Following the successful Aspen RMN Select-Development Team camp, John, Noah and I drove to Grand Junction, hooked up with Tad and then made our way over to Park City for five days of work with the US Ski Team's Continental Cup and World Cup teams. Tad and Noah were initially going to attend a National Elite Group camp there, but that camp was cancelled; Matt Whitcomb and Pat Casey (Continental Cup coaches) nonetheless made room for these two skiers to get some high-end training in.

The USST members were in PC for testing, so for the most part their training was pretty easy -- Tad and Noah did a 1:15 classic rollerski and 45 minute run with the CC team on Wednesday; a two-hour double-pole session with the WC team on Thursday; another 1:45 classic session with the CC team on Friday; and took part in a 12km classic rollerski time-trial at Soldier Hollow on Saturday.

We got to see some cool stuff -- we headed down to the Olympic speedskating oval in Salt Lake to see Andrew Johnson and Kris Freeman do testing while rollerskiing on a treadmill, John and I watched some members of the CC team do strength/power testing at the US Ski Team strength facility, and  Kris Freeman did a six-hour (!!!) skate on Thursday, keeping his heartrate under 120 up a 6% hill. Sarah MacCarthy (Steamboat Springs/University of Utah) won the women's time-trial by four seconds, which was pretty awesome, and we got to play some Whiffleball with everyone. (Scouting report of Chris Cook: Fast skier, good football player, rotten batter -- Tad served him up a fat K.)

All in all, this was a good week of training, and it served to show these guys -- and by extension, everyone else in RMN -- that they're doing the right things, training similarly and ending up at nearly the same place. It was unfortunate that there wasn't more room for more athletes to take part, but beggers can't be choosers -- next year the NEG should be a go, and hopefully RMN will pack that team so more will get these opportunities.

-- Jason Cork