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.