Jess and Alex go on a Vermont adventure

After the Concord crit, Jess Snyder and I drove to Vermont, to get her skis evaluated by Zach Caldwell before he goes west, and then to do some serious ski training. We decided that the best plan would be to do a super duper long distance workout, because thats kind of fun, in the twisted skier's mind. So, we decided to start with a run, then ski, then bike to finish off as many hours as we needed that day. The run section vaguely followed this, over the top of the Peabody-Holt mt saddle, onto the Catamount trail, hitting up with the Danby road in the White Rocks Recreation Area, and then down down down down down into Danby. We stashed our skis by a dugout in Danby, and then skied along these roads, mostly uphill, through Walingford, East Walingford, and to the top of the pass into Weston. There, our bikes were locked to a tree by the side of the catamount trail again, and we switched out equipment again and biked home (route).


Mandatory "before" picture

We drove the loop before we started to put all our stuff in the right places. Mostly, we were just worried about having enough food. It took about an hour and a half to drive the whole thing, since we were going to be covering about fifty miles (on foot). The run started out in the shade, and we were up pretty high in elevation, so it wasn't too hot. Jess wanted me to remind her to drink out of her waterbottle enough, so I made loud, obnoxious slurping noises every time I was planning on taking a drink. It worked pretty well. We came over the top of the saddle between the two mountains, and descended into Green Mountain National Forest.

The part along the Catamount trail is gorgeous, and there were no bugs. Eventually we had to negotiate a little beaver dam damage, but otherwise the run went smoothly. Coming out of the woods onto the Danby road, we were still in the shade, and we started taking some "action" shots.



When the road turned from dirt to pavement, we knew we had come to the downhill section, and for about 20 minutes we went steeply downhill. Eventually we crossed a stream, and temptation was too strong; We took a five minute break to ice our lower legs and refresh ourselves before skiing.
We got to the dugout, and the skis were still there! That is step one. Got on the skis and started out north along rt 7, which is pretty flat, so we did a lot of double poling at first. Eventually we got into Walingford, and wasted a good 10 minutes searching for a place to fill up water bottles there. I guess being sick has its advantages; you're thirsty all the time, so you drink a lot. I always felt like I was full to bursting with water and gatorade, which was mostly a good thing.

The ski soon started uphill along a really pretty river on rt 140. It was still pretty shady, which was good because it was really hot down there. I should mention that we were trying to carry our running shoes with us on the ski, so that we wouldn't have to return to Danby (its harder to get to than the area where we dropped off the bikes). So, our waterbottle belts were so heavy that it took me a good 20 minutes before I felt comfortable enough to stride. We had water bottles, gu, bars, gorp, two shoes, sunscreen, a camera, money, and a shirt, all tied around the waist. Although a little bulky, it was less cumbersome than I would have thought.

Eventually we got up to East Wallingford, and after some more "action" shots, realized we were out of water. There are no gas stations or general stores in this town, so I was worried we would have to do the last eight miles or so without water. Luckily, there were a bunch of rednecks drinking beer on a front porch, and they were more than willing to give us water. "DANBY??? You came from DANBY??? Sheeeit, ah spent all day on a roof, but you rode in from DANBY!". They seemed suitably impressed, but it may have been the sports bras.


After a long stretch of stride-able uphill, we were finally at the bikes. We had been pretty good about being level 1 nazies, but we were still tired from running and rollerskiing for almost six hours.
We decided that the prudent thing to do would be to just go back home, rather than try and fit in a real ride, since we wanted some dinner and Jess had to drive back to Rochester that night. All in all, it ended up being about 6.5 hrs, most of which was skiing and running. Great day! (although my head could definitely have used some more ibuprofen at some point...)


Here, Ed laughs at us as we try to explain what we just did... for fun.

Concord Crit

So, I've been kinda sick all last week. I just found out something I already knew: racing doesn't make you get better. Even road racing, which is pretty darn easy on the intensity scale of things.

This past saturday was the Concord crit, in (you guessed it!) Concord NH. I did this one last year in the P/1/2/3 field, because I had a collegiate license and they didn't care what cat. I raced in. I got kinda shelled in that race with like 5 to go when my legs cramped up. Similar to last year, this year's crit was wickid hot, although there was a faint breeze out of the north, but this year I drank a lot of gatorade. I was in the cat.4 field, since I have an official license now. I gotta say, its kind of nice racing with the 4's. It was really easy to control the whole race. The 4's from my team were me, Julie, and Giulia, both of whom need like two points to upgrade. We decided that Giulia should win, because she needed more points, and Julie would be the leadout person, since she'd still probably finish pretty high after leading out Giulia. I was just the person who would tire out the rest of the field with attacks...

There weren't too many starters, maybe 20. The 123 field looked a lot bigger, and we had a bunch of girls in that one. They ran both fields at once, but it was pretty clean when the fields passed each other. My legs felt like absolute poo warming up, so I wasn't sure how much attacking, not to mention just hanging on, I could do. We started out and Giulia immediately went to the front. The first lap or so was pretty quiet, not much going on, nobody wanting to make a move. I was getting bored. Second lap, Giulia put in a slight move on the hill, and strung out the field a little bit. I countered on the back stretch of the high point of the course, and we were pretty strung out through the downhill corners. Next lap, Julie attacked. Strung out the field again. Next lap, I attacked. Then I started attacking each time I hit the hill, just because I was bored and it was too easy. My legs didn't feel good, but with the exception of my team, the people we were racing against just kind of sucked.

At ~9 to go, they rang the first prime bell. I figured, what the hell, noone else seems to care about racing, I'll try and take this. So I attacked with a purpose up the hill again, stringing them out and actually creating a small gap. I put in a good effort and had maybe 10 feet on the pack going down the corners, and I think Giulia and Julie were blocking a bit coming into the homestretch, although a couple people got around them. This is not a typical way to win a prime--you don't just go hard with the pack right there, because they'll pass you after resting on your wheel. Well, these girls were either scared of the wind or slow, so nobody passed me. God forbid that they should have to work!

I recovered well after that, and we just started attacking again. There was supposedly another prime in there, I didn't notice, but Julie said that Giulia won it, I was second, and she was third. I like it when that happens. Finally with three to go, the pack was down to ten. I strung us out pretty well going up the hill, and the Giulia counter-attacked, and Julie and I discussed some tactics for the last lap as we recovered in the back. I rested up until the last lap, and then put in the most disgusting attack I could muster at that point, pulling it out until we hit the first of the downhill corners, when I let Julie take over to recover for a sprint.

We came into the last corner, and I was on the outside, where I had been all race, because it was easier to pedal through it and keep momentum without busting ass to sprint back up to people. Someone on the inside wavered, caught handlebars with the Julie, (Giulia was in front of this), and they went down. This part was almost slow motion. I knew they would domino into the next girl, so I started moving outside trying to get around them. The girl next to them went down, into the girl next to her, who sprawled across the pavement in front of me. I tried to go more outside, but there was no more outside to go, and I was rubbing against this monster curb that I bet even Colin couldn't have jumped. I half hoped to be able to ride it out, but I had far too much sideways momentum, and so I ended up bouncing along on my head for a couple feet until I finally came to a stop. I was up pretty quick, and after deciding that I wasn't nauseous and I could remember things, and all my limbs worked, picked up my bike. Front wheel wouldn't roll, even with the brakes open, so I shouldered the damn thing and walked it in. I think it was Boobar who said he wished he'd had a picture of my face as I was walking it in. That still got me 6th place, so I guess we'd whittled down the field enough, but man was I pissed. Now I gotta buy a new helmet, dammit.

But, Giulia still won, and Julie was mad enough that she won the road race on sunday, so it all works out. Plus, we got money and schwag from primes and the win, so thats always nice. My front wheel is pretty FUBARed, since the rim is kind of bent, but Boobar was able to true it enough that it would roll on sunday. Some of those spokes have absolutely zero tension right now though. I had previously had to replace every spoke in that wheel due to a combination of last year's concord crit when a girl tried to put her derailleur through my wheel and kinked every spoke on that side, and when the airlines mangled the other side flying to France. So, now the rim is bent. Who wants to donate a wheel to me?


This is me walking around after the race. I don't look too happy do I...

Putting it together...

In the past two months, I've trained 162 hours. I've also been to Vermont (x3), Michigan, New Hampshire, West Virginia, Western MA, Buffalo NY, Seattle, Cincinnati OH, and Minnesota. And then I got sick. Huh.

Still planning on racing saturday (I already paid, dammit!), and then Jess and I are doing something very typical of a skier... run 13mi. Mostly downhill. Rollerski 25mi. Mostly uphill. Bike 50mi. Up and down hills. Woooo!!!! Training!!!! How DO I get so excited about these sorts of shenanigans? I guess I better put some pedals on my bike before this weekend.

Pictures from Olympic Peninsula

Four adults, two beagles, one car... and Rudi drove the car, obviously. Actually, it was a lot less hellish than I thought to have a dog sit mostly on your lap for many hours at a time. Thank god for frequent stops though.

Our view from Hurricane Ridge was pretty universal--although at times the mist in the trees got pretty dramatic.


This would be cresent lake--where we ate lunch one day. As you can see, a storm swept through, creating some awesome clouds and mist, as well as some wet picnickers.

We went to this beach, Rialto, that had these amazing sea stacks. There was also amazing driftwood--giant, giant trees, bleached by the sea. It was pretty cool.

Ed found a club. He was looking for baby seals to club, but only found Rudi, who didn't seem too adverse to being clubbed...






Different beach, back in the rain.

This is a rainforest, olympic peninsula style. Apparently its some of the only temperate rainforest in the lower 48. Very different looking than the stuff I saw in New Zealand.

I am a member of everything

Licenses I need:
USSA
FIS
NENSA
UCI
USCF
NEOC
CSU skiing
CSU orienteering
USOF

...and there are probably a couple more that I'll learn about soon. At least I haven't gotten into double digits yet.

No Pain, No Gain?

It has long been known that the old “no pain, no gain” approach to endurance training is not as effective as a periodized training plan. Running (or skiing, or biking, or swimming, or rowing…) as hard as you can every day will only lead to your “fast” days getting slower, because you are too tired from the other days to put out a good effort. Since that realization, coaches worldwide (I think it was some New Zealand dude who did it first) counsel their athletes to hard and easy days. The easy days must be kept easy, in order to be rested for the hard days. If an athlete is rested, he can go much harder (thus faster) than if he is tired.

What does it take to ski fast? Good technique, balance, coordination, explosive power, the right wax, well-fit equipment, general strength, core strength, giant triceps, the right mental attitude, good nutrition, attention to detail, genetic talent, and… fitness. Ahh, fitness. So many factors go into having a good race, but only one is of critical importance. Without fitness, it doesn’t matter how talented you are, how good your technique is, how fast your skis are—you will get beaten by someone in better shape.

You also need to know how to hurt. How to hurl yourself into the pain cave and stay there, until you cross the finish line. The racers you see with drool hanging out of their mouths collapsing at the finish line—those are the ones who were in the pain cave. They were racing at their limits; above their limits, which is the only way to excel. Sure, you need to know how to pace yourself. But you also need to know how to hurt. Without that, you will be forever destined to mid-pack mediocrity.

The flip side of the pain cave is recovery. Proper recovery is absolutely essential to being able to reach that pain cave. The recovery starts with a cooldown, but it doesn’t stop there. It’s wrapped into your whole life; everything you do affects that next race, be it in a positive or negative way. As hard as you train, the body will not absorb the training without adequate rest.

There are times of the year, of course, when it’s acceptable to be tired. In those heavy volume blocks, your body feels like lead. You drag yourself down the road, exhausted, until finally your body wakes up and responds, albeit sluggishly, to the activity and gives you some endorphins. Four hours later, you finish your workout, gingerly peel the gloves off your blisters, and eat. God, do you eat. It is times like this that you wonder, am I overtrained? Have I put myself into a hole that I can’t climb out of? And then, as you lower the volume and increase the intensity, it’s as if your body is springing back, feeling better and better as you feel more and more rested and recovered and sharp. And when you get that one race, that one perfect race, where it almost doesn’t hurt, and yet you’re flying, you know it was all worth it. This sort of peak doesn’t happen with the “run hard every day” approach.

The hardest part (says I) is getting up in the mornings at the crack of dawn, particularly after daylight saving’s hits. As you’re lying there in bed at 5:30am in the pitch black wishing with all your heart that you didn’t have to get up, you know that your competitors are out there, training, trying to defeat you before you even get to the start line. So you stagger out of bed, get out the door, and find yourself enjoying the brisk morning and the silence of the pre-dawn, as you get to work becoming a better skier.

So no pain, no gain? I think plenty of pain happens on the path to see gain, if in a different sense perhaps than the original intent of that phrase. I don’t know too many elite skiers who aren’t battling some sort of overuse injury. There are times when your body just aches from what you put it through. And racing brings pain to a whole new meaning. Does all this lead to gain? I think so. It makes you tough. After spending enough time hillbounding in the dark in a cold November rain, you feel pretty invincible. After getting up early for two weeks in a row during a volume block, you feel pretty invincible. After sweating through that last interval in July heat, you feel pretty invincible. And when you stand there on the start line, surrounded by people who on paper are much better skiers than you are, you draw on those past experiences where you felt tough, and it no longer matters that they have better skiing resumes. You know you can hurt; you’re confident in that ability, and that is what brings about a good race.

olympic peninsula

After some touristing activities in Seattle, we piled two parents, a daughter, a boyfriend, two dogs, and a lot of stuff into one little audi, and started driving. We took the ferry over to the Olympic peninsula, and it started raining. Lots of low clouds, and rain. We decided to drive up to Hurricane ridge anyway, to see if maybe we got above the clouds up there, and then we found out that the dogs weren't allowed off the pavement in the parking lot, because this was in a national park. Silly rules. So we drove uphill for 17 miles anyway, only saw one rider (in that weather, the uphill wouldn't have been so bad, but the downhill would have been hell), and popped in and out of the mist until we got up to the visitor center. The mist was beautiful, in its way, but it was raining heavily enough that we decided that having wet dogs on our laps for the next couple hours in the car was not worth a walk in the rain with a universal view.

Headed back down, occasionally stopping to take pictures, and then realized everyone was in desperate need of a nap, so we checked in to a hotel instead of looking for a beach to run around on. Day two, I found a trail to run on (instead of pavement) in the morning, which started the day out right. First stop was this mountain thing my mom had read about in a brochure, which turned out very difficult to find. Got there, though, and there are some awesome forests out there; giant trees and all ferns underneath. I would hate to have been the first people through this area; I would likewise hate to orienteer out there.

Next stop was Rialto beach, and this was awesome. It stopped raining, and the sun came out, and there were these amazing sea stacks. The dogs get so confused by the salt water; Rudi tried to drink it at one point and made the most amusing faces trying to spit it back out. Neither dog wanted to get their feet wet so spent a lot of time skittering around avoiding waves. Eventually we got out to the arch, a giant sea stack that was still connected at the top. It all looked pretty pirate-ish to me. Ed found a piece of driftwood that looked like a perfect bludgeoning stick, and sort of looked like a caveman the whole walk. He claims he was looking for baby seals to bludgeon; its good we didn't see any.

The last day we went to another beach, at Kalaloch rocks, but it was pouring rain, which meant we got to sit with sandy, wet, beagles the whole drive home. We swung by a rainforest, just to check it out, and it was very different than the rainforests I'd seen in New Zealand--very open and light, not at all as dense as I remembered. An abundance of moss hung from anything that would provide a purchase point, and everything was sopping wet, probably because we were walking around a swamp in the rain. Not the sort of place I would try to farm, although evidently people did that back in the day.

Once back in Seattle Ed and I went down to the market to go buy a fish. They'll box up whole salmon for you to take on the plane (or send to someone) that are good for 48 hours. So, we bought a fish. The fish markets are so darn cool there. I wish Boston had something similar. I'm sure it does, I just don't know where to go. So we ended up in Cincinnati to see Ed's sister, and we ate fish. This makes it maybe 5 nights in a row that I've eaten salmon. Man I love that stuff.

Back to Boston on monday. I feel like I need to find some sort of weekday race its been so long. Wish I had been around for mt. snow, I need a good ass-whoopin. Oh well, rest weeks are good too.