Lake Placid, sprint time trial photos

Miscellaneous

Sep 27

From September 10th through September 21st, the skiing portion of the GRP was in Lake Placid, NY for a training camp with our peers from other training groups around the country and the US Ski Team.

I’m not going to attempt to summarize the camp here, because chances are that if you’re interested in our day-to-day workout routines, you’ll probably have read the Fasterskier articles and followed USSA on Facebook to find pictures and other “workout stories.” We did bounding intervals, rollerski speeds and easy distance workouts, a sprint rollerski time trial, and quite a number of other sessions. And the notorious Climb to the Castle rollerski race, which I would say went moderately well to very well for most members of the GRP. (Go to this link: http://nysefxcski.blogspot.com/2012/09/climb-to-castle-2012-race-coverage-and.html for results if you’re interested.)

Here are a few pictures of the GRP guys (and others) from the classic sprint last Thursday, since I decided that watching and snapping pictures was somewhat more interesting than a long cool down. We woke up to a cold morning but the sun was bright and faintly warm by the start of the qualifiers. The women tended to be conservative on the fast downhills of the Lake Placid jump complex course, instead using the flats and uphill sections to make decisive moves during the heats. The men flew around the corners and down the hills without hesitation, and then powered up the hills too. Fortunately there didn’t seem to be any crashes during the qualifiers or heats, for men or women. The camp was an excellent experience, a nice chance for comparison, competition, and just plain hard training. And some movies, team dinners, card games, strength competitions, and hours lounging on the sun porch at our Lake Placid rental house too.

Lactate testing after the women's finals with coaches Whitcomb and Pepper

From right to left: Pat, Eric Packer, Dylan, Alex, Gordon, (Bryan's shadow)

The same heat, climbing the first hill

Cornering: In control, or not quite?

Pat leading around the downhill corner

Andy Newell leading a heat towards the finish

Pat leading over the crest of the hill

Nils and his heat just after the start

Ida and Annie Hart (in the distance) cooling down after the sprint. The fall colors were actually quite vibrant in NY by the time we left, though this picture doesn't do them justice.