Fall is coming!

Fall is coming!

We had a few easy days at the beginning of last week in order to recover from our 100km ski-a-thon and I don't think any of us had a problem resting. Annie Hart is training with us for the fall and this has been a treat for multiple reasons. Not only is she one of my best friends and an awesome training partner, but she happens to love baking (especially baking muffins) so one of our first off days she cooked us up a delicious french toast brunch. For more details about the brunch and her baking adventures, check our her blog HERE

One of my favorite parts about this week was that we've been able to do a bunch of workouts with the SMS high school kids. Hopefully they learn a lot from following us and I know we gain a lot from skiing with so many other athletes and getting some feedback from the SMS coaches. We did our double pole test with SMS on Friday and 20 out of 23 skiers set PRs! I think that is an example of the progress we've made over the summer but I think it's also easier to get excited about skiing and psyched about racing when you're training with such a big group. We started one every 15 seconds so no one was alone on the course and if anyone got passed, they could hop in behind someone and see what they are doing to go faster. After the double pole test, we did some speeds and worked on having an uncomfortably fast tempo in hope that it would eventually seem more natural as we practice it more. Here are some pictures taken by Liz Kantack from that workout

Alex Cobb is always smiling!

Scott Mooney has won the T2 girls over and is always eager to hop in and train with us

Erika and I are always flattered when the girls ask if they can follow us

Eric sporting a mean race face

Erika and I led some girls for the double pole speeds

Striding speeds

Our other big group workout of the week was during the NENSA coaches symposium and all of the coaches came out to watch our threshold skate intervals at Ball Mountain Dam. This is a workout we've been doing all summer so it was fun to have the whole group together again and to let the coaches from other clubs see one of our typical training days. The T2 girls did 4 12-13 min intervals and the SMS kids tried to hop in behind us if we skied past them. Here are some photos from that workout, thanks again to Liz!

T2 Girls

Checking our watches

Besides some awesome training this week, we've also been able to enjoy some fall activities. Temperatures are dropping but the weather has remained beautiful and some of the leaves are beginning to change - this is definitely one of my favorite times of the year and makes me so thankful we get to experience four seasons. Eric, Erika, Dan and I went on an awesome bike ride around the Dorset area on Saturday and we took a break to stop in the cornfields. We had heard that corn stalks are strong enough to support your weight if you lean on them so we decided to test it out.

The stalks supported the boys but Erika and I were just too big

Sunday was Jessie's last night in Stratton before leaving for Lake Placid and other travels this fall so we decided to go apple picking and then make an apple feast for her last dinner. Apples are Erika's favorite food so she was very excited and we managed to make a delicious dinner consisting of apple and butternut squash soup, pork chops with apple, salad with apples, and apple crisp. Between the meal and the apple picking, I think some of us went to bed with stomach aches from an apple overdose but it was well worth it. Here are some photos from apple picking and some other tasty creations we've come up with in the past week.

Excited for Apple Picking!

Erika in her element

Apples can be multifunctional!

My spirit animal who lives at Dutton's

Peach, fig, arugula, prosciutto, mozzarella, goat cheese, garlic pizza - YUM 

Jessie

Jessie and the boys headed over to Lake Placid today and Erika, Annie, and I will be joining them for a week on Thursday. We will be jumping in with the SMS team until then and we're looking forward to seeing everyone in Lake Placid.  I have linked the blogs of some other teammates under the Links tab so be sure to check those out! That's all for now!