UVM Journal: Eric's Update

by Eric Carter
October 12, 2005

This is the other half of the UVM journal. I’m another Minnesotan and now teamed up with Chris. We wanted to keep everyone back home up to date on how things are going out here at UVM and we’d also like to give any prospective college skiers an idea of what it’s like to ski in college and more specifically what it’s like on the east coast.
    
The training season has been going for over a month since I drove out here in August. I’ve met a few other kids from the Midwest but they all flew out. My family decided to drive; the trip was only supposed to take about a day, but our car broke down in Ohio. The entire car lost all power and we had to pull off the road. We checked the manual, which suggested we look under the hood to see if the alternator belt was slipping but when we looked under the hood we discovered that it wasn’t slipping because it wasn’t there! After a 5 hour wait in Bryan, Ohio (world famous home of the etch-a-sketch) we were back on the road. A total of 30 hours since we had left Minneapolis, we arrived in our hotel at 6:00 am and got about two and a half hours of sleep before I got to move into my new dorm. The road trip from hell was finally over.

Training started out feeling a little funny because during the last four years I, like most high school skiers, have always done cross-country running in the fall, so I am not used to starting the serious ski training so early. Like Chris said though, its time to start thinking about getting out the rollerskis. It’s also a good time to take a look to make sure your rollerskis are in good condition for training. My classic skis are more than a few years old and the wheels have been steadily disintegrating to the point where they zigzag side to side pretty unsettlingly when your flying down the steep hills out here. They were also so slow that on slight descents I had to double pole to keep up with tucking teammates. I ordered a new set of wheels though and now I don’t have to fear for my life every time we do a classic workout. If your rollerskis are getting old and you would like to see them speed up just a little but and maybe even become a little more stable I would strongly suggest investing in a new set of wheels.

The first week of practice included two time trials to help our coach make selections for the final roster. We did an uphill double pole test on a hill that was steep even for Vermont standards. The only comparable hill in Minnesota that I can think of is the Coulee out in Afton. The second time trial was an uphill running test. It was another steep hill into the mountains. I did the run in about 16 minutes and one of my teammates said that the hill had a total of 250 meters in elevation gain. After two nervous days of practice, Chris and I found out we had made the team and our lives were slightly less stressful.
    
Since the first week of tryouts we have jumped right into the tough training. Our coach worked with each of us to develop a specific training plan that covers the entire year. Every week, I look at the schedule and adjust it to fit my weekly goal hours. These past five weeks we have been gradually building up to a high point after which we get a week off.

The last few weeks have consisted of quite a few distance workouts in the easy zone, L1-L2 range.  We have done some threshold work, especially bounding at the Jericho Research Forest outside Burlington, where the bounding workouts are always the same. They consist of a loop on the side of the hill with 5 uphill sections, each followed by flat sections for recovery. Between laps our coaches use portable lactate meters to measure the level of lactic acid in our blood. With the information from the test, it is possible to determine the lactate threshold. Lactate Threshold (or your LT zone) is the point at which the lactic acid in your blood is accumulating faster than your body can get rid of it. This is where your muscles start to get heavy and is part of what causes you to be sore after a workout. Testing allows us to train in our lactate threshold zone much more accurately than using just a heart rate monitor. (http://home.hia.no/~stephens/lacthres.htm is a good place for more info on the lactate threshold) Our training has rarely gone into the L5/race pace zones but when we do, it’s usually a fun break from the distance workouts. Two weeks ago was a classic sprint relay, the coaches teamed up the top guys with us rookies so the teams were fairly even. I had a blast sprinting against Chris and also seeing the top guys race each other. When they go top speed it is incredible to watch, I can never believe how fast some people can go on their skis.

Last week was our highest volume week so far. The week was mostly distance workouts except for a 10km skate time trial (although 10k almost feels like a distance workout for me…) and a bounding workout. The week ended with a 50 – 70 km over distance classic ski from Underhill to St. Albans Vermont. I rolled out of bed the morning of the ski and looked out my window. The thermometer read 41 degrees and it was raining. We started skiing at a fairly fast pace but eventually slowed down to a more reasonable speed. After about an hour and a half, the wind and rain and cold were starting to bug me but I ate a Clif Bar and felt better. Within a half an hour I was feeling pretty good even though the rain was increasing. Chris and I stuck together for most of the ski and practiced our down hilling on some of the big Vermont descents. Everyone out here laughs when we are surprised at how big some of the Vermont hills are but they don’t realize how flat Minnesota is. We finished the ski in about three and a half hours, piled into the team vans completely soaked, ate a big breakfast in the dining hall and somehow managed to get back to our dorm before we fell asleep.

This week we haven’t had any practices. It is our recovery week before a big training period in November ending with our Thanksgiving training camp. I’m lucky to have the opportunity to take a quick trip home over the weekend; otherwise I wouldn’t see anyone until Christmas.  Enjoy the pictures, I’m trying to learn to take quality, non-blurry ones but it’s a struggle. That’s all for now, so keep an eye out for Chris in a week. Thanks for reading!