Lake Placid Camp

I've been at the USST camp in Lake Placid for three days now, and have one day left! There's a lot of skiers here, with groups from NENSA, Craftsbury, NEG, NTG and the USST, so its been a great training environment. Thursday was a recovery day, so we spent the morning working on classic technique on Bear Cub road. That afternoon, we took a trip to the bowling alley in town, and had fun comparing our less refined skills! Friday morning we went to the jumps and did a speed workout- 3 sets of speeds, one set striding up hill, one set of drop ins, and finally some sprint starts. After a very nice easy run in the afternoon, Bryan Fish gave a talk about the nuances of how we actually learn technique. The main thing I took from it is that the way we all get faster and ski better is by mimicry, following people with better technique and figuring out how to ski as well as they do. To me that's the best part about being at a camp like this with so many talented skiers, getting the opportunity to ski behind them in a distance workout or go head to head in sprint starts. This morning we all raced in the Climb to the Castle, up the back side of Whiteface. Although it frosted last night, it warmed up enough to be quite pleasant for the race. I had never done the race before, so all I knew about it was what I'd heard from everyone else that had raced it, and that was that it was really, really hard! It was certainly a hard and tiring race, but it wasn't nearly as terrible as I had imagined it being, and it actually was really fun! This afternoon we have a strength session and then tomorrow our final workout will be a classic OD. Thanks to all the coaches who've helped make this such a productive camp!

 the Middlebury crew at the top, I seem to have missed that picture (Lander Karath photo)

enjoying the scenery post race! (Annie Hart photo)

I was able to attend this camp as part of the National Training Group, a selection of skiers based on qualifying for World Juniors last year as well as some other discretional criteria. My point is though that World Juniors was a great experience and opportunity for me, which was made possible in part by the National Nordic Foundation. NNF is a foundation that raises money to help young skiers in the US take advantage of opportunities to race in Europe by providing funding for trips such as World Juniors and the J1 trip. And, they need your help, any donation makes a difference, and puts your name amongst those that support cross country skiing. Thank you!

Click here to read more or to donate:
http://ccgeneralfund.causevox.com/4e6d3a6f63f16