Fall Camp Part 1

Excess amounts of napping, copious amounts of food consumption, many skiers in one place and lots of training can only mean one thing; a training camp. The particular training camp in question is the annual fall camp held at Highlands Nordic. Turnout for this particular camp was quite impressive (by Waterloo standards), with a total of 14 athletes, coaches, alumni and future athletes in attendance, led by the rookie crew of Glenn Hartman, Katie Madden, Nathaniel Reilly and Dan Sabau.

Friday evening marked the beginning of camp and the first event after everyone’s arrival and dinner is the strength circuit. However, snuck in before the strength is a little event known as cheap drugs. Of those in attendance, only 2 had experienced cheap drugs before and so the others were left in wonderment and worry about what it could entail. They would quickly discover its mystery and be dumbfounded by its effects. Details, however, cannot be reported or mentioned; only experienced by those who have attended one of the annual fall camps held over the past number of years.
Editor Note: No illicit drugs were consumed in this activity.

After this experience, the strength circuit proceeded to leave all participants a little sore and then shortly thereafter, all retired to the farmhouse to rest for the fury that is the remainder of the fall camp.

Saturday morning greeted the athletes as a nice, bright crisp fall morning with the leaves on the trees just beginning to change. Except this was the scene in the photograph hanging over the breakfast table. The actual weather was not so kind, as it proceeded to rain intermittently throughout the morning, along with fairly large gusts of winds. This was the weather that the athletes had to deal with as they headed out for the first training event of the day, a long rollerski with technique sessions with Head Coach Colin ‘Marathon’ Rhodes.

Athletes Derek Hartman, Alison Stephenson and alumni Matt Strickland headed out into the headwind and skied to ‘forever’ and back. The trip out resulted in numerous changes in the leader of the echelon as the job of breaking the wind almost proved too much and required near constant one-skating just to keep moving. The trip back was significantly easier, but all those involved decided that one long ski into the wind was more than enough. Therefore, they joined the rest of the crew, including the 4 rookies, Ryan McNamananananara, and new rollerskier Greg Cartmell, who had all been working with coach Rhodes on rollerski essentials, such as grass stops. It was evident that coach knew what he was talking about as all involved seemed to have mastered the skills, with only one injury report. From there it was time to work on some technique, specifically skate. After a solid technique session, all the very wet athletes decided to call it quits a little earlier to get out of the miserable weather.

Lunch was the usual excess consumption of tuna melts, and before and afterwards mutterings of molar mass and cross product could be heard as athletes managed to sneak in some homework time or some shut eye for many of the others. The first casualty of camp was report as Ryan McNamananananara decided joining in the trail run after lunch would not be beneficial to an injured knee and therefore decided to use his time to nap instead. Additionally, Colin and Martha Sutton departed back to Waterloo.

The now shrinking group headed out again into the rain, which had conveniently just started up again after it too seemingly had a lunch break. The ski hike was capped with a team hill sprint, which was won in close fashion by the duo of Glenn and Matt.

Team bonding activities were next on the agenda and it consisted of a blindfolded obstacle course. The rest of the athletes looked on in confusion as Alison, Derek and Matt proceeded to set up various structures which were to be climbed over, under, around and through. The task of the obstacle course was for one non-blindfolded guide to lead two blindfolded teammates through the obstacle course by commands. For the latest arrivals to the camp, coach Justin Faulkner and toddler Natalie, it was an amusing sight as the blindfolded athletes struggled through the course. Glenn ‘Sonar’ Hartman was able to successfully pull teammate Dan through the course; lead by guide Matt who simply clapped in the direction he wanted them to go. On the flip side, the group of Nathaniel and Greg, lead by Alison had a little more trouble, and were therefore more amusing for the others, as they were more hesitant to respond to their direction. The afternoon wrapped up with a game of ultimate, after which everyone retired back to the farmhouse, where it was found that Ryan was still napping. At this point, some prank should have been pulled on him, however he was spared as most were too tired.

Dinner brought an interesting attempt at cooking as 3 of the 4 members of team rookie were in charge of dinner, alone and since they all have just finished moving out of home, there should have been immediate concern by those anticipating dinner. On the menu was spaghetti, which most would think is an easy meal. Unfortunately, the rookies had other plans as they tried to create a new dish known as smoked spaghetti. While smoked salmon and bacon are delicious, smoked spaghetti does not fit that bill. Excessive amounts of cheese and pasta sauce were needed to consume this meal. For those looking to try this new delicacy at home, just put way to much pasta in a pan, with not enough water and do not stir often and voila, smoked spaghetti.

The rest of the evening consisted of oatmeal crisp (which was nicely cooked), a team meeting and then rest, preparing for mountain mania the next day.
Stay tuned for Part 2 of the Fall camp report.
Editor Note: The staff photographer was on another assignment and as such there are no pictures available.