REG-ing it up

So I'm finally back from Craftsbury and the REG. The abridged version of this post can be summed up in a few sentences. The athletes and coaches were all top notch and my experience was beyond amazing. That being said there are also a lot of things I need to work on to progress my skiing ability. But I think the camp helped me organize my thoughts on my training and what I need to accomplish this summer to accomplish my goals for the coming season. I learned the three things I need to really work on are my running (basically to do more, as technical running and technical skiing are heavily related), increasing my threshold-base area (essentially extending my intervals although maybe not doing them as hard, so instead of hanging out at 180 for 3 minutes, go at 175 for 5-6 minutes and extend from there) and my general strength (not lifting, but my overall fitness with a focus on strengthening my core, shoulders, back, and arms). I think with those three things in my sights, I should enter into my college career on a good foot.

Now with that said let's start off on Saturday. We arrived at Hosmer Point that afternoon, which Craftsbury recently acquired as a camp last year. We were sort of the trial guinea pigs (I mean why start with 10 year olds when 18 and 20 year olds are so much more entertaining to watch struggle in the woods without Internet and cellphone service for a week?). Everyone got together for a nice run on the Craftsbury trails. That was my first time meeting all of these athletes in one place besides maybe JO's and one of the SMS camps a few years ago. It was so nice see all my friends from all over New England again. I knew that this camp was going to make us stronger skiers and also bring us closer together as a group. That night we met up with Brian Fish and he introduced the core concept of the US Ski Team: "get the best athletes together to train and compete." He also laid out the week for us. That next morning -after being humbly awakened at 5:30 by the extremely loud birds outside our window- we ate heartily and went out to our first series of tests. We were on skate skis doing agility work. However, this wasn't your typical do-a-little-dance-around-the-cones sort of thing. We were being timed to have fun. Now just imagine going around on wet pavement at a pretty good clip and finding yourself in a sudden 360 turn or making a transfer from pavement to grass and dirt back to pavement. All of these things were technically challenging but at the same time it made for a great workout and test. Overall I think I was 8th, which I was pretty happy about. I knew I wasn't in for the running for the NEG but it was still a fun test to stretch out the sprinting muscles. That afternoon I completed nap one of my quest for 1000 naps, which Jenna can attest to that I came pretty darn close. Later we played some soccer and met our friend from Russia, Victor. Apparently he is a Russian elite coach who has come to the States to watch us train, as he coaches young elite athletes back in the Motherland. He was great to have on staff and he popped up in our soccer game and blew us away with his speed. Unfortunately we lost one of our athletes that afternoon, as Paddy rolled his ankle pretty bad on the ball (and we're talking grapefruit sized swelling). And after a swim and some solid dinner we headed off to bed, like the good children that we are... :P

The next day we ended up doing a two hour double pole session in the morning. My technique was solid and I learned from Alex how engage more of my core from getting a better starting position, which seemed to dramatically increase my power output after tinkering with my form for just a few minutes. But thanks to the insanely humid weather, my hands ripped apart with blisters. Thankfully however, Peppa was there to work her magic and introduced me to using athletic tape rather than Band Aids. That afternoon has a little more of a funny side to things. We did an OD classic sesh with drills and I turned around with Jenna and Hannah as we knew that it was only supposed to be about an hour and half long. We arrived a little early and decided to keep going on the road. Peppa told us not to go to far as the road actually ends up merging with a larger, much busier route so we turned around after 10 minutes. When we arrived back at the Church, all the vans were gone. We assumed that maybe Peppa and Hans (who had been there 20 minutes earlier) had gone to pick up skiers who had thought that the workout was supposed to be longer. So we took off our gear and ran around on the Church lawn making airplane noises. 10 minutes go by and we're starting to get hungry. We also had run out of water and Gatorade at this point, so we're also starting to get dehydrated. 20 minutes go by and no van. At the half hour mark Hannah and I ventured over to the Craftsbury Community Care Center to call Hosmer Point. It took us a little while to realize that they hadn't updated the phone book and it was still under Windridge Tennis Camp. Bt even when we did get the right number, there was no answer. We couldn't call the coaches as they wouldn't be able to answer with no cellphone service. We were slightly screwed. So we walk back over to Jenna who has diligently been guarding our gear, this is of course after we talked to the elderly couples about nordic skiing and after we got our free cup of "pity juice" from the workers at the center. Even better: the lady who worked the main desk brought out a bag of bread for us that had been served that night at dinner. We quickly demolished it. By this time we figured dinner was over, the presentations were beginning, and it would take AT LEAST 10 minutes before anyone realized that we were missing and then another 10 minutes for them to drive and get us,f we were lucky that they realized we were missing in the first place. Hannah stomped in fury in the middle of the road and while Jenna poked her blister and I did Child's Pose. This was about an hour after the end of our workout. However, help arrived in the most unexpected manner. A truck pulled in and a man asked us if we needed any help. He was speaking a rough accent as well (I guessed Russian at first). He offered us a ride back to Hosmer but at first we were a tad suspicious. I mean, it's the middle of Vermont, no cell phone service, a random guy in a truck, and it's starting to get dark. The situation has horror-movie written all over it. However once he introduced himself as a Bulgarian who knew Peppa and had a skier daughter, we relaxed a bit. After some deliberations amongst ourselves, we piled in and drove off. Turns out this guy was on a silver medal winning team for ski orienteering in Bulgaria and moved to the States as a map maker. Small world. OH! And his name was Krum. For those Harry Potter geeks out there, Victor Krum? Bulgarian seeker? If you know what I'm talking about, then you'll be laughing by now. So we pull into Hosmer and barge into the meeting both hungrry and tired. Ida unfortunately had to deal with our mishap but like the good sport she is, she kept on giving the presentation as soon as Andrew shuffled us to the back to get some food and whip out the apology cookies. All and all it was an eventful day.

Tuesday came with the uphill run which I will just leave as a humbling experience. My time was okay. I threw up twice along the course -which never happens- and that slowed me down quite a bit. The motivational signs we made the night before were also extremely amusing to read as we ran by. My personal favorites included "WELCOME TO THE PAIN CAVE!" and "Whoot Whoot! The Pain Train is leaving the station!" So that was pretty cool. But watching Mary Kate slaughter that course was awesome. Kudos to her and her amazing week :) yaaaaah girl! That afternoon we did and easy skate OD with Ida and some Green Team members. Skiing behind her was an awesome experience and being able to mimic her technique brought me to a whole new level of happy. Again, this was another successful and motivational day. At this point in my journal entries I kept at camp I started to organize my thoughts into my plan for the summer and what I could work on.

Wednesday was my least favorite day. I mean when you come in dead last by a marginal amount in the strength test your confidence goes down quite a bit. And I will say this: I couldn't do a pull up. And really I never have been able to. But! I used that as my motivational starting point. If I can build up some strength, maybe by the next time I test myself or participate in the Canadian Strength test, I will be able to at least a few. That afternoon we took a day to go over the Elinor's Hill and shoot some biathlon rifles. I must say, I was even impressed with myself. 5 for 5 consistently, prone of course while not having the heart rate up. 4 for 5 on the combo where we did get our heart rates up. On our way back all I could think was "Hmmm? A NEW FUTURE?!?!?!" hahaha, of course we'll see how my first biathlon race goes in a couple of years once I learn how to get the gun off my back fast enough.

Thursday we did bounding intervals in the rain with Andy and Skyler who came down for the last couple days of camp. It was raining, it was tough, but it was a blast. We did some technical bounding before hand to get our muscles warmed up and then it was all uphill (literally) from there. After blasting out 5x5min on the hill I was quite satisfied with my efforts and did my cooldown with Chris from CSU, which was a pretty fun time, especially getting to see the camp from a J2 prospective (wow, I feel old saying that). We ran back home and by this time our cabins had already become nice and mildew-y so the addition of another 7 sets of wet and sweaty workout clothes didn't really make a difference in the smell, so we just hung them all over the rafters. After taking yet another nap (this is probably nap 8 for me) there was a  free afternoon so I used it to go work on my skate technique. Rob helped me a ton especially with my V2 Alternate and Brian had some great drills for V2 and really maximizing the most of each stride. It was a relaxing after a hard morning and once again we were all extremely happy to hit the hay that night.

I should mention that after dinner that Thursday night I came down with a massive stomach ache. I'm not sure if was from consuming whole milk that day with my granola or if I just had a bug, but it kept me awake all night. So when morning came, I rolled out of bed realizing we had double pole intervals that morning. Wasn't going to happen. So I talked to Janice and went back to be and slept until 10:30. Feeling a little more refreshed, I tackeled a banana to see if I could hold it down. I did. So that was a bit of a confidence booster. By the time the team returned I had about 85% of myself back and I stayed awake just that one afternoon so that Jenna and I could go down and shoot some archery. You know, shooting things like biathlon targets or bulls-eyes is extremely rewarding. It's the perfect stress reliever. We laughed about how awesome the sport of biathlon would be with bows and arrows (Future Red Bull Sport anyone????), I was feeling much better and I decided to go for a run that afternoon with intervals. So I ventured into the woods and took on 4x6min 30/30's and I have to say I felt awesome. Running through the woods is one of my favorite things to do. You really learn how to listen to yourself, the environment, and the critters that may or may not be under your feet. So after and hour and a half I triumphantly returned and ate my dinnner. That night we had a presentation on how to handle media and potential sponsorships. Not that I'll be needing my sponsorship skills anytime soon, but I think blogging has definitely helped my 'social media' skills a ton. Thanks Mr. Ryder for assigning that pop culture project :)

FINALLY (I know you're probably thinking, jeez she just needs to shut up now), Saturday I had a lovely OD session with Hannah on the roller skis. We skated for about an hour and a half and had some lovely conversations about where we want to take our skiing, especially after being motivated by this camp. We later join Olivia and Lizzo for a run back to Hosmer and through the woods. I, being the adventurous one I guess, led the pack through the tall grass and assured Lizzo that if there was a bee's nest I would take all the stings for her. I turned back at about 2hrs and 40m and arrived at camp just shy of the 3 hour mark. So all and all, after tallying my workout hours, I managed to run myself into the ground for 20 hours and fifteen minutes this week. Hoo hah.

So what's up next? Who knows. Tomorrow I'm heading to the coast for a 5k race at Gooserocks. Whether I'll actually race it or not is up for debate as I'm still pretty tired, but we'll see. Then it's a planned OD run on the beach after that. Soaking up some summer sun and sand running on the 4th. Nothing like it :)
Enjoy the summer training!
Cheers!