Sprint and Recovery

Lake Placid camp wrapped up on Thursday with a classic sprint simulation. I felt great during the sprint and was able to pinpoint some of my strengths and weaknesses. We've had our lactates taken a lot in the last several intensity workouts and I'm starting to get a pretty good feel of what my lactate will be. It's kind of a nerdy way to measure progress but it's exciting nonetheless! We do a lot of threshold workouts where our lactate level is supposed to be around 4.0 mmol and in the sprint workouts we basically try to get it as high as possible because we're going as hard as we can for a short period of time. My lactate during the sprint workout was between 11 and 12 mmol and yesterday during a threshold classic workout up the Stratton Access Road, I had a lactate of exactly 4.0 for probably the first time ever!

Getting our lactates tested during the sprint workout in Lake Placid (fasterskier photo)

Erika and Annie doing intervals up the Stratton Access Road with brand new pavement! (Gus Keading photo)

HERE is some video footage from the prelim and the final from the sprint race. It was a great day and thanks to all the coaches who helped make it run smoothly!

Sprint Heat (Sophie, Annie, and Ida in the front row)

Our wonderful driving companions to and from Lake Placid - Jordan and Gino

Lake Placid was a very hard week with a lot of intensity and most of us were pretty exhausted by the end of it. We had a few very easy days on the schedule with the goal of absorbing the training we had just done and resting our bodies so we'd be able to start the hard training again soon. Sometimes after I've done a lot of ski specific training and have a little time to rest, I like to take my mind off of skiing for a little while whether that's through exercise in some other form or simply going somewhere else for the weekend for a little change of scene. This past weekend I did exactly that! On the way home from Lake Placid we stopped in Hanover for the night and I did a sunset hike up Gile tower with a couple of my Dartmouth friends. We just missed the sunset but it was still worth it.

View from Gile Tower

The next morning I spent about three hours at my favorite breakfast restaurant, Lou's in Hanover. It's really fun going back to Hanover and seeing everything I loved while I was there. After my stop in Hanover, I went to visit Dan for the weekend outside of Boston. It was a very relaxing weekend and just what I wanted and needed. We went to a Gotye concert, ate lots of yummy food, and went on some beautiful runs around the area. Running is my favorite kind of training and it was nice to leave the skis and poles at home for the weekend and explore a new area. We also walked around the city of Boston for awhile and it was awesome! We only got a little lost which was a big feat for two directionally challenged people (thank god for smartphones!) Speaking of getting lost, I forgot to mention the two hour walk that Annie and I ended up going on in Lake Placid. It would have been three hours if Gus hadn't driven by us and given us a lift. It was a beautiful day so three hours wouldn't have been the end of the world but it probably wasn't the smartest idea given our exhausted states.

Boston!

Not a bad day to get lost on a walk in Lake Placid

Now I'm back at Stratton for another week and a half until we head to Park City and Canmore for our next camp. We are having an SMST2 reception on Sunday afternoon at Stratton Mountain School and would love to see anyone who can make it there. Click HERE for more information. Gus even told us we can wear dresses if we want to!!