Presidential Traverse 2011

The Presidential Traverse is on its way to becoming a team tradition - Alec, Emma, Riley, Kaitlynn, and incoming first-year Tyler DeAngelis completed this massive hike a few weeks ago. Here are some photos from Kaitlynn:

A group photo on top of Madison.

Looking back towards Adams and Madison.

Emma and Me on top of the last peak of the day (Mt. Pierce) with Washington in the background.

Nordic Training Sources

Former Gould Academy coach Dick Taylor has started a new website that explores nordic skiing from a multidisciplinary perspective grounded in sports science. For me, this is an incredibly welcome resource - I think that sports science is somewhat undervalued by the US nordic ski racing community, and consequently there's not a lot of science-based discussion about the sport in this country. This site has some great articles that have challenged me to think critically about my approach to coaching - always a good thing. It's pretty dense stuff, but well worth the time - check it out!

Truckee Sucks - Don't Come to Truckee!

Spencer sends word from Truckee, where he's training with a group of other Eastern college skiers:

This photo pretty much sums it up. Due to a ton of late season snow we've been able to get in a bunch of awesome skiing in. The Auburn Ski Club has done an amazing job grooming, in temperatures that barely get below freezing at night and in the 70's during the day, to give us pretty solid tracks every weekend for over a month now.

When not skiing there are tons of hills to run and roller ski up. A few times a week we work out with the local junior program. It has been a lot of fun to see a bunch of younger kids excited about skiing. They also have a bunch of really good coaches who have made training so far a blast and have helped me with my technique a bunch, especially in avoiding bad habits while roller skiing. Despite being dominated by Bates skiers, who are actually quite nice, it has been a ton of fun to train with a bunch of other skiers from the East . We've definitely benefited from pushing each other during strength sessions and have done a lot of work on improving our bodies' tolerance for questionable but DELICIOUS Mexican food.

Despite training pretty hard there are still a bunch of opportunities to get out and have fun/shred the huge amounts of vertical here. Aside from the skiing there is also a bunch awesome single track mountain biking to be done. Luckily the 4th of July is on an off day so we get to take full advantage of a bunch of alpine areas opening up for the day. If that isn't one of the best opportunities to ski in jorts and a cut-off t-shirt I don't know what would be.