Fall 2014 Training Video

As exams wind down, here's a video of our training from the past few months.  Here's hoping that next semester is as successful as this one!

The December Grind

The last couple weeks of the semester are always tough - early darkness, variable weather, peak schoolwork, and the cumulative fatigue from months of training make this a very challenging time to stay healthy and mentally focused.  This year has been no exception.  In particular, the weather has been outrageous.  We came home from camp to find some nice snow on the ground, but a little ice followed by days of rain has left us with a mess - ice, sand, and standing water everywhere.  Definitely some of the toughest training conditions I've seen in a long time.  Still, we've made the best of it and have done some good workouts since camp.

Race pace intervals on the athletic fields...

 ...partly facilitated by some human-powered grooming.

 Surprisingly good skiing in the woods around Farley after a surprise snowfall dropped a couple inches on top of our ice sheet.

 Nice conditions at the Quarry Road Opener in Waterville.

Things took a steep dive this week with several days of rain, but we've held it together with some running, erging, agility/power work indoors, and, of course, a little yoga.

The only real low point of the week came in the Maine vs. Vermont 3-on-3 basketball showdown.  Maine won handily on the strength of red-hot outside shooting - a mark of shame on the entire state of Vermont.  Hopefully, a rematch is in the works....

Thanksgiving Camp 2014

Thanksgiving Camp 2014 was fantastic.  We had five days of good skiing - plenty of snow on the 2.5k artificial loop and good rock skiing on the rest of the system that got better throughout the week.  We did a ton of easy skiing and a ton of technique work - lots of filming and trailside analysis every day.  I feel like every single skier made good progress, and we had several breakthroughs - some small, some big.  There was good energy throughout the camp - lots of laughter and foolishness to go along with great enthusiasm and focus.  In my opinion, things couldn't have gone much better - perhaps the best camp we've ever had.  Since any Bowdoin Nordic fan knows that our camps are all about the food, here's a quick rundown of the dinners:  beef & veggie stir fry w/ lo mein noodles, strawberry-spinach salad w/ feta, & carrot cake w/ cream cheese frosting; 2) veggie fried rice w/ chicken & tofu, cabbage salad w/ peanut sauce, caramel covered brownies; 3) lasagna (beef, veggie, & veggie alfredo), strawberry-spinach salad w/ goat cheese, & ice cream/cookie cake.  Here are a few other quick highlights:

- a men's falsetto Taylor Swift medly
- something called "monkeyball" (I still haven't figured out what this is)
- amazing Thanksgiving dinner featuring Jake's ginger gravy
- parking lot speedball vs. UMPI
- Polasky ball on hallowed ground - the site of the original PB game
- time trial with several other EISA teams (men; women)
- the plethora of gold stars amassed by August
- a long adventure ski on our last morning that was much longer than we bargained for...

Overall, a great, great camp.  May the rest of the season go just as well.

Here are some photos, some courtesy of Shelby & Rachel: