Okay, so, I've been waiting to post until I had a workout worthy of making you all jealous. With this, I might, mostly because with the exception of Trevor and Tannis (and Cullen?), you don't really have mountains. But anyway... yesterday was epic.

A little Pacific Northwest geography- the Three Sisters are a set of 10,000+ ft peaks in Central Oregon. South Sister is a fairly common day hike (5 hours or so, round trip), but Middle, while much less popular and bit longer, time wise, is also possible without ropes and/or extreme stupidity.

My friend Libby (SLU skier) and I were dropped off at the Pole Creek Trailhead about 6 am, heading to climb Middle Sister. Compliments of a trail that wasn't on our map, we had to cut cross country before we even got t0 the base of the mountain. After booking it a couple miles across some nice lava and creek beds, we got to the lakes at the base of the mountain. We summited Middle Sister about 10:15. There was a group up there that had come up the glacier side of the mountain, fully decked out with harnesses and helmets, and a little bit confused as to how we had gotten to the top in running shoes.

We were doing the hike point-to-point and the car was a ways away, so we spent about 15 minutes on top and then started down. After a couple thousand feet of alternating scree fields with larger rock flows mixed with a couple of remaining snow fields, we got back down to the ridgeline above the lakes at the base. We followed a creek southwest out of the saddle between South and Middle Sisters and followed it until we found a trail. That trail fed into the Pacific Crest Trail, which we followed south around South Sister. We managed to hit the Wickiup Plains- dry flats next to an obsidian flow- at the hottest point in the day. From there, we swung around east to Moraine Lake, at the base of the South Sister. And then we went down to Devil's Lake, to the car.


Starting point: 5200 ft
Ending point: 5450 ft
Highest point: 10053 ft
Miles: 22?
People who looked at us like we were absolutely insane: 23

-Katie

From the other upstate NY

I can disobey the captain's direct orders no longer, so here it is: news from the other upstate. I'll be leaving in a few hours, actually, for the Outer Banks, NC. Everything I should be packing right now is strewn all over the house, but I don't know what kind of internet access I'll be getting down there, so I thought I'd update before the entire summer is over.

Training is going well, I'm working out in between work (as a technical writer for a medical diagnostics company) and trying to relax. I typically go for an easy 4 mile run during my lunch break, and then go for the real workout when I get home. We're only bringing one pair of rollerskis to NC, and they're my brother's brand new ones (my rusty clunkers will hopefully soon be replaced), so I'll have to fight him for them, but I look forward to attracting even more odd looks than I do now rollerskiing on beachside roads. At least people have heard of snow and nordic skiing up here.

And now for a story. I was running a few errands with my mom the other day, one of which was to get some pictures developed. Some of the pictures she wanted were on my camera, and some were on hers, so I let her borrow my flash drive to put them all in one place. Unbeknownst to me, a certain photoshopped carnie crush photo was still on said flash drive, left over from this winter. I didn't go into the store with her, but when we picked up the prints an hour later and I started to flip through them, there on the very top of the pile was the lovely, spandex-clad men's team, complete with captions, wishing me a happy Valentine's day. "Oh, I thought it was funny! I got it for you," was my mother's response to my unasked question. What she thought I would want with it, I have no idea, but when we got home, I forgot about it, and a few days went by.

Now, my mom keeps meticulously organized photo albums; we have a closet full of them. They are her pride and joy, and she unfailingly brings the most recent one along to show friends and family at every opportunity. The current album happened to be sitting out on our couch the other day, and I started to look through it. Yes: there, in between the pictures of a recent family reunion and ones of Steve and I getting Harry Potter at midnight, was The Photo. She shows these albums to my grandparents. I really don't think she noticed the caption at the bottom. I'd like to see the reaction of the first person who does notice it, and the awkward questions my mom would have to field, at which point I would probably have to flee the scene.

For those freshmen who have no idea what I'm talking about, here you go: http://harvard.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=32774511&id=30495. Enjoy.

So that's the news from this side of NY. Not as exciting as tales of being chased down by crazy birds, I know.

~Audrey

Train in the Rain?

Alyssa and I after finishing the Wednesday plyo workout in the pouring rain. We finished with grass on our faces, mud in our hair, one very soggy plyo guide, and accumulated a lot of confused looks, but we got guns so we don't care.

-Schulzy

Off-day blogging

I've got what amounts to a day off at the restaurant today, having to show up at 5 rather than 3:30. I get to hang out in the kitchen and organize everyone's order as it comes up, then steal 15% of total tips and peace out at 9. Should be pretty money. Seeing as I've been packing the days with training and work, I decided today would be my training off day as well, so I could just relax. Basically I spent most of the morning in bed, then ran errands (birthday presents, bottle returns, paycheck pickups, etc.), and now I'm lazing around the apartment. I found that we can now steal even sweeter internet access than before, which bodes well for the rest of the summer.

I figure a recap of the previous days' training is in order. Over the last few days the weather has been shitty to say the least. I think it's rained pretty much every day for the last week or so. Monday I did 1:20 of running on the biathlon trails at van Ho, including 5x(4x:30 sec) bounding intervals. First true speed "workout" of the summer and I felt good. In the afternoon I did the first of the phase II lifts and it was killer. Then I headed off to work, where it thundered and rained so no one came to the restaurant.

Tuesday was an OD day, which I'd planned on doing with Dave, but he had to replace his contacts. I guess if you go wicked fast on a bike like he did the night before in the mini tri, contacts are prone to falling out. So I headed out in the mid-morning to do a 90 minute run, followed by a 90 minute ski. First mistake was setting out late: it was f--king hot! Parking on Bear Cub I ran into Caitlin Compton, who, as some of you may know, is wicked fast. Chatted with her for a few minutes while gearing up, then I took off. Did the 90 minutes mostly on trails and I was feeling the lack of food by the end. After scarfing Chewy bars at the car and switching to skate gear, I headed out for a slow and sore second half of the workout. The ski was slow and I was sore, so I focused on technique. That is, until the skies unleashed torrents of rain and claps of thunder. Then the lightning started. Then Dave's mom drove by me on the road and demanded that I head back to my car.

Wednesday was supposed to be more tame - I woke up at 9:30 as Anna was coming back from her rollerski and she said it was hot and foggy. Not a good sign. About two minutes after I left the car, it started to pour. Now normally a little rain during a ski isn't so bad, but this was pelting, cold, sharp rain and I had no shirt. And my skis have no fenders. So that was great.

Anna is ranting about her keys and I have to go help her look. She's cranky.

Audrey Mangan, post on the blog!

-- O

Incoming Freshman :)

Hey! So I'm Tannis Thorlakson and it looks like I'll be joining an interesting group of skiers next year on the Harvard Team! I never thought that my knowledge of raptors could come into play at Harvard, but it sounds like you guys have a lot of bird troubles :) Anyways, I'll be representing the Pacific Northwest along with Katie, I'm from the Methow Valley, WA.

I finally thought that I had some post worthy news after my local team's training camp, when Beckie Scott AND Torin Koos came to our camp to rollerski with us and chat it up. I don't think I'll ever meet a more wonderful, humble Olympic gold medalist in my life! That has definitely been the highlight of my summer training, now I'm simply trying to survive the heat while working as a gardener (a nice name for weed puller) and training. Look forward to the fall!

-Tannis

The other side of the LP experience

Anna posted some pretty sweet pictures that demonstrate that I get after it pretty hard. While I don't have any photos of her out training (though I promise I will get some by the end of the week), I do have pictures of the rest of our life in LP. So, as promised, here's the other side of the LP experience:

Anna's back after I whipped her with my sweaty bandanna after a workout.

Nabel after he just put an electrolyte tab on his tongue and waited til it fully dissolved.


Me, after doing the same thing. The tabs, mind you, are about the size of a quarter and the thickness of two stacked quarters.

That's all, folks,

-- O

LP has nice rollerskiing... but lots of rain.

Ollie skiing through the pouring rain on Bear Cub Road

Cresting the top

More photos to come...
- Schulzy

Wow I feel stupid. I didn't sign that blog and I have nooo idea how to edit it and fix that. So- I should have signed the last post: peace and love, alyssa.
so there it is. Now everyone knows who the small town raving lunatic is. awesome.

in the eyes of a local

Sweet. I like reading everyone's stories about summer training, its reviving my interest in training (i've been lacking in motivation lately...)
ok. chris- glad u love lp. lets trade. i'll take the city any day. you can even have my job. i get to shoot guns all day. ollie'll tell u its sweet. i say it sucks. remember those horse flies you encountered @ van ho, ollie? yah. they really like me... except when its POURING, but then you've got other problems, like for example, the "tent" your under is not withstanding the rain and you have a little girl tugging on your shorts telling you she's cold and asking if your 25 yr old supervisor is your dad... at the same time a lady is asking in an obnoxious brooklyn accent where the trigger is as she waves a loaded gun around.
uhhh... the trigger... it's under your finger, ok, shoot the gun, no, not at me and shut up.
ok, so today was a bit more aggravating than most, usually i spend it lying out in the sun, reading or sleeping. i guess im kind of lucky...
but believe me, its boring. I need visitors. anyone close enough, come visit. anna and ollie- show ur faces more often!!

okay, thats my bit about work and life in lp. booooring.

im psyched for fall, to train with all my enthusiastic, super fit teammates. and to not be shooting guns anymore. bc knowing i'll be outta here in a month is the only thing keeping me from hitting that brooklyn broad over the head with a .22.

Peace.

ps- anna, that beef was on sale bc its BAAD. don't eat it. i fear for your life.
and ollie- u are such a wuss for not running in the rain today.

Playing with fire

Today I had a rare day off from the restaurant, so I decided to pull a double. Made me wish that I could have a summer of just pulling double sessions and resting. I bet I'd get a lot of reading done. And a lot of napping.

In the morning Schulzy and I rolled over to McCahill's to do some threshold work. When we got there at 10 Dave was still asleep, so I spent some time talking to his 94 year old gramma Helmi while Anna played with Molly, the McCahill's black lab. After forcing Dave to down some Cheerios, we skied down to Averyville Rd. for our workout. Anna had done threshold on the 4th (I had an unscheduled off day due to a late night), so she just easy skied. For me and Dmac, it was 30 minutes of sustained threshold. Both of us felt like we nailed the workout. The terrain at the top of Averville is pretty good, with some decent climbs, a fair bit of good V2 uphill, and not too much rest.

After skiing back to Dave's, Schulzy and I headed home to eat a delicious lunch of scrambled eggs with chedder, tomatoes, and green peppers. We lazed around in the afternoon, reading and generally doing nothing. I slept from 3 til about 4:45. It was great. When I went to sleep it was pouring and thundering, but when I got up it had cleared up. My good spirits and hope that it would stay clear were misplaced, unfortunately.

After I drove Anna to work at 5 I rallied over to Van Ho to do my second workout. The plan was to run for half an hour, then do 5 x (4x30 sec) max bounding intervals, then finish up with the last day of unload strength. As I suited up at Van Ho everything looked money, but as soon as I hit the trails I started hearing rumblings over the sounds of my Ipod. Whatever, I thought, maybe someone's just doing trailwork. The rumblings got louder and a bit more frequent, but I convinced myself it was just the bobsled track on the otherside of the complex. After my 30 minute run, I grabbed my poles and headed over to Main Street to do my intervals. Main Street's hill was perfect because it wasn't beast-steep, so I could ease into my max workout. After the first of the five rounds of bounding, the thunder got so loud it was drowning out the Phish I was bumping. Then the skies opened up and it started to pour and I decided maybe being out in the woods alone with metal poles during a thunderstorm was a bad idea, so I hauled ass back to my car. Due to a wrong turn onto some single track (Van Ho was recently roped off for mountain biking and some signs were removed), it took 10 minutes of tearing ass to get back to the car, but I was safe. As soon as I threw the poles in the car and toweled off there was a lightning strike that couldn't have been more than a mile away.

So the workout was cut short, but it was in the name of safety. I've got to work tomorrow, so I'll only get in one workout. Now it's off to make burgers with the enormous amount of ground beef we bought at Price Chopper. Sweet.

-- O

Birds Hate Harvard Nordic

Wild turkey chicks are approximately four times the size of your average sparrow. Angry wild turkey mothers are closer to one hundred and four times the size of a sparrow. I am not sure what the airspeed velocity of an unladen turkey is, but while running at Van Ho a few days ago, I found out that the landspeed velocity of an unladen turkey rivals that of dumpy Camaros driven by redneck sixteen-year-olds through the back roads of Vermont… but it’s an even uglier sight. I was chased and nearly killed by a very protective, very large turkey when I almost stepped on her babies. Perhaps Chris Nabel is braver, or perhaps turkeys are scarier then sparrows, but either way, I do not plan on going back to that trail without several fully-loaded weapons.

Ferocious turkeys and snooty restaurant-goers aside, Lake Placid is the perfect summer home. The Price Chopper here even had buy-one-get-one-free beef the other day. Ollie and I like beef and we like deals. The poundage of beef currently in our freezer is greater than the average birthweight of healthy babies born in America. Next week, there will be a lot of turkey in there, too.

-Schulzy

Word from the wise: triathlons ruin friendships

This morning I went and did my first workout with McCahill since May. And that workout took place in Cambridge. How ridiculous is that?

It was a good workout - Doublepole OD on 9N from Keene to Upper Jay and Back. Went nice and slow, really used the arms and core. After lunch I did the first of the unload lifts this week. It was nice to not have to bust out 4x20 for the squats - whole thing took practically no time at all. Quick second lunch and then it's off to work again.