Western Mass. adventure weekend

Last weekend, a crew headed out west to join our friends at Berkshire Nordic for a ski and to jump into the Mt. Greylock trail race. It was a pretty jam-packed weekend. Huge thank you to Notchview reservation for letting us spend the night there, and to Sheila Niedeck for all her organization before the weekend!

What follows are a TON of photos. Enjoy!

First, we rollerskied:

We also learned the ways of writing a Kate-length training log post: 

Then, we swam:

Then after some lunch and a little chill time, we went for what I described as a "walk." The theatre group chilling on top of the viewpoint started laughing when they heard how long it took us to walk to the top. "oh, yeah, we totally timed our hike too, and it was about that long." As we jogged past them on the way down, they shrieked and hid behind trees. I hope they were just being dramatic...

The crew!

Next we headed home, where the kids got some homework done (finals are coming up, after all), ate pizza, and made s'mores.

Notchview is so pretty under a sky like that. Good night for fireflies! Zyna taught us not to catch the ones near the ground, those are the ladies and they bite.

No time for capture the flag today, and a big day tomorrow! 

Sunday's adventure was a mountain race, up Mount Greylock and then 9 miles of technical trails to descend. A half marathon with 800m of climb, on a hot day, was definitely going to be a challenge! I didn't run, so got the change to take photos, climbing the mountain with poles and then going down a slightly option than the 9-mile version. Anyone who beat my time from last year earned free ice cream after the race; everyone else had to pay for their own ice cream. 

Phoebe crossing the visitor center at the top. Always smiling! 

Kate thoroughly enjoying herself

Ayden cresting the hill!

The ascent trail

Ben and Linden got to the top together; Linden took in the view

I cheered and gave out high fives, to our runners as well as everyone else in the race who wasn't wearing headphones, and then headed down the Gould Trail to catch the kids again with about two miles to go. They were universally less smiley at the second point, but seemed to cheer up after seeing me. 

Ben turns the corner

Phoebe cruising down the hill

Ayden seemed to be floating down the hill, and claimed to have a little Type I fun out there too

Linden thought he'd rather have twice the up and none of the downhill

Kate was not wearing this expression a second earlier

most forced smile ever

Or maybe this is the most forced smile ever

Taking to heart my comments that you can just let your arms flop all over as balance ballast on a downhill

After a good long well-deserved soak in the little stream by the finish, it was time for ice cream and then homeward bound. Sunburned, bug-bitten, muddy, tired, and full of happy thoughts of mountain days.

"where do you guys want your post-race photo?"

unanimously - 

"right here!"

Ayden and Ben eating their well-deserved free ice cream! 

First hot roll of the year

Whoops, this is three or four weeks late...

Hot day, lots of pollen, but still a great day to go skiing. You could see sheets of pollen hanging in the air, and our clothes and skin were coated in it by the end. Not a good day if you’ve got allergies... but summer training is rolling along well regardless!

Chili after the roll 

CSU Rocks at Run of the Charles

The CSU Junior team showed that DP training is good for cano racing as they trained 2 whole times and managed to come in 5th out of 60 boats and second in the overall team event this past weekend at the 36th ROTC festival.  There are several shorter events with Kayaks, Canoes and Standing paddle boards, but the main event is a 24 mile Relay Canoe race that starts near 128 in Dedham and winds along the Charles through 5 legs and 6 portages to finish in Boston right where the Head of the Charles finishes.  One if by land and two if by sea.  I wish I could have seen the canoe sprinting down the middle of Newton Lower falls as I can only imagine the team set a blistering running pace in that 1/3 mile portage.  Just think of the shoppers with their morning java.  I was highly impressed when Maile and Ben finished the last leg navigating white water and 3 portages relatively unscathed.  They took on the vaunted leg 5 which featured a small ledge and a broken dam both with standing waves that went over the bow.  The water was really high and the currents fast this year with many trees down (dangerous strainers) all along the banks, so I applaud the choice of the highly experienced Maile on the last leg.  The final time was 4 hours and 5 minutes which is surprisingly fast for the newbies.  Just getting to all the access points, finding the right bends in the river and locating the portages is an issue, especially in the fast current where staying upright in those tricky takes outs is essential.  Thanks to Wes DeNering for loaning the fast Kevlar Canoe.

First Leg        Ayden and Julian
Second Leg   Connor and Robert
Third Leg      Elizabeth and Lucy
Fourth Leg    Linden and Capt. Kevin
Fifth Leg -     Ben and Maile

The master's team combined 6 CSU skiers (Jaime, Wes, Andy, Cameron, Bob, Don) with two veteran paddlers and survived all challengers for the 16th win in a row.  16 years is really a pretty long time for the crew to keep winning given that we ski 10 X more than we paddle (except Jamie and Wes).  It is interesting that after skiing in Vt. and Norway on hills it is virtually impossible to paddle hard enough to breath hard.  You have to keep your upper body quite or the boat rocks and thus the core and arms are all that is engaged.  Regardless, Wes and Jamie are pros on the first leg, Don pulled off a the 2,3 double leg, Andy and the designated Sr. runner Cameron blistered the Newton Upper falls while Jamie and I cruised the white water to the finish with a time of 3 hours and 39 minutes.  Jamie and I did manage to dump the boat at the third pull out on our leg.  It is deep and had a big current with a tree in the one spot and a slower kayak blocking it.  I finally got out and went to stabilize the moving boat when I slipped back into deep water.  The boat went over and Jamie was out very deep in the current holding it until I could pull it to shore.  Not exactly the greatest technique, but we recovered and paddled on by that Kayaker in short order. 

Canoeing is a terrific sport, clearly good for DP and there are a lot of good rivers.  We look forward to next year when Kevin graduates so that some young team does not come along a knock of the old crew.
Coach Bob