Friday, October 26, 2012

UW Nordic News (and Ski team) back and at 'er- and you thought you didn't miss us...

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" ).

Just a bit of ultimate...
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.
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.

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...) 




Yours truly, the Highlands pigs.





No comments:

Post a Comment