Due to the amazing snow we received, which supplemented the snow we already had, we will be having our first race this Wednesday night at 5:00pm.
We have done these in the past but haven't had enough snow for the last few years. It's a 5km freestyle race in the dark and it's a great time!
It's an open/free race for anyone who wants to race but you need to pre-register by emailing christib@rocketmail.com
Don't forget your headlamp!
http://mbna.pbworks.com/5%405
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Thursday, November 12, 2009
UW Nordic In the News!
Just a quick note on recent UW Nordic Articles:
The Top Prof awards featured our own Coach, Rachel Watson for the 4th time!
UW Senior Honor Society Names Top Professors for 2009
One of the Branding Iron, school newspaper, sports editors chose UW Nordic's double national championship as his favorite sport memory. The Branding Iron’s favorite sports memories
Not bad considering we haven't even started racing this year yet!
The Top Prof awards featured our own Coach, Rachel Watson for the 4th time!
UW Senior Honor Society Names Top Professors for 2009
One of the Branding Iron, school newspaper, sports editors chose UW Nordic's double national championship as his favorite sport memory. The Branding Iron’s favorite sports memories
Not bad considering we haven't even started racing this year yet!
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Winter is coming, we think!
Wow! What a fantastic Volume week we had!
We knew at the beginning of the week that the massive snowfall we had wasn't going to last the season. No we wouldn't be skiing daily straight through but we also had hopes that we could do an on-snow volume camp last week. That may have sounded crazy when looking at the forecast of 60+ all week but Happy Jack is a magical place and for some unknown reason manages to hold snow amazingly well.
We started the week with a 1:30 LSD skate/technique workout on Monday. Strength & Yoga on Tuesday, 1:30LSD Classic on Wednesday, strength and Yoga again on Thursday, 1:30LSD skate on Friday and a 2:15LSD skate on Sunday!
All of this was done on groomed trails and most of our top athletes did way more skiing than that. We believe Fitz has the record for the week with 15 hours of skiing! Sunday was a little sketchy getting up to the good skiing and some people chose to run but once you were through the meadow the skiing was actually fantastic and it was fairly easy to get in the 2:15. It technically should have been a longer workout but with the great volume we did all week it wasn't necessary.
This week is recovery and despite the fact that we can probably still ski in areas we will be taking a break and doing just a few light workouts. If things pan out for the week as we hope we may be skiing for practice at Happy Jack again on Sunday. If not then we'll probably head up to Snowy Range and beat around a little. It appears that there is quite a bit of snow up there. We're just spoiled because we've been skiing 10min from town and Snowy Range is 30!
I took some video on Sunday that I'll be posting to the YouTube Channel, when I can remember to do it!
Fall is almost over, keep doing that snow dance!
We knew at the beginning of the week that the massive snowfall we had wasn't going to last the season. No we wouldn't be skiing daily straight through but we also had hopes that we could do an on-snow volume camp last week. That may have sounded crazy when looking at the forecast of 60+ all week but Happy Jack is a magical place and for some unknown reason manages to hold snow amazingly well.
We started the week with a 1:30 LSD skate/technique workout on Monday. Strength & Yoga on Tuesday, 1:30LSD Classic on Wednesday, strength and Yoga again on Thursday, 1:30LSD skate on Friday and a 2:15LSD skate on Sunday!
All of this was done on groomed trails and most of our top athletes did way more skiing than that. We believe Fitz has the record for the week with 15 hours of skiing! Sunday was a little sketchy getting up to the good skiing and some people chose to run but once you were through the meadow the skiing was actually fantastic and it was fairly easy to get in the 2:15. It technically should have been a longer workout but with the great volume we did all week it wasn't necessary.
This week is recovery and despite the fact that we can probably still ski in areas we will be taking a break and doing just a few light workouts. If things pan out for the week as we hope we may be skiing for practice at Happy Jack again on Sunday. If not then we'll probably head up to Snowy Range and beat around a little. It appears that there is quite a bit of snow up there. We're just spoiled because we've been skiing 10min from town and Snowy Range is 30!
I took some video on Sunday that I'll be posting to the YouTube Channel, when I can remember to do it!
Fall is almost over, keep doing that snow dance!
Monday, November 02, 2009
Skiing!
Wow! What a great weekend!
After all the snow during the week the road finally opened on Saturday morning (yes that was Halloween!) and we were skiing that afternoon on groomed trails!
Since it was Halloween and our first ski at Happy Jack we had a hunt for the 3 Great Pumpkins that were hidden on the trails. Once they were found each team member had to "brand" themselves and receive the "sign of the spider".
Once they got branded and spider marked from all three Great Pumpkins they raced back to the meeting place and had to do a trick for their treats. You can see most of the tricks at http://www.youtube.com/uwski There were 6 groups and you'll notice that you only see 5 tricks. One group had a questionable trick, questionable because it didn't take any skill, but it was also definitely not PG enough to post online!
There is probably 1 foot of packed snow on most of the trails and all the trails were groomed but the forecast for this week will be less than favorable for keeping the snow (temperatures in the 50's). With that in mind we are going to take advantage of this week to have an early season, on-snow, volume camp. We believe we'll be able to ski up at Happy Jack through Sunday, even with the warm temperatures predicted, so we will be skiing every day, except for Tuesday & Thursday. After that we'll hope for more favorable temperatures to hold the snow we have and maybe even add a little!
Not a bad season so far by the beginning of November some of us will have already skied 7 times!
It doesn't get any better than that!
After all the snow during the week the road finally opened on Saturday morning (yes that was Halloween!) and we were skiing that afternoon on groomed trails!
Since it was Halloween and our first ski at Happy Jack we had a hunt for the 3 Great Pumpkins that were hidden on the trails. Once they were found each team member had to "brand" themselves and receive the "sign of the spider".
Once they got branded and spider marked from all three Great Pumpkins they raced back to the meeting place and had to do a trick for their treats. You can see most of the tricks at http://www.youtube.com/uwski There were 6 groups and you'll notice that you only see 5 tricks. One group had a questionable trick, questionable because it didn't take any skill, but it was also definitely not PG enough to post online!
There is probably 1 foot of packed snow on most of the trails and all the trails were groomed but the forecast for this week will be less than favorable for keeping the snow (temperatures in the 50's). With that in mind we are going to take advantage of this week to have an early season, on-snow, volume camp. We believe we'll be able to ski up at Happy Jack through Sunday, even with the warm temperatures predicted, so we will be skiing every day, except for Tuesday & Thursday. After that we'll hope for more favorable temperatures to hold the snow we have and maybe even add a little!
Not a bad season so far by the beginning of November some of us will have already skied 7 times!
It doesn't get any better than that!
Friday, October 30, 2009
Yoga & Meditation
As I was reviewing the recent blog posts on my Google Reader I came across and article about meditation by Patrick Stinson (http://fasterskier.com/2009/10/meditation-as-a-recovery-tool/). This article reminded me that one of the most ignored and important part of training, behind but closely related to recovery, is the mental game.
The mental game is interesting because some people believe that it's you really need, "If you want it bad enough!" and it is important but it has to be accompanied with the physical game. I believe that when two similarly trained and talented athletes compete it will often come down to who is mentally tougher but that the real 'Mental Game' happens every day.
Every single day an athlete makes choices that will ultimately help her/him become successful or lead to their ultimate downfall. For most athletes it is relatively easy to tough out a workout, push through the end of a race, or do that last rep in strength. It is not easy to then lie down, go to bed early, eat the right stuff AND give your brain a break. Small choices snowball into huge avalanches when the season starts and it is the athletes that, because I'm also in Wyoming, just "git er done!" every day, all year long, that will ultimately see the success for which they strive.
This is one of the things I like about Patrick's blog post, he is acknowledging the importance of dealing with your mind to increase your ability to recover. Being mentally able to deal with the everyday trauma of training is extremely important but in many ways dealing with the everyday stresses of life is more difficult and finding the balance between the two is the most difficult.
Patrick gave us one example of mental work that athletes can do. Our team started doing yoga last fall for the same reason. The mental part of yoga is extremely important but it also has the advantage of increasing flexibility, balance, strength and provides a great opportunity for active recovery. It's a win-win!
Whichever method you choose, it is important for you to consider the mental part of your training. In the long run what separates the dogs from the pups is not the ability to train hard on the interval days but the ability to recover from those days, make good choices and keep mentally focused.
Christi
The mental game is interesting because some people believe that it's you really need, "If you want it bad enough!" and it is important but it has to be accompanied with the physical game. I believe that when two similarly trained and talented athletes compete it will often come down to who is mentally tougher but that the real 'Mental Game' happens every day.
Every single day an athlete makes choices that will ultimately help her/him become successful or lead to their ultimate downfall. For most athletes it is relatively easy to tough out a workout, push through the end of a race, or do that last rep in strength. It is not easy to then lie down, go to bed early, eat the right stuff AND give your brain a break. Small choices snowball into huge avalanches when the season starts and it is the athletes that, because I'm also in Wyoming, just "git er done!" every day, all year long, that will ultimately see the success for which they strive.
This is one of the things I like about Patrick's blog post, he is acknowledging the importance of dealing with your mind to increase your ability to recover. Being mentally able to deal with the everyday trauma of training is extremely important but in many ways dealing with the everyday stresses of life is more difficult and finding the balance between the two is the most difficult.
Patrick gave us one example of mental work that athletes can do. Our team started doing yoga last fall for the same reason. The mental part of yoga is extremely important but it also has the advantage of increasing flexibility, balance, strength and provides a great opportunity for active recovery. It's a win-win!
Whichever method you choose, it is important for you to consider the mental part of your training. In the long run what separates the dogs from the pups is not the ability to train hard on the interval days but the ability to recover from those days, make good choices and keep mentally focused.
Christi
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Friday, October 09, 2009
From the Eurochopper!
Dear all,
As some of you might know (many of you don't) I am currently on a research visit to the TU Delft in the Netherlands. I will be working here until Christmas which I will spend in Austria. I am still not done with my PhD but really not too far away from finishing anymore (most likely sometimes in summer). Below you'll find a brief summary of my experiences so far...
The traveling was pretty smooth (thanks to my ride Kristyn to Denver, and my hosts Andy&Laura in Denver) since the predicted snowstorm was a little bit late. My last minute packing method worked perfect as usual but my brain did not after a nice meal at the Cafe Berlin and so I managed to forget my Laptop + some paperwork in Kristyn's car. The problem was solved the next day by arranging for a shipment of the documents to the Netherlands (thank you Rene!). Getting to Delft after arriving in Amsterdam was a piece of cake and so was checking in to my new room. I am sharing kitchen and bath with my new roommate Mehmet from Iran. He does not talk very much and I really hope he is not here to get is pilot license...
On my way from the apartment to my new office (which is only 10min by foot) I realized a few interesting things:
1) I must have really adapted to the nice, cold and dry Wyoming climate over the past 4 years, beacause the 15C rainy weather with a humidity of close to 90% was killing me!
2) I already missed mountains!
3) I am not used to people anymore: everybody looked very important and busy here, how annoying!
4) Similarly to the states not many people walk here but that's because everybody rides a bike. I almost got myself killed several times! The way traffic works here: bikes first, then cars at the end of the chain is the pedestrian
5) There is a lot of water here!
After getting a desk in a really nice student office (!) I met my new Prof. Dirk Roekaerts. He seems to be very much like Dr. Heinz described him to me: very smart, very nice with gray hair and sometimes a bit lost in thought (isn't that how a Prof. should be?). We went straight to talking business which was not a good idea since I was pretty incoherent after not sleeping much for 48 hours...Anyways, I think he did forgive me for that and we had a much more fruitful discussion the next day and by now we have already a pretty good idea of what we want to work on (a flame of course!).
Over the last days I met most of the PhD students and a few undergrads. A nice international mix of people! Also, half of them do experiments which already resulted in some interesting discussions about, guess what, flames. Next week I am invited to watch one of the students fire up a burner and take some measurements in the flame. Besides my immediate colleges in the thermo-fluids group I am surrounded by labs in which people research pretty cool things like quantuum tunneling and so forth (my office is in the physics building). Overall, an intellectually very stimulating environment!
The food in the Mensa is pretty good and decently priced. In the evenings I have different cheeses and sausages with pretty good bread everyday. In terms of food it already feels close to home. Though there is one striking difference to home (and to Laramie): the people here are all so tall! Every other guy and every third girl are taller than me (nothing for you Rene!). Must be from the cheese...
After I got rid of a cold which I caught on the plane (of course...) I went on my first run yesterday. Going for a run is always a good way to check out new places. To avoid getting lost (which I usally do) I decided to run along the main canal which runs through Delft. Running at sea level (or even below) is quite an experience after living on top of a mountain for the last 4 years. I started with a nice slow zone 1 pace but my heart rate did not really go up. After a few minutes I increased the pace to what would be a fast zone 2 pace in Laramie. My heart rate was still in low zone 1. I felt like supermen! Along the canal there are very pretty old brick stone buildings all of which are renovated nicely. Living in Laramie, I almost forgot how nice houses can be! Besides the old houses there were more things that really made me feel that I am in an old European University town.
I must have came across at least a dozen rowing boats. To my surprise (and pleasure) most of the boats were filled with pretty hot girls (thats what paradise must be). Seeing these girls I was thinking to myself that I better should have learned rowing instead of spending all my time playing tennis in St. Gilgen. I don't know if the girls were the reason for my heart rate to catch up with the pace I was running but it eventually did. I guess some things don't change: you cant turn a donkey into a race horse, not even at sea level.
It's Friday evening and I pretty much wrote what I have to tell so far. I will go for another run now and perhaps I am able to find out where the rowing girls hang out later on. I will grab a bite to eat and have myself some of the Dutch brews!
Cheers and Goedenavond,
Mike
As some of you might know (many of you don't) I am currently on a research visit to the TU Delft in the Netherlands. I will be working here until Christmas which I will spend in Austria. I am still not done with my PhD but really not too far away from finishing anymore (most likely sometimes in summer). Below you'll find a brief summary of my experiences so far...
The traveling was pretty smooth (thanks to my ride Kristyn to Denver, and my hosts Andy&Laura in Denver) since the predicted snowstorm was a little bit late. My last minute packing method worked perfect as usual but my brain did not after a nice meal at the Cafe Berlin and so I managed to forget my Laptop + some paperwork in Kristyn's car. The problem was solved the next day by arranging for a shipment of the documents to the Netherlands (thank you Rene!). Getting to Delft after arriving in Amsterdam was a piece of cake and so was checking in to my new room. I am sharing kitchen and bath with my new roommate Mehmet from Iran. He does not talk very much and I really hope he is not here to get is pilot license...
On my way from the apartment to my new office (which is only 10min by foot) I realized a few interesting things:
1) I must have really adapted to the nice, cold and dry Wyoming climate over the past 4 years, beacause the 15C rainy weather with a humidity of close to 90% was killing me!
2) I already missed mountains!
3) I am not used to people anymore: everybody looked very important and busy here, how annoying!
4) Similarly to the states not many people walk here but that's because everybody rides a bike. I almost got myself killed several times! The way traffic works here: bikes first, then cars at the end of the chain is the pedestrian
5) There is a lot of water here!
After getting a desk in a really nice student office (!) I met my new Prof. Dirk Roekaerts. He seems to be very much like Dr. Heinz described him to me: very smart, very nice with gray hair and sometimes a bit lost in thought (isn't that how a Prof. should be?). We went straight to talking business which was not a good idea since I was pretty incoherent after not sleeping much for 48 hours...Anyways, I think he did forgive me for that and we had a much more fruitful discussion the next day and by now we have already a pretty good idea of what we want to work on (a flame of course!).
Over the last days I met most of the PhD students and a few undergrads. A nice international mix of people! Also, half of them do experiments which already resulted in some interesting discussions about, guess what, flames. Next week I am invited to watch one of the students fire up a burner and take some measurements in the flame. Besides my immediate colleges in the thermo-fluids group I am surrounded by labs in which people research pretty cool things like quantuum tunneling and so forth (my office is in the physics building). Overall, an intellectually very stimulating environment!
The food in the Mensa is pretty good and decently priced. In the evenings I have different cheeses and sausages with pretty good bread everyday. In terms of food it already feels close to home. Though there is one striking difference to home (and to Laramie): the people here are all so tall! Every other guy and every third girl are taller than me (nothing for you Rene!). Must be from the cheese...
After I got rid of a cold which I caught on the plane (of course...) I went on my first run yesterday. Going for a run is always a good way to check out new places. To avoid getting lost (which I usally do) I decided to run along the main canal which runs through Delft. Running at sea level (or even below) is quite an experience after living on top of a mountain for the last 4 years. I started with a nice slow zone 1 pace but my heart rate did not really go up. After a few minutes I increased the pace to what would be a fast zone 2 pace in Laramie. My heart rate was still in low zone 1. I felt like supermen! Along the canal there are very pretty old brick stone buildings all of which are renovated nicely. Living in Laramie, I almost forgot how nice houses can be! Besides the old houses there were more things that really made me feel that I am in an old European University town.
I must have came across at least a dozen rowing boats. To my surprise (and pleasure) most of the boats were filled with pretty hot girls (thats what paradise must be). Seeing these girls I was thinking to myself that I better should have learned rowing instead of spending all my time playing tennis in St. Gilgen. I don't know if the girls were the reason for my heart rate to catch up with the pace I was running but it eventually did. I guess some things don't change: you cant turn a donkey into a race horse, not even at sea level.
It's Friday evening and I pretty much wrote what I have to tell so far. I will go for another run now and perhaps I am able to find out where the rowing girls hang out later on. I will grab a bite to eat and have myself some of the Dutch brews!
Cheers and Goedenavond,
Mike
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