It's Been A While

Hello hello my blogosphere nerds. Contrary to popular belief, I am still blogging. It's just been so hectic since the end of Thanksgiving break with papers, exams, reading period, everything just flying by at a billion miles per hour. Thankfully, I'm home now, eating home food, sleeping in my own bed, and enjoying my pleasure reading that does not involve the history of Medieval and Renaissance Europe (History 110: it's great, but the Bartlett book -The Making of Europe- made me never want to read a straight up history book again. So dry and bland). I'm now taking the time to sit down, think of something somewhat witty, and write about the last few weeks.

Summary phrase of the last four or so weeks
Tiring but completely fierce.


I have to say, Canada was an amazing time. Yeah it was a little depressing being away from home for the holidays (as it was my first experience not being with the whole famn damily for Turkey Day) but all and all, I think our girls and boys teams bonded really well. The snow was a little sketch, but for the first two days, the track held up really well. Over the course of the week, we really put in some quality hours and technique sessions which I really felt I benefited from. We had our share of adventures: Kaitlynn breaking her skis, run-ins with the local fox, jamming to nostalgic middle school tunes, and a climb up a hill that literally took almost an hour (Sierra and Maren can attest to this beast of a mountain). Getting the snow time was so worth it though, considering when we came back there was literally nothing winter-y in Brunswick except the holiday wreaths all around campus.

All photo creds to Maren and whoever was using her camera at the time :)

The lovely lady Polar Bears:)

Adventuring in Quebec 

Waxin' up

The Boys looking good as always for Turkey Day (photo win to Alec) AND that bottle is actually a substitute foam roller. Just saying.

Photo bombed professionally by Mr. Chris Sanville

The Ladies serving up mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving

Team bonding over Turkey. Note, the steam building up on the window from all the skiers in one space.

The shirtless clean-up crew (GO U MEN)

Riley REALLY helps out with dishes.

A popular question from Natedawg over camp: Ou est le Drew? Here he is.

Erin and Jackson wrecking houuuseeeee

Riley

Yayyyy first race as a Polar Bear :)

Kaitlynn having a great race :D

After Canada, school really picked up. And when I say school picked up, I mean school literally snowballed into a giant heap and left itself at my dorm door for me to pick up. Training happened to be very similar in structure, especially the week after the week we got back from camp. We managed to squeeze in a time trial with the Bates-ies and that was actually a lot of fun. Granted, we were all really tired from that week of training and I personally think my results were kinda crappy, but all and all it was a good excuse to put on a bib and get into the mindset.

Following that time trial is a blur of ridiculously awesome workouts, specifically this one running up the hill at Mt. Ararat High School that I absolutely loved. I'd have to say though my favorite was the one we did the Saturday before reading period started up, which was a 2 minutes at threshold with 30 seconds rest for a solid 50 minutes. At the beginning I thought I wasn't going to make it, but lo and behold I actually felt myself getting faster as the workout progressed and I ended on a really good note. During our cooldown, Riley helped me identify the wildlife along the side of the road (they were guinea hens by the way, very loud little birds that I would not want anywhere near my house) and we ended up going longer than expected but that was all fine by me.

I should probably throw in the pictures from my first Bowdoin hockey game against Colby. YEAAAH GO U BEARS!! MULES ARE STERILE!!!!! (We lost by the way. How sad....)

RAWWRRR GO U BEARS!

Polar Bears are always FIERCE

Then we hit reading period. And finals. And everything training-wise got put not necessarily on hold, but it kinda did. I can honestly say I don't think I've ever sat down and just studied like that. It was exhausting. I mean think about it. After a two hour ski with intervals, yeah you can go around saying "man, I'm wicked tired." But after a four hour study sesh in Hubbard writing out the entire history of Medieval and Renaissance Europe, are you really allowed to feel tired? I mean all you were doing was reading, writing, and talking aloud to yourself. And yet you feel like you have just finished said two hour ski. Hmm. Something to contemplate.

So now, thank goodness, I'm home. And I must say, this new puppy (yes we have a new puppy) is the new star in my life. Hattie is now 15 weeks old and can scale puppy gates with a single bound. Not to mention she is probably THE FLUFFIEST THING ON THE FACE OF THE PLANET!!!!!! Well, I'm biased so I'll let you all be the judges, but I personally think she's a very photogenic pooch.

The workouts at home are going pretty well. Today I visited my trails over at Titcomb and indulged in some VO2 max running interval ladders. I was really surprised because I remember doing threshold intervals over there this summer and running was so much more difficult. Now, running the hills and trails seems so much easier and I can really push myself. Hmm, am I saying I feel results of my training? Possibly. But the real goal of these next two weeks at home is the maximize my training and get race ready. Without snow, we just haven't had the chance to really get fast on skis yet. So that's the goal. Find snow, get fast, and get ready to rock it this coming season.

So the tree is lit, the house is decorated, the Italian cheese stuffed pasta noodle things are made (my specialty), and cookies are in the freezer, and the Italian opera singer Andrea Bocelli fills our house with his joyous Christmas tunes. With that in mind, all we need is this Christmas storm. Cross your fingers for the snow. We all know we need it for US Nationals in less than a month and the Eastern Cup at Titcomb. SNOW DANCES EVERYONE, WE NEED SNOW DANCES!!!

Happy holidays to everyone!
Cheers!