Potential for more improvement?  You betcha.  The challenge has been laid down.  Fall is coming and the stoke is high.  ONIT!

Thursday afternoon we met up with ANR who was just arriving for a camp of their own for a classic technique and specific strength session.  It was a nice low-key session after the morning TT, and gave everyone a chance to work in small groups with some new athletes and different coaches.

Friday morning we got up early and jogged down to the Girdwood school for some strength before jogging home to some blueberry pancakes, Olympic sprint relay coverage on the TV and some nap/downtime.  Upon waking it was time for lunch, some video and our big OD session of the week.  Getting that all in proved to take a little longer than expected, so we left a bit late for Potter Marsh, the start of our 7.5 (12k) or 9.4 mile (15k) run along the Turnagain Arm trail - the first leg of our OD.  From Rainbow or Windy Corner (12 and 15k endpoints, respectively) we regrouped in the vehicles and headed to Indian to start on the bike path to Girdwood for a 11 or 21, or even 25 km ski for the two that chose to ski the whole way home.  The headwind was vicious along the Arm as we went back to Girdwood, and we definitely suffered the effects of a few wind-blown poles planting between the legs.  Sometimes you have to face such gnarly conditions in races, so it’s good to have some experience and learn how to adapt your movements in training.

It was quite an epic session, but we (I) hadn’t estimated the time quite right on it, so we returned home to a porch-full of ANR athletes and coaches who we’d invited over to dinner 30 minutes before we got back.  Oops…

Before packing and cleaning out our rental Saturday morning, we headed down to the bike path for one last ski.  Rather than a normal, boring specific strength session, we chose to spice things up with the Girdwood Specific Strength Championships.  Head-to-head double-pole and single-stick races on a mildly uphill or downhill course.  Skiers advanced through a single-gender bracket with world cup points being assigned to the order they finished in the bracket.  Perfectly fair?  Heck no.  But it served it’s purpose as a motivator to bring energy to the last session at the end of a long week.

Here are some pictures, interspersed with results from various results from the week:

A few of the ladies during DP 30-30s on Tuesday afternoon

Willie on his DP

Half the crew

Kira zips by...

As part of a lighter day on Wednesday we were going to go for a long, low-intensity hike in the afternoon.  In a scene that makes me wonder how many aspiring politicians we have on the team, various groups of athletes lobbied for the hike or for playing games, with the lady-dominated games-group eventually passing around a paper ballot while most of the fellas were scouring their duffle bags for the most hideous piece of short lycra and a pair of tall dark socks they could find to go hiking in crow pass while pretending to be foreign tourists.  Political diligence prevailed and then we had a guys vs. girls soccer game where the boys won ~10-7 (NB: Girls scored one goal which counted for 7 points).

Note how the ladies turned the tide on outfits too...

Stefan completes the Uphill TT on Thursday morning

Run up Alyeska? Neill approves.

Pat watches racers make their way up the climb

Kira sprints for the line with Julia at her side

Friday's OD run and ski. The front boys descend to Rainbow Creek at about mile 7 of the Turnagain Arm Trail.

Neill, Nick and Dan

Turnagain Arm Trail run? Neill approves

Wishing for wingsuits: Windy Corner, Turnagain Arm, AK

Dan, the Seward Highway, and the Arm

LiLi and Megan descend to the run's end.

Skeeto beautifies her boot (which she gained, along with a contusion and a pair of crutches, from the soccer match earlier in the week - she still hung around for strength, videoing teammates, and even tried her first rollerski the last morning of camp)

Wildflowers along the side of the bike path add a soothing touch to a long workout

Claire shows the new splatter paint job on her roller skis - the effect of catching a ski pole in the wind and taking a tumble.

This morning we did a time trial up the mountain from the day lodge to the top of the tram and (lucky for me) timed it just right with the first tram car of the morning arriving just a few moments after our last finisher crossed the line.  (Interesting aside, the line was set when Kyle was about to pass me on the last pitch - I took a few running strides and quickly was reminded of the fact that I had run hard in soccer the previous day with no prior preparation for running fast on a slippery surface this year - my hip flexors and hamstrings don’t like me today.  So today when I saw Kyle on my heels, having eaten up the 15 minute head start (plus shorcut) I had on him - I threw down my backpack full of clothes and declared it the finish line.  Next year I’ll start 20 minutes ahead.)

8 minutes of photo uploads (still from Tuesday):

Kira nearing the top of our Tuesday morning ski-walking sesh up the mountain.

Jade was hilarious in the tram on the way down - a little loopy from the hike up, and it is a little spooky when the tram just drops into the clouds.

Claire and Megan check out the valley below

Stefan and Pat lead a crew of boys for some double pole 30-30s on the Bird-Gird bike path. When you get Sunny and 70 in Girdwood, you take full advantage.

Time to go…  More to come tomorrow.

We arrived Monday night after a long trip down from Fairbanks, 16 athletes, 3 coaches, enough equipment, lots of food.

Before we let the packed-in-the-car feeling drag the group down, we pushed ourselves out the door for a 2-hour training run on the Winner Creek trail (”Coolest trail run I’ve ever been on,” says first year J2 Jade).  It was just the right touch, complete with 15 min break to pull ourselves across a gorge in twos and threes on a hand tram.

Despite the tight living situation, the group has been getting along great.  It helps when all you do is train or recover (eat, sleep) or watch video on how to do the former better, or talk about how to do the latter better.  Nutrition is a big theme for the week and all athletes have a nutrition log which they are in charge of filling out for the week after our hour nutrition chat Tuesday morning where the athletes calculated some individual nutrition guidelines in terms of servings of different food groups to consume each day for their body weight and activity level (EXTREME this week).

No pictures from the sweet trail run.    But here are a number of others from yesterday.

Alsgaard Skate warm-up for spenst and ski-walking

Spenst

Ditto

Balance Drills with eyes closed

Explode!

Neill gets after the single leg classic bounds in place

Julia laying out some details to the ladies

Well, I’ve run out of time - Lunch is on and I’ve got to get back to the house so we can head for a hike.  More pics to come…

The group looked STRONG.

Results (10 min penalty for each missed checkpoint - 8 checkpoints total):

1. Neill and Kipp 58:12 (no penalty)

2. Vanya and Skeeto 59:31 (no penalty)

3. Megan and Hannah 60:02 (no penalty)

4. Ian (aka Rambo) 61:26 (no penalty)

5. Dan and Stefan 61:40 (no penalty)

6. Kelsey and Werner 63:06 (incl. 10 min penalty)

7. Lizzy and Eliza 90:23 (incl. 50 min penalty)

8. Kira and Pat 93:21 (incl. 20 min penalty)

9. Helen and Jade 125:46 (incl. 40 min penalty)

Some pics:

A test of fitness...

...Map Skills...

...More map skills...

...Strategy (stalk another team)...

...and teamwork.

The first question when approached with a situation like this is to of course ask ‘why?’  The answers for us have come slowly over the course of the past two years.  Last year we added some bounding work (60-75 sec race-pace ‘feel’ intervals) that we thought would help us to develop the power to handle the big hills, but that didn’t really pan out as hoped.  With most problems there are a number of directions you can come from for the solution and experience would indicate that usually taking a variety of directions yields the best result.  Skiing does not happen in a test tube, it isn’t that clean and there are multiple facets to solving the movement challenges that we are presented with.  Logically our training will be more productive if we tackle one of those facets at a time rather than the whole bunch at once.

Bounding may have been one answer to it, but it was just a slice of the pie.  In doing some reading about skill development (Talent Code, Bounce: great books about the subject, although a bit repetitive when read together), there were a couple of points that stuck out and applied specifically to skiing and technique.  In no particular order:

1.  You have to be training at the limit of your abilities:  If you’re bobbling a little bit you are stretching your comfort zone.  It is easy and nice and makes you feel good to practice what you know how to do, but if you want to improve those changes happen far more rapidly when you are pushing your limits.  Be creative with finding means to do this.

2.  You have to break the issue down into chunks.  Assemble the whole slowly, piece-by-piece and gradually the large, fluid, complex skill will come together.  For us that means a quick kick/early kicking impulse/beginning the kick from an extended position.  It also means learning an effective body position and fundamental motions (pendulums) so that you are making the most out of the energy your body is creating and directing it as momentum down the trail.

Here’s how we approached it today:

1. Warm-up with an easy ski.

2. Grass games to finish up the warm-up.  Games are awesome training tools if the athletes are into them.  Playing a little ultimate on the grass took everyone’s mind off of what they were doing (good - helps make movements automatic and not too robotic) while still putting them in a competitive situation where they want to be able to move effectively immediately- in other words, without knowing it they are pushing the limits of their comfort zone.  The grass is a tough surface because it is slightly uneven meaning you have to be on top of the kick and make it happen quickly - if not your ski rolls over and you lose your balance and speed.

As skiers in Alaska and in the interior in particular we suffer from the curious affliction of having awesome hard wax tracks on buffed-out, boulevard-like trails for virtually the entire winter.  Pretty soon after we learn to ski it stops challenging us to have more skill as classic skiers - it’s easy to get grip and easy to balance.   At the same time, we race on a variety of surfaces, so we need to be prepared and have the skills to adapt to all of them, or perhaps it is more correct to say we need to have developed a technique that is easily adaptable to a variety of situations.  Beautiful blue/green hard wax tracks and rubber wheels (roller skis) on pavement are both surfaces on which it is easy to get kick.  We need to push our limits there - enter klister skiing, enter grass roller ski drills, enter bumpy old single track trails, etc.

'Liza (center grey shirt, black shorts) with a nice quick kick through the ball of the foot (and forward body position to boot).

Additional benefits too: developing strength and balance on an unstable surface (skis/rollerskis)

ditto

Balance and quick kick

3.  Core strength and stability: build a strong, stable connection between the limbs and the body’s center of mass.  Today, planks in all directions and 30 push-ups.  Not so specific to what we’re working on today, but a common link in effective technique that happened to fit in logically at this point of the training session.

Front Plank

Side Plank

Back Plank

Push-ups

Caught in still-frame, the picture above looks like a bunch of ugly push-ups.  What we go after with push-ups is primarily creating a healthy, strong, effective link between strong arms and a strong core.  Often for this we use some instability when a basic level of strength has been developed, but there are also many options one can use without any fancy toys.  Today it was ‘butt-up’ push-ups, where one assumes the shape of an ‘A’ at the top of each push-up, before flatting out the body on the way down to the ground.

4.  Technique and spenst.  As mentioned above, today we were working on getting a feeling for a good early impulse - in other words kicking the ski from an extended striding position rather than letting our legs and arms come in towards the body before we get any purchase on the snow.   This allows us a greater distance and a longer time to apply power and create momentum in each stride.

This skill is a little difficult to learn on skis, so we made it simpler with some spenst training.  Single-leg classic bounds where you bound from an extended striding position on one leg and land again in that extended position.  We focused on sticking the landing today - minimizing bobbles and bounces - because we wanted to work on being stable and in control when we are extended.  If we are stable and in control, it is much easier to create that early kick.

Working on absorbing the landing (foreground) and applying power from an extended position (background)

5.  Next we threw back on the rollerskis to work on hot feet.  That meant grass sprints on the rollerskis where we tried to look not so much different than the second guy past the camera in this video.

6.  Speed on rollerskis (pavement now).  As practice wound wound down it was time to put the pieces together.  Starting with hot feet to get up to speed and then quick, powerful full strides for 10 seconds or so once we’re up to speed.

7.  Warm down.

A successful day: we started with simple goals, made that our purpose, built piece by piece and put it all together.  Visible results in a couple of hours are always a big step forward.

Crashing on the floor at coach's house prior to 4 AM departure for Rainbow Ridge skiing adventure

Unloading the van: 6:30 AM.

A rough Friday morning at the office

Up we go...

The easier way up (if you're punching through)

Nice view and decent conditions

Yep, nice view

ditto

Lunchtime sledding

Klister skiing in the PM

Hiking near Mt. Prindle. We were socked-in for most of the day, but we were still treated to some amazing wild flowers.

Tom, our fearless leader.

Hiking over rocks: great for leg strength, balance and endurance

3k test: Kyle and James on their way to times in the 9:30s

Mikayla and Skeeto moving well in the early going

Helen, Claire, Kira

Gotta love the flying braid

Dan and Vanya - pushing the limits (and the lane lines)

Kira leads off for the Miller Hill Double Pole Test

There were some huge PRs up Miller Hill.

1.1 km later and 67 meters higher

The evening's test group

Hannah gets going, five hours after deplaning from Europe

First rollerski in 8 months and a PR in the DP test!

Even the Asst. coach got in on the action (with a PR no-less!)

Megan skiing up a mountain pass somewhere in Switzerland

The group is going strong, as we get ready for the best 8 weeks of summer training

We got a taste of powder on the way down

Nick

Into the canyon

Clint and his snowman

New mascot?

A tired group after 7 hours and 21 miles...

Sunday pics still to come…

Story in pictures…

Cabin stylings: Keegan's retro snowmachine helmet, circa 1980 (?)

Kent and Bob enjoy a laugh

Scrabble and Blueberry Pancakes: Breakfast of Champions

Nick and the cabin: the beginning

Onto the flats by Gunn Creek

Beginning the Climb to 'First Aid'

...and a long way to go...

At least 1000 vertical feet of herring bone

And it only gets steeper at the top

But quite the view from up there

And a fun ride on the way down

Stay tuned for more pics from the rest of the trip tomorrow!