Thanksgiving Camp 2018

Well that was nice.  I've seen some pretty great Thanksgiving skiing at Foret over the last 11 years, but this year was the best ever.  It started snowing up there a few weeks ago, and I guess it just never really stopped - so much snow!  We got to experience some of that snow fresh from the sky on the Tuesday evening drive up - that was exciting, especially since it was my first time out with our beautiful new trailer.  Leslie's late van got the worst of it, but she was a hero and powered through safely.  Next morning we awoke to a vast stretch of white with remarkably good tracks.  All this snow changed the nature of the camp a bit.  Most years we have a nice 2k loop with maybe a little rock skiing on the roads, so we end up doing endless laps and a ton of technique work.  That's great, but when you have miles and miles of roads and trails to stretch out on, you have to forget the filming and get out there.  Which we did.

Day 1:  Classic exploration in the morning, ripping the roy on skate skis in the afternoon.  We did a nice downhill skills session on some super fun technical turns - our team is pretty solid on downhills, but it was interesting to see some fundamental weaknesses exposed here.  Also some strengths - turns out that Perrin is a downhill hero.  We made some good progress and learned some new tools - there are definitely some things we'll keep working on.  First cook group stepped up to the plate and produced a hearty meal of risotto, spinach salad, and bread sticks, preceded by a classy fruit and cheese plate and finished with a delicious strawberry shortcake topped with cream that had been lovingly whipped by hand.

Day 2:  Froid.  Really froid.  We covered up and went out for another nice long classic tour.  There was a frantic flurry of Thanksgiving cooking before and after our PM skate workout.  This was one of our smoothest Thanksgiving meals ever - Elliot is pretty much a turkey expert now, and everyone else displayed remarkable competence with their meals as well (thanks largely to Leslie's presence as kitchen consultant).  The final result was outstanding.  This is always a special day for our team - we have so much to be thankful for, and even though it's always hard to be away from family, it was so nice to share this meal with such a special group of people.

Day 3:  Less cold.  More classic skiing!  Some good technique work and good progress made.  After lunch we had to switch over to new lodging since our beautiful Boreal was booked for the weekend - no big deal once we got settled in.  That afternoon we previewed the time trial course despite not knowing exactly what it was.  Next cook group stepped up to the plate with a fine curry over rice, green beans, and warm berries on ice cream.

Day 4:  Time trial!  5/10k skate with several other college teams and some local biathletes.  We're focused on being race-ready for January, and that showed in our results - nothing special, but we'll get there.  All three first-years skied over their heads and put up some very competitive finishes - nice showing for their first time wearing the Bowdoin suit.  It was a good tuneup and a good learning experience - plenty of stuff to work on in the coming weeks.  That afternoon we decompressed with one of the most amazing classic skis any of us have ever had - a long loop on a remote trail that most of us had never skied, with tons of climbing and absolutely stunning views of the frosted boreal landscape with the first hints of sunset in the sky.  On the way down from the high point we formed some mini-trains and got going shockingly fast - fun times.  Saw a moose, ripped some turns, and had a great great final night at camp.  The last cook group swung for the fences with an ambitious attempt at French-Italian fusion cuisine:  pasta puttanesca, potatoes au gratin, spinach salad, and cake with lemon curd and whipped cream.  Good stuff.

Day 5:  Sadly, there was no final morning ski at Foret.  With threatening weather closing in, we decided to sprint out of town and head home early to beat the storm.  This was a good choice - looks like we missed a lot of freezing rain from Quebec City to Jackman.  As it was we still drove through some snow in western Maine, but no big deal.  As a consolation prize, we stopped at Quarry Road for a short ski before completing the trip - it was nothing like Foret, but any snow time in November is like gold.

Overall, this was an amazing camp - we couldn't have asked for better conditions, and we certainly took full advantage of them.  Now it's time for a rest - time to sleep off all that training and get schoolwork sorted out before the final push to exams!

November Less-Rain

November is turning out to be slightly less rainy than October, but we're at no risk of drying out any time soon.  That hasn't stopped us from crushing some good workouts as we move toward Thanksgiving Camp.  Some highlights:

- A first-time workout for Bowdoin Nordic:  classic roll to Reid State Park finished with a run on the beach.  The sun was out for the first time in days, the pavement was perfect, and the scenery was gorgeous - a perfect day.  We'll definitely make this an annual session.

- A rollerski skills workout around Farley and Watson.  Not the most exciting scenery, but with a short loop we were able to stay in constant contact with the skiers and give everyone some good individual feedback.  Now that we're into short days and early darkness, on-campus workouts like this are a productive way to use our limited daylight.

- Skate roll intervals in Woolwich - quiet roads, good pavement, and nice rolling terrain made for a fast and competitive workout.

- Another Bowdoin Nordic first - Thursday game day was football under the lights!  Turns out that nordic skiers are not very good at football (except for Renae, who appears to be related to Tom Brady).  Fun times, anyway.

- Hitting the weights and getting huge.

- And another batch of sand skiing intervals.  No such thing as too many trips to the beach!  People were really locked in this round - one of our most productive sand ski sessions ever.

One more week of good hard training before Quebec.  Looks like there's plenty of snow up there - can't wait!

Maine Event and More

Last weekend we attended the Maine Event, a fun agility challenge hosted by NENSA at Pineland - so great to have a NENSA rollerski event come to Maine!  The course featured three different wooden ramp-type rollers along with the usual slalom, grass skiing, figure 8s, etc - fun stuff and a real skills challenge that showed us a lot about everyone's strengths and weaknesses.  The dire forecast kept the numbers down, unfortunately, but even so the Maine teams showed up in force - lots of Colby, Bates, and Gould skiers joined us, along with a couple local skiers from Freeport.  It was pretty fun to watch everyone learning and improving as the morning went on - as they figured out how to ski the rollers you could see body position change as confidence grew.  The rain held off long enough for everyone to get several practice runs and a good clean qualifying round.  Our women crushed it - Renae 2nd, Perrin 3rd, and Gabby 4th.  Men were solid as well, with Noah G 6th and Elliot 7th.  Good showing by the first-years!  The heats were set up bracket-style, with skiers going head to head starting on opposite sides of the loop - a super cool idea that ended up being a bit too time-consuming once the cold rain started up.  With the course getting slick and the skiers starting to freeze, we all huddled and decided to cut the event short - a few rounds of heats heavily compressed, with the qualifier serving as the final results.  It was kind of a bummer that we couldn't stick to the original format, but everyone still got in a great morning of skill work and competition.  Thanks to NENSA and Pineland for hosting a fun event!

We got up to a lot of other good stuff in the second half of October:  mystery intervals at Pineland, a couple visits to the quiet back roads of Woolwich, a pair of fast and high-quality workouts on the bike path, some good hard hill repeats up the water tower hill in Topsham, and lots more.  We're just now wrapping up our favorite recovery week, the annual Most Boring Week Ever - short and simple workouts close to campus as the daylight gets shorter and shorter.  Daylight Savings on Sunday, so next week it'll be time to shift to the earlier practice schedule.  We're trying an experimental new practice schedule that should make it easier for everyone to get to practice.  Hope it works out - we'll find out soon!

First Couple Weeks

Time's been flying by since we wrapped up tryouts two weeks ago.  After a couple good training days, we hosted the Phil Soule 5k for Homecoming Weekend.  This is always a hectic day, and it's extra exciting when it happens during Fall Break, since we have to bolt out of town right after the race to get Fall Camp started.  Fortunately, the race went pretty smoothly - 70+ runners competed in a light rain, and a good time was had by all.  After a quick brunch we took off for Northfield, MA, where Leslie had been able to set us up with a couple cabins (her own and a neighbor's).  We shook out the legs with a good hard bounding workout at Northfield Mountain before settling into the cabins for a delicious chili dinner.

Next morning we ran/hiked all over Pisgah State Park across the border in New Hampshire, a beautiful expanse in a corner of the state we never pass through.  That afternoon we completed the triple play with a nice roll in Vermont, ending on one of the best rollerski roads any of us have ever seen (Huckle Hill Road in Vernon).  Fall colors were amazing against the overcast skies, and we finished a hard day of training happy.

That evening we cooked a nice pasta dinner and spent some quality time learning interesting stuff about each other, playing games, and toasting marshmallows around a bonfire.  We left Northfield the next morning and stopped on the way home to check out one of Gabby's favorite training routes, the classic CSU rollerski in Littleton, a winding series of country-ish roads through small towns and farmland.  All in all, a pleasant little camp with three days of quality training.

Since then, we've been settling into our regular fall training routine with some old and new favorites:  30/90s on Ridge Rd, rollerboard, pool running, Marty sprints, Wolfe's Neck roll/run, and of course a little sand skiing.  It's a small crew these days, with 6 juniors abroad - that feels odd sometimes, but it makes for a nice compact training group out on the roads and trails.  Health and energy has been good for the most part, and the skiers look fit and technically sharp - so far so good!

Morse Mountain TT

Tryouts concluded yesterday with the Morse Mountain uphill run test.  Although it's not a perfect test (too short, too rolling), I love it anyway.  We've been doing it since 2008, so we have lots of data, and I love data.  It's also a beautiful spot for a time trial - nothing's better than celebrating the end of tryouts with a jog down to the beach and a quick dip in the ocean.  We had plenty to celebrate this year - several PRs, including a new team record for Renae!  The only negative was that we were missing 3 of the women due to various health issues.  Still, a good solid day to wrap up a great set of tests.

Women
Renae	6:28
Gabby	7:04
Perrin	8:01
Men
Noah E	5:48
Ian	5:54
Elliot	6:08
Sean	6:09
Noah G	6:09
Russell	6:11

Tomorrow we'll get going on a couple days of regular training and then Fall Camp!

Underway!

I'm always excited to start the season, but this year it's been like waiting for Christmas - so glad we're finally underway!  We started up with a fitness testing day on Sunday and then our first official practice day yesterday (ie, more fitness testing).  On Sunday our test was a 2x3k skate/classic rollerski time trial on Penny Road.  Elliot scorched it for the men and Renae posted the top women's time, with Gabby close behind.  This was my first time seeing everyone ski since March, and I was super stoked to see that people have made some noticeable technique improvements - off to a great start!

Name	SK	CL	Total
Elliot	7:59	8:23	16:22
Sean	8:09	9:03	17:12
Ian	8:33	9:09	17:42
Noah G	8:21	9:48	18:09
Russell	9:24	9:11	18:35
Noah E	9:15	9:33	18:48
Renae	9:58	10:15	20:13
Gabby	10:02	10:22	20:24
Perrin	11:16	10:50	22:06
Triana	11:40	11:28	23:08

Monday was everyone's favorite - the 2k erg test.  Elliot edged out Sean on the men's side, and Gabby posted a nice PR for the top women's time, not far ahead of Mary.  Mary's test was a classic example of a silver lining - she's been out with a knee injury for the last couple weeks, but she's obviously been using her training time well!

Women	Time
Gabby	8:24.8
Mary	8:31.8
Perrin	8:40.5
Renae	8:47.7
Men	Time
Elliot	7:07.7
Sean	7:09.7
Noah E	7:20.3
Ian	7:20.6
Russell	7:34.3
Noah G	7:37.8

Our agility test was rained out this morning, sadly, but we had a nice on-foot session with all kinds of good stuff - agility, coordination, elasticity, and a little spenst.  Good solid general strength workout this afternoon - looking forward to the big finish at Morse Mountain tomorrow!

Abroad Updates

We have an unusually large number of people abroad this fall.  It's sad and lonely without them, of course, but we're happy that they're all off having great adventures.  I've gotten a couple updates so far - here's a quick overview of who's where and what they're doing:

Orion is in a small city in China - sadly, I've forgotten the name.  As far as we know he hasn't been chased by any rabid bats lately, so that's an improvement over Montana.

Luca is in Switzerland - again, I can't remember the town.  I am a very provincial New Englander and can't be expected to remember complicated things like the names of foreign cities.  He's living with a very kind host family and is really stretching his comfort zone by trying lots of new foods - he proudly reports that he's eaten everything he's been served so far.  Studying abroad really does contribute to personal growth!

Christian is in Bergen, Norway.  He's finding all the good training, including a rollerski workout at Holmenkollen.  Last I heard he had just come back from a weekend field trip of clambering over glaciers.  Rad.

Cirque is in Cape Town, South Africa.  He's studying hard and doing a lot of surfing.  I am very concerned about shark attacks but so far so good.  He's found some great trails overlooking the city - here's a photo of the view:

Fiona and Lily are both studying in Grenoble, France.  Fiona flew over a bit early and met up with long lost ski friends Ellie and Hannah (Miller) for some hiking in Switzerland.  Here are a few photos:

Apparently Hannah is British now.  All I know about Lily so far is that she got lost on their first trail running workout, so she's clearly feeling right at home.  But she brought an exergenie, so fake gold star for her!

I'm definitely noticing a void with all these big personalities overseas.  It's going to be strange once we start team practices without them.  But I'm super excited that they're having these great experiences - can't wait to hear their stories!