The Best Laid Plans...

So this week was Thanksgiving break, and the plan was to be in Canada at Montmorency. Unfortunately, as Friday morning rolled around it had become clear that mother nature had no intention of cooperating and giving us some snow. However, we had a Plan B: a Rangeley Camp Redux. We know Rangeley, and we like Rangeley and it seemed the logical choice for a dryland camp. It has hills, and good rollerskiing, and even had some snow in the forecast!

Isn't there some expression, though, about what happens to the best laid plans?

So, after our Canada plan was foiled by the lack of snow, our Rangeley plan was foiled by the presence of it. We got to Rangeley and there was about a quarter of an inch of snow everywhere. That was not enough to ski, but exactly enough to make the roads too treacherous for rollerskiing. We scrambled for a plan C.

Saturday we did an OD run in the snow, followed by level 4 moosehoofing intervals on Sunday. By Sunday afternoon the roads had melted enough to make rollerskiing possible, and so we did some classic video-work. However, with mixed precipitation and possibly a whole-lot more running on the horizon, we had to make a decision. Half the team decided to bail, and headed back to Lewiston, where the rollerskiing was still good, and the other half remained at Rangeley, hoping for enough snow to ski on the golf course.

Turns out that both decisions were good ones. The guys who headed back got in some good workouts on rollerskis, where mostly rain fell from the sky. The girls who stayed got to ski on the golf course, as in Rangeley they got a fair amount of snow, followed by heavy rain. Enough snow remained for them to do intervals on Wednesday, when the guys did a 10k skate timetrial on skis. Everyone then headed home to share Thanksgiving with our families, and continue what will be one of the biggest weeks of training that we do all year. When we get back there will only be one more week of classes, and we are all very excited to be done!

The moral of this story? Mother nature is fickle, but training is good pretty much where-ever you decide to do it. Both teams are looking strong, and getting excited to compete. See you out there!

-Sam EB