Sometimes Skipping Class Has Its Perks

Hi Everyone! I've been meaning to update the blog for a while with some of my semester off/ redshirt adventures, so here we go!

I started the semester by visiting Harvard, meeting all our awesome new freshman, and seeing my favorite faces of all our returning Harvard skiers! It was great to meet up with everyone and catch up on summer adventures and the like, and I even had the opportunity to help lead an adventure to Mount Lincoln and Mount Lafayette in the beautiful White Mountains in New Hampshire. Great people, beautiful day, and an awesome workout! I think this picture sums it up well.

(That's a good lookin' crew if I ever saw one!)

Next up was a little adventure up to the Adirondack mountains and Lake Placid, NY for a training camp with the US Ski Team and my club from Vail SSCVail/ Team Homegrown. The camp was awesome: there were tons of fast guys to beat me up on rollerski workouts, but I managed to hold my own pretty well! The camp included the notorious Climb to the Castle rollerski race up Whiteface Mountain (a 5 mile climb with an average grade of 8% finishing at 4867ft): the race lived up to its reputation, and not only was it long, hard, and steep, but it was also 35 degrees and raining with blustering winds. Needless to say, I toughed it out and still managed to have a good day despite nearly freezing to death!

(It only hurts a little)

We also did a cool sprint simulation workout and some awesome speed and distance training. Here is a video if you're interested. Lake Placid Men's Sprint (I'm in the bright blue shirt in heat 4 throughout the rounds).

After LP, I ventured to Bates college to visit my little sister who is a freshman, then back to Cambridge to see my Harvard buddies once again, and then finally back west and home to Vail. 

I missed most of the colors of fall in Colorado, but luckily it was still beautiful out and I got to do some biking with my mom and some more training with team Homegrown.

(Pardon my helmet hair!)

After a short week in Vail, 6 of the Vail juniors and I went to Moab, Utah for a training camp. Moab was really the perfect place to have a mid October camp as the mountains in Vail are getting cold, but not yet snowy, while Moab was still a nice 75 degrees without a cloud in the sky! Not only did we do some awesome Mountain Biking on trails like Porcupine Rim and Flat Pass (Steel Bender if you're in a Jeep), we also did some great rollerskiing around Moab on their 100+ miles of paved recreation paths and in the picturesque Castle Valley!

The crew atop Porcupine Rim!

Classic Ski in the Castle Valley (I'm told that they used to have an adventure race where you zip-lined from the tall spire to the right on me in the picture to the wider spire further to the right!) 

Steel Bender (we decided to walk our bikes up this section ;) )

On of way back from Moab, we stopped on the Western slope of Colorado for 2 days on training in Fruita and to help some of the juniors in the high school state championship mountain bike race. We mostly rode there on some spectacular trails overlooking the Colorado River, but also did a threshold double pole workout near the Utah border. As you can see it is densely populated and we had lots of company!

(Friendly locals!)

I'm now back at home taking a much needed rest week and getting excited to be on snow soon! It looks like they should have a manmade loop here in Vail in the next week to 10 days, so I'm pretty pumped about that. As much as I'd like to be back in Cambridge listening to an econometrics lecture, there are certain times when skipping class (or a semester) has its perks!

Miss you all and can't wait to crush it on 2 come January!

- Tony

Harvard Nordic Supports Love!

Happy National Coming Out Day (a few weeks in advance)!

The VIP Austrian Training Camp

Now that I am home with reliable internet and all my pictures downloaded I have no more excuses for postponing my report from my time in Austria on the Dachstein Glacier.   After four trains, two buses, and one taxi, I arrived in Ramsau am Dachstein on Saturday, July 28^th.  It was a long day of travel but it exposed me to two new countries and left me rested and excited for my upcoming days on snow.  I stayed at a Farmhouse hotel five minutes form the center of town and the bus stop.  They had about twenty-five rooms and they provided a filling breakfast each morning of Austrian sausage and bread, cereal, and fresh milk and yogurt from their cows.  It provided a great basecamp from which I had only a thirty-minute commute on the bus and cable car to reach the glacier.   I skied everyday, usually doing a longer workout in the morning when the snow was a little harder followed by a shorter afternoon workout of the other technique.  The first day had extremely variable weather, experiencing everything from dense fog, to full sun, to strong wind and even rain!  This was followed by heavy fog all of my second day, which was an interesting experience as it made it feel like it was 4pm all day, but also distracted me from the fact I was going in circles on a 5km loop.  It was a good first two days getting used to the feel of skis and snow again and it made the sunshine and company of the US Men’s Ski team extra welcome for my next three days!  I classic skied for a short while behind Noah Hoffman on Tuesday and on Wednesday I caught the whole Men’s team for the last half hour of their workout.  These first two experiences were helpful for helpful for my technique and their lessons were solidified and expanded upon on Thursday morning when I got to ski with Tad Elliott and Eric Packer for an hour and a half, meet both Jason Cork and Chris Grover, and join the full Men’s team for their strength routine that afternoon.  It was a wonderful opportunity to ski with them and to get to see what they are doing in the weight room.  While lots of their lift routine is similar to what we do at Harvard, I also picked up some new exercises that will be nice additions to our current routine.  While the Men’s team left Friday morning for the Ski Tunnel in Germany, I had two more great days of skiing that included making friends with two French skiers and even getting them to take some technique video of me!  Skiing with people from Norway, Austria, Germany, Japan, France, and the U.S., with good grooming and on the whole cooperative weather, I was able to ski over 300km and had an amazing seven days on snow!

I hope everyone’s training is going well and I am getting really excited to see everyone  at school soon!

Akeo

 My wonderful home for the week.

The farmhouse's milk cows.

 View from the base of the cable car.

 View from the top of the cable car.

Ski trails and warming trailer!

Mountains surrounding the glacier.

 Picture courtesy of the French skiers!

No regrets, just love

Why hello there! Akeo and Chris here, thinking we'd dust off the ol' blog for an update on our summer in Grenoble.

We've been here for a full five weeks now, which neither of us can really believe because the time seems to have gone by so quickly. But this place is undoubtedly starting to feel more like home, with a daily routine pretty much set, the city layout now feeling familiar, and training opportunities well known at this point.

Chris's update: The awesome thing about living next to a mountain is that you don't have to travel far (i.e., at all) to start climbing. Just this morning Akeo and I went on a casual ski-walk before work and, in a little over an hour, found ourselves 2500 feet higher than when we started (we live at about 700 feet). I guess if you live near mountains this isn't such a big deal, but coming from the Boston suburbs it makes me pretty happy!

The metropolitan roads of Grenoble are pretty narrow and busy, but we don't have to go far to get to great rollerskiing: After about 10 minutes of scooting around the city, it's a really pretty, low-traffic road that climbs for two hours straight through smaller villages. The route is well supplied with water stops along the way, but we've found that the effect of increasing in altitude is decreasing temperatures, eventually landing at Col de Porte, a mountain peak at the relatively modest 4350 feet. I say relatively modest because forty-five minutes later, skiing on the stickiest tar pavement you've ever laid rollerkis on, up a switchbacky mountain road, you end up at the gorgeous Charmant Som, which at 6100 feet makes you feel pretty accomplished for the day!

Cute selfie on our way up to Col de Porte. In the background is Chamechaude, the highest mountain in the Chartruese mountain range. Don't worry, we'll hike it soon.

Some more roadside scenery from the ascent:

Akeo's update: Five weeks in also means that we both have operational road bikes and have been able to start exploring more than just the ascents (and best locations to catch rides).  Last Friday, I was able to fully appreciate this by taking a morning work break and going on a short road trip for an amazing morning cycling adventure with my "boss," Max.  We drove about an hour to the heart of the "High-Alps" where we started our epic ride.  We rode two Cols (a Col is like a valley/mountain summit).  The first was Col du Lautarait, after which we (Max) took a quick café break while we waited to be joined by friends.  With our new members we headed up the real climb to the top of Col du Galibier (in the picture my head is blocking it but for those watching the numbers that is a summit of 8,678 ft, the sixth highest mountain pass in the Alps)!  It was an awesome climb.  As one of the most frequently included climbs in the Tour de France, it has a ton of history behind it and you feel very epic riding up reading the same words of encouragement that countless Tour de France winners have read on their way to victory!  After lots of pictures from the top we started our descent, and it will suffice to say that I tied my all-time speed record on a bike (70kph) without even pedaling!!  It was a fantastic morning and we were still back to work by early afternoon in time to finish up our protein purification for the week!  (To view the video from Max's GoPro, including the descent, click here and for the full picture album look on my facebook wall.)

Summit:

 View from the top:

While this was an especially epic day, we have had workouts from numerous other days that have been just as, shall we say,  adventurous and instructive...  We will not bore you with the details, but here are some highlights:

• Discovering (on day one) that walking 6km back down the road (in ski boots or bare feet) and then hitch-hiking the rest of the way down is less desirable (and worse for post-workout recovery) than riding down form the top.  
• Discovering (not on day one) that this rule still holds true if it's a weekday and 11pm (and, yes, pitch-black out).  [***Safety Side Note: We were not rollerskiing in the dark and would never do that! In this case, after finishing our rollerski and waiting an hour and a half at the top of the mountain with no luck getting a ride, we realized that if we didn't start hiking we'd be spending a rather chilly night in the mountains.]
• Discovering that, in the case of getting separated from one another, just keep skiing in a generally upwards direction and with a little luck you can be reunited after an hour at a random mid-mountain bus stop 3 minutes before the bus arrives to take you down.
• Discovering that it is rather easier to enter our apartment with the key through the door, than picking the clasp on the shutters and using the window (although Tor and Esther's Lowell basement training sessions proved very useful this day).
• Discovering, even though we are Nordic skiers, it is possible to buy more groceries than you can physically carry, with or without a bike, and no, even on those days it doesn't count as a strength workout regardless of how long it took you to traverse the 10 blocks back home.

There's an accordionist outside our window right now, and I just got back from exploring Grenoble's centre-ville (below).  Just another day in the life, feelin' French!

Keep on summering, training, and summer-training,

Chris and Akeo

Thanksgiving Camp!!!

A report by Akeo:

This year marked the beginning of what looks like will become an great new Thanksgiving camp tradition for Harvard’s nordic ski team. This year we went to Craftsbury, VT instead of making the customary Thanksgiving break trek to Canada. In Vermont we stayed at the local outdoor center in an olympic-village like setting, with skiing out the door, weight facilities, and an excellent dining lodge. Our first day was spent dry land training, but thanks to a large snow that night we were able to ski twice a day for the rest of the week. It was such an amazing time being back on snow after the long summer months, and spending so much time bonding together as a team. Our first few days on snow were dedicated to easy distance skiing, with lots of technique work to transition and adapt all our hard work from roller skiing to snow skiing. The week built in intensity culminating in a 4.5km skate race.  This was a great opportunity for everyone to push themselves and get a in a really good hard effort.

Off the trails we also had a fantastic time. After a few months of Harvard dining hall food it was a nice change to have home-style cooking. We also had a suite with a nice common room where we were able to spend lots of time together studying, watching movies, talking about skiing and baking pies and cookies! Everyone was sad to leave after such a fun camp, but with only a few more weeks before local skiing, spirits are still high and the air is filled with excitement for the upcoming races.

The Air was Sweet and Fragrant...

...on the van ride home from practice yesterday.
More scintillating conversation from Esther and Chris:
Chris: "What's the French word for air?"
Esther: "Err?"
Chris: "No, I mean, what's the word for air."
Esther: "Err? Huh, I don't know."
Chris: "No, air, this stuff."
Esther: "Oh, air!"
Chris: "L'air?"
Esther: "I thought you were talking about err!"
Chris: "No, I meant air."

The past few weeks have been busy for the ski team!

Chris's backyard on October 27

As most of you probably know, New England was hit with October snow this year!  There wasn't enough for us to ski on, but it was still exciting!  Chris and his wife had already put their daughter, Maggie, to bed when the snow started, but Chris insisted that Maggie needed to be woken up to see her first snowfall.

Maggie's Immediate Reaction to the Snow

A few days later, the Stocks graciously hosted brunch for us at their house. We were all impressed with Professor Stock's cooking abilities. Pumpkin pancakes and french toast have never tasted so good. As good as the food was, the highlight of the brunch was the babies! Both Sara's and Chris's children came.   Maggie was quiet and cute, while Sara's son Loki spent most of his time rolling around on the ground. 

Everyone was very sleepy after brunch

This Sunday (November 6), was the annual CSU classic rollerski race. Chris Stock and Akeo took turns leading during the race, but Chris came out ahead to win the overall 15 k title. Alena was the second woman behind Alex Jospe to be the top Crimson female finisher. The weather was great, sunny and 50 degrees, so everyone enjoyed the day. We were happy to return to Cambridge with pumpkin, apple, and blumberry pies.

Two weeks until we're on snow!

JRR