It's Christmas Eve and there are white flakes falling from the sky in the Sierra. For the first time after four years of drought, California will have a white Christmas. That being said, I'm feeling for my teammates in the East who are experiencing an unseasonably warm December. Although Bates Nordic is spread throughout the country for Christmas break and are experiencing different training environments, I know everyone is making the best with what they have.
We have had a whirlwind of a fall that has prepared us well for adjusting to challenging situations. At the beginning of official training, Becky introduced the idea of adding another Lost Valley bounding interval each session. Because we do these intervals almost every week, we did the math and thought she must be joking. She wasn't.
Whereas last year girls did 4-5 intervals and boys did 5-6 intervals at Lost Valley, we ended our progression with most girls completing 10 and the boys 12! We went to Lost Valley in the rain, mud, dark, and occasionally in the sun. Everyone's efforts were impressive and I know we will all be tougher mentally this winter.
When we weren't bounding up Lost Valley, we took a weekend trip to Acadia where we stayed at the Lucas' grandparent's guest house. We did classic intervals by the coast, ate lobster by the beach, and went on an over distance run in the park. Overall it was a focused and much needed break from campus.
Before we knew it, it was time to go to Canada! Foret had 2.5k of skiing and it did not snow more while we were there, in fact we almost lost our snow! By the end of the week we did a short time trial against the rest of the eastern schools that were there on a very thin and icy loop. As James put it, "You either needed stiff skis or ice skates". Regardless, our team kept a great attitude throughout the week and were stoked to have any snow to ski on!
We returned to school for two more weeks of class, a week of finals, and no snow! We were lucky enough to have nice enough weather to continue dryland training as we had been all fall. We continued going to Lost Valley and kept our roller ski ferrules on. The weather in the east has stayed tropical since. Hopefully things turn around soon!
In the meantime, as we always do, we will keep on keeping on!
Merry Christmas!
- Laurel
