going home

The other day, I got really excited to go back to Bates.

If you’ve talked to me this summer about school, you know I’m happy to have a break from Bates right now. Short Term was tough– I was sick, my track season wasn’t what I wanted it to be, my best friends weren’t on campus, my mind was constantly in worry-mode, and I was taking a tough class. When May 29^th rolled around, I was ready to leave Lewiston. I figured homesickness for Bates would set in within the month of June, but it didn’t. And it didn’t in July.

Don’t get me wrong – I love Bates with all of my heart; it’s home to me. But sometimes, you need a break from home. I definitely needed that break.

Now we’re in August. If you had asked me a week ago if I was excited to go back to Bates, I would say “I’m not quite ready yet.” I would’ve told you the same thing on Friday. On Saturday, though, I would’ve given you a completely different answer.

I was supposed to hike the Bridger Range on Saturday with one of my roommates (Sarah, a skier for Williams), but Mother Nature won and we ended up doing a distance classic ski. Luckily, this meant I was able to cheer Amy on while she did intervals (we’ve somehow lived together for the entire summer but with work schedules/vacations, we haven’t done many workouts together).

Before Amy started her first interval, I asked her what she was going to focus on – something I like to call “pulling a Becky.” After she told me, she was off. I was able to watch a couple minutes of her first interval and then didn’t see her until the last one.  Then I did something I call “pulling a James” – I started yelling, “tempo, tempo, use your gears!” Her technique and power instantly transformed after she appropriately adjusted to climbing a hill.

As Sarah and I skied up to Amy, Sarah told me how cool she thinks it is that Amy’s and my relationship is strong enough that I can give her something to work on and vice versa. She told me it’s not something she sees often– friends, but also teammates that are so comfortable that they can coach each other during workouts because they have the same overall goal: become better skiers.

I thought a lot about that conversation after that ski. It’s something I’ve taken for granted, but is one of my favorite things about being a part of the Bates women’s team: we train together, coach each other, and make each other better skiers because we want to accomplish goals both as individuals, but also as a team.

For the rest of the ski, Amy and I talked about the awesome fall workouts we can’t wait to do once we get back to campus: Lost Valley intervals, Sunday morning rollerskis with the New England fall foliage as our backdrop, intervals in West Auburn, ODs where Becky feeds us donuts halfway through, Rangeley and Thanksgiving camp, and strength session where everyone in the gym turns when they hear us yelling at each other to push harder and do one more pull-up, one more dip, or one more rep.

This morning I did my last workout with Amy for the summer: 2x20 steady state intervals.  I was worried about them. My heart rate while skate skiing hasn’t settled after coming to altitude, and I didn’t know how I would do with these intervals. I followed Amy, and then Amy followed me. She asked me what my heart rate was every few minutes to make sure I was staying in L3, and I was.

Today was, by far, the best interval session I’ve had all summer.

We, as the Bates Nordic ski team, have something special. And it’s those special things that make the team what it is. It’s those special things that make me so excited to go back home in less than a month.

Happy final weeks of summer,

Sadie