Happy Labor Day I hope you all have enjoyed your long weekend of Labor Day. It has been a good one in my books. An interval session in Fort Kent Saturday morning followed by a great shooting workout in the afternoon kicked off my holiday weekend. I am rounding it out with the rescheduled Harvest Classic bike tour/race here in Caribou this afternoon. Last Sunday’s forecast, with Irene breathing down our necks, forced us to reschedule this now annual bike event. The skies are looking mighty thick and heavy with rain this morning, so it isn’t looking like it is going to be anymore dry today. I am still optimistic that we’ll have good showing for the event. As we are now a few days into September I am starting to feel the racing season rapidly approaching. August was a busy month with our races in Jericho, VT early on, a great training camp in Sugarloaf mid month and a good volume block towards the end, finishing right here in Aroostook County. I am happy to report that I am not ready to throw out my rollerskis yet and am still enjoying the pavement at this point in the year. This isn’t to say that I am not frequently dreaming of gliding smoothly over the snow and listening to the soft crunch of my poles digging into the snow verses the hard clank of them hitting the hard pavement. But Fall is fast approaching and that might just be my favorite time of year. I am happily wearing a cozy wool sweater and socks, sipping a hot beverage while I write. Training in the cool air this time of year is one of the best feelings. On a side note it is the cool, DRY air that I like best. You will on occasion hear me grumbling about going out into the cool, WET weather for a shooting and skiing workout. Not my favorite. The upcoming week is our second testing week of the year. Another 3000 meter run is on the docket along with a strength test and the Mars Hill run, which we haven’t yet run this year. A few more team meetings thrown in there and a shooting workout or two, a few hours here and there massaging and I will have myself a full week. I am now just hoping for some dry weather to go with it all. Cheers, BA

Waking up before the sun

It is only 8:30 am and I am done with my morning workout, had a great breakfast and cup of coffee, read the paper, showered and am about to take a nap. That is what waking up at 4:00 am will do to you. About half our team woke up long before the sunrise and hiked up Burnt Mountain to watch the sunrise.
We had a perfect morning to do so, with clear skies and cool weather. The wind was a bit chilly at the top but we huddled together and enjoyed the beautiful view as the sun crept over the horizon.
I don't know that I would enjoy that early of start everyday but this morning it was well worth it!
cheers, BA

Sugarloaf

We are about a week into our Sugarloaf training camp here in Western Maine. After two rainy days early in the week, we have lucked out with some great weather. It is a volume week for me and I couldn't think of a better place to get a good amount of training in. My days generally run something like this:
7:00 am morning run and stretch
7:30 breakfast
8:30 or 9:00 morning workout
lunch
nap, read, knit, other work, oh and snack :)
3:30 or 4:00 start afternoon workout
6:00 dinner
rest, nap, dryfire, stretch, watch ski video, knit ect.
I love the simplicity of life while at training camp! :) We aren't doing any shooting at this camp, so that gives us a lot more time to work on other things with our skiing and rest a bit more as well.
Today may have been one of my favorite days of the week. We hiked up Mount Abram and down and over to Sugarloaf. This is closely follow by yesterday's uphill interval session. Five minutes uphill at race pace is my kind of workout! A bit of a lung burner at times but felt good and was really happy with how it turned out.
We only have a couple days left here before I head back North. I am contemplating doing a sunrise hike to the top of one of the peaks around this area. No guarantees, but an idea I am playing around with at this point.
Many photos below from adventures in training this week!
Enjoy, BA

Hilary crushing it during a bounding workout up Sugarloaf. A workout not for the faint hearted.


Here I am enjoying the view from the top of Sugarloaf.



A little group yoga session following a good morning of intensity.




Thanks to the great cooks at CVA for keeping us well fed all week! No starving athletes in this group. :)


Kat and Danni looking pretty in pink during our hike from Mt. Abram to Sugarloaf



I could get use to this view!




Mmm, Mmm good! Blueberries!!





After hiking and running for nearly five hours we were happy to jump on the chair lift down the mountain and call it a day. A fine day at the office if you ask me.

Moving forward from Jericho

It's been a busy week moving from the army base in Jericho, back to Aroostook County, down to Southern Maine and finally over to the Western Mountain of Maine. The Maine Winter Sports Center team is now all settled in at Carabassett Valley Academy right next to Sugarloaf Mountain. It is my second time here for a training camp, last year around this time being my first. I had a blast last year and expect no less this time around. I am really excited to have some new terrain to log some serious hours on.


The races last weekend in Jericho left a little to be desired. A extremely hot day on Saturday zapped a lot of people, including me, but we all made it through it. If nothing else it re-confirmed that winter sports suit me best. Sunday's race was a bit of a character builder when I had a few ruff moments in the range. After a little post race analysis I am feeling a bit better about the weekend. It's given me a better picture of what I need to work on; which lead me to our training camp!

I couldn't be more excited to have just over a week to be here and have my soul focus to be on training. And even better yet we have a great crew to train with and all kinds of new roads, trails and even mountains to play on.

I am heading to bed early tonight gearing up for our first training session of the camp tomorrow morning. A 30km pace workout is on the docket. I am looking forward to having some great company for it.
cheers,

BA


We had a quick night of camping in the Freeport area before our team sea kayacking event on Sunday. We lucked out with great weather. A quick stop at Isabella's Sticky Buns in Freeport before hitting the water made me one happy camper! :)

During my short few days in Northern Maine this past week I spent a good amount of time hanging out with my little buddy pictured here, at NHC. He has made his home around the range building and is sure to pop his head out and check out what is going on multiple times during my workouts.



My long run at the Nordic Heritage Center quickly turned into a mushroom hunt. Lobster mushrooms and chanterelles were in abundance and I was excited to take advantage. :) I have some great pasta dishes coming my way.

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