Burkies and guests are gathered in the Adirondacks for the August Nordic Team Camp. The weather is beautiful but really hot and really humid. Water.  Drink a lot of water.  Swim. Stay in the shower. Save the hard work for early and late.

Some of the crew on the "Governor Aiken" crossing Lake Champlain on the way to New York and the Adirondacks. Nice Day!

The core team is made up of three returning junior boys, two new PG’s and two new girls bringing us to the same size as last year and looking at a core that will be with us for at least two more years…a good thing. Three guests have joined us and alums and friends are showing up for different workouts and to help welcome the newcomers. We opened with a “trials day”; a day of not so much testing but of assessment. The purpose is to let both atheltes and coaches know where we are and what kind of strength specific work would be most beneficial before the snow flies. We look for weak links in the chain and try to design ways to bring them into line. Events took the shape of a standing broad jump, pull ups, bar dips, deep push ups (hands and feet on rails, allowing the body to go below hand level), rail hops and the “brutal bench”, a hanging curl up. We began with a 3000 meter run…which wasn’t 3000 ( top time 9:16!) so that part we had to throw out, but the heart rate info was good and will help us later on.

Patrick Joslin, a new BMA PG, has at the "Brutal Benken".

Evan Martell works the Deep Push Up

Our "Long Man", Jordan Buetow from Fairbanks, sizes up the Deep Push Up as Burke Coach Matt Johnson does the numbers.

Trials day finished, tonight we looked at some excellent video clips  to give us mental images for tomorrow’s double pole work and introduced thoughts about a focus for the rest of dry land and for the on-snow time to come. We want to concentrate on some basics; balance, weight shift, efficient movement…a lot of no pole work. It can be as helpful for the vets as for our new convert from Alpine. Speaking of converts from Alpine it looks as though an earlier BMA convert, Liz Stephen, is headed for Vancouver in February! Well done! That’s what these camps are all about…finding out if you want to get there.

Time to call it a day. More tomorrow. All the best!