CSU Camp - Day 4

Photos of the morning pre-breakfast run, the hike with Rob and end of the day S'mores.  It was an excellent day!

Camp day 4: the hike!

The last Saturday of camp is traditionally the long hike across the Wapack trail. Half the group started from the north, and half from the south, switching car keys along the way. The weather was perfect, the blueberries were ripe, and the flies were sparse - all in all, a great day! After the hike, we all met up at Kimball's farm for lunch and ice cream, and then got the afternoon off. What a nice way to spend a day!


One group stuffs their faces with blueberries, while the other group jogs on past.

Alex leading the pig-tailed girls, Hannah and Zoe.

CSU Ski Camp - Day 3

Day 3 of ski camp went very well today with a variety of activities.  We changed the schedule a bit this morning so everyone could do 5 sets of classic speeds instead of an overdistance workout.  I don't have any pictures of those, but the kids did double pole, kick DP, striding, drop-in double pole and starts while some of the others worked on skate technique with Rob.  It was a good session, although there were some minor scrapes.  Its tough to handle speeds, even if they only last 10-15 seconds! 

In the afternoon we started with Alex's orienteering challenge.  26 controls were put out for a score-O and the teams of 2 skiers, including the BKSLers, had to try to find as many of the controls as they could using the maps that Alex put together in the 30 minutes alloted, after 2 minutes of planning to start, with penalties for getting back late.  Alex will report the results in another post.  People were running all over the campus, some a better sense of what they were doing than others. Following that hard-fought contest was core strength.  20 stations were laid out on the soccer field for each pair to go through, spending 1 minute at each.  After one time through and a short rest the circuit was repeated.  For some reason it seemed a bit more difficult the second time through!  Then came the dreaded 12 minute abs workout with everyone in a large circle.  Fail to transition properly to the next exercise or not get through the minute and we'd all have to start over!  No one failed......

To finish the day, Rob gave an excellent talk about motivation and visualization complete with an exercise in visualizing the perfect race. 

 Alex giving instructions

 Sue and Kathy planning

 Leah and Olivia

 John, Hannah and Rosie choosing routes

 Phoebe and Chris on the move

 Jacob and Erik goofing

 Tom and Mary at a control

 Planks!

 Lateral toss of the medicine ball

 Rebecca means business!

 Calvin - side plank

 John is on the ball

Sean doing lunges

Results from camp orienteering

Friday afternoon, the skiers did an orienteering course for a warmup for strength. They were in teams of two, chosen by the Junior counselors, with a good scattering of Bill Koch skiers and coaches on the teams. Most of the controls were in pretty straight-forward locations, but there were a few that caused some head scratching. The way it worked was that the teams had 30 minutes (and 2 minutes of prep time) to get as many controls as they could. Since Alex forgot to bring the real orienteering flags, skiers had to record the code of each control on their map - controls were pieces of orange flagging tape with a code sharpied on the end. The further-away controls were worth more points, and because the time limit was pretty short, it became an exercise in choosing which controls to leave out. For every minute that you were over the time limit, you lost a point. Teams also had to stay together - you couldn't send one runner out to get the code and then come back.

In the end, everyone seemed to have a good time, and more importantly, they all came back! Jamie will probably be posting some of the photos from the orienteering and from strength, but for now, I have the results! Only one team got the maximum number of points (60) in the time limit, but there were two other teams that got all the controls, and finished just overtime. Ties are solved by who finished first.

1. Rebecca and Chris K.: 60 points
2. Calvin and Oscar: 59 (OT)
3. Cate and Sam: 59 (OT)
4. Olivia and Leah: 58
5. Jacob and Erik: 58 (OT)
6. Julia and Ian: 57
7. Chris B. and Phoebe: 56
8. Claire and Rob: 54
9. Kathy and Sue: 50
10. Max and Carter: 50
11. Corey and Zoe: 49
12. Isaac and Gavin: 48
13. Olga, Talia, and Erin: 47
14. Catherine and Meg: 46
15: Katie and John M.: 42
15. Mary and Tom: 42
17. Greg and Cecily: 40
18. Sean and John P.: 38
19. Jane and Lydia: 29

Congrats to all who finished! And congrats for making it through another tough core session...

CSU Ski Camp - Day 2

Sorry I don't have more photos from day 2, but the morning workout was hill bounding and ski walking on Mt. Watatic with excellent views off to the north on a beautiful day.  We ski walked to the top, then did a series of short, explosive bounds with poles.  Then we headed further down to start a workout of 4 x 6 min. or 6 x 6 min. of ski walking intervals.  Everyone who thought this was going to be too easy a workout didn't think so by the end! 

In the afternoon was an OD skate ski.  We broke up into a few groups and got in between 1.5 - 2 hrs. of skating on some pretty good hills for an excellent workout. 

Finally, in the evening, to celebrate birthdays of Eli and Hannah we headed off to mini-golf and ice cream.  In the annual coaches battle Rob and I duked it out with me gaining revenge over Rob for last year's defeat.  Much fun was had by all and much blood was lost to the local mosquito population. 

 Top of Mt. Watatic before bounding

 Post ice cream and golf nonsense

Cecily rises to the top!

More photos from day 1

You got the gist of how things work from Jamie's post, but I had a couple more photos to add to the mix. Enjoy

We were all sitting by the green, and a group of golfers showed up hoping to use it. Rob instructed us to move off the green, and that it is proper etiquette to be silent as the person takes their swing, and then clap politely afterward. So, we did that, and those poor golfers probably couldn't wait to move on, and not have 30 interested skiers watching their every move.

Nice place. Doesn't this just look like one of those oil paintings of idyllic peasant scenes from England or something?

When Rob instructs us about the workout for the day, this happens, and angels sing.

Zoe demonstrating how to tie dye a bandana.

CSU Ski Camp Begins

Here are a few photos from the first day of CSU ski camp, post-skate technique workout and during evening activities.  Turned out to be a beautiful day on the hill!

 After workout jog

 Stretching

 Alex

Zoe and Olivia

 Ian balancing

Jane preparing to tie-dye

 Relaxing

 Rob in repose

Storm moving in