First of all, please think back to the longest workout of your life. How many kilometers did you ski? Run? Bike? Why did you do it?
On Suday, September 2nd the SMS T2 team will be doing a 100 kilometer ski on the backroads of Southern Vermont. Of course, I will be writing up a blog post following the event, with as many ridiculous details and pictures as I can possibly manage!
And we’re doing it as an athlete fundraiser, as one piece of the puzzle all skiers face in putting together funds to support the training and racing expenses of each season. Although we have a great club that provides housing and coaching, day-to-day expenses (like food, gas, cars, ect.) are up to us. That said, I know you probably hear about these fundraisers a lot, and you’re probably bored of hearing the usual spiel. So I’ll keep this short and sweet!
All donations are tax deductible and can be bookmarked for individual athletes. (Checks not recieved before September 10th will have to wait till the 22nd to be processed since we’ll be in Lake Placid for a camp durint that time) They can be written out to:
Elite Nordic Fund
And sent to:
Stratton Mountain School C/O Gus Kaeding 7 World Cup Circle Stratton Mountain, VT 05155So I have a favor to ask of you. Please consider donating either a flat amount for either me, a teammate, or the club as a whole to ski 100km, or donate a certain amount per kilometer (for example, $2 per km skied, so if an athlete makes it 80km, they would have raised $160 for the club). Or consider telling a friend about the event. At the very least, check out the photos, stories, and see how many roadkill we can count up during the ski (I’m just kidding. About the roadkill part, that is) 🙂
For those of you in the Midwest – we will be putting on the Chilkoot Cafe dinner fundraiser in Stillwater on November 10th, so if you would like to help with a fundraiser and you’re in town that weekend, I would most definitely go to that instead of doing this one. That way I can give you a big thank you and a hug in person! Please do not do both fundraisers, that would be too much.
Me, Annie and Erika at the beach
And now…for the Maine camp wrap-up! The 5 day camp up by Freeport (technically in New Gloucester) was really fun. It was great to get a change of scenery and switch up the training venue for a little bit. It was also like a vacation since we went swimming most days in the Ocean, which I’ve never done on the East Coast before. For the record, it felt nice and cold, cleaned out the blisters, smelled like sushi and tasted much worse, and I absolutely loved it!
ROAD TRIP
We decided to hit up the surf one day and although the waves were small and the water freezing, I was beyond thrilled to stand up on my first wave! I would love to learn how to REALLY surf and be twisting and turning around in the waves someday. For now, though, I’m pretty psyched on just gliding it out as long as possible before pitching it headfirst into the salt.
Why so blurry? I was too excited and kept jumping around!
Full moon out over the beach
On thursday we had a 3 hour classic rollerski and running combi workout, and then in the afternoon we did a “recovery kayak”. Can I explain something super quick? Although recovery workouts are great – a super easy slow session like jogging can help flush out the muscles and make you feel better – if you don’t do the activity often enough, it’s not recovery! We all got super sore in weird arm muscles we didn’t even know we had after the kayak…but it was gorgeous and the islands we paddled around were really cool, so I’d most definitely do it over again. Although maybe not the same day as an over-distance workout!
Kate Barton, Skyler and Andy coming in
After our kayak Steve Fuller’s family (he’s the man behind Flying Point photography) had us over for the most amazing seafood FEAST ever. Apparantly, we demolished “22 lobsters, 12 lbs clams, 3 pies, 1 lasagna, 1 casserole, 1 salad, 20 ears of corn”, according to Steve’s count. Whoa. Training all day has crazy side effects.
The dudes during our distance ski
Our last day we had a full-on classic sprint time trial; qualifier then a 30 min break, and quarters, semis and a final all with 20 min between each heat. It was good to practice skiing/running around between heats, letting the body clear lactate fast while staying warm and ready for the next “race”. The whole workout took over 3 hours! Afterwards, the girls skied to a cafe for lunch. I don’t think the people there had ever had people park their rollerskis in the lot because we got a lot of double-takes.
And now, we’re all back at Stratton Mountain, where we’ll stay till September 10th when we head up to Lake Placid, NY for the next big training camp!
