Home from Girdwood

The Comp Team returned from Girdwood yesterday after four more training sessions since our last update.

Thursday afternoon we met up with ANR who was just arriving for a camp of their own for a classic technique and specific strength session.  It was a nice low-key session after the morning TT, and gave everyone a chance to work in small groups with some new athletes and different coaches.

Friday morning we got up early and jogged down to the Girdwood school for some strength before jogging home to some blueberry pancakes, Olympic sprint relay coverage on the TV and some nap/downtime.  Upon waking it was time for lunch, some video and our big OD session of the week.  Getting that all in proved to take a little longer than expected, so we left a bit late for Potter Marsh, the start of our 7.5 (12k) or 9.4 mile (15k) run along the Turnagain Arm trail – the first leg of our OD.  From Rainbow or Windy Corner (12 and 15k endpoints, respectively) we regrouped in the vehicles and headed to Indian to start on the bike path to Girdwood for a 11 or 21, or even 25 km ski for the two that chose to ski the whole way home.  The headwind was vicious along the Arm as we went back to Girdwood, and we definitely suffered the effects of a few wind-blown poles planting between the legs.  Sometimes you have to face such gnarly conditions in races, so it’s good to have some experience and learn how to adapt your movements in training.

It was quite an epic session, but we (I) hadn’t estimated the time quite right on it, so we returned home to a porch-full of ANR athletes and coaches who we’d invited over to dinner 30 minutes before we got back.  Oops…

Before packing and cleaning out our rental Saturday morning, we headed down to the bike path for one last ski.  Rather than a normal, boring specific strength session, we chose to spice things up with the Girdwood Specific Strength Championships.  Head-to-head double-pole and single-stick races on a mildly uphill or downhill course.  Skiers advanced through a single-gender bracket with world cup points being assigned to the order they finished in the bracket.  Perfectly fair?  Heck no.  But it served it’s purpose as a motivator to bring energy to the last session at the end of a long week.

Here are some pictures, interspersed with results from various results from the week:

As part of a lighter day on Wednesday we were going to go for a long, low-intensity hike in the afternoon.  In a scene that makes me wonder how many aspiring politicians we have on the team, various groups of athletes lobbied for the hike or for playing games, with the lady-dominated games-group eventually passing around a paper ballot while most of the fellas were scouring their duffle bags for the most hideous piece of short lycra and a pair of tall dark socks they could find to go hiking in crow pass while pretending to be foreign tourists.  Political diligence prevailed and then we had a guys vs. girls soccer game where the boys won ~10-7 (NB: Girls scored one goal which counted for 7 points).

Alyeska Hill Climb TT
Girdwood Training Camp
29-Jul-10
MEN
Name	Time
Kyle Hanson	25:17
Pat Nugent	25:25
Neill Toelle	27:12
Vanya Rybkin	27:23
Stefan Hajdukovich	28:12
Kipp Wilkinson	30:32
Dan Jelinek	32:16
Willie Via	39:41
WOMEN
Name	Time
Hannah Boyer	30:53
Megan Edic	31:33
Eliza Rorabaugh	31:54
Helen Sudkamp-Walker	38:52
Kira Leonard	39:53
Claire Ferree	44:12