Ski camp update

We've been training a bunch up here, having a great time, and the weather has been perfect. Only problem is that I am slowly relapsing into the cold I had two weeks ago... darn you body, can't we cooperate? Tomorrow is the Franklin Falls time trial, which I'm really excited to try again. The only problem will be if my chest decides to fill in with green goo, in which case I'll have to scratch the time trial, which would be truly unfortunate. But probably smart... we'll see what tomorrow brings.

Mini tri, team-style

Triathlons aren't really my thing. I can't swim (I'm not just saying that; my favorite stroke is the doggy paddle), my worst discipline on a bike is a time trial, and my running has only landed me injured in the past couple years. The only place I really shine in triathlons are the transitions - I have those transitions DOWN!

Anyway, thanks to this lack of skill in these disciplines, my triathlon experiences have been few and far between, and mostly just because I've forgotten how much I disliked the last one. I might not enjoy any one of the individual pieces of a triathlon, but its ok as a whole, and so when I found out that Lake Placid has a mini triathlon every monday night, I really wanted to do it. So did a couple other people at the camp, even though we all realized that doing a triathlon the night of the same day we'd already done some quality L3 skate intervals was a dumb idea. We decided on a compromise of doing teams, which is super lame. But really, it was the only way to make it through a 20+ hour week with three (well, now four) intensity sessions. There are my excuses.
Lucy modeling Team Pink's swimwear.

I teamed up with Lucy Garrec (swim) and Jennie Bender (bike) to be team pink - I was running. Lucy was swimming in a hot pink bikini, and Jennie was riding in some sexy pink shades. I didn't have anything pink to wear (how could I let that happen??), although I played with putting Lucy's bikini top over my t-shirt. We were clearly being serious about this.
Jess came to spectate.

The swimmers took off, and Lucy held her own against aggro master blasters. She came in somewhere around mid-pack, tagged off to Jennie, and Jennie bolted off down the bike course. Soon, she came back after 13 short miles, and off I went on the run. I should mention that I really haven't run too much since this knee injury. I did my first running speedwork while in Switzerland, 4x5min threshold on grass. It was supposed to be 5x5, but, my knee had started hurting so I cut it short. I was hoping it would be fine for the full 5k...
Team Pink's first tag.

The run started on a flat paved road, and then transitioned to a marginally rolling dirt road, and the runners were told to turn around at telephone pole 13. Our guys' team runner didn't see the pole, and lost their second-place position by running six minutes too far. Pays to listen to the instructions at the beginning of the race... I started out pretty conservatively, since my warmup had really just been plodding around town and I didn't quite feel ready to fly, but I quickly passed a couple guys who were doing the whole thing. I got passed soon thereafter by another two guys, and picked up the pace to match the slower one. Shortly we came to the dirt road, and I used some of the hills to put some time on this guy. I was starting to see a couple people coming back, but I was pretty sure we were holding fast as the second female, behind some chick who had started the run 4 minutes ahead of me and looked pretty pro. After the turn-around I was starting to feel it a bit in my legs, and more worrisomely (is that even a word?) my knee was starting to hurt a bit. Just feeling a bit stiff on the swing-through. I tried to just ignore it and passed a couple more guys who weren't on teams, most impressively a guy who I had thought was going to be really fast, but clearly he just owned fast-looking clothing.

Nearing the end, I was trying not to limp - the knee didn't really hurt enough to limp, but my brain was being scared that it was going to get hurt worse and so it was trying to make me limp. Those damn brains. I was also trying to run more heel-toe rather than striking with my toe like I normally do, because my achilles was aching. I'm just a mess. Anyway, I heard breathing behind me, and it was definitely feminine breathing. Crap! I turned to look and it was indeed a girl, it was Margaret Maher, the NYSEF coach who I think is currently doing ironmans for fun. We had really hoped to beat her, and I realized it was up to me. Yargh. The finish was near, but not that near, so I decided to try picking up the pace. She held fast, and I realized an actual kick was required. I don't think I've had to really kick it in in a race in a long time, but it felt extremely good to just turn on the jets and leave my more tired competitor in the dust. Not that I could have kicked like that if I had actually done the triathlon... but it felt good nonetheless.

We left before they did awards, if they even did do awards. I don't think teams should get prizes anyway, so its just as well. Good times, but I don't think I'm going to be doing two intensity sessions in one day again any time soon. Thats just not smart.

Weddings and macroinvertebrates

Friday I found myself at the Friends of Alewife Reservation office helping out the Summer Ecology Institute - Arlene, one of my [ex-] colleagues, does a day on benthic macroinvertebrates each year at this camp, and I was helping her out with the kids. The plan was to identify dead bugs in the morning and then find our own live bugs, worms, and leeches in the afternoon. Unfortunately, we were rained out in the afternoon, but the kids had a great time identifying the samples in the morning. I had fun with that too, but would have really enjoyed walking around in the muck turning over rocks.

Saturday was Callie's wedding, which was beautiful - on the coast in Maine, and they served lobsters, it doesn't get much better than that. I ran into Pat Dean there, he's back in the states for the summer after teaching physics in Jordan all year, and he basically arrived in NYC and bought a bike and thats how he got to Maine. He wanted to get to upstate NY, and I was heading to Lake Placid, so after dropping Ed at the train station sunday morning, I picked up Pat somewhere on the road near Brunswick and we headed west. Which brings me to my current location - the Olympic Training Center in Lake Placid, for the SR/U23 ski camp. I'll keep you updated...

Captain obvious

Since I'm still on the broken list because of my knee, I've been interspersing some intensity on the bike with the usual running/skiing stuff. Its a strange concept, and I'm sure I'm doing it all wrong in terms of cycling training, but it does work to use a bike for ski training, to some extent. Anyway, I've since come to the conclusion that intervals on the road suck. So today, for the first time, I tried doing intervals on my mountain bike, and that was soooo much more enjoyable. Why hadn't I ever thought of this before? Since I normally ride in L3 just to keep up with whoever I'm riding with, it just felt like riding! I almost forgot I was doing an interval. Epiphany! While doing these intervals, I came to some conclusions which are probably quite obvious to the average person, but I'd never really thought about before...

1. If you ride a loop, each time you do the loop you go faster over the tricky bits.
2. The longer you ride hard, the sloppier you get on said tricky bits.
3. Humidity sucks.
4. The difference between my speed at threshold while running and my speed at threshold while riding is disturbingly small.
5. Using my big ring makes me go faster.

I figure I can use these discoveries to help in my next race. I will pre-ride the course, I will run any bits that I think I would ride sloppily, and I will use my big ring. Unfortunately, I don't think I can do anything about the humidity... and I don't really feel like running during a mtb race if I could be riding... and the big ring makes my legs hurt... and I never get there in time to pre-ride. Damn.

Back to normal

We got back from our vacation yesterday night, after lots of traveling around. I must have blown many weeks' worth of travel diet with that trip! After a quick two days in London, we caught a wicked early flight back to Geneva, and then a bus to Chamonix. At which point I tried to buy a nectarine with Swiss Francs and was totally surprised at finding myself in my third country for the day. After a trip up the cable car to l'Aguille de Midi, I think Ed is in love with those high peaks enough that we'll be heading back at some point for more than a quick overnight. Definitely the sporting center of the Alps, I would love to spend a week or two there, just hiking, trail running, mountain biking, paragliding... Alas, we didn't have nearly as much time as I would have liked, and the next morning we were back in Geneva, wandering around the old city passing time before the flight west across the Atlantic puddle. Definitely a nice trip, a nice mental break from the usual stuff, and it was great to see my brother before he goes back to Egypt. And the rest of the Jospe clan, of course.

Anyway, since I don't have any photos from last week, I'll leave you with photos from the last days of the CSU camp and hiking the Wapack trail. Those mountains weren't quite as impressive as the Mont Blanc...

The boys thought the water was cold, so stood around flexing their beach muscles for the girls instead.

S'mores!

Cate feeling tired, a couple hours into our run.



Blueberries!

The boys' group - we started two groups at either end of the trail, and left the keys with the cars so that we could all meet up at the ice cream shop afterwards. For the record, Cate, Hannah and I finished the long part of the trail half an hour before the boys did. Just sayin'.



Near the end, at Windblown.

The hiking group, happy to be done after four hours and change.

The beach. It was crowded, but it sure was nice.

Oh, and this was the view out the window of the dorms.

London, again

Thursday afternoon we left Switzerland and came north to London, to see the Jospe clan, and do some touristing. Its funny, because when I come to this city its definitely not for tourist reasons, I want to see my family, eat delicious pastries from the little shop around the corner, and see more family. We had to see the sights, though, since Ed had never been to this city. The museums weren't too bad, and I did get time to go run in Hyde Park, which is all I really care about... such an uncultured American slob, me.

Anyway, tomorrow morning (Sunday) we're going back to Switzerland, since it was cheapest to just buy a round trip ticket to Geneva and separate tickets to London, and since we have 36 hours, we'll probably head towards Chamonix and do some walking around. No camera... pictures may be coming from Ed's iPhone at some point. Maybe.

Cabane de Tracuit

Being in Switzerland, we had to do at least one overnight hike while here. By overnight hike, I do not mean schlepping tents, sleeping bags, etc all over creation - things are civilized in this country. You pack a picnic and maybe a rain jacket, and then you climb up to a hut perched on some glacier, and they feed you and sleep you, and then you either go to the next hut the next day, or climb a mountain, or go back down, your choice. We decided that our second day above sea level was not a good one to go climbing the Bishorn, so we just went up to the hut and back. I'll shut up now and just show the pictures. We're here with my parents, my brother, and his girlfriend Michaela. Sorry some of the pictures are sideways, my mom's computer seems to be auto-rotating them and won't let me change them so blogger thinks they're upright...

Ed, me, mama, papa, Michaela, Christophe













Cabane Tracuit

The blue evenings.

On our way out.

Forget-me-nots