Lost Jumpers and Egg Failures: Thanksgiving Camp 2019

What a great camp!  This year's Thanksgiving trip to Foret Montmorency went about as well as we could have possibly hoped - good food, good roads, good energy, and great skiing.  Lots of great skiing.  Our first group arrived in time to steal a quick ski before sunset, and things only got better from there.  The next morning we settled into our usual routine - long morning classic, double lunch with napping and homework in between, afternoon skate, and a fine dinner before evening downtime.  We also broke in the team playlist - this odd little song quickly became the theme for camp.  The first cook group got us off to a hot start with a lovely curry with homemade naan and chocolate lava cake.  We only set off the smoke alarm twice all day, so that was good.

Next morning was more of the same (minus the smoke alarms, thankfully).  Although we'd already had a few days of skating on snow, this camp was our first on-snow classic action, so we spent a good amount of time on drills and filming to get our technique dialed in.  As the day went on, we had an ever-increasing parade of people in and out of the kitchen working on Thanksgiving dishes.  Elliot and Russell took on turkey duty, as they've done for the last few years, so the meat eaters were in good hands.  By the time evening rolled around, we had a great spread:  mashed potatoes, green beans, squash, sweet potatoes, homemade bread, stuffing, pies, pumpkin cheesecake, cranberry sauce, and probably all kinds of other stuff I'm forgetting.  Our team has much to be thankful for, and this dinner is always a great way to acknowledge and celebrate that.

By Friday some new trails had opened up, and people started scattering in all directions to explore far off places.  We lost about half the team to a long adventure ski, but fortunately they found their way back after a few hours.  It's amazing that after all these years at Foret we're still finding previously unexplored places (or at least places that very few people on the team have ever been).  That afternoon we previewed the time trial course with an eye on tactics.  Our dinner group capped off the day with a hearty and healthful meal of bibimbap, accompanied by a gargantuan cabbage salad and an exquisite baclava for dessert.

Next morning was a 10k skate time trial.  The first on-snow time trial of the year is always a mixed bag, and we try not to get too high or too low about whatever results we get - it's more about the process than the outcome.  That said, we had some unusually good outcomes from this one!  The men looked remarkably sharp considering the high training load of the week, with three in the top 11.  The women had a more typical Bowdoin Nordic Thanksgiving showing - strong but tired.  Overall, good solid prep for race season.  That afternoon we got the whole team together for a long easy classic ski that stretched into the evening - we finished up with a beautiful crescent moon overhead.  Our last camp dinner was burritos with homemade guacamole, capped off with an elegant cinnamon cake.  Outstanding entries in this year's cooking competition - judging will be tough!

After a final long ski on a gorgeous sunny morning, we packed up and closed the book on another great Thanksgiving Camp.  This year we probably skied more than we ever have before - so much snow and so many good places to explore that people just didn't want to stop.  Good problem to have.  The only real disappointment from camp was the vastly overhyped egg consumption - this team has had a weird egg fetish for the last few years (I blame Mac Groves '17), but despite talking a big game, this year's team didn't come close to eating all the eggs they'd demanded.  Hopefully this means that the fever has broken and they're back to eating a more balanced diet - guess we'll find out next year.  For now, time to blast through a few more days of quality training before exams!