Photos from Wachusett Run Test

John LaChance sent along several photos from last week's uphill run test at Mt. Wachusett and I have finally found some time to get them up here.  Results are at:  http://www.csuski.com/Home/useful-documents/test-results

Clara

Meg

Eric B.

Rosie

Old Coach

Rebecca

Jackson

Jordan

Tom and Eli B.

A fine cast of characters - Sir Lewis, Max, Will, Gavin, Hamish

Blue skies and high altitude in Park City!

It is weird to wake up in the morning and not look out the window to see what the weather is like outside.  Every morning I got up knowing it was sunny and blue skies outside because that is how summer is in Utah every day. I spent the last week at NTG (National Training Group) camp in Park City, Utah. I was fortunate enough to be able to be coached by many high level coaches such as Matt Witcomb (Women’s USST Coach), Bryan Fish and many more! Not only were there great coaches; we had the opportunity to train and test in the COE (Center of Excellence) and meet top athletes like Kikkan, Liz, many APU athletes and even athletes from other sports such as Bode Miller.

            We started off the camp with various types of testing. It was interesting to learn what the results of our tests meant and the feedback we got on what we need to work on based on the results. After the testing, we headed out for some agility practice; consisting of multiple 180 degree jumps and many other new challenges I haven’t seen yet. On the third day of camp, we did an OD combo of a classic ski followed by a run/hike. It was really cool to be able to stride uphill for a straight hour and 40 minutes. Due to the fact that we have no hills longer than 5 minutes at home, I got some pretty nice blisters on my heels, but it was totally worth it! Following the ski, we ran/hiked up the backside of Canyon Mountain and took the Gondola down, completing our OD combo workout. Later on in the week, we did some L3 threshold intervals, making all the sea level athletes feel the effects of altitude since we were training at around 8,000ft. One of my favorite workouts of this week was our OD double pole workout near the end of the week. We headed down to Provo on a newly paved bike path for a very scenic workout. With all of our new technique pointers given to us earlier by Matt during our video review session, all of us girls were double poling so fast that we were practically going at the same pace as the boys. It was pretty funny seeing the boy’s reaction when we hit the turn around point shortly after they did. We ended up skiing 22 miles along the bike path in 2 hours! For recovery, we spent the afternoon rafting/tubing down a scenic river, soaking up sun and team bonding. On our second to last day, we had a classic sprint simulation lined up. It was really fun to watch and participate in all head-on-head competition.

            Throughout the week, we had many awesome workouts and presentations where I learned a lot of new things about altitude, test results, strength training, technique and many other subjects. We also were able to have dinner with Kikkan and have Q&A session with her, allowing us to ask her anything, even things as goofy as where the pink hair came from and how the sock ritual came to be. Kikkan was so open to us and loved the many questions we had for her. We were also able to meet some key people in the COE and work with them. One thing I thought was really cool to try out was contrast bathing after workouts, helping my body recover quicker during a hard week of training. Not only did we have great workouts, I was able to make a lot of new friends and meet a lot of new people who are so supportive. You could tell it was the sixth day of camp when everyone knew each other well and the only conversation at the dinner table was giggling because of how much fun we were having with each other and how tired we were. A good team atmosphere is a key thing to have, which we had at camp, making it such a great camp. Kikkan and Matt Witcomb also talked a lot about how important it is to have a good team, which made me very grateful to have such an awesome and supportive team like CSU.

Girls team picture!

A view from our OD combo ski/run into Canyon Mountain

At the finish of our OD ski/run in front of the gondola

On our OD ski/run with an 1:40 of striding

Indian sprints on our DP OD in Provo

On our last day of camp on our run looking down into Park City!

Doing some 180 degree jumps during agility 

My superman pose off the trampoline at the COE

A goofy team picture!

Lynn Woods Relay

I always have a tough time organizing a relay team and this one was no different. Kathy twisted her ankle hiking and Rob tweaked his hamstring somehow so I moved on to plan B.  Since Lewis hadn't been able to nail down a team he happily hopped onto the team.  Now things were getting better!  Lisa decided her injury was healed enough she could run.  We had a team!  And a good one to boot!  So Lisa would run in Kathy's spot and Lewis in Rob's spot.  The key to organizing one of these things is to get fast people to run with you.

There were 110 teams entered, a new record for this event.  I last ran it in 1996 with Rob and a couple other masters skiers.  For this version we were entered in the co-ed division, the largest group in the race.  I led off, suffering a bit in the heat but with lots of company to chase.  I handed off to Lisa squarely in the middle of the pack and she promptly got down to business passing runners in front of her and setting the fastest Doucett time for the night.  Lisa handed off to Lewis having moved us up the field considerably and he had a string of 6 runners spaced out in front of him to reel in.  He quickly dispatched them and then a bunch more, running about 5 min. faster than me.  He kamikazied down the last hill to hand off to Alex in 24th place and Alex motored right up the first hill, but finding out in the process that her cold, while much better, wasn't completely gone.  It is nice to be able to breath in a race and running fast will quickly bring out any weaknesses! However, Alex passed a bunch of people too and in the end we had a great finish.  Results for our team are below.  Here is Alex bringing it home.   Lewis is in charge of rounding up a few more teams for next year.

22. CSU NORDIC SKI COACHES (211)     1:14:36

  JAMIE DOUCETT              20:29     20:29

  KATHY MADDOCK              40:35     20:06

  ROB BRADLEE                56:14     15:39

  ALEX JOSPE               1:14:36     18:22

52. CSU NORDIC SKI COACHES (211)           20:29

  JAMIE DOUCETT              20:29     20:29

37. CSU NORDIC SKI COACHES (211)           40:35

  JAMIE DOUCETT              20:29     20:29

  KATHY MADDOCK              40:35     20:06

24. CSU NORDIC SKI COACHES (211)           56:14

  JAMIE DOUCETT              20:29     20:29

  KATHY MADDOCK              40:35     20:06

  ROB BRADLEE                56:14     15:39

Tripyramid hike/run

And intrepid group went to the White Mountains two weekends ago, to make an ascent on the tripyramids. Fearless leaders Kathy and Rob, accompanied by many other adventurers, spent a morning  scrambling up sheer rocks and then back down them before landing in a river. A good time was had by all, and there was no crying.

No Pole Time Trial

Thursday was a perfect day for a time trial of the no pole variety.  A few photos:

Tearing it up in the U.P.!

     It is fair to say that the U.P. (Upper Peninsula) is quite a beautiful place. Leah and I (Julia) spent the last week in Marquette, Michigan at NMU for J2(U16) National Camp. If you don’t know where this, we were about 500m from the shores of Lake Superior. We started off the week with a hill bounding workout in 50 degree rain, for which we weren’t prepared after our 90 degree heat wave in Boston right before. Leah, Hailey and Katharine found the upside in this however and went puddle jumping in this weather to wash off the dirt. A few days later, the uphill run test rolled around with warmer weather and sunshine that consisted of a pretty flat 17min course where Leah tied for second place, only a second after Katharine Ogden. This was followed by the strength test where both Leah and I improved overall compared to REG camp. For our last roller ski workout, we simulated a classic team sprint on a very tactically challenging 3min sprint course. Each team consisted of 3 athletes, which were created based off of the prelim we did previously. Every person went three times around the course tagging off to their teammates, which was a fun way to get in some double pole intervals and practice classic sprint agility and tactics. On the last day we all piled into an NMU coach bus and headed off to the Pictured Rocks for an hour-long drive along the coast of Lake Superior. Upon arriving, we split into multiple groups based on the time we wanted to run and then we headed off. Our fearless leader, Dan, a coach at the camp, lead us on a run along the coast with many scenic views. Since the run was so nice, we ended up going longer than we originally planned. One of the highlights of the camp was the cool cliff jumping we were able to do many times throughout the week, jumping into crystal clear water which served as a nice ice bath after the workouts. We also had a great time reuniting with friends and making new ones, creating a fun camp atmosphere, which made us feel like a team by the end of the week. 

By: Leah Brams and Julia Kern

Our group at the Pictured Rocks run.

Friends!

Underwater Selfies!

Hailey Swirbul and I.

Leah conquering the cliff!

The Team :) 

Girls team going digging at the beach.

Gavin with 3:30 running group.

Leah skiing on "The Island"

Group Selfie!