It’s come to this: I realized this week that I really need to practice the art of napping. During big training days where we have a couple of hours to recover from intervals before strength, even a really short amount of horizontal shut eye is helpful. But here’s the catch…my whole life I’ve been that kid who can’t just chill out and relax in the middle of the day. In preschool I tried doing gymnastics on my mat during nap-time. I mean, that’s what mats are for, right? Learning somersaults? When I was told it wasn’t ok to roll around, I tried whispering to anyone unfortunate enough to be trying to sleep near me. Then I was put in solitary confinement. Darn. I guess the polite way to phrase it was that I was a “high energy girl”. But my July resolution (New Years resolution is too much pressure. Let’s be real.) is to spend a small amount of time laying down during big training days. I’ve been trying to take notes from the Caldwell’s kitty, Leroy, although I don’t think I’ll ever be able to sleep in the same poses and places as he does!
Leroy being adorable.
Today is Ben Saxton’s 21st Birthday, and we celebrated it with him last night! We got Simi and Ian to distract him and take him to the pond while we snuck into the boys house and surprised him when he came back. At least, we pseudo-suprised him…he guessed that something was up but was nice enough to act surprised anyways! And because he loves popcorn so much, I decided a caramel corn topped cake would be weird but nice.
When you’re about to turn 21, you should probably celebrate it with chili dogs post-workout!
One of my good friends from high school, Maddy Wendt, was in the area before her final classes of grad school started, so she came to visit me! It was so nice to see her and catch up, and like a total champ she jumped right into training with us. I think we did 8 hours of training in the 2.5 days she was here, including some tough bounding intervals, strength and an over-distance skate ski. Whoo! She’s a tough cookie, and here’s another fun fact: Maddy is the one who first started braiding my hair before every ski race. Now I braid my hair before the start of every race I do because it calms me down. We also spent some quality time reminiscing about Minnesota, of course!
Getting one last big hug before Maddy finishes up school!
Since most of the time it’s just been me and Annie P. living in the Boswell’s condo, we’ve picked up some new hobbies. Like watching an episode…or two…of Orange is the New Black every night. And thanks to the miracle of the world wide web, anyone can look up beat boxing tutorials on youtube. So that’s been very, very entertaining!
Taking a plunge into Pikes Falls to cool down after a run! (photo by Annie P.)
I’ve been taking an online course from Westminster College in Utah over the summer, on philosophy. Annie majored in philosophy, so now after each chapter of my textbook we basically have book club chats on whether determinism or compatibilism is the way to go, and if people actually have free will or if we are just a bundle of nerves and chemicals pre-set to respond a certain way. Yep, we get pretty deep and thoughtful sometimes.
Speed day! (photo from Sverre Caldwell)
Last but not least, training has been all about technique focus, finding ways to beat the heat and get comfortable with higher speeds, longer intervals and heavier weights. Citius, Altius, Fortius!
Doing some bounding intervals on the ski trails next to the school (photo from Izzy Caldwell)
