European Marathon Adventures

Recent Bowdoin Nordic grads Tyler DeAngelis and Jackson Bloch are headed to Europe this winter to race in eight of the world's greatest ski marathons.  They'll be blogging about their adventures - check it out!  Also, here's a nice article from the Portland Press Herald about their trip.  We're all really excited to follow their travels - good luck guys!

Last Weekend of 2015

 

We've just wrapped up our team training for 2015!  It's been a great fall - nothing but hard work and positive energy from a very fit and focused group of athletes.  Our final practices of the year last weekend were no exception.  On Saturday, we drove up to Waterville to ski on a 200m scrap of snow at Quarry Road - kind of absurd, but at this time of year we'll ski on anything!  We joined Colby for a skate sprint relay - 2 person teams, alternating for 6 laps total - except in this case, 1 "lap" consisted of 3 times back and forth on the strip.  With 12 or 13 teams on course at once, it was a bit chaotic, but it ended up being a really cool workout.  Relays are always exciting, and everyone was fired up to represent their team as well as possible.  After the initial cluster sorted itself out, people were pushing hard and making aggressive moves - great practice for the real thing coming up in the Colby Carnival next month!  I was really pleased with how well our team skied.  Ellie and Tess gave Colby's top women's team a good run, finishing just a few seconds behind two of the league's best skiers.  Our second team of H. Marshall and Emma finished neck and neck with Colby's second team.  Colby's men were a bit too deep for us, and they put their top 2 teams ahead of Sean and Marshal, but it was a back and forth battle.  Since we had only 3 men present, August teamed up with a Colby skier and gave a good account, sticking behind some of the top teams for a good stretch.  Overall, everyone had a lot of fun and got a legitimate race effort in the bag.  Can't wait for the real thing in just a few weeks!

The next day, we wrapped up the semester with a great OD ski from campus to the Torres household in Yarmouth - a fun change of pace from our usual rollerski loops.  The sun came out, the air was mild and pleasant, and the Sunday morning traffic was pretty reasonable, so we had a great workout.  Once we arrived, Joan and Jon Torres served us a fantastic brunch - almond crossaint French toast, baked eggs, home fries, and more.  What a great way to finish our fall practices!  Every year I remember how lucky we are to have such a generous and supportive group of team parents - many thanks to Joan and Jon for making this a really special day for the team!

Meanwhile, a few of our skiers were off having a different adventure - Mac, Jake, and Sam journeyed to VT for "Man Camp."  First stop was the Miller household, where they welcomed H. Miller home from Svalbard and skied at Craftsbury.  After that, they descended upon the Groves household to ski on what little snow was left at Rikert.  Preliminary reports indicate that it's been a very successful and very manly trip, featuring knitting, trail running, Mitt Romney, man vs. egg battles, and even a little skiing.

So that's that - a few more days of exams and everyone is out of here until 2016.  Here's hoping that next semester will be just as great as this one!

Strength Video

Here's a video of our strength training this fall:

Morocco Thanksgiving Camp

Bowdoin Nordic alumni Emma James '13 and Hannah Wright '13 recently reunited in Morocco, where Emma is serving with the Peace Corps.  Being dedicated skiers even long after graduating, they embarked on a 10-day training trip across the country.  Here is their guest post:

Emma, the Responsible Freshman of 2009-10, packed all her gear into one big bag.  #responsible #impressive

Emma does max strength.

Because she is an alum, Hannah forgoes single leg squats and keeps both feet on the ground.

Emma warms up for a track workout by doing stair repeats.

Even without the Buck Center, Hannah gets her Olympic lifts in.

Planks stabilize the core.

Emma and Hannah practice their ski jumps...

...while others practice their humps. (get it?)

Nathan and Tim remind the girls that staying hydrated is important.

As the carnival season approaches, the girls work on their agility - you can never be too prepared for Oak Hill's corners.

Lemma buys a new buff for racing season.

Carnival season arrives.  Emma and Hannah love to ride in the cargo van and entertain Coach Alsobrook.  He wishes they would do more of this:

 And less of this:

The most romantic race of the season:  Carni Crush.  Better do your hair real good for this race!  Don't worry, folks, it was purely good clean fun.

After the racing season Emma celebrated with a big glass of... orange juice.  #culturallyappropriate

All in all, during Thanksgiving Camp '15 (Morocco edition), we trained about 35 hours (if sitting on a bus is considered training).  Please notice both our shirts.

 Until the next reunion...(we didn't have time to write Nordic).

Love,
Emma and Hannah, Class of 2013

PS - Don't be fooled.  We're still *sometimes* immature.  #hitim

Thanksgiving Camp 2015

Another great camp in the books!  Thanksgiving Camp 2015 went about as smoothly as we could have possibly hoped - perhaps our best Thanksgiving Camp ever.  We left campus on Tuesday afternoon after classes.  The drive was pretty painless, except for a minor credit card hassle in a Canadian grocery store - for a minute it looked like we'd have to survive camp without the 8 thousand eggs the boys had requested, but we worked it out and made it to the Chateau Boreal with a couple vans full of skiers and food.  Foret had a 2.5k loop of snow saved under wood chips from last spring, and it made for pretty nice skiing. 

 On our first day there, we got out early in the morning to beat the crowds, and it was frost-on-the-hair cold.

 

But it warmed up soon enough....

 

...and everyone was happy.

On Thanksgiving Day, the whole team worked hard between ski sessions.  Our expert pie crust maker Jake pioneered an unorthodox rolling technique.

The end result was a fantastic meal with everything ready right on time.

 All week the skiers put in hours and hours of easy skiing while Tim and I worked 1-on-1 with people to chip away at technique issues.  It was a pretty exciting time - everyone was focused and working hard, and it seemed like every time I turned around I noticed someone skiing better than ever.  Everyone made steady progress, and several people had real breakthroughs - it was a pretty exciting time.  Even in the midst of a truly horrible skiing day (cold rain all day on Friday), people kept plugging away and working to make the most of every minute on skis.  We had one of my favorite sessions on this particular day - working on transitions and hitting one particular icy turn over and over again.

 On Saturday, we did a 5/7.5k skate time trial with several other teams.  Conditions were a bit icy due to the previous day's rain, but not too bad.  These early season time trials and races are more about the effort and the process of racing than the result, and everyone executed really well - warmups, transitions, pacing, focusing on holding technique together, etc.  I was really pleased with the positive energy surrounding the team as well - a really nice start to our on-snow racing.  Ellie and Sean were our top skiers, with the others not far behind.  Wil had a particularly good showing - relaxed, full of energy, and flying right along.

First race since 2012 for Lucy!  She looked great out there - no sign of rust.

Hannah and Ellie were taking a nice photo after their race when sneaky Jake photobombed them.

 By Saturday afternoon, everyone was feeling pretty good, and the goofy photo sessions got started.  I have no idea what Sam is doing in this photo.

On our last morning, some of the skiers finished the workout with a nice run to explore the logging roads before the long drive home.

I would be remiss if I didn't finish with a quick food recap, since food has always been an integral part of Bowdoin Nordic Thanksgiving Camp.  As always, we had three different cook groups vying for the coveted gold star.  One - baked burritos, loaded with rice, meat, and cheese, accompanied by a mixed greens salad, with cookies and ice cream for dessert.  Two - red coconut curry with veggies, cihcken, and tofu over rice, with a spinach salad and some kind of Thai mango drink.  Three - chicken/veggie pot pie over rice, with a spinach salad featuring DELICIOUS MAPLE TOASTED WALNUTS!!!, and some cookie/ice cream/brownie creation for dessert.  All three were tasty; all three were filling and healthful; but alas, we could have only one winner - the red coconut curry.  Congratulations to Tess, August, Jake, and Sam!

Overall, this was a very successful camp that leaves me feeling super optimistic about the coming season.  Hopefully we can keep all this good energy and happy team chemistry going through these next few weeks while we wait for snow - for now, so far so good.  Farewell to Foret Montmorency until next year!

Treadmill, Beach Skiing, & Lobster Roll

What have we been up to recently?  A couple weekends ago, we did a max treadmill test - fun stuff!  We've done treadmill tests in the past as part of fitness testing or determining max heart rates, but this test was a bit different - this was intended as a mental exercise.  Anyone who's done a max treadmill test can tell you that it's a huge mental game - you can stop any time, and as the stages get tougher and tougher, the temptation to quit gets higher and higher.  Hard uphill running on a treadmill can be pretty unpleasant - I've done a lot of treadmill workouts and tests, and I haven't found anything that hurts quite as much.  There's something about the way the machine sets the speed and you just have to keep up that makes it really easy to ramp up your heart rate, fill up your muscles with lactate, and generally just inflict a lot of pain on yourself.  I am not a fan of the tough guy language that surrounds endurance sports - I don't think that ski racing is all about pain and suffering and toughness, and I think that we're missing the point if we get hung up on this stuff.  But even I have to admit that treadmill tests really hurt, and they require tremendous willpower and focus.  So the point of this test was to put our skiers in a situation where they could reach what they thought was their limit and then try to continue right through it.  I'm happy to say that our skiers rose to the occasion - everyone gave a fantastic effort.  It was a huge learning experience for everyone.  Some of them definitely emptied the tank - we had a few people flying off the back of the treadmill into the arms of our vigilant spotters - while others felt that they'd perhaps chipped away at the wall but hadn't completely broken through.  In any case, it was a huge learning experience, and my hope is that everyone will be able to approach future max efforts (in races or otherwise) with a little more knowledge and confidence - once you've reached that barrier and perhaps gone through it, it's easier to get back there next time.

As it happened, it was Family Weekend when we did our treadmill test, so we celebrated with our traditional brunch with a bunch of ski team family members.  It was great

This past weekend was full of Maine coast adventures.  On Saturday we did sand skiing intervals at Morse Mountain - our usual routine of running over the mountain with ski gear in hand and then VO2max intervals on the beach.  It's always a fun change of pace and a good chance to work on technique as well as fitness.  A few of the more hard-core skiers jumped into the ocean after the workout, of course, and we finished the morning with some delicious Frosty's donuts courtesy of the Cork family, visiting from Minnesota.

Sunday was the 9th Annual Lobster Roll - a small but hardy crew took the ferry over to North Haven for the traditional rollerski race against the other Maine schools and some MWSC athletes.  It was a beautiful sunny day with the usual stiff breeze coming off the ocean.  Competition was equally stiff - the other teams look pretty sharp right now - but we held our own.  H. Marshall and Sean were our top finishers.  After the race, we enjoyed a fine pasta feed at a local restaurant and watched the Patriots game on a big screen in the town hall theater before a nice recovery jog and a ferry ride back to the mainland.  Overall, a fun day and a good chance to get into race mode.  Thanks to Andy Shepard and MWSC for keeping this event going!

Fall Camp Video

I'm a bit late posting this, but here's a video recap of our Sugarloaf camp over Fall Break, courtesy of Tim:

10th Annual Phil Soule Phlail

We hosted the 10th Annual Phil Soule Phlail 5k on Sunday.  The race honors the memory of Phil Soule, a longtime Bowdoin coach of many sports who passed away in 2006.  The ski team has been organizing the event since it's inception, and I always feel a strong obligation to run a good event that Phil and the Soule family would be proud of.  Happily, the event went well - a sunny fall day, a good turnout (80 finishers), and a great effort by all the racers.  As always, we had generous support from a pair of anonymous benefactors (old friends of Phil's) who helped fund some great racer gifts:  tech shirts from Atayne and also Nike gymsacks - not bad for a humble, inexpensive 5k race.  The skiers did great work keeping the event running smoothly, and a good time was had by all.  As we've done for the past 3 years, we also hosted a free kids fun run before the main event - several scrappy future 5k runners worked hard to earn their finish line lollipops.  Overall, a fine day and a quality event!

Fall Camp 2015

Fall Camp 2015 was one of the best camps we've ever had - three perfect days in the Sugarloaf area.  The location was perfect, the fall colors were stunning, and the team crushed the workouts - good energy and good times.

We started off our break with a pre-camp trip to Morse Mountain for some beach skiing intervals - a warmup for the rugged workouts to come.

 The next morning, we drove to the mountains for the Sugarloaf Uphill Climb - the first time we've done this race since 2008.  About half the team raced while the other half did a tough bounding workout.  After years of finishing second in this event, Tim finally broke through and took the win, adding to a proud Bowdoin Nordic history of coach victories in the Uphill Climb.  Ellie rocked it for a third place women's finish, with Sam as our top man in seventh.  We closed out the day with an recovery jog on the nordic ski trails with the late afternoon sun lighting up the fall colors - perfect.  The men made a nice pasta dinner, volunteer assistant coach Tara Whiton gave a talk about sports nutrition, and everyone went to bed tired and happy.

On Monday the team got a little crazy.  I had planned to have the crew do a long hike/run on a section of the Bigelows, but a few people decided that they wanted to do the whole range - 18+ miles over one of the most rugged ranges in the northeast.  Next thing I knew, nearly the whole team was on board.  This was a bit scary for me, but I love it when our skiers want to challenge themselves, so I wasn't going to say no.  We worked out a plan with multiple bailout points, and the team started hiking from the Stratton trailhead early in the morning.  Old friends Tyler DeAngelis and Jackson Bloch joined the group and set a brisk pace at the front, while Tim and Tara served as sweepers.  I hiked up Firewarden's Trail to meet the group halfway through with water refills - I met the men on top of West Bigelow, and I couldn't believe how fast they were moving.  The women were a bit behind, having stopped for a swim in Horns Pond, but they were making good time as well.  After refilling everyone's bottles, I absolutely hauled down the Horns Pond Trail and back to the van so I could drive to the finish at Flagstaff Lake to meet the boys - despite my best efforts, they beat me to the end, completing the whole traverse in under 5 1/2 hours.  The women finished in about 7 1/2 hours and still had enough energy to go for a swim, go grocery shopping, and cook a tasty dinner of huevos rancheros and apple crisp that evening.  Overall, a day to be proud of - a very impressive effort by everyone.

 Our final camp workout on Tuesday was pretty tame by comparison - we did a classic OD ski on the Long Falls Dam Rd, a Fall Camp staple.  Traffic was minimal, the pavement was perfect almost everywhere, and the overcast sky made the colors pop.  The group was chatty and having fun, but they were still locked in and skiing well.  Tim and I chased them around in the van, filming and giving technique feedback - we were very happy with how the group was skiing.  Overall, a perfect ending to a really successful camp.  Many thanks to Alison Welch '85 and Bob Bass '79 for letting us use their respective condos - this camp would not have been possible without their help!