A Weekend in Bethel

This weekend was an extremely exciting one for me as I was lucky enough to head back to Bethel for some alum action (it still feels weird saying that). On Friday I was able to join the solid group of fall trainers and new head coach Tim Whiton on an hour and a half double pole/strength session which I must say felt so nice after my two hour car ride. It was kind of deja vu-esque skiing back on Vernon Street but being able to see how the team is progressing was really nice. Watch out everyone, Kyle, Molly, and Ashton are looking really good this year :)

I was able to stay with my friend from school at her house that night and the next morning we headed to campus. After catching up with teachers and friends, being spoiled with alum food, and sitting in on some classes, I met up with my bestie who is over at Colby-Sawyer. With her enthusiasm cheering me on, I ran the alumni 5k (although I must say it felt a little longer) and ended up taking home a pumpkin for being the first female finisher. So with lactate burning in my legs, smelly laundry accumulating in the back of the car, and an empty stomach gurgling like crazy, I headed home for my mom's birthday. And finally, after traveling pretty much all over Western Maine, I finally returned to Bowdoin.
Wow, I did not rest one second this weekend.

Anywho, the training has been awesome so far. Today I took off after my race (which was actually more of a two hour sort of training sesh with one single threshold interval) and the rest of the team headed out for their OD this morning. I'll probably end up doing a short run tomorrow. But overall I'm adjusting to the training schedule quite nicely. Our girls squad is a really great group of people and we're all getting along really well. Pretty much every workout we do together, and if not there's usually someone you can hook in with if they can't make the regular practice, so training is never lonely. As for my shoulder, the only thing that bothers it is bounding still. I'm not really sure why, but I can double pole and single stick just fine. I feel like I've regained most of my arm strength and my speed, leg strength, and threshold seems to be holding pretty steady. I've only had one bad workout so far and that was our second track workout of 200m race pace repeats. I was just recovering from a nasty little cold that had me bogged down for a while and I was only able to do about half the actual time we needed for level 3 that day. But, I'm glad I got the sickness done with early, that way (hopefully fingers crossed), I'll stay healthy for the rest of fall training and race season.
Enjoy the weather, even though it kind of needs to start cooling down. We need winter :)
Cheers!