CAMP!!

Sometimes it's hard to move in the mornings. Especially when your legs are stiff, core is cramping, and your shoulders are aching. And when it's so humid that you are sweating before you even get out of bed.

So far, the U16 development camp has been amazing. We've been here at the University of Vermont for 3.5 days, but it seems like we've been here much longer than that. Besides the scattered pickup soccer and ultimate games, the coaches have been working us hard. We did a easy ski on Saturday, some drills in the afternoon. Sunday we did an uphill time trial in the morning and easy run in the afternoon. Monday (today) we did an easy ski at the Rollerski Track at the National Guard base about a half hour away from UVM and a strength test in the afternoon.

Hills on the East Coast- bounding workout

First, the uphill time trial. Now in the Midwest, there are hills. We ski at the Coolee in Afton, there are other infamous ones around the Twin Cities. But as I discovered yesterday, on the east, there are HILLS. I mean it was pretty big. The workout was a mass start, about 1.5 miles for girls and a little under 2 for the guys. And dang that sucker was steep. At some point of the race, it was obviously faster to walk. But I think almost all of us were too prideful to actually do that. There are some really fast and competitive runners in this group, and the race went out really fast. The first part of the course is definitely the hardest, and by the time we got to top of the first steep climb, I was in about 20th, but could still see the pact of leaders wavering in and out of the dense East-green forest. It was there that I really toned in on my breathing and legs and thought, heck ya, I can go faster. I zoned in on the next pact ahead, and on the 2nd hill really focused on swiftly pumping my arms. I caught that group, and then on the next hill I caught the group after that. I kept pumping my arms and felt kind of good. For a running race of course. I ended up finishing really well, around 7th, and it was really fun cooling down on the single track that lead down the mountain (and it was pretty scary too). 

This morning I got another special east coast treat by heading out to the rollerski track at the National guard base. It was a 6k loop that the national biathlon team trains on, and it had some amazingly sweet up hills and downhills. It was super steep, twisty and turny, and although we skied it 5 times, it didn't get boring at all. I got a chance here to work one on one with Kate, a coach from Burke. We made a big improvement on my V2, and I'm so excited to test it out again.

Camp Part 2
We got to paddleboard, we had the strength test, and an OD run. Everything was so much fun, super hard work, but very educational and I'm excited to see how camp with lead into my next block of large training.