Friday, November 21, 2008

Bridge Troubles

Yesterday we tried a new workout - a running warmup with some spenst exercises, followed by sprints on classic rollerskis. The concept is the same as our current strength phase - the rollerski work leaves the muscles with a ski-specific imprint that helps translate general strength/power gains into speed on skis. Things didn't go quite as smoothly as planned, however. Ollie and I dropped the team off east of Wolfe's Neck Farm - they were supposed to run west past the farm and meet us at the state park for rollerski sprints. Unfortunately, the bridge across the mouth of the Little River was out, and they had to backtrack and take the long way around. By the time we figured out what was going on and drove out to pick them up, the running warmup had stretched far beyond its designated time - Walter was sad. Nonetheless, we squeezed in some decent sprints in the waning daylight.

Daniel Blue Polasky. He's tall.

It looks like Nat's standing in front of an oncoming car, oblivious to the danger - however, although this is a very feasible scenario, I don't think that's what's happening here.

Either Wilson and Maren are both moving fast or my hands are unsteady. Probably both - my nerves are shot from watching Nat drift in and out of the middle of the road with no reflective vest.

Long skate rollerski at Runaround Pond today - cold and windy. The ice has come out in a hurry these last few days.

Courtney forcing Grace to stay in L1.

More Polasky - he's very photogenic. Chris in the background - Minnesotans tend to stick together in strange new places.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What are spenst exercises?

Nathan Alsobrook said...

Spenst is similar to plyomtric training - explosive jumps with maximal power output. I think the literal meaning is "springy" or something similar in Norwegian. We do spenst exercises that imitate skiing - lateral skate hops, one-legged classic hops, and straight ahead classic bounding. A typical spenst session for us would be 4-6 exercises total, with 6-10 reps per leg. It's not a stand-alone workout - we usually fit this into a general strength workout or as part of the warmup for an intensity workout.