Rest week

This past week I had a rest week which was very nice. Most days I only did morning workouts that were about half as long as normal and I had an extra entire day off. This gave me lots of time for other fun activities.... One afternoon Maddie and I made s'mores cupcakes which have a graham cracker crust, chocolate, a marshmallow, and more chocolate on top. They were insanely sugary but very tasty. We also made pizza for dinner one night, it was deluxe!!! On my second off day of the week four of us traveled 45 minutes south to Caribou where we picked blueberries at Circle B Farms, I ate berries until I felt sick then picked a bucket full to take home.

This week I did two exceptionally fun workouts, the first was a bog run speed workout, where we used ski bounding poles and did 15 second sprints every minute. This was the first time I had done a bog workout and it was not what I expected. I expected to be up to my knees in brown, soupy, grassy, moose poop filled water running around, with a chance of swimming. I have had northern Maine running workouts turn into that before but this bog workout was not that at all. I learned that a bog is an old pond where moss had formed on the top making a very squishy damp surface, kind of like a trampoline that is wet and covered in a foot of really loose sand that your feet sink into, what I had originally pictured was a swamp and I was very glad that the bog was different. The squishiness of the bog made it really easy to get your heart rate very high in 15 seconds and therefor the sprints were pretty tough. After doing the sprints we played ultimate frisbee. The bog made it hard to run fast but you could dive and tackle people without getting hurt at all because the ground was so squishy. The game started with the MWSC nordic team coach Will tackling me down and grinding my face into the bog. After that I had no problems diving into the bog and tackling anyone who had the frisbee.

Pictures of the bog are coming soon, I am waiting for my teammate Ben to email them to me.

The second extra fun workout I did was mountain biking in Edmundston, New Brunswick, Canada. It is only a 30 minute drive from Fort Kent but I had never been there before. I have heard claims that it is the best mountain biking on the East Coast, and after riding there I would believe it. Most all of the trails were free of roots and well built with banked turns and fun bridges. Riding there reminded me that mountain biking on real trails is really fun, much more engaging then road biking.

The week was finished out with a house monopoly game where I came in 2nd, and an amazing Monday morning off day breakfast.


Another thing that I have to mention that is not biathlon related at all is that my mom was on the Seattle evening news, ON THE TV!  The link is here

S'mores cupcakes

Our amazing pizza

Blueberries for Casey 

Time Trial in Fort Kent

Mountain biking Edmundston

More Edmundston biking

There were tons of delicious raspberries along the trail in Edmundston 

Some Sunday afternoon shooting all by myself 

The end of the Monopoly game where all I had left were the railroads two of which I had sold to the bank.

Maddie cooking breakfast

Chocolate chip waffles, bacon, corn beef hash, hash browns, eggs, and blueberries

Fires, Kamouraska, and some training

This Past week was my biggest week of training so far this year, I did 25 hours and was quite happy to see Sunday afternoon and looking forward to the up coming rest week. I was pretty tired from the rollerskiing, running, and a couple of long bike rides. On Saturday morning the older MWSC athletes and coaches traveled to Kamouraska, Quebec to finish out the training week. Kamouraska is about two hours Northwest of Fort Kent along the Saint Lawrence Seaway, we camped right next to the water and you could smell the salt air. While there I went on a long bike ride and we did a group adventure run/hike.

Some other big news is that there is a huge wild fire raging near my home in the Methow Valley. The fire is the biggest in the history of Washington State, it is over 250,000 acres and has burned more then 100 homes. It has been disastrous not only because it is very large but it grew insanely quick, from 14,000 acres to 150,000 acres in two days. Because of the fire our entire valley has been without electricity for about a week and it will be about another week before it comes back. Luckily for my family the fire has burned in the opposite direction from our house and they have stayed safe.

View of the St. Lawrence Seaway from our run in Kamouraska

A nice farm in Kamouraska with the St. Lawrence in the background

Our campground in Kamouraska 

Some slack lining in Kamouraska

View of the Carlton Complex fire from my house

Flames from the fire burning

 

Sugarloaf Maine Team camp

I ended last week with an 80 mile bike ride through New Brunswick and Quebec. There were four MWSC athletes that all started out with a group that rides from Fort Kent every Sunday. For the first hour there were about twenty of us riding which was pretty fun because you could do lots of drafting, for the second hour it was just the four of us MWSC athletes continuing on, and for the last few hours I was by myself. For part of the ride I was on a frontage road along the trans-Canada highway where there would normally be very little traffic but the trans-Canada was being repaved and so all the traffic which included lots of semi truck was diverted to the road where I was riding. Since it was Sunday and there were no workers I figured I would ditch the busy road with no shoulder for two lanes of traffic free fresh black top. It was pretty nice riding to say the least. I also made a mid ride Tim Hortons refuel stop. 

Group riding

Fresh car free pavement on the trans-Canada

Timmy Ho Ho's

Mondays are usually my off day from training and so I decided to start it out right with an awesome breakfast of potatoes, eggs, waffles, bacon, and sausage. Monday afternoon I helped with coaching the Jalbert program. The Jalbert program is designed for elementary and junior high aged kids to come and learn how exercising can be fun, it is one and one half hours one day per week and free to anyone. We usually do some kind of more focused drills at the beginning such a rollerskiing, running, or shooting and then do relays and games for the second half. It was raining an very gross out but a few kids showed up and we still had fun.

Monday off day breakfast

Jalbert Pratice

For all of last week I was in Western Maine at Sugarloaf Mountain where MWSC was hosting its summer time junior camp. I helped out a little bit with the camp but mostly got to do some awesome training. In Western Maine there are way more mountains which add a nice variety of training. There were about 30 athletes who were all excited about training which made for a really good and fun atmosphere!

Hiking in Western Maine

We were able to do some shooting at the local shooting range while in Sugarloaf

The group running to the base of the ski mountain to do hill bounding intervals

Only four of us made it all the way to the top while doing our intervals

On the drive back to Fort Kent it started raining very very hard. Probably almost the hardest I have ever seen it rain. 

New York and Zac Brown

Last week I had an easy week of training so I made the most of the opportunity and visited my girlfriend, Maddie's house in Old Forge, New York. It was a great few days of relaxing, we hiked to the top of Bald Mountain where there was a fire tower, we went paddle boating which I was very excited about because I had not gone since I was in 3rd grade, it turned out to be much less exciting then I remember. We also went to the Enchanted Forest Water Safari which is a huge water/amusement park in Old Forge, it was super fun and the perfect thing since it was pretty hot out. On the last full day that I was in Old Forge I helped the Phaneuf family get fire wood, I thought it was really interesting because it was different then I am used to, all of the wood we collected was still green rather then already dead and since there is so much undergrowth you could not drive right to where the wood was cut we had to carry it to the truck. I enjoyed getting wood because it has been a while since I had done any kind of real work and I probably wont get to do any more for a while. After we finished getting wood we went and jumped off the green bridge into the Moose river.

On the way back to Fort Kent Maddie and I stopped in Hartford, Connecticut for a Zac Brown Band concert. Zac was really good live he played all of his hit songs as well as some I hadn't heard before.

Now I am back in Fort Kent training. It is very humid here.

Next week I will be heading to southern Maine to help out with a MWSC junior camp.

Enchanted Forest Water Safari 

Maddie loading wood

Jumping off "green bridge"

Maddie and I at Zac Brown

Zac Brown Band