Monday morning we did a weights workout – which is undocumented because I left the camera on the table – and intervals at the Fort Lewis College track. We ran at threshold+ speeds, starting at 15 seconds and increasing (by 15 seconds for each interval) up to 1:45, with a 1:2 ratio of work to level 1 recovery time. Then we ran intervals back down that ladder. This is a workout the Continental Cup team is doing, and it’s good (though math-intensive – I ended up making a chart). I wore a t-shirt with the letters “CCCP” on it, which instigated many acronym constructions during the recovery periods – usually derogatory, and usually involving my last name. Whatever; they were running the intervals I told them to – they Couldn’t Challenge Cork’s Power.

I managed to leave the camera at home for this one too, so here’s a dramatic re-enactment of how it looked:

 <Mountains. Track. Paper telling us when to go and when to stop.

Tuesday was Halloween and we classic rollerskied distance (1:30) on Durango’s River Trail. More importantly, I bought bags of candy, which I attempted to eat before hoards of poorly-costumed children began relentlessly banging on my door.

Spooky black-and-white photos from Halloween:

 <Evan Elliott, John Gerstenberger, Joe Schneider rollerski past a BMX track. Creepy.

 <AliciaRose Pastore double-poles uphill. Spine-chilling.

Wednesday morning we did core strength for 45 minutes. I remembered to bring my camera, but I didn’t remember to take any pictures until everyone started out the door. Suffice to say we did many pelvic-lumbar-hip complex exercises, including a ludicrously difficult series of side leg-lifts. Seriously: stupid-ridiculous hard.

 <7am: Everyone leaves to get ready for school.

Wednesday evening we ran in the Test Tracks trails -- up until the point that I realized that there was no real trail that would get us back to where we wanted to go. That has been a recurring theme in recent workouts, along with prodigious amounts of mud, which we also were able to find in Slime Gulch. It took us about 1:40 to return to civilization – for the most part, none the worse for wear (excepting my mildly jacked ankle).

 <Bunch of skiers, smiling because they know not the future:

/\ Darkness rapidly descends, and so must we: 500 feet in two minutes down a 45 degree slope of scree, ending up in a muddy arroyo. Good times.

Thursday we skate rollerskied in a couple of groups while a few others ran (no rollerskis or outgrown boots). High school cross-country running is finally over, so attendance is up – we had 17 rollerskiers and six runners out, with another eight or so J3 to OJs MIA. The group I was with skied out for about half an hour, did another 30 minutes of no-poles and V2 uphill and then skied back to our cars, where we did four or five parking-lot sprints under the lights. The main focus of the work-out was body position; we’re trying to get everyone skiing right. John and Joe got “most improved” status by going from amazingly spastic to relatively normal.

 <Hannah Madden V2s up the hill, with Cully Brown in pursuit.

Friday morning we did another weights workout, and I managed to bring the camera this time. We have been doing 3 sets of 8 reps on bench-press, pull-ups and dips (with weight as needed), one- or two-arm pull-down and squats, but we just changed it up to 3 sets of 6 for the next couple of weeks. Suddenly we all feel much stronger.

/\ John, 3 sets of 6 pull-ups with 35 pounds on. Couldn’t handle 180 in bench-press and had to go to 175 for the last set – unlike a certain coach, who will not be named, who cleaned all three.

 <Hillary Leroux doing squats – close to being the best long jumper in Durango Nordic 

Friday evening we played Speedball with nearly one million of our skiers. (Perhaps that is hyperbole, but at times it seemed like it.) The group (including a few parents) jogged over to Miller Middle School’s football field, did some warm-up and then played two 20-minute halves, with sprint relays at half-time and the end. Because I was the only person who brought a whistle, I gave myself the right to dole out push-ups to slackers who were standing still. This is an excellent way to reduce a goalie’s effectiveness.

 <Semi-controlled mayhem.

Saturday we rollerskied on the LaPosta Road – double -pole focus, 1:45 for the older guys, 1:30 for the younger skiers. It was warm. Hillbillies driving white Jeeps buzzed us. Some skiers claimed that they were sore from weights (though they probably were actually sore from doing push-ups at Speedball). Whatever; we got it done, plus we ate sunflower seeds while talking about the Borat movie, so it was a good training session. As a bonus, we had a skier from Telluride who’s going to train with DNSC this winter come over and rollerski with us. I worked technique with her until the older guys were tired, so I was able to jump in fresh for the last 45 minutes and not get dropped.

 <Rachel rightfully pays no attention to these fools.

Tomorrow’s training is unstructured – some people are running, some rollerskiing, some sleeping – so that’s the last installment for our week of training. Hope you enjoyed it.