Morse Mtn Time Trial

Yesterday was round 2 of the Morse Mountain time trial. This is a new fitness test for us this year - approximately 1 mile, almost all uphill, on the access road that runs over Morse Mountain to Seawall Beach. I like this test better than the traditional 3000m run on a track, because uphill running is more about aerobic fitness and less about leg speed and running economy. The team did a self-test earlier in the fall to set a baseline, and yesterday was our chance to see what kind of improvements we've made. We weren't expecting a big jump, since so much of our training is on rollerskis, but we were hoping to see some progress, and we did. Most of our skiers shaved off a few seconds, with Chris and Grace making huge gains. Here are the results:

Men
Chris - 5:40
Walt - 5:58
Spencer - 5:58
Nat - 6:17
Woody - 6:40
Tom - 6:52
Nick - 7:19

Women
Erin - 7:27
Grace - 8:25

Hopefully this is some of the last dryland training we do this year - we're headed up to Stoneham, Quebec tomorrow for Thanksgiving Camp. If we're lucky, we'll get on snow at Foret Montmorency - conditions are still marginal at the moment, but apparently some teams skied over the weekend, so hopefully the snow will hold out. If we're really lucky, we'll have skiable snow at Pineland shortly after we return, but that's almost too much to ask - probably bad luck even to type these words. In any case, we have a fun week ahead of us!