Another Week in the Life

Sorry for the delay in posting i know i said that i wanted post every Monday but the internet at the house has been terrible. I even wrote this on Monday but was not able to get it on-line.

Well, I just finished the last week of the 5 week crazy training block. I am putting in more training than ever before but I think that it is really helping. Even before this rest week (which is when you normally feel faster and stronger because of the system of super-compensation, where your body rebuilds itself stronger than before) I felt really good. I am feeling a lot stronger, especially in my ski specific muscles which really gives me confidence and a positive outlook on the future. This next week will be a rest week of sorts. It will be a chance for me to absorb all of my training and let my body rebuild after breaking it down for the past 5 weeks. I am going to try to be a normal teenager during their summer break and try to do whatever they do but I think that that will be hard given there is not a ton of stuff to do in Ft Kent but I am sure that with a little exploration I might find something interesting to do. I hear that there is a pool in town. I just have not had a chance to find out where it is because I have been too occupied with training like it was an 8 to 6 job. Now that I have a low week I think that should be that task for this week.

The training specific part of the summer is over for me. Going forward there will be more travel and more racing. I have become so accustomed to getting up 6 days a week and the only thing that I have had to think about was training. Now my schedule will be a little more hectic after this low week. Next week we travel down to Jericho, Vermont for two national level roller ski biathlon races. That should be the first real chance to see how I compare with all the other juniors in the country and even though it will only be August at that time and a lot can change after those races, it is at least the first real benchmark of the season. Immediately following Jericho the team will travel to Sugarloaf Maine to do a training camp with the whole MWSC organization, which includes the cross country team that live in Presque Isle and the various regional members from around the county. It should be a lot of fun because it is always nice to train with more people and those guys are always fun just to hang out with in general. Then, after Sugarloaf it is back home for almost two week which should be a great time to rest up, then the more intense fall training starts!

Pictures of the Venue

Just thought I would add some pictures of the "Lodge" and the race venue where i do a lot of my work outs.












This is the three story "lodge" which acts as warming hut in the winter but also doubles as an athlete dormitory year round. Currently i am staying in a house in town but will move up to the lodge as fall rolls around. The first floor is where race registration is with a big open area and a kitchen for the athletes. The second floor has some offices where some of the work for the bigger events like the World Cup that is coming to Ft Kent in February is done and the dormitories.




This is the range that i shoot at 3 or 4 days a week. It will be really nice in the fall and winter because it is less than 10 meters from the lodge so i will be able to shoot anytime that i want.

Tour of Stockholm and just living life

This week was a pretty normal week. No big camps or anything which in a way is a good thing as there are no distractions from training. I put in another big week of training which should really help down the line but all I feel right now is tired. This is the forth volume week in a row for me and I have now done more training in those 4 weeks than any other 4 week period before, and not just a little bit more but 17 hours more. Maine is definitely the place to be to get in a lot of training and I am definitely taking advantage of that.
One thing that Maine Winter Sports Center (MWSC) does to help get those hours up in a fun way is by holding an annual event called the Tour of Stockholm. During this 9th edition of the tour we ran, roller skied, mt biked and paddled all over the town of Stockholm, Maine. It was quite a bit of fun but there was also quite a bit of mud that I really was not into. All in all the event was a pretty good and I had a lot of fun and I am glad that MWSC put the event on.
4 weeks of 20 plus hours down, only one more to go and then a recovery week.

Maine Team Camp, WCH speedball tournament of the world and Time Trial

We had an exciting week here in the county (I know I didn’t think that it was possible either). A bunch of high school kids came up to Fort Kent for five days for what is called the Maine Team Camp, which is an invite only camp for the best junior skiers from Maine. As it turns out this was a younger group this year with ages ranging from 14 to 17. While this made the Time Trial at the end of the week less interesting because there was less good competition it was fun to hang out with some younger kids.

One of the most exciting things that happened this week was the speedball tournament the Maine team kids put on that we were able to be a part of. Speedball for those who don’t know (which I assume is all of you because I think it’s an eastern region game) is a mix of soccer and ultimate Frisbee. One can play the ball like soccer or flip it up to a teammate and throw the ball around but then can’t run. Goals are scored when the ball passes through the goal and is caught by a team member in the air. The teams were four on four and as we soon found out goals were pretty hard to come by. I was one of the six team captains and crafted a great team which was ready for anything made up of Raleigh, Jake, Zoey and myself. The first team we played was a team of all guys and we were just warming up. We did not really figure out exactly the best strategy but still moved out of the first game of pool play with a win 2 to 0. Then in the second game we took on our competitive coach Seth and that’s when things started to heat up. Initially it seemed it was going to be a contest of wills but it ended up not being a contest at all. We put together everything we learned from the first game and came out and scored three quick goals before they even knew what was going on. I would equate it to the first game the US played in the world cup where England came out for the first 15 min and dominated the US except the domination factor was way worse in our game. We ended that game 4 -2 and rolled through the third game 5-1 only giving up our shut out in the last min.

We made it into the final with the only perfect record and faced off against the first team that we played (they only made it into the final by goal differential by taking advantage of the all girls team and beating them 12-0). We knew it was up to us not to let the all boys team win. We started off strong and got 2 goals in the first 5 min (of 15 min games). I also suffered a foot injury and we switched our strategy to a defensive minded scheme. The game ended 2-0 as was the score of our first game which was not the way I wanted to end the tournament but we won the whole thing and can’t really complain. Zoey was awarded MVP for her great defensive skills that kept the other teams in check so that the rest of the team could focus on our attack without worrying about getting scored on.

At the end of the week we had a set of Time Trials with the Maine Team and I competed in one so that the other day I could get another high volume day in. I did the skate 11 Km individual start Time Trial which was fun but I was not quite as strong as I was hoping to be but that is understandable see as this is the third week of training more than 20 hours a week.

I have another volume week to look forward to next week so that should be fun.

Here is a picture of the house that i am staying in until at least September. It is a little small but is great when it is just Raleigh and I.

Here I am working with some middle schoolers at a camp that brought all the kids from Aroostook county in to Ft Kent for a weekend of intense but fun biathlon training.

Coming up on the summit of Mt Katahdin which summits at 5,267 feet.

Community Service and Mt Katahdin

Well everything is starting to become routine around here. I am training harder than ever before (which is the whole reason I am here) but I also have some time to do some other things. One of those things is what Maine Winter Sports Center (MWSC) calls community service but so far for me has only been helping out with the various little kid programs MWSC puts on. I have a requirement of community service hours for the year as part of my giving back for the support that I am receiving but I find it really enjoyable. Every Thursday there is a program called Jalbert which gets kids grades 3 through 8 involved in biathlon by having these meeting times where they will work on everything from ski technique on roller skis which are provided for them to shooting air rifles. It has been a lot of fun working on shooting with these younger kids and I am impressed with how many kids are interested in biathlon at such a young age.

To vary our training this week we drove down to Mt Katahdin which is about 3 hours south of here so that we could get a long run/hike in up Mt Katahdin. The coaches decided to camp at the base of the Mt the night before which I was not supper excited about because I am one of those kids that really prefers a nice bed over the cold ground but it worked out. I was looking forward to this workout because I was the first workout that we were going to do with the cross country team and it is always fun to train with some new faces.

Our coarse was a 14 mile expedition with quite a bit of elevation change including a 5000 something foot summit. I really enjoyed the trip up to the summit which was quite a workout but was not so excited about the way that we came down the Mt. We took the Knife’s edge along the top of the Mt which is just as sketchy as its name implies. Footing was worse than dismal and the path narrowed to about two or three feet with long drop offs on both sides. If every in Maine and are in the mood to do some climbing I would recommend one of the many other trails up and down Mt Katahdin but unless you are willing to risk falling to your death with one wrong step do not take the knife’s edge.

Other than thinking that I was going to die for about an hour the rest of my time here has definitely been fun and with Russell moving out Raleigh and I will have the whole place to our selves which should be fun.