Friday, May 28, 2010

Hardcore hard core

Some of the team gathered Friday night for Alex's circuit session. This is different than Monday's core strength workout because there is a lot more agility and power stuff involved, including the jump-360s, everyone's favorites. And who wouldn't love finishing a workout with 8-minute abs? The "extra credit" pushups at the end are totally optional, but everyone always seems to want to do them... we have a hardcore group at hardcore Fridays.

We're trying out for the Boston Ballet next. Our Riverdance skillz are unparalleled, as demonstrated.

Oooh the pain!

That's her tough face.







When I say jump you say how high...

The Russian Gangstamobile - good to have Olga back with us for the summer!

Saturday, May 22, 2010

It's Saturday, It Must be Littleton

Meg

Chris


The Jr. Group

We had a big early season crowd for the Littleton workout today with 18 Jrs, 4 coaches and several masters.  We broke the juniors down into 4 groups with coaches for varying distances of classic on a beautiful May day for rollerskiing! 

Monday, May 3, 2010

Hannah's Wellesley Fire Dept Road Race

A couple days ago my dad convinced me that I should participate in a local 5k that’s a benefit for our local Wellesley Fire Dept. The course starts and ends at Babson College, about a 3min run from my house, so I figured, especially after Rob’s harping on it being Period 2 on the training log (i.e. time to start intensity training), that I didn’t have much excuse not to. As I haven’t done any intensity for the past 5 weeks, I wasn’t counting on much, only hoping that maybe I could beat my dad.


The start - Hannah in blue
The course was simple: downhill for about a mile, flat for about a mile, back up hill for about a mile. My strategy was to work the up hills and down hills because I knew the flats would be my weakest section. I started off with the lead pack flying downhill. Thanks to Rob’s coaching, I knew that the most important thing to do was keep my body relaxed and bobble down the hill without using my feet as brakes (basically run pell-mell downhill). This got me to the first mile marker in 3rd place behind two guys who were both wearing Boston Marathon t-shirts. But I was starting to feel out of shape…I doubted I could keep up the pace.

On the flats I was passed and started up hill in seventh place. By this time I was recollecting what a privilege it is to race when it’s 30º or less outside and your body actually wants to warm up. My head was pounding and I started to wonder if racing after not training for 5 weeks in 90º heat is really such a good idea. But then I realized that wasn’t going to get me anywhere in the race so I remembered all those hill run time trials and focused back on pushing to the end. I was passed by a few more guys – I think they had more motivation not to get girled than I had to experience any more pain – and finished in a solid 10th place overall, two minutes ahead of the second woman. Not bad, I guess. Good news: after training for Nordic skiing all year you can’t actually get that out of shape in April.

The firemen had a nice BBQ spread after the race. Aside from feeling like I was going to wilt, it was a nice way to get back to the racing and intensity training mindset. I would gladly welcome anyone who would like to join me next year. (I think the prizes are better if you enter a team too).

(Hannah finished the 5km in 20:50.)