Western REG (part 1)

This past week Alicia, Elena, Rogan and I travelled up to Park City for the Western Regional Elite Group (REG) training camp.  We were again set up in condos at the base of The Canyons Resort, which I learned was one of the three largest ski resorts in the country.  It doesn’t look like much from the base, but as we started running up the mountain for training the first afternoon, once you get over the first ridge the ski trails and peaks of the resort seem endless.  So does the winding, climbing single track.  The trails were awesome running, but I bet it would also be sweet mountain biking.  Just ask Alicia about that.

The second day was when the real training started.  We all piled into vans and headed to Soldier Hollow for some roller skiing.  If you think those trails are awesome in the winter, try flying down the hills and around corners on roller skis.  True, the paved trail aren’t quite the same super fast and crazy down hills that are on the Olympic race course, but when you are buzzing along on narrow strips of pavement, it seems fast enough.  And if you ever do get there in the summer to check it out, I have a word of advice.  Follow the DO NOT ENTER signs.  Myself and two other coaches went early to scope out a good loop that would be safe for the kids to ski, but we inadvertently skied past a do not enter sign and quickly found ourselves hurtling down a twisty hill like an out of control missile.  And then we exploded.  All three of us, ending up with matching missing patches of skin on our hips and elbows. 

When the real athletes showed up and showed us how to ski.  We did a 2 hr skate roller ski workout with some speeds and video technique work.  With all the chaos of packing 30 skiers plus coaches onto the trails, doing speeds, and skiing on some rocky roads, there was not a single fall or use of a med kit.  Good job guys!  For the workout we broke down into smaller groups that we would use later in the week to look at the video and discussion about technique.

The afternoon was a pole bounding intensity workout.  This was a combination of short fast intervals (15 sec) with a lot of recovery between each one (2 min).  On these types of workouts, the rest is important to be sure that our muscles are firing at the top end for each interval.  After the explosive stuff, the workout continued with longer (2-3 min) threshold intervals.

Each day we got to wind down with a nice meal from chef Doug and a team meeting to discuss schedule or hear talks from the USST nutritionist or USST member Andy Newell.  I’ll post later this week with more from the REG camp.

Happy training!

Finding our Stride

I’ve mentioned this a few times already, but it is worth mentioning again.  It is really important to take some time in the summer and really break down to the basics.  We’ve been doing that over the last couple of weeks, starting with a lot of no pole technique work and also some ski walking technique.  It all comes from the core (yeah, that’s why it’s called the core).  Our core marks our body’s center of mass, so all of our stability is driven from a strong and centered core.  If you want to go faster, just move your center of gravity further forward.  Duh! 

I guess it’s easily said, but what’s going to stop us from falling on our face?  Well, on roller skis, not much!  Hopefully, our strong core keeps us balanced in the upper body and the lean come from the ankles.  Once we get the position, our skis should accelerate on their own and keep up with our falling body.  Again, this is what we are striving for.

Same deal when we are ski walking.  Or running.  Yeah, running is what really got me on this mindset.  I’ve been reading a bit about Chi Running in order to help me prepare form Leadville, but the more I read about it, the more I think it relates to skiing.  Almost all the key points of Chi Running can be (and usually are) applied to Nordic.  Relaxed Shoulders, Stable Core, Forward Lean, Ankle Flexion.  Sound familiar?  I hope so. 

Whoa!  Enough about running.  Here were the top 5 things learned this week:

1. Roller Ski silhouette pictures look awesome 
2. Don’t roller ski by Bar-D on Tuesday afternoons
3. Ski walking feels as weird as my hair
4. Every roller ski is the ‘best roller ski ever’ when talking to those who were not there
5. 4:30pm IS the hottest time of the day

Euro Mountain Bike Trip

We are in Champerey and it is unreal!  We are surrounded by super beautiful and tall mountains. 
It is unreal!! Gino raced today and the rest of us race tomorrow. The course is ridiculous!! Yesterday preriding there were 4 huge crashes in the first 10 minutes. One girl broke her helmet, it sounded like a car crash. I did a huge endo and landed on my head and scraped up my new glasses and my face!! :( Thankfully it was soft ground though because I left a huge head plant which probably saved my helmet. (we have a good pic of it) my neck and back are super sore and stiff, not good. 

The experience is really cool because the Rabobank team is staying right next to us. We have kinda made friends with them, haha.  It is impossible to explain it here. There is a creek right by us and we went there yesterday. The water is super clear and awesome. Today I also bought about 2 pounds of chocolate (!!!!) so get ready. Haha.  The above pic is from our ride today.

Alicia