Fall Training...

Well it's that time of year, when nordic skiers start to get grouchy. This might seem a little counter intuitive for some people, I mean it's getting cold and it's actually snowed! Therein lies the problem, it's cold, it's snowed and we're still rollerskiing!

This is the time of year when the training gets the hardest. Despite the fact that we ran in snow yesterday there is very little chance that we will actually be able to ski for at least 3 weeks. Starting now though, every day we'll gaze at the ski and look for snow, we'll put on the ski clothing and go for a run and we'll even put on the ski boots, hats, gloves and rollerski!

As we move into this part of the season I want to give a quick rundown of the team and training. So far we have 40 people who show up for practice at least half the time, this is the largest, consistent groups we've ever had. Within this group we also have some of the most dedicated people we've ever had.

The men's team has returned from the summer inspired. Last fall they were inspired but hadn't put in the time during the summer to really make a difference when they started racing. They have definitely put their money where their mouth is this time with several of them doing perfect training all summer. They do not want to be 3rd again and they have done everything they can to make sure that doesn't happen.

The women's team is also looking strong. Returning two of our top women, who missed last year, as well as some great talent from last year and several dedicated and fit new freshmen should have an astronomical effect once we start racing. We've never had such a complete group of women, not just a superstar but potentially 3-4 superstars!

We also did some changing in the training this season. The first major change is providing the opportunity to train with the team 6 days/week. We have required practice M, W, F and Sun and optional practice T, R. Our hope was that it would give the athletes who were training every day someone to train with and it might inspire some who didn't always train every day to put in a few more hours. So far we feel that this is exactly what's happening.

We also added a fall low altitude camp where we went down to Fort Robinson, Nebraska and did some hard workouts. You can read all about that in an earlier blog from John. We think this camp was a huge success for both low altitude and team cohesion.

On the whole we feel that this fall has seen the best training we may have ever had. What I mean by this is that we have such an amazing group of athletes. We have often had a handful who are extremely dedicated and fit but this is one of the first times we've had upwards of 20 who are with many of them coming to fall with a solid summer of training.

Anyway, whatever happens this season we are extremely excited and proud of all our athletes, it's been a great fall!

You Rock Our World!