We’ve had a good solid week of training here at SMS! But unlike some other hard training weeks when you feel bogged down and it’s tough to get through the workout, Sverre, Gus and the other coaches have done a great job of keeping it fun and entertaining with some badass challenges.
The whole crew before our epic run (Lilly Caldwell photo)
First off, we had the Tour of southern Vermont, which was three back-to-back OD sessions. Tuesday we ran on the Appalachian trail for 3.5 hours before ending at Little Rock Pond, where some good clif jumping was going off. Wednesday we had a long classic session with speeds and strength in the afternoon, and thursday was supposed to be a 3-4 hour bike ride. Because of severe thunderstorm warnings, the bike had to be moved to Sunday instead, but the team still finished the tour! I was on a slightly different schedule because I fly over to Sweden this week for the USST/Swedish National team camp, so I did my third OD on thursday anyways. For those of you who know me, you won’t be at all suprised to hear that I did NOT bike and decided to ski for a few hours then run instead (biking just isn’t my thing).
Then Saturday we had the Susan G. Koman Race for the Cure in Manchester, and I’d totally forgotten how much a 5km running race can hurt! Also, I felt like an idiot since I’ve been experimenting lately with how soon before a race or intervals I can take my inhaler…and I cut it much too close and had some rough breathing issues the second half of the race. It felt (and sounded) like I was being strangled and I apologize to any course volunteers who I may have scared. But overall the team did really well and David Sinclair won while Soph crushed it, finishing with the lead guys pack!
The other super awesome thing that was DEFINITELY important enough to make the cut was that Sophie, Erika and I did some major blueberry picking and in under an hour we hauled in just over 15 pounds of deliciously ripe berries. So yeah, we might have gotten carried away, but now we have the fun task of finding interesting ways to use them up! Some of the best suggestions people sent me were: smoothies, pancakes, pies, muffins, salad, cobbler, and….shampoo? Ok, I’m going to have to work on that one 🙂
Get it? West, East, Midwest. (Austin Caldwell photo)
