complete each workload with less effort (ie, lower heart rates). Most people did a submax test, stopping one stage after we estimated that they'd passed their lactate threshold. A few lucky folks kept going to max in order to determine their max heart rates. It's no fun to run on a treadmill on a beautiful autumn day in Maine, but we got some useful data as well as a decent workout.
Today: a long easy classic ski out toward Pleasant Hill - stellar colors in the afternoon light along Highland Road. Perfect.

Fall Break is now underway - tomorrow we'll do a long rollerski/trail run at Pineland. After that, we're off for our mini camp in western Maine: Sugaloaf Hill Climb on Sunday, a run/hike along the Bigelow Range on Monday, and a long rollerski down Long Falls Dam Road on Tuesday. Weather looks good and we're excited.

First Day

First official practices yesterday - finally! We jumped right in with a strength workout in the morning and threshold skate intervals in the afternoon. This was my first chance to see how our skiers look in training - I was impressed. Lots of raw talent in our first-year group. Good fire, too - a few of the guys couldn't resist chasing Nat during the intervals - they went a little harder than the workout called for, but it's good to see people pushing each other. Speaking of Nat, he looks like a whole different skier this year - amazing what happens when you spend the summer rollerskiing instead of bike racing. The bar is being raised again - it's an exciting time around here.