A Little "Me Time"

Returning home for the summer after one's first year in college is one of the strangest transitions to make. I came back from Maine to my beautiful home in Crowley Lake, California at the end of May to find that my life at home is much quieter than my life at Bates. The first few weeks were a struggle trying to re-adjust to "home life." Suddenly, I was hundreds of miles away from my batesies and the team I had come to call family. Instead, I found myself at home with my parents, cats, crazy dog, and old high school friends. I wanted out.

Eventually, I settled down, looked around, and was glad to be home. I decided that I would make these three months of summer productive in some way. At the beginning of the summer, Becky told us that this is an opportunity to try new things in our training and figure out what works for YOU. Finding myself alone for the summer, arguably as far away from Maine as one can get (besides our friends in Fairbanks), I thought that this was a great opportunity. I wanted to make it a goal to spend the summer doing what is right for me, so I stopped moping and got to work.

My mom, Nancy, spends her summers being my training partner (thanks, Mom!) and coaching high school kids for skiing. Our local ski club offered me a position as assistant coach and I jumped on it. Coaching the kids has opened new doors in my own skiing. Explaining technique to them has forced me to look closer at my own, especially when doing demos. Also, it's been so rewarding watching them improve and embrace an active lifestyle. We have an awesome group of kids (mostly boys) and they keep me laughing constantly.

In my own training, I've been finding lots of time to work on personal goals. Building strength (this will be a never ending goal for me), foot speed, and refining my classic technique have been the focuses of this summer. Beyond physical goals, I've also been working on honing in on my mental game. Being away from the team has been good for me to look inward. I've been practicing more yoga and have spent lots of time finding zen in the mountains. I've learned that even in the craziest of times when you feel yourself begin to speed up, you must slow down. My hope is that I can come back to school with a more balanced mindset towards training and school.

So it's okay to go home for the summer. When the opportunity is right, I think it's great to meet up with teammates to train, but it's also okay to spend some time training alone. Taking this time for me is only going to make me a better teammate in the fall (trust me, you wouldn't want snorel all year round). Before the craziness of the fall, take some time for yourself, a little "me time," it could be the best thing you've ever done for yourself.

                                                         Embracing solitude!!

                                          Spending some quality time with Dogzilla, aka Sadie.

                                               Summit of Mt. Dana with the crew

                            Lots of time has been spent in the kayak exploring our mountain lakes.

                    Took a "vacation" into the mountains on my family's 8 day backpacking trip.

Peace,

Laurel 

How to rule the world: First step Truckee, second step universe!

Recently, future, current, and past Bates Nordies have been congregating in Truckee, here to enjoy the beautiful views, thin air, blue water and fun times.

Yesterday, we hiked up Mt. Lola, where Bates was the best represented team, most importantly beating out Bowdoin and Colby. Hiking out here is so much different than in the East. It's much flatter and windy, not straight up, which lends itself to more gently and runnable adventures. This was one of the first times in a while that I've gone for a pure hike, not a run/ hike!
Here's a picture of former athlete/ coach Martin Benes, incoming freshman Bria Riggs, Hallie, and Britta.

We also were graced by the presence of the lovely Gretchen Sellegren, who visited for the weekend from Bozeman! It was awesome to see Gretch and hear about all of her awesome Montana mountain biking . 

This picture is from Royal Gorge, North America's largest cross county ski resort. It also has awesome running, mountain biking, and horseback riding during the summer. Heather and I (sometimes with others) run here a few times a week, because she works trail monitor for the Truckee- Donner Land Trust (arguably the best job in the world). Here is Gretchen and past Middlebury skier Lander Karath finishing up a ride.

Batesies plus Heather!

Presidential Traverse

Last weekend, some of the New England dwelling ladies (including me- Tara, Janie, and Gracie), celebrated the end of the volume week with hiking the Prezzies! It was a perfect day, with few clouds but fairly cool temps and very minimal bugs. After spending the night in Gracie's relative's condo in Bretton Woods, we began our assault at 6:15 am. We summited all 10 peaks, taking a picture at the tops!, and finished our day after 23 miles and 12.5 hours with very sore knees and calves but big smiles!!

Some highlights were passing people before we had reached the halfway point (Mt. washington) that had started at 3:15am, seeing a man hiking the whole thing barefoot, and watching janer lick dark chocolate off of her kind bar wrapper (I know right!).

Here are some photos courtesy of gracie and Jane (I drowned my phone in sweat) from the summits. The photos get worse as we get tired.

 not tired yet

 just passed barefoot man

ready for lunch

hungry and cold, halfway done

getting slightly loopy

last peak- get me down! 

Dear neglected blog followers!

After a long hiatus during which we can only assure you we were having nothing but fabulous times, the Bates Nordic Blog is back in action! This is Britta and Hallie reporting live from sunny California where we are living, working and training in Truckee with a gaggle of other EISA skiers. During the school year, Becky always stresses the importance of balancing our schoolwork and skiing, but in the summer, the stakes are even higher. It has taken a lot of diligence, hard work and dedication to make sure that we attend to our duties of tanning, barbequing, river floating, pleasure-reading, mountain-climbing, adventure running, toning, picking heavy things up and putting them down,  selling coffee and wine, yoga, porch sitting and beans/rice cooking. Here are a couple highlights of our summer so far:

 Here we are with Midd skier Heather Mooney middway through a 3.5 hour run to Squaw Mountain from Donner Summit!

 Here is Britta demonstrating the most exciting part of out most recent Monday: finding a $14 moldy  block of cheese at the grocery store and getting it for $2. TWO DOLLARS!

On July 4th, Truckee turned patriotic, with the Firecracker Mile taking over town. German born and raised, Anja Gruber took the cake for the most patriotic and the fastest women of the day.

Above is Heather, Hallie and former Midd Skier/ current biathlon prodigy Patrick Johnson on a 70 mile ride around Lake Tahoe.


Lastly we have a video of Britta rollerskiing off a dock in an effort to impress some boys.








Hope everyone is having a fantastic summer!
Britta and Hallie