top RMN juniors from Vail, Aspen, Summit, Steamboat, Boulder, and Durango, college athletes from CU, Utah, Colby, Williams, Dartmouth, Western State and Middlebury, plus and elite senior or two.
Tough College Kids - Smac (Utah), Gersty (Dartmouth) and Smith (Colorado)
This camp is focused on testing and intensity, with the goal of each athlete leaving with an understanding of their own strengths and weaknesses as a skier.
We kicked it off with a light run around the campus of the Lowell Whiteman School (www.lws.edu), who was kind enough to let us use their beautiful mountain campus free of charge for the duration of the camp. The next morning, it was ON...
Day one consisted of the infamous Hot Springs Time Trial - a 3.4 km uphill running test that has hosted some of the nation's best skiers over the past 15 years. The first half is steep, the second half steeper.
The big stars of the Hot Springs TT was Summit's Brianna Perkins, shattering the women’s course record (which belonged to her sister, Brittany) with a smoking 19:01 and winning the day by a huge margin. Second and third went to Steamboat's Sophie Leonard and Williams College standout Alice Nelson.
Iverson can run...
On the Men's side, it came down to a duel between Steamboat / Rossignol's Mark Iverson and Josh Smith from CU. In the end Iverson came out on top, with an impressive 15:34 (3rd fastest on record behind only USST Nordic Combined Skiers Johnny Spillane (2003 World Champion) and Billy Demong (2007 World Championship Silver Medalist)). Josh finished only 10 seconds back, a great run for a first time up Hot Springs. Third went to Steamboat NC Skier Taylor Fletcher.
Day 1 afternoon was perfect for an easy pole-hike up Steamboat Ski area, followed by a dip in the mighty Yampa River... Don't remember what we ate, but it was good...
Day 2, Thursday, was the Sanctuary Double Pole Time Trial. This one is a tough uphill DP, with some pretty steep sections... Though newer than Hot Springs, this test also has a solid pedigree and lots of fast times in the record books. For good measure on this TT, we have the athletes ski it twice, all out each time. We don't know all that much about some of their personal lives, but we figure that they have probably done something to deserve this...
Alice gets her hips up...
Both the men’s and women’s records fell, with Durango / Dartmouth athlete John Gerstenberger crushing the old record, belonging to Noah Hoffman. Gersty came in with and impressive 9:16, followed by Mark Iverson, also ahead of the old course record, with Durango's Rogan Brown in third. That's two hot-s&$@ kayakers from Durango in the top 3...
On the women’s side, it was Steamboat / U. of Utah skier Sarah MacCarthy (AKA Smac) who gave it her all, nearly vomited on my shoes during lactate testing and in the process, broke her own record, coming in with an 11:47. Second place fell to Smac's summer training partner Alice Nelson with Vail / Middlebury bad-ass Lani Bruntz sliding in to an impressive third place (followed by Vail teammate Karlie Moore - the Vail girls are working the double pole this summer...).
Alice and Smac - 1 & 2 at the Sanctuary...
Thursday afternoon was Durango Coach Jason Cork's Double Pole Study - this is his Senior Project. He is testing athlete speed with varying pole lengths and we will look forward to seeing his results in the near future...
The man and his poles - Jason Cork doing science...
Friday (Day 3) was the Cross Country Canada day... We have decided to steal a couple of tests from our neighbors to the North, both their Strength and Critical Speed tests. The strength test is a quick affair - 9 minutes long - and everyone figured that it would be a nice, easy cruise compared with the old USST Medals Test... Wrong. The Critical Speed Test is a series of two runs, the first 4000m long and the second 1000m separated by two hours.
Strength testing was fast and furious, with 5 exercises (pull-ups, sit-ups, push-ups, box jump, dips) with just a minute off in between each exercise. Mark Iverson dominated the test, with a total strength score of 293. He was followed by Summit's Tom Sawyer with 230 and Boulder's Miles Havlick close behind at 227.
The real story of the day, however, was Steamboat's Sophie Leonard. Sophie rocked the girls test, with a total score of 237, Her impressive score put her in 2nd place overall, behind only Iverson. It is important to understand that this test is exactly the same for men and women, with everyone held to the same standard on every exercise. Soph killed it! Second and third places went to the impressively consistent and well-matched Sarah MacCarthy and Alice Nelson, with 181 and 179 respectively.
4000 meter start
The Critical Speed Test is an interesting animal - the times from both runs are important, but you "Critical Speed Score" is actually determined by the ratio of the two times. The first run was the 4000 meter. On the girls side, Alice Nelson showed excellent form to take the win in 18:01, pulling away from Sophie Leonard in the last 100 meters. Boulder's Jessica Jortberg, a second year J2, finished in 3rd.
For the men, Mark Iverson ran away with the race, laying down a 14:02. Next in was first year J1 Rogan Brown followed by Miles Havlick.
Jessica Jortberg and Tom Sawyer giving their all...
After a two hour break to eat some soft-serve, lay in the shade and swim in the river, we headed back to the track to complete the 1000 meter test. Alice Nelson lead the charge on this one as well, with a fast 3:34. Nelson was followed by Sarah MacCarthy in 3:44 and a third place tie between Jessica Jortberg and Steamboat / Far West / Williams athlete Gabrielle Joffe in 3:47.
On the men's side, Iverson came in with a quick 2:51, followed by Aspen's Scott Lacy in 3:06 and Rogan Brown in 3:13.
The Critical Speed scores yielded some surprises, and I still need to do some further study to completely understand the math... Alice Nelson, despite winning both runs, ended up second to Sophie Leonard, whose score was a 211.6. Nelson's score was a 207.6 and Jortberg took the third spot with a 206.7
For the men, Iverson grabbed the Critical Speed title, with a score of 268.3, followed by first year J1 Rogan Brown with a 261.2 with Miles Havlick in third, earning a 254.2.
Alice Nelson and Sophie Leaonard - Critically Speedy
We ate on the town Friday night - awesome calzones and strombolis at Cuginos...
Saturday brought the shortest test of the camp - the Margaria Kalamen Power Test. This is a short bounding test that measures peak power in watts. Peak power is an important factor for XC Skiers, becoming more important every year, in fact, as sprint and mass-start races become more and more common.
The test takes the athlete's weight, vertical distance traveled and time to travels that distance in to consideration, and yields a wattage number based on each athletes best of three runs...
For the girls, Gabby Joffe churned out an impressive 840 watts, followed by Summit's Mackenzie Jones with 765 watts and Jessica Jortberg with 708 watts.
The boys were again led by Mark Iverson, with a huge 1383 peak watts, followed by Miles Havlick at 1195 watts and Tom Sawyer at 1129 watts.
Lani and Sophie feelin' the love...
After this, we packed it up and headed out to Azteca for some great burritos...
It was a great camp and a great learning experience for everyone involved, and it's our hope that every athlete learned about what they're doing well and what the may need to spend more time working on. I'd really like to thank Jason Cork, John Callahan, Brian Tate and Ivana Radlova for their help with this camp - It's committed professional coaches like these that help drive the booming Colorado XC Community and give these committed young athletes a chance to excel.
Thanks to all for coming!
Trav.