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| Fall camp attendees at their finest |
Now while it may have seemed that the
UW Nordic Ski Team has been up to nothing at all (as we obviously don't do
anything unless there is a media report from UWNN), the reality is quite
contradictory. In fact, we have been up
to a whole two months worth of various activities. Did the media report staff take an unknown
and unexpected leave of absence you're wondering? Better yet, how will we find
out crucial information about our most beloved ski team (like the specifics of
what they ate at fall camp)? And, oh, on the topic of food, did they actually have a team THANKSGIVING DINNER?!?
Yes, in fact, they did. And it was quite delicious (and, no, the media report
staff did not take a leave of absence, but suffered a severe case of what
(around here) is a quite common disease indentified as "midterms" ).
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| Just a bit of ultimate... |
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| Maybe getting a little intense... |
The first item on the agenda for the
UWNST for fall 2012 was the recruitment of rookies. The men's team was quite successful this
year, acquiring five new members, however the women's team receives a failing grade on this end as, sadly, there are no new women's team
members. New on the men's side are Colin
Elliot from Banff, Alta, Ian Holstead and Ryan Fahey from Ottawa, Dylan Jones
from Huntsville and 2nd year Colin Pilkey from Peterborough. Quite the crew. And yes, we are now "Ryan"
squared, "Tim" squared (this
is not new) and "Colin" cubed.
If you're ever in doubt as to who is coming at you full speed ahead in
snazzy Waterloo race suit, yelling either of the three names will give you a
3/5 chance of getting the name right.
Second on the agenda: Fall Training
Camp.
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| The full women's team atop of Mt. Mania |
The layout and
schedule for fall training camp are essentially the same every year. Traditions
need to be maintained. We arrived Friday
afternoon/night and promptly ate a delicious dinner of gnocchi with avocado, eggs,
chicken, amongst many other delicious things.
But it may have been just a little bit too delicious- there was many a
sore belly during that night's run and strength session, but it was a
rock-solid workout nonetheless. On
Saturday we perfected many a technique and hit the Highlands trails for some
ski bounding intervals. And of course,
what would be a fall training camp without the one-and-only-five-kilometre-uphill
race of your life? A pretty soft camp.
There were three distinct categories: double poling, skating and
one-pole skating. The majority of athletes
participated in the skating category, a few of the guys toughed out the double
pole, and Katie had no choice but to use one, lonely pole. Full results of Mountain Mania to
follow. After some fun on the mountain
we hit yet another set of trails, a part of the Bruce trail and did some
classic cave climbing.
The next two items on the list are of
a more competitive nature: our team 3000m. time
trial and the Mono Nordic trail race. Full results for each event to
follow.
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| Turkey time. |
Amongst many pancake breakfasts , the
team decided to step it up a notch. With
Thanksgiving fast approaching we decided it was about time to cook up a bird of
our own- and so Katie and Alison hosted the first annual ski team Thanksgiving
potluck dinner. It was nothing short of
epic, complete with sweet-potato/squash mash, stuffing, cabbage salad
and...Timbits for dessert? You betcha.
The fall has been full of lots and
lots and lots (and lots) of training- just as fall's should be in the life of a
Nordic skier. This upcoming weekend we
have some Bechtel trail clearing to do and an epic 3.5 hour rollerski, complete with a strength-on-skis
sesh and 30 min. tempo, should be a blast no doubt.
This is University
of Waterloo Nordic News (in case you didn't get the acronym) signing out. Have yourselves a fabulous Halloween weekend!
P.S. What's with all
this Frozen Thunder business clogging up all of our newsfeeds? Sheesh.....(yeah
ok, so I'm just very jealous *sigh* would really like some of that white stuff
of my own...)
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| Yours truly, the Highlands pigs. |
