As the current school year wraps up, we're looking ahead to next season with some thoughts about this past season in mind. It's been a good year - excellent grades, solid results, and amazing team chemistry - and we're hoping to build on this for the future. With Baby Charlotte's arrival, I haven't had much time for posting, but I've had plenty of time to think about what we learned this year and what we need to do to continue improving. The skiers gave some really helpful feedback in our spring meetings, and I feel good about the plans we've made. All of the little details are too numerous to describe here, but here are three big things that I've been thinking about:
Classic Skiing - All of our exciting results this year were in skate. We had some decent classic days as a team, and plenty of people had classic PRs, but overall there was a pretty huge gap between our performances in the two disciplines. Why is this? Waxing is always a convenient explanation, and it's true that we didn't have good skis as consistently as we should have. In particular, both skiers and coaches need to do a better job of figuring out the nuances of individual wax pockets (a few pairs of Zeros on the team wouldn't hurt either). But waxing isn't the big reason we struggled in classic. Here's what I think: A) Most of our classic rollerskiing last fall was distance and specific strength work - not a lot of speed or intensity. In particular, our 200/100m skate intervals on the bike path seemed to be very productive - we didn't have a comparable workout for classic. Skate intensity is a better fit for the gently rolling terrain we have around here, but we can't afford to neglect classic intensity. We can get to the terrain we need for productive classic intensity work - I just need to make it a priority and do a little planning ahead. B) We need to make a bit more time for working on classic technique - more no-pole striding, particularly on snow. Now that we're settled into our new ski room at Farley, it should be fairly convenient to follow our general strength work with a few rollerski sprints and drills, which should be a nice opportunity for technique work.
Speed - We've been here before - pure speed is still a weakness for us. Our best results were in 15-20k races (and the Rangeley Loppet). As a team, we're clearly less competitive at the shorter distances. This mirrors the kind of training that we did - respectable training volume and a lot of threshold work, but not as much speed work. Actually, I think we did a pretty good job of speed work in the fall and early winter, but we were much less diligent about this in the summer - and when I say "we," I mean "the athletes." Speed work is ESSENTIAL for us, even more so than for other teams. Many of our skiers have a bit less experience than the typical EISA racer, and this really shows when it comes to speed - less comfort on skis, less polished technique, and thus less ability to go through good clean movements at high speed. So, we have to practice going fast on skis, and we have to do it A LOT. I'll be doing a lot of nagging via email this summer. We have a lot of catching up to do and we can't afford to ignore one of our biggest weaknesses for the next three months.
Running vs Rollerskiing - In the past few years, the large majority of our fall training has been on rollerskis. Running has always been a significant component, but we spend far more time on our rollerskis. That's great from a specificity and technique standpoint, but I feel like we're missing out on the pure fitness benefits of running. I don't know of any scientific data to support this, but it feels to me like nothing gets you fit more efficiently than running. Obviously rollerskiing will still be the backbone of our training, especially given the two issues I've described above, but we'll try a slightly more balanced approach next fall.
Those are a few of the big things we'll be thinking about as we prepare for next season. Right now, everyone's taking a well-earned deep breath and making the transition to summer plans. I'm hearing lots of good things about training so far - sounds like people are really getting after it now that exams are over. This is good. The future is bright.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Thursday, May 6, 2010
MWSC Nominated for FIS Award
Exciting news for Maine Winter Sports Center - they're a finalist for a major FIS award. Full story here. Congratulations to MWSC and President Andy Shepard - it's great to see them get recognized for their outstanding efforts to promote skiing in Maine!
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Walt Article
Here's a nice article about Walt from last weekend's Maine Sunday Telegram (check out the great photo of High School Walt).
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Ergebeiner!
Ollie Burruss is working on a new project that's sure to take the nordic ski world by storm. Here's a press release on his latest endeavor:
Inspired by the rousing success of the Ski Erg World Sprints, I would like to announce the First Annual Ergebeiner. The “Erkie” will combine the best elements of the American Birkebeiner with those of the Ski Erg World Sprints. This 54-kilometer Ski Erg race is one that skiers of all ages and ability levels can enjoy. It will bring families together and bring world class competition to the sport of Ski Erging. Of course, there will be the BarnaErgBerkie for the tots who can’t erg the entire 54 kilometers.
The rising threat of global warming makes skiable snow less and less likely for the traditional jaunt from Cable to Hayward, Wisconsin. Not only is the Ergebeiner an adaptation to the new climate, it also reduces our carbon footprint, since people can participate from the comfort of their own training center or basement. For those wishing for the traditional excitement of mutual suffering with thousands of other skiers (perhaps a trip to Bonktown?), the event will be centralized at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota. Skiers from the Midwest can come to the Mall to participate and cheer on skiers from other waves. Look for more details on the First Annual Ergebeiner to be announced soon!
Inspired by the rousing success of the Ski Erg World Sprints, I would like to announce the First Annual Ergebeiner. The “Erkie” will combine the best elements of the American Birkebeiner with those of the Ski Erg World Sprints. This 54-kilometer Ski Erg race is one that skiers of all ages and ability levels can enjoy. It will bring families together and bring world class competition to the sport of Ski Erging. Of course, there will be the BarnaErgBerkie for the tots who can’t erg the entire 54 kilometers.
The rising threat of global warming makes skiable snow less and less likely for the traditional jaunt from Cable to Hayward, Wisconsin. Not only is the Ergebeiner an adaptation to the new climate, it also reduces our carbon footprint, since people can participate from the comfort of their own training center or basement. For those wishing for the traditional excitement of mutual suffering with thousands of other skiers (perhaps a trip to Bonktown?), the event will be centralized at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota. Skiers from the Midwest can come to the Mall to participate and cheer on skiers from other waves. Look for more details on the First Annual Ergebeiner to be announced soon!
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Equinox Ski Challenge
Here's one of the coolest things I've heard in a while - a post from Wilson about his experience in the Equinox Ski Challenge:
I skied more than you this break.
If anyone wants to fight me on this topic, we can... later. I kind of feel like my fifteen year old cat who is starting down the path towards arthritis - pretty sure my parents are going to need to mash some glucosamine into my dinner soon too. As I told a friend of mine, "this isn't the most sore/ tired that I have been, but a bunch of my joints have gone on strike and say they won't be coming back until working conditions improve."
Let me just say right now that this post is a novel, if you can't be convinced to read the whole thing the gist is - the Equinox Challenge is super cool and the Birkie has nothing on it.
Well, let's take a step back so I can actually tell you about this weekend. Friday night I drove up to West Yellowstone with my Dad and one of my teammates from high school for the West Yellowstone Equinox
Challenge, a 24 hour ski race. The course was a 9.1K loop until 7 in the evening when it switched to a 6.4 (I think, I never actually checked). The race started at 10 in the morning. Every time you came through the lap you had to check to make sure that they had written down your bib number and then you could either start again, take a break, or tag off to a teammate if you were in the team division. Well, Ian and I were the only two man team (They said beforehand that it was split into solo, 2-4, and 5-8 but it really became team division or solo). We flipped a coin and Ian got to start. The whole time he was gone I had my fingers crossed that he wouldn't be the first one back though - because I knew that would mean a really early bonk, especially because there was a pretty fast team from XC Oregon doing a 4-person 6 hour race. Fortunately he came through a
minute or two back and I was on my way. The course was brutal. It was no Saint Mike's, but it had one climb in the middle of the loop that was about as hard, or a bit harder, than the last hill at Stowe. For the first 4 laps we alternated laps, then he said he was going for two, so of course when my turn came I went for two as well. It was a huge mistake, but I kept doing two laps while he did one meaning I was on for 50 minutes off for between 25 and 30 minutes. All things told though, I felt pretty damn good. I was flying - going a bit below threshold - but the tracks we incredibly fast. I was knocking down laps in less then 25 minutes. My first big mistake happened around 2 in the afternoon when a five man team sent out their fast guy who was drafting off me. I was pretty sick of it so I decided to drop him. I was transitioning really well (which paid off big time because the loop had a ton of hills that made 180 degree turns right at the top) so at the top of one of the hills I put in a bit of a surge. Over each one I would get away, but then he would just catch back up. After putting in way to much energy I let him pass and he dropped me super hard.
I crossed 100K at about 6:00, 8 hours into the race, and I was starting to feel it. My forearms just didn't want to grab the pole for the first 5 minutes of my leg, the bottoms of my feet started to feel pretty beat, as did my left knee. I didn't have a clear sense of time for most of the race, but just a little while after 6:00 I had a huge
bonk. I really wanted to eat, but didn't want to do the actual eating - an IV would have been great. I have to give huge props to Ian who, while I was bonked, pulled off an extra leg which actually gave me
enough time to put my skis on again. Well, I went out to do two laps, ended up doing three and when I came back inside the warming hut I was toast. There was no single thing, but I was so low on energy, had so
little leg strength left, and hardly any mental drive to keep me going. I ate a bit, Ian came back in just before 10 and we celebrated the 12 hour mark together. I ended up going back to the hotel for a couple hours of sleep, Ian stayed in the warming hut in a sleeping bag. Through the course of the night we each did a couple laps, but we were getting nowhere.
At 8:00 Ian woke me up saying we had two hours left to put some more K in. He led out with a lap, then at 8:27 I started mine. 8:27 is important because the entire lap I was doing the math on how fast we each had to go to get back before 10:00 (everyone had to start their last lap before 10:00 for it to count. I flew around the course in 16:30 (the shorter course by the way), which I am fairly sure was that loop's record, then he took a leg, and I again went full out to try and squeeze the extra 6K out of the 24 hours. When I came back through
the lap though Ian was just standing there. He was totally fried, but I had made up enough time that our last lap only needed to be 30 minutes to beat the deadline. When I got back he was there and totally fired up for a victory lap. We went out screaming and shouting, and we were hauling. On one of the downhills I spun around and went down backwards. We came in at 10:05, twenty four hours and five minutes after we had left for our first lap.
In retrospect there is a ton that I would have done differently - more varied food, ie something that wasn't sugar/carb, slower out of the gate, longer time on, thus longer time off, taking my boots off every chance that I had, etc. - but regardless it was awesome. We unintentionally won the 6 and 12 hour team division, at one point we were an entire lap, nearly 30 minutes, up on the entire field. I skied most of the fastest lap times excluding Zach Violett from XC Oregon. By the end the four and five person teams had dropped us besting our 289K with 450 and 460K. That is still 145K each, most of which we did in the first 12 hours - the cocky side of me comes out and I'll just say that with one more teammate I really think that we would have buried the field. So the plan for next year (assuming the equinox lines up with spring break again) is to go back and race the thing in the solo division, unless we can find a legitimate third team member.
Moral of the story. Ski racing is awesome.
I skied more than you this break.
If anyone wants to fight me on this topic, we can... later. I kind of feel like my fifteen year old cat who is starting down the path towards arthritis - pretty sure my parents are going to need to mash some glucosamine into my dinner soon too. As I told a friend of mine, "this isn't the most sore/ tired that I have been, but a bunch of my joints have gone on strike and say they won't be coming back until working conditions improve."
Let me just say right now that this post is a novel, if you can't be convinced to read the whole thing the gist is - the Equinox Challenge is super cool and the Birkie has nothing on it.
Well, let's take a step back so I can actually tell you about this weekend. Friday night I drove up to West Yellowstone with my Dad and one of my teammates from high school for the West Yellowstone Equinox
Challenge, a 24 hour ski race. The course was a 9.1K loop until 7 in the evening when it switched to a 6.4 (I think, I never actually checked). The race started at 10 in the morning. Every time you came through the lap you had to check to make sure that they had written down your bib number and then you could either start again, take a break, or tag off to a teammate if you were in the team division. Well, Ian and I were the only two man team (They said beforehand that it was split into solo, 2-4, and 5-8 but it really became team division or solo). We flipped a coin and Ian got to start. The whole time he was gone I had my fingers crossed that he wouldn't be the first one back though - because I knew that would mean a really early bonk, especially because there was a pretty fast team from XC Oregon doing a 4-person 6 hour race. Fortunately he came through a
minute or two back and I was on my way. The course was brutal. It was no Saint Mike's, but it had one climb in the middle of the loop that was about as hard, or a bit harder, than the last hill at Stowe. For the first 4 laps we alternated laps, then he said he was going for two, so of course when my turn came I went for two as well. It was a huge mistake, but I kept doing two laps while he did one meaning I was on for 50 minutes off for between 25 and 30 minutes. All things told though, I felt pretty damn good. I was flying - going a bit below threshold - but the tracks we incredibly fast. I was knocking down laps in less then 25 minutes. My first big mistake happened around 2 in the afternoon when a five man team sent out their fast guy who was drafting off me. I was pretty sick of it so I decided to drop him. I was transitioning really well (which paid off big time because the loop had a ton of hills that made 180 degree turns right at the top) so at the top of one of the hills I put in a bit of a surge. Over each one I would get away, but then he would just catch back up. After putting in way to much energy I let him pass and he dropped me super hard.
I crossed 100K at about 6:00, 8 hours into the race, and I was starting to feel it. My forearms just didn't want to grab the pole for the first 5 minutes of my leg, the bottoms of my feet started to feel pretty beat, as did my left knee. I didn't have a clear sense of time for most of the race, but just a little while after 6:00 I had a huge
bonk. I really wanted to eat, but didn't want to do the actual eating - an IV would have been great. I have to give huge props to Ian who, while I was bonked, pulled off an extra leg which actually gave me
enough time to put my skis on again. Well, I went out to do two laps, ended up doing three and when I came back inside the warming hut I was toast. There was no single thing, but I was so low on energy, had so
little leg strength left, and hardly any mental drive to keep me going. I ate a bit, Ian came back in just before 10 and we celebrated the 12 hour mark together. I ended up going back to the hotel for a couple hours of sleep, Ian stayed in the warming hut in a sleeping bag. Through the course of the night we each did a couple laps, but we were getting nowhere.
At 8:00 Ian woke me up saying we had two hours left to put some more K in. He led out with a lap, then at 8:27 I started mine. 8:27 is important because the entire lap I was doing the math on how fast we each had to go to get back before 10:00 (everyone had to start their last lap before 10:00 for it to count. I flew around the course in 16:30 (the shorter course by the way), which I am fairly sure was that loop's record, then he took a leg, and I again went full out to try and squeeze the extra 6K out of the 24 hours. When I came back through
the lap though Ian was just standing there. He was totally fried, but I had made up enough time that our last lap only needed to be 30 minutes to beat the deadline. When I got back he was there and totally fired up for a victory lap. We went out screaming and shouting, and we were hauling. On one of the downhills I spun around and went down backwards. We came in at 10:05, twenty four hours and five minutes after we had left for our first lap.
In retrospect there is a ton that I would have done differently - more varied food, ie something that wasn't sugar/carb, slower out of the gate, longer time on, thus longer time off, taking my boots off every chance that I had, etc. - but regardless it was awesome. We unintentionally won the 6 and 12 hour team division, at one point we were an entire lap, nearly 30 minutes, up on the entire field. I skied most of the fastest lap times excluding Zach Violett from XC Oregon. By the end the four and five person teams had dropped us besting our 289K with 450 and 460K. That is still 145K each, most of which we did in the first 12 hours - the cocky side of me comes out and I'll just say that with one more teammate I really think that we would have buried the field. So the plan for next year (assuming the equinox lines up with spring break again) is to go back and race the thing in the solo division, unless we can find a legitimate third team member.
Moral of the story. Ski racing is awesome.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
US Nationals 50k
Bowdoin was well-represented at the US Nationals 50k in Fort Kent today - Spencer, Walt, and Tim all raced, as well as former assistant coach Ollie Burruss. Sounds like tough conditions made the race a bit of a grind, but our guys showed well. Walt skied a steady race to finish 19th, close behind an elite group of skiers. Spencer, Tim, and Ollie skied in a pack with a couple other guys for the majority of the race until Spencer pulled away with a smoking final lap - he finished in 20th, about a minute and a half behind Walt. Ollie ended up 22nd, with Tim finishing 25th in his second 50k in the last 11 days. This was a tough race - lots of DNFs from a lot of good skiers. Great job by all of these guys to hang in there - well done, men!
Full results with splits
Full results with splits
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