Jericho

I am back in Jericho Vermont, where I have been for more years than I would like to count during this first week of August. We have the annual rollerski biathlon races here this weekend. This year they hold an even greater weight of importance as they are part of a two part trials series. The second series will be in Utah this October. The top two females will join up with the National team and head to Sweden to race this November.
Jericho is just how I always remember it, hot and buggy. All jokes aside, it is a great place to get some challenging rollerski combos in. And it is great to have more folks around, keeping the range and trails buzzing.
I have toned down my training in the last few day to ensure that I am well rested and feeling good going into the races this weekend. It feels so early in the year to be going into full race mode, even if just for the weekend. Staying relaxed, focused and having fun is what I will be focusing on over the next two days. If I can do all that, I think I can have a couple of darn good races to start off this new racing season!
cheers, BA

Ride Aroostook

This past weekend was the first ever Ride Aroostook event out of Presque Isle, Maine. A fundraiser for an adventure camp Children with diabetes, this event consisted of two days of riding around 70 miles a day through the winding, rolling roads of Northern Maine.
We had beautiful weather, amazing support from voluenteers and good food to top it all off. Great weekend event that raised over $16,000 for it's cause! Nice work everyone.
Hope to have many more folks out next year.
This event and many more are posted at the outdoor website for Aroostook County, www.goaroostookoutdoors.com. It's a great resource to find out about all the outdoor events going on in the area.
Cheers, BethAnn

Maine Team Camp

Starting this past Wednesday a group of about thirty high school Nordic athletes made Fort Kent Maine their home as MWSC hosted the Maine Training Camp. Climbing up the hill of Lonesome Pine to reach the 10th Mountain Lodge was part of their daily warm-up routine, which kept all these kids out of a car for their entire stay.
This crew kept busy with some great rollerski technique work o, a little bit of shooting, an intense speed-ball tournament, yoga and a great Nordic sprint race this morning.
I enjoyed helping everyone try out a little biathlon shooting and combo work. I also participated in the speedball tournament, where my competitiveness got the best of me. I apologize to anyone I may have offended in my super aggressive, in your face kind of "play". What can I say, I am competitor.
This morning the camp finished up with a sprint race; qualifier, rounds and all. It was an inspiring scene, watching all these Nordic athletes throw down all morning all in round after round.
Nice work to all of this crew. Hope to see you all again soon.
I have one last workout I have to get in this afternoon before I go into rest mode for the next few days! And man, am I ready for it.
Cheers,
-BethAnn

Keep on truckin'

The Fourth has come and gone. It seems a little hard to believe with the cool, wet weather we had all through June, not to mention the fact that I haven't even gone swimming yet! What a crime. But it's true and things are starting to heat up around here again, both literally and figuratively.
Because I the rollerski biathlon races at Jericho in August are counting as part of our trials for the World Cup trials in Sweden this November, I have to have my game on a little earlier than normal this summer. This has meant a lot more intensity combos earlier in the summer, and a bit more focus on all the other little details, such as rifle adjustments, technique work and shooting speed. I think this will have a positive effect on my racing by the time the snow flies.
So the training continues. I will finish off this week with a time trial in Fort Kent on Sunday and then take a short rest for a day or two, where I hope to spend as much time as possible in the water! Then I gear up for my first big intensity block.

Hoping you all had a wonderfully relaxing Fourth of July. Mine was spent training, watching The Tour and rollerskiing in the Stockholm, Maine parade. It is by far the shortest parade I have ever seen or been a part of but it makes up for it in all the great enthusiasm from all the participants and spectators. Below a are few photos from the event. It is defiantly one to remember.

Training smarter

Working to be faster not just working harder. It would seem like a pretty obvious goal but can be a bit more tricky to execute. This is what I am focusing on right now with all my intensity workouts. I have been training in this sport to know that I can push myself and suffer through just about any workout, but is that suffering adding up to faster skiing. You would hope so. Having some very specific goals and early races to focus on this summer and fall (on rollerskis), I am putting a little more time and energy into ensuring that my hard efforts are really transferring into greater speed and not just a tired athlete.
Today the execution of my workout was perhaps a little off. I pushed it a little harder then intended for a good amount of the workout. While working in a level three zone I am working at training my body to increase it's efficiency. Pushing a bit too hard spikes my lactate levels a little higher than I wanted. I was still happy with the workout and had a great time, especially working on my sprint finishes at the end of each interval.
An easy cool down and lots of cold drinks wrapped things up for the morning. One last stop at the recently opened strawberry farm on my way home ended my morning on a high note.

Testing week

Last week was a busy one. Starting on Wednesday we had a five day team testing and orientation. Our tests included a 3000 meter run, (ouch), followed by a 400 meter run, (OUCH!), strength endurance/max testing and a VO2 Max test ski walking on the treadmill at UMPI. The orientation included everything from team protocol to team building, talks on nutrition, (thank you Dr. Glazer), sports psych, (thank you Sarah Kay), team and individual goals, training techniques and even a little relaxation and yoga practice. We through it all into five days. And we even finished off the week with a 5km fun run at the S.W. Collins 5km here in Caribou.
While these days were quite long, I found them to be very productive and really set the tone to something great for this team and the year ahead. All the athlete, biatletes and Nordic, did everything together, which hasn't ever really happened in the past. I am excited to see this cohesion develop further as our season rolls forward through the colder months.
One of the activities I found to be the most rewarding was talking about goals, short term, long term, performance and outcome. We came up with a great list for our entire team and along with everyone workout out their own personal goals as well. Some of us shared a few with the group while other kept more to them self. It is a hard thing to do, sharing a goal with a bunch of your peers. We are all teammates but in our sports we are also competitors. You are putting yourself out there by stating what your aspirations are. The harder the goal the greater the challenge in reaching it, and the tougher it is to state that goal out loud. This is something I have often struggled with in the past. After competing for nearly 15 year in this sport I understand that I need to state my goals out loud and let everyone know what it is I am working towards, at the risk of being judged, laughed at or who knows what else. I have to do this to help myself start believing and knowing I can accomplish these things. And really who is anyone else to make any judgement on what I can or can't accomplish in sport or life. It's all up to me in the end. I am the only person who can get in my own way of reaching those goals that I set out for myself. And I am doing to do my very best to stay out of the way!

World Championship Team 2012, here I come!

cheers, BA

photos from the VO2Max test at Univeristy of Maine in Presque Isle. Thanks to Sue Beaudet for helping out with this. This pictures pretty much sums it up, a very blurry experience...

Training period 2 recap

Keeping up to date with my blog updates hasn't been a strong suit of mine lately. This is not to say I haven't thought about all kinds of different activities and adventures I could post about. Instead of trying to sum up the last couple weeks in words, I'll do my best to do so in pictures.
Things started off pretty chilly. This sight was not a motivating one before a fairly uncomfortable track workout.
Cool, wet weather seemed to be the weather pattern we have been following for the past couple weeks here. We had a wet but productive trail clean up day at NHC a few weeks back.

...with a few nice days mixed in-between rain and thunderstorms

A week of training in Lake Placid proved to be my most productive training week yet. Accompanied by nicer weather and a few extra people to play around with on the range here and there made for a great week. Here's a view from White Face Mountain




A night of Sushi making may have been the highlight!




Back here in Northern Maine training has been going well. This past week was a little lighter on the training to allow our bodies to rest up a bit for the week of testing we have coming up. Our MWSC Elite Team orientation begins on Wednesday. We are kicking it off with a 3000 meter run. I'm looking forward to having everyone together again and really jump start our training group.
One last image from this past week is a shot of my juice making experiment. After acquiring a beautiful, industrial strength juicer I was excited to tested it out I was pleasantly surprised to find rhubarb juice pretty darn good. Who would have thought! Many other concoctions were made as well, some turning out better than others. I think I have a bit of refining yet to do.


cheers, BethAnn