During the second week of training in Lake Placid, we were joined by the U.S. Ski Team, NENSA, various college skiers, and the CXC Junior Development Team. Training groups got very large, and it was fun to train with new people. I was especially excited to spend some time with my former NMU teammates, Morgan Smyth, Lindsay Williams, and Linsdey Dehlin. It felt like we were all back in school again.
The CXC Elite team had a very large week of training with several interval sessions and lots of easy distance. On Friday afternoon, Jo Jo Winters, Heather Zimmerman, and I decided to hike up Whiteface Mountain for our afternoon “general endurance” workout. It was very cold the night before and you could see a snow/frost line from the bottom. We set out at around 4:30 PM and finding snow was our goal. We didn’t make it to the castle at the top, but right around dusk we found some small bits of snow. Unfortunately, we still had to go all the way back down the hill (through some pretty rough terrain) in the dark. The views and the sunset were well worth it. Pictures do not do justice, but I included some anyway.
Starting the hike
Heather and Jo Jo
SNOW!
View from our highest point
On Saturday, everyone at the OTC got together to do 6 x 3.5 minutes double pole up a gradual hill. It is so much easier to go hard when you are surrounded by other hard-working, motivated people. The women’s group was over 20 people long and the men’s field was even larger. There were lots of people taking pictures and I will try to post some here if I can. Check out the articles on Team Today and Fasterskier for more information and photos.
On Monday, we did an incredibly hard, 8 km (~5 miles) roller ski race up the Whiteface Mountain toll road. The average grade of this race was about eight percent. It was mostly all V1 and the kilometers were ticking by very slowly. I started the race with the lead pack for the first 2 miles. When the race started to split up, I found myself skiing behind Lindsey Dehlin. I’m not sure what it is, but skiing behind Lindsey is much more comfortable for me than skiing behind anyone else. She pulled me along for about a mile and then I tried to help by taking my turn in front. Unfortunately, I did not have a whole lot of energy left and when I was done leading, I fell behind. The last mile of the race is kind of a blurr for me because there was no recovery, the hill got even steeper, and I was officially tanked. I managed to keep my technique together, but the Whiteface Time Trial is probably the hardest thing we will do all year.
Whiteface Castle in the fog
Maria and Jo Jo, post race