Tuesday, December 9, 2008

SKIING

Yup, it's time. I'll be skiing every day this week. Call 7817101558 or email if you want to join me...

Skinnyski trail reports

Including:

Battle Creek Regional Park - Winthrop Street (Saint Paul):
Conditions: Rolled with pretty good coverage on bottom.
Coverage was pretty good actually. A few thin spots... a couple of which weren't really avoidable. It has been rolled. No tracks set. I used my good skis which was probably a mistake...it can be done, but be careful


Como Regional Park and Golf Course (Saint Paul):
Conditions: Fairly firm, well groomed except for the usual trouble spot under the bridge. Not enough snow for a classic track.
Stop 1 of 5, this one was the best. Como was well groomed and surprisingly firm...nice job St. Paul!

[For those of you not in the know, Como usually has crappy grooming. Perhaps this is a new leaf turned over]

Hyland Lake Park Reserve (Bloomington):
Conditions: Rollpacked, good 3-4" base, fairly firm.
Stop 4 of 5, beautiful early season Hyland skiing. They had the trail well packed and fairly firm, although I thought Como was a little better (but Hyland had a little more snow)


Bruce didn't make it to Terrace Oaks but I am going tonight to check it out...

Monday, December 1, 2008

Skiing in to break...

For this week:

1. If you have skis, get them scraped and waxed. We'll discuss at the meeting tomorrow (7:30) where and how to do that.
2. I'll plan on skiing at Elm Creek at least once this week. Probably Thursday. Leave at 6:00 back by 9:00. Striding is probably best as they'll have solid tracks there and hopefully have the whole 2.5k course open.
3. I may also ski Wednesday morning (Elm Creek or Hyland) if there is interest.
4. Next weekend is the Breadsmith-Hoigaards relays at Hyland. Saturday morning, and if you don't drink Friday night it's not so bad. The race is a 2.5k relay with teams of two so you each ski 2.5k twice. Think of it as a good interval session. It's fun, fast and close and suggested if you don't have finals looming.
5. We'll also discuss vacation skiing at some point tomorrow.

See you tomorrow. Someone (me perhaps) will be running 4:45 today and tomorrow. Not quite enough snow to ski (although Como might work if you are desperate).

Monday, November 17, 2008

Oh hey look Elm Creek is making snow

Yup for real. So no more Trollhaugen (no offense to them but Trollhaugen sucks). So we might have skiing close-ish by come Thursday or so. And if that is the case, we will make a beeline.

4:45 until then, see you there but not Monday.

Monday, November 10, 2008

SKIING FRIDAY

depart 5:45 a.m., back by 9:40. Yeah, it's fake snow. But it's real skiing!

Email ari with questions.

Otherwise, 4:45 every day this week. Speed tomorrow!

Saturday, November 1, 2008

November cometh

Several things may impede our training in the next two days:

Monday: I will be phonebanking somewhere. If you are an Obama supporter, please find out about participating yourself. If you are a McCain supporter, please make sure that you do noting election-related on Monday or Tuesday.
Tuesday: There's some election whatchmahoozie going on. (If you are a McCain supporter, remember to vote on November 5.) I'll be voting and the probably lying on the floor shaking for a few hours. That will be a pretty sight I guarantee you.

Come Wednesday we'll be running at 4:45 as usual. See you then.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Last week in October

A bit late...

Tuesday: Run / stairs with Ari
Wednesday: on your own with whoever shows up
Thursday: Run / rollerski with Ari (if you have rollerskis please email me)
Friday: Hallowe'en!

Saturday: Loooong rollerski if anyone is interested (Elm Creek or Afton)

Friday, October 24, 2008

SNOW!

A few tidbits...for Saint Paul:

Sunday: Scattered snow showers after 1pm. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 42. Windy, with a northwest wind between 26 and 31 mph, with gusts as high as 44 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%.

Sunday Night: Scattered snow showers. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 30. Blustery, with a northwest wind between 18 and 25 mph, with gusts as high as 36 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%

But what of the upper peninsula of michigan?

FIRST WINTER STORM OF THE SEASON POSSIBLE LATE THIS WEEKEND

If this is so, I might be going to the UP Monday night for a day of skiing Tuesday. Stay tuned...

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Weekend activities

Choose from:

Saturday 9-brunch, trail work at the Loppet Trails in Minneapolis (optional trail run before)
Saturday brunch-whenever (back by dinner), rollerski at Elm Creek or by the river
Sunday morning trail run

If interested post a comment or email Ari.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

This week

Join your lovely captain-folk for skiage Tuesday-Friday at 4:35. I'll try to show up Wednsday-Friday — otherwise I'll be running later as I have lots of stuff going on during the day. If you want to run late, give a yell.

Snow is not far off! The first day the snow flies within four hours (no I did not drive out to Bozeman last week) I'll be there — and will take people along if there is interest.

Sunday, October 12, 2008

October 13-17 Practices

If you want to have a successful ski season, you need to participate in dryland training. Please come to practices, and use the comments fields of these blog posts to say which you will and will not be coming to. Thanks.

Monday: 4:35 Michelle Obama speaking at 4:00 at the Leonard Center. Uh...practice cancelled? Yup. I'll run later though if anyone is interested email me or leave a comment here.
Tuesday: 4:35
Wednesday: 4:35; I'll be lifting around 7:30 (a.m.) if anyone wants to join
Thursday: Fall break — email me if you want to practice and we can find a time
Friday: Fall break — see above

Please make an effort to attend as many of these practices as you can (you are excused if you have, say, an injury or a fall sports commitment). Please wait for folks until about quarter to five, and perhaps a couple minutes longer as if I am coming I'm usually in a rush and running late. Thanks!

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Rest o' the week practice schedule

Please bring weather appropriate clothing for outside running. We'll run outside unless the weather really sucks.

Every day we will meet at 4:30, and leave by 4:45. Unless I am running late and call ahead, please wait for me!
Wednesday, 4:35: Run with Coz and Claire 3-6 miles, then core
Thursday, 4:35: Speed with Ari, Coz and Claire. Don't worry, you can do it as fast as you want.
Friday, 4:35: Short run and then something fun!

Holy Cow! Bjorn Daehlie to ski Birkie

For serious.

If you train real hard you can ski with him. Hah probably not. But this is pretty damn cool.

If you don't know Bjorn, he might well be the best athlete ever. 12 olympic medals including 8 golds. And he was measured out of season as having a VO2max of 96. It's quite possible he was over 100 in season. The highest evuh. Yeah he's good.

Come to practice, too! 4:45 every day. And you could grow up to be Bjorn Daehlie. (Okay probably not because if any of your VO2Maxes are over 100 you really need to be in an olympic training program in skiing or cycling or maybe running or rowing.)

Sunday, October 5, 2008

October 6-10 practice schedule

EVERY DAY, we will leave at 4:45. Practice leaders TBA (I have a pretty nasty cold so might not be in much of running shape until Wednesday or so). Bring running shoes — we'll talk about rollerskiing soon.

Meet in the lobby of the Leonard Center (or if it is a real nice day, outside). We'll return no later than 6:30, so that if you have 7:00 commitments you'll have enough time for dinner. If you need to get back earlier, just ask, and we'll either run shorter or I can have you turn back.

If you have any questions, please email me on my gmail account; my username is ari.ofsevit.

See you this week. If it's drizzly we'll run, if it is pouring or something we now have a nice indoor track and weight room.

Specifics:

Monday: 4 mile run (or more, at least run down to the river on Summit, down to St Clair, and back to campus) with three to five 20-30 second pickups (faster running/sprinting). (Update: I will be continuing recuperation and will not attend.)
Tuesday-Thursday: Charlie Cosimini will be helping to lead practice. I intend to come to at least one of these sessions. I'll talk to him about it.
Friday: Practice with me at 4:45. We'll do something funnish and not too hard.

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Van Driver Class

Very useful. Haven't you always wanted to drive a rear-wheeled behemoth on snow-covered roads (if you like whippin' shitties -- for those of you not from Minnesota you might know this as "doing doughnuts" -- the answer should be yes)?

Sign up by calling x6278. Oh, yeah, and it takes place tonight at 7:00.

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Tentative 9/29-10/3 schedule

Very tentatively:

M: Ari will lead practice at 5:00 (run, back by 6:30)
Tu: TBD
We: TBD
Th: TBD
F: Ari will lead a running-type practice (TBD, we'll adjust it to participants' abilities) at 4:35ish.

If you can help lead another practice please let me know. Thanks!

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Wednesday/Thursday Practice

I'll be lifting @ 2:15ish Wednesday and running @ 3:45 (meet outside the len cen) for anyone interested. Thursday I'm running @ 3:45 (meet outside len cen). If you'd like to push back times a little bit that can also work.
Coz

Ski / Lightning fail

Luckily, I was the only one drenched and waiting at the MARC/Leon Ceon today, which was good because my feet are hurt so running is probably a bad idea for me. Look here for updates the rest of the week about team-led practices (I am out of town) and I'll start for real next week.

Sorry about the weather! Run if you can, stay active, and get ready for practising Monday.

Monday, September 22, 2008

Practice Tuesday

I'll try to get out of work early enough to get to the Leonard Center (will that name stick?) at about 5:00 for some running. 6 miles, pretty easy, with some optional pickups. Bring running shoes. We'll run rain or shine.

Wait a few minutes if I am late...Thanks!

Club sports forms

Just a friendly reminder to get these forms in to athletics so you can be cleared to practise.

Also, see Claire's note about more practices this week.

Practice

hi skiers,

I will be spending some time in the Len Cen this afternoon and encourage people to come if they can. After class at 2:15 I may be lifting weights if Charlie thinks he will be doing so today (?). If not, I will either be going on a short run or doing some non-intensive cardio in the gym (note, I am recovering from mono and will be practicing somewhat on a reduced level until I get back into the swing of things). Then I have yoga from 3:30-4:40. Afterwards, I might either do some weights or cardio depending on what I got done before yoga.

Sorry this is not a concrete plan, but if you come over to the Len Cen monday, wednesday, or friday afternoon this week, hopefully you will run into Charlie and/or I if you would like to workout with others.

--Claire

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Ari will not lead a practice on Monday

For two reasons:

1. He has a work-related thing in the evening (free food and beer)

2. This weekend, he biked 12 miles to Minneapolis, ran a half marathon (came 17th, not bad considering he'd never run a race before), biked home, and then went and hiked 34 miles on the Superior Trail. Needless to say, he can barely walk right now.

If someone else wants to organise practice, please email him and post here.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Welcome to the Mac Nordic Blog

Hi skiers,

I've set up this blog so that we can keep information current without flooding email inboxes. Both I and other team members will post information about practices (which will begin next week) as well as other pertinent information. If you would like to be a blog contributor (suggested if you want to ever lead practices) please email me.

And anyone can comment, so if you plan to attend a comment, something like "hey I'm coming" signed with your name is splendid (but not necessary of course).

Thanks, get your forms in to athletics (go to the athletic office in the new sports center) if you have yet to do so and check back soon for the first practice time (likely next week).

--Ari