Snow in Potsdam!

Hey just a quick message to all of us who have been on crappy snow and I dare say.... even running. I have been looking at the web cams of Clarkson and they have been loseing the snow just like everyone else until today I looked and here is what I found.

So the parking lot was clear yesterday and now it is covered in SNOW. Hopefully this continues so we can be skiing in style at the flow when we get back.

I hope that everyone is enjoying their break and are able to relax and of course TRAIN HARD. Get your recovery in as well so when we get back we are all set to go for racing. Happy Holidays to everyone and we will be seeing you guys soon.

D Day

Mt Ste Anne, a few pix

Andy Nadeau and Brian in front of the Lodge for the morning ski















Justin enjoying a set of newly set tracks

Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone is having a nice and relaxing time at home, while also getting some good on snow time as well.
May you all have a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
And hopefully some of you got more than just coal in your stockings. haha.
MD

Camp and Pie Race

Well Camp went well. There are a few good stories for us to share for a few years to come. Personally I liked the new structure we had for the workouts everyday. It was nice to have something planned out before we got there. I think we should see what we liked and what we thought we could change to improve it in the future. We will need everyones input on that. Also I think staying at a different place was not so bad. I missed being able to just jump on the trail and go when we would like, but it is always nice to have some modern day stuff too. No more bunk beds for that matter. I thought camp went well and people looked like they are ready for the season to begin. People were getting in shape and people were getting good technique or both. The season is here and so is winter. When we all return, it is time to show what we got.



I hope everyone had a safe trip home from camp as well and are now enjoying the holiday's with friends and family. From people I have talked to, ski camp didn't kill anyone and they are skiing already (for those of us with snow). For myself, I took the next day off then I headed back up north with Chad for the "World Famous Osceola Christmas Race" also known as the Pie Race. This year it was switched to a 5km race so it was less pain for me. I felt the training from camp early and often, but it felt good to get out there again. Plus I got to hang with some alumni in Sam Morse "King of Speed", Jess Snyder, and of course Chad "King of Kings".

I know you are dying for the results, well they lived up to their names. Sammy finished with a second place followed by Chad 12 secs back. I was a little way back, but top 10. Jess was second behind the Taylor Leach. The day was good, and it was good enough for all of us to win bells. Yea that is right... We got ski christmas bells. We also got some pumpkin pie. So it was a good day and fun to get out and race, but the training was being felt. I will have an easier week coming up for training but will be busy with Christmas stuff. I hope everyone is going to get some good rest but also keeping up with the training to be ready for when we get back to school. We will have a time trial when we will get back which will show who has done what for real.

So in summary, Ski camp was a blast and was very enjoyable. I felt we bonded as a team and we are ready for the season and ready to try and meet our goals for the season. So to all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New year! Ski ya around!!

Finals Week Skiing

As this week starts taking off, we are all going to be busy with finals. I am curretnly in a "Final" right now. I had to meet with our class for some reason. As Matt has done a good job keeping this blog current, the race this weekend was a good way to kick off the year. I think we know what we need to work on and importantly we have some time to work on it. This week the goal is to find time to get out there and ski. Skiing on ROTC is good but not really the type of workout that we are looking for (unless you want double pole)

This picture here is from the world cup. How about that forward lean? This is the time of year where we are lucky to have great snow, but we need to use it correctly. Know your body and know where you want to be. You need to know what you want to get out of each workout.

It is time for this guy to go study for some E-Sci. Maybe I will find MD doing the same thing. I encourage everyone to try and make the time for some good skis this week. Ski camp is coming soon and we should have some good skiing then too! So to everyone.... Goodluck on finals and hopefully we see you out there on the trail.

D Day

NYSEF season opener

I have come to the conclusion that I am not much of a photographer. I didn't take any pictures today as the racing was all happening at the same time, so you will have to settle for this one of Bill Demong winning the gold in Trondheim today. US nordic combined means business this year and it is sweet to see. Billy is 3rd and Johnny Spillane is 4th in the overall world cup standings right now.


Now back to our race. I had a pretty good start to the season, coming in 7th against a strong field from slu and middlebury. I took a little fall on the first lap at about 3.5k tho that set me back. It took until about 7k to get back to where I was and then there was nobody left to catch.
All in all though I put forth a good effort and am excited for the season to get underway.
The rest of the team had some good results as well, with almost everybody saying they felt strong, especially for the first race of the year.
results can be found here

One race down, many more to go.
MD

Race Time

Tomorrow is the first race of the season for some of us. A 10k skate on the biathlon side of Mt Van hoevenberg.

I traveled to LP today to check the trails and race course, and spend a nice quiet night in my bed at home. The trails are in awesome shape, with 15+ inches of snow on the ground, and the course should be a hard one. Not hard in the sense that there are lots of hills, but tough in the sense that there are very few opportunities for rest. The course starts and ends with some long steep climbs, then is fast and rolling in the middle. If the wind is out, drafting could play a major factor out there. It sounds like there will be some intense competition coming to race as well, with the likes of slu and middlebury, and the enormous masters crowd present in the northeast.

I'll update tomorrow hopefully with some pics of the racing scene.

MD

My New Sport

Well, the work week from hell finished up on Monday and I finally had a night to relax without opening a single book. It was so nice, but today is a new day and the beginning of the final push through finals.

I went skiing at Higley today and the conditions were stellar for this early in the season. Although only half the trails are open due to construction, which should be done in the next 2 weeks hopefully i'm told, the snow quality was as good as anything we saw last year.

I did 3x10 min threshold intervals, and they went very well. I felt much better than I thought I would after the training load, or lack there of, that I had last week.

Tomorrow brings some more speed work, then Saturday kicks off the racing season with the NYSEF season opener on my home trails in Lake Placid. 10k skate, the perfect race to start off with.

And, sorry to disappoint you all, but I have decided that I am going to back off on the ski training from now on and focus on a new activity known as mountain wingsuit base jumping.

I think it's my new favorite hobby.
MD

Snow is on the way

Some of us went out and skiied at higley today. It was pretty good, considering the amount of snow on the ground. Rock skis were highly recommended, but that might all change tonight.

check it out

This is what I am envisioning the flow to look like on tuesday.


MD