Monday, November 28, 2016

Love In The Time of Cholesterol: Thanksgiving Camp 2016

Another great camp in the books!  Here are some highlights from Thanksgiving Camp 2016:

- Loaded down with a massive quantity of groceries (including 288 eggs), we set off for Quebec on Tuesday afternoon.  We ran into some weather from before Jackman to after St. Georges, which was not super fun, but nothing too scary.  Capable driving by Mac and the coaches kept all three vans on the road (unfortunately, the same cannot be said for all of Colby's vans), and we made it to Foret safe and sound.

- The skiing was excellent.  For the last several years, the folks at Foret have done a great job putting together a 2.5k loop with snow saved from the previous winter - a nice mix of terrain with some good climbs, fun transitions, and quick little descents.  Much nicer than the typical mini-loop you usually get in a low-snow situation.  As usual, we did a ton of good technique work.  This is our most productive week of the year - just endless hours of skiing on snow with a constant focus on getting technique dialed in.  It's always really fun and rewarding to see people making big and small improvements day by day.



- Of course, the next most important part of camp was the food!  Thanksgiving dinner was excellent.  I'm always impressed by how a bunch of college students can work together to pull off a nice big dinner like this - every year they do a great job.  We also had our usual cooking competition for the other three dinners.  This year's groups were divided up by region:  East, West, and Midwest.  East went first with a hearty batch of cheesy calzones, bruschetta, a salad of delicious kale gently massaged by Luca, and cookies and ice cream for dessert.  West followed with an array of quiches, an accidental smoke alarm, hash browns, a spinach salad featuring goat cheese and blueberries stolen from Team Midwest, and an outrageously tasty carrot cake with maple frosting.  Midwest provided the big finish with a regional-themed meal (no, not hot dish) - pasties, arugula salad with hazelnuts and other crunchy good stuff, and handmade nut goodies (apparently this is some kind of midwestern dessert - delicious and super unhealthy).  All three meals were delicious, and the judges were impressed by the skills and creativity on display.  It was a tough decision, but ultimately Team Midwest earned the gold star.
- We did a 5/7.5k time trial with the other teams training at Foret.  With 7 EISA teams plus Laval, it was basically over half of a carnival field, rounded out with skiers from OSI and a few other club programs.  Jake and Sam were on fire to lead the men, and Rachel was our top women.  As with any race, we had individual ups and downs, but this was a great day overall - so many people showed that they've improved significantly in the past year.  In particular, the men's team looked super strong - they held their own against some of the best skiers in the league.  A time trial in November isn't the same as a carnival in February, so we try not to get too high or too low about the results we see at this time of year; still, it's hard not to be excited and optimistic after such a strong showing.
Men's Results
Women's Results
 (Lots of pepper flips at this camp - Cirque came out on the wrong end of this one and ended up racing in donut tights).







- BSF skier Sawyer Kesselheim flew out from Montana to participate in this camp.  Sawyer will be Jake's guide in future Paralympic races, and this camp was a great chance for them to spend a lot of time skiing together on snow and establishing communication.  It was super fun to see them tearing through the time trial as a unit.  Having Sawyer around was beneficial for the rest of the team as well - always good to have a veteran skier around as a role model, and I frequently used him as a good technique example for our skiers.
 - We got a decent amount of snow in the last couple days of camp, and by Sunday morning there was enough to venture off the loop and out into the woods.  Most of our skiers took the opportunity to explore a bit for our final ski - a fine end to a great week of skiing.

All in all, it was a nice smooth camp - super fun and super productive.  There's still a lot of work to be done between now and carnival season, but we've made a good start down that road.  Hopefully we can continue our momentum in the coming weeks!

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