Midsummer Training

We just finished up a big week of training and this morning is the first day of an easier week so we slept in and made these for breakfast!

Waffle Breakfast!

Speaking of delicious food, we've been cooking up some gourmet meals at the SMS T2 house. There are five people living in our house and we each came from a different area of the country and grew up with different recipes, so it's easy to bring a lot of variety to the table (no pun intended). We've also been taking advantage of our farm CSA to make delicious appetizers each night. Annie P. made some tom-ah-toe tar tar as an appetizer before our turkey lettuce wraps, we had fresh cucumbers with my special salad dressing before our fig and goat cheese burgers, and we had caprese salad before our homemade pizzas the other night!

Tomatoe tar tar

Peach, pesto, and sausage pizza

Caprese Salad

Our big training week consisted of a skate speed workout, L3 ski walking intervals up Stratton, very hard and short L4 classic striding intervals, two strength sessions, and a lot of easy distance. There were definitely times during the week where it was a struggle to get out of bed in the morning, but I was pleasantly surprised to still feel great and be able to enjoy our 3.5 hour bike that was the culmination of the big week yesterday. It probably didn't hurt that it was the first day that was cooler than 85 degrees.

Annie and Erika during our L4 intervals

Sophie during L4 intervals

Packer and Ben striding out

Grandpa came to spectate :)

Speed day!

Devo kids!

The Bike group

I decided not to go to Alaska this year  because I think I benefit from minimal travel and I wanted to be able to get into a solid routine of training in Vermont. One of my weaknesses is that I tend to get tired out pretty easily when I'm traveling and training a lot, but one of my strengths is being able to recognize that and turn it around before it starts to happen. So, while Alaska would have been a blast, it's a lot of travel and training for me and I probably would have come back as one exhausted pup! It was a tough decision because I really enjoyed my trip to Alaska two years ago and wanted to be with my new teammates, but I believe it's the right decision for me this year and I am really enjoying training and being home with friends and family after a long winter on the road! I will be going to the next USST camps in Lake Placid, Park City, and Canmore, but I'll be training in Vermont with Stratton until then, while making virtual appearances in Alaska over the interweb :).

The girls training hard in Alaska!

Good friends and training partners

Midwest, East, and West!

We also went on some other adventures this week in between training sessions. We went to the Dorset quarry to go cliff jumping and watched our boys do an endless number of back flips off the biggest rocks, checked out the beautiful river cairns in Bondville that have been the talk of Vermont lately, had a photo shoot after our hard classic intervals, and went blueberry picking until our tummies hurt yesterday afternoon! My strategy was to put a blueberry in my bucket for each one I ate and as a result, I lost the blueberry picking competition...by a lot. As if that weren't enough, we came home and had blueberries with maple whipped cream for dessert and blueberry waffles for breakfast this morning. If you think that's gross, read Annie's argument against moderation and I guarantee your mind will be changed. It was an awesome week of training and I am now looking forward to an easier week with some cooler temperatures!

Maybe a little posed

Rudy athletes! and Ben sniffing Erika's head

Blueberries for days!

Artsy shot

Checking out the cairns

Pikes Falls

My favorite spot for a bike ride

snowmaking pond

More river cairns

Exploring NE

After a relaxing 4th of July weekend in Nantucket, I returned to Stratton. I finally moved into the T2 house and it is awesome! We have a beautiful kitchen where a lot of gourmet cooking has been taking place. The other girls are also great bakers and I'm always there to sample when they need it. We had an easier week last week and took advantage of the lower hours to take some smaller trips around the area. Our first trip was to Winchendon, Massachusetts where CSU is having their summer camp. I wrote a post about it HERE. It was a great opportunity to meet some motivated kids and to do some training in a new area. Thanks to CSU for letting us come down!

The T2 boys leading a group of juniors

And the ladies

We had two big days at CSU so I was ready for an off day on Thursday. It's been pretty nice weather so Jessie and I went down to the snowmaking pond. She did a swim workout while I cheered her on and read next to the pond. My brother and some of his college friends were home so I was able to spend a relaxing off day with some friends and family.

Jessie swimming at the pond

Jessie's fancy napkin folding skills

Friday was the hardest training day of the week with double pole intervals in the morning and strength in the afternoon. If there's one workout that toughens you up, it's this one. I've been doing double pole workouts in Weston since I began training with Stratton in 7th grade. I remember those two hour workouts were the longest and hardest workouts of the week. We would double pole about 5k of flat, do a little double poling and single poling for about 5 minutes up the mountain and head back. At that point, if I double poled the whole warmup flat without kicking, it was a good day. On Friday, we did three 15 minute L3 double pole intervals up to the top of Andover mountain after the out and back flat for a warm up. Andover mountain is STEEP! It's fun to be able to compare what I've done in the past with what I can do now (as long as I'm improving :) ) even if I'm 10 years older now!

Jessie and me dpoling up the mtn - it's steeper than it looks!

Erika dpoling up Andover

We start our workouts early in order to beat the heat, so we were finished by 10 and I got to go to one of my favorite places for brunch! Up for Breakfast in Manchester, VT and Lou's in Hanover, NH are in a heated race for my heart, or stomach, at the moment. After breakfast, we stopped by Dutton's Farmstand to play with some of my favorite kids.

French toast with zucchini bread, pears, brown sugar, and pecans!

Goats!

RIP Sweet Sophia

On Saturday, we packed up the van for our 2nd annual trip to the Hodges' and Ogdens' lake house. We drove up to northern VT for a beautiful ski through farmlands and rolling terrain before heading to the lake for an afternoon of water sports, sunbathing, and a tasty lunch. I've been pretty good about participating in water sports this summer, but the water was just a touch too cold this time. Jessie and Ben had some epic tubing rides though and we had a blast hanging out by the water and seeing everyone. Thanks to the Hodges and Ogdens for such a fun day!

Guess who?!?

hanging by the lake

This morning we had a long run on our schedule. I've been working into running, but still haven't done any long running on my foot. It hasn't been bothering me, but I didn't think I was ready to run 3 hours straight on my foot with the rest of the group. Luckily, my wonderful training partner, Dan, is here at the moment so I dragged him along for a 3 hour run/hike. He was a trooper and even offered to carry my fanny-pack at one point, as long as we weren't in sight of anyone else. It was hot, humid, a lot of fun, and my foot didn't hurt at all -- success!

gondola ride down the mtn at the end gets a smile...or a nap

Good to be HOME

It's good to be home and even though I still haven't completely unpacked from Park City, cleaned my room, or repacked to move into the T2 house, it's been so nice to be back with my family, friends, and team. As soon as we got back, we jumped right into the REG camp that was happening at SMS this year. It was a great group of motivated kids and I really enjoyed joining a few workouts, getting to know them, and participating in the skits. I usually dread skits because I'm not very good at acting, public speaking, or anything that falls into the category, but my skit group was a ton of fun to work with and all four skits were hilarious.

Some REG girls at the bottom of Stratton after the mtn run

Our skit group making fun of the coaches

The whole crew

Jessie and me during the dpole intervals

REG boys

The SMS T2 team is finally united and it's great to have everyone in one place. I hadn't seen a handful of my teammates for a couple months so it was time to get back! Annie and Simi are wonderful additions to the team and I know we're all very happy and lucky to have them. Between not moving into the T2 house yet and still not being able to participate in all the running workouts, I haven't spent as much time at Stratton or with the team as I'd like to (sorry guys!), but that's going to change starting this week. I'm looking forward to drinking Erika's coffee that is too strong in the morning, getting my roommate, Jessie, back, doing girly things like mud facials (?) with Annie P., and putting cilantro on EVERYTHING with Packer when I move into the house. We had a team dinner at my house the other night and Marina Knight of the T2 foundation came down to join us. It was great to catch up with her, go over some team goals, and get the team together in one place!

T2 Team minus Skyler with Gus and Sver

and Marina!

And...Packer got a little aggressive so we can't see poor Annie

Next week we're heading down to help out with a CSU camp for a couple days, but otherwise it's the usual training! Hopefully the heat and humidity drop a little, but everything is going well in Stratton. Happy 4th everyone!

Pretty sunsets 

Dudley Rose on her iPad bed

Back with my Izzle

ready for the 4th!

Happy 4th from Nantucket!

Happy 4th of July from Packer