An overcast day in Lanesboro turned into a foggy, rainy assault on Mt. Greylock today. The 3 10:00 minute level 3 intervals we planned were made pretty intense by the rain. Topher, Pat, my brother and I along with some others toughed out the epic conditions and summitted in well under an hour and a half. The intervals felt really good even though Topher pulled away in the last few meters of the last interval. Intervals like that that are with people always give me the hunger to race and remind me why Im in this sport. Pictures of the summit will be online tomorrow.

-Ian from WordPress for iPod

I find it sad (and I think you will too) that it’s the summer after my senior year in high school and I can’t find time to sit down and write (or post pictures.) So I’ll start with some pics. On June 13 during reunion weekend I had been working for about two weeks at the college preparing for reunion, but I hadn’t seen any of what was actually going on. So I took a run around Williamstown to check out the festivities. I got some cool pictures of the area at dusk. The last three pictures happened on the way back from a run/rollerski in the rain, when we saw a gigantic rainbow right above us on the road.

Pretty cool. The other thing that kept me busy was taking pictures of fireworks and sparklers which are pretty sweet too.

Hopefully now that I’m past Reunion I can work on my real jobs: doing some web work for williams, listening to chill summer music, skiing, and taking sweet pics.

One thing we do every summer with the training group is benchmark ourselves. Every first week of training includes a medals testing routine, usually involving situps, pushups, box jumps, and pullups. Today I worked till 4:30 and then headed over to Topher’s house with my Fluid recovery drink in one bottle and water in another. We started out fairly easy, with a :40 minute run, then moved into the testing.

Testing runs in a specific way for all the exercises: do as many as you can for one minute, then rest for one, then do as many as you can for another minute. This way both raw body strength (mostly the first timed amount) and endurance (the closer your two numbers are, the better) can be measured. I was happy with most of my exercises, save one…because I’ve never been good at push ups.

I did not have the most situps, but I was okay with that since the guys who were beating me were like eighth and ninth graders with short torsos and no weight on their arms…:) no offense to them. However my situps were the most consistent (I can’t remember but i might have had a difference of 7: 48-41 i think?) We’ll find out in Matt’s next email to the group.

Pushups were also more consistent than most of the group even though I didn’t have the highest total.

What I really love are box jumps. My personal best is 73 in one minute, so my goal was coming relatively close to that for both minutes today. I had 61 and 64 consecutively even though I tripped and had to stop a couple times because we were doing them on tree trunks instead of boxes. I was happy that I was able to get more the second time because that shows my endurance is still in excellent shape after not doing intervals in a while.

Pullups were fairly good as well. I think I got 4 and 2 at the beginning of last year which was just pathetic so being able to hit 7 and 3 was a whole lot more reassuring. Not at all where I want to be for arm strength, but showing signs of hope.

I’m really looking forward to the 1k uphill double pole time trial so I can compare last year’s times. I feel like there’s a void in my life from not skiing, so getting out on rollerskis consistently again will make me happy.

I have been looking at FasterSkier’s rollerski reviews and they could not have come at a more opportune time for my buying convenience. Here’s what I plan on buying: The Pro-Ski Roadline Tech. They’re reviewed on FasterSkier here: http://fasterskier.com/2009/06/pro-ski-roller-ski-reviews/ and there is a FasterSkier YouTube review video available here.

I also am planning to buy a new set of wheels for the Ski Sketts since they are quite good skis, but the wheels aren’t quite the speed I’m looking for.

I’ll post when the new stuff is all ordered.
Ian

PS: Here’s a link to yesterday’s run: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/6949792

Went rollerskiing yesterday for the first time. Did 28 double pole 30-30 intervals up Petersburg pass. Felt good but heart rate was low. (Yeah its not MotionBased anymore…it’s Garmin Connect) Maybe it’s because of the fast skis. I need to drag those things through dirt for a couple of hours… just kidding.

But seriously I need slower ones. I’m waiting for all the rollerski reviews to come out on Fasterskier.com then possibly selling mine to a deserving junior skier and getting nice new ones for the first time ever. Stay tuned.

I couldn’t restrain myself; when I saw the road yesterday I just had to climb Mt. Greylock on my bike. It was so worth it. I regret to say that this is only the second time I’ve ascended the roughly 2500 ft. from the reservoir to the summit, but that’s because I got into cycling a little late and the road has been under construction for three years. The views were excellent and I even got a glimpse at my distant beloved white mountains. Check out some low quality pictures.

Here is a long overdue portion of the blog, a MotionBased link:
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/invitation/dashboard.mb?episodePk.pkValue=8340981

the reservoir

beautiful houses near the entrance to MtG State Park

the hopper valley

the summit from fitch overlook

adams

they say that Mt. Greylock is 9ft short of being considered an “official” mountain by USGS. i think the tower makes up for that though. it still is the highest point in massachusetts

they also say you used to be able to see Boston from here until there was just too much smog. you actually can see the white mtns though, if you look the right way

the famous Mt. Greylock tower. I once climbed up to the light room, when i was in about 6th grade, and i was the highest person on land in massachusetts!

Thanks for viewing!

Ian

I wasn’t planning on it, but after running easy for about half an hour on the track yesterday at Weston Field I decided to get the 3000m test over with. While it disappointed me that my time was 11:45, I reminded myself that I am not, nor will I ever be, a runner and moved on.

Today I think I’ll take a long bike ride and move on from yesterday’s pain. I heard a rumor the other day that Mt. Greylock was open again so yesterday I took a trip a short ways up Notch Rd. and discovered that the rumor was true! After 3+ years of construction here is the final result:

A random thought: during bike season someone pointed out how they thought my calves were enormous and I had a sudden epiphany that I’m a perfect victim for compartment syndrome: a nordic skier with big calves and bad foot circulation. Lets hope that I am wrong.

Another cool photo: http://nezzysblogski.blogspot.com/2009/05/supertour-sprint-finals.html

later guys
Ian

Yes it’s been a long year. I think senior year was actually worse and more stressful than junior year at Holderness because even though I was into college early decision, the teachers kept pressing and giving more work, especially my non-AP classes. That made me a little frustrated because I couldn’t blog and barely had time to train. I’ve taken some days off from doing anything after graduation to decompress and get back my sanity. I don’t think I left the house more than twice the last three days just because I was so exhausted of running around doing stuff for school. It became that cycling was my rest from the day’s hardships and it helped me focus before starting homework every night.

Graduation was bittersweet; I knew I was ready to leave, but I had made so many connections at Holderness that I had a hard time giving up. Holderness gave me an opportunity to do everything at once and I took it, knowing that it would be a lot of work, but not knowing just how much. It allowed me to work on my academic achievements, my skiing, my spirituality (not necessarily my religious beliefs but my knowledge of myself) and my social life. I learned a lot more from Holderness than how to V1 both left and right. What I learned most was balance. Balance on skis, yes. But also, more importantly, the balance of schoolwork, sports, spirit and socialization.

For graduation I received a giant poster from Steve at http://www.flyingpointroad.com/ which was quite nice of him considering that I didn’t give him proper photo credit at the beginning of the year and a few times at Eastern Champs got a little bit in the way of his shots of the finish line. The poster is this picture from my lonely Exeter time trial, with “Holderness School” and the school crest in big print at the bottom, reminding me that I’ll always bleed blue. Right now it is sitting in the plastic packaging above my desk waiting to get framed. Thank you Steve, and thank you to all the awesome Holderness people who helped me get to where I am today. To name just a few of my coaches and mentors, Phil Peck, Lindley and Tiaan van der Linde, Peter Hendel, the Teafords, Peter Durnan, Randy Houseman and Michael Carrigan. There are many more that should be mentioned but these are the ones who helped me with running, skiing, and cycling especially.

I found three interesting things today. The first I found on johnnyklister.com. It is a trailer for X-Country.se previewing their new movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73XmR0pptTo
I really want spend the €19.95 it takes to get it, but at the current exchange rate I think that would almost be $30.00. I’m reading all these reviews saying it is well worth the money, but currently it’s worth money I’m saving for other more worthwhile things, like zero skis and better rollerskis. I wonder if anyone on FasterSkier has seen this video?

The second interesting thing I found today was posted on the fasterskier.com twitter feed this morning. The first picture (that introduces the article) isn’t fit for the front page of FasterSkier, and if you don’t mind a bit of colorful language and humor then check it out: http://www.johnnyklister.com/post/114350045/you-can-imagine-a-similar-headline-thats-ski
That wonderful piece was followed by a truly fantastic article about collegiate skiing in the US. Basically the article explains that we aren’t competitive in the Nordic world because there is very little support for collegiate and post-collegiate skiers in the US, but says it much more eloquently and convincingly than I just did. The original was posted on www.johnnyklister.com and is absolutely brilliant: http://www.johnnyklister.com/post/114347144/the-curse-college-and-believing-in-skiing

That got me thoroughly inspired, so I kept looking down the johnnyklister.com website and found the first video I posted and a link to Phil Bowen’s photo site. Phil, as is explained on Johnny Klister, is a former Factory Team skier with a few really nice cameras and a stunningly good eye for photographic beauty. There were some amazing photos, of skiing and other things, put up there at a frequency of a couple every few days. This inspired me some more, so without stealing the idea completely from Phil I decided to do this a little on my own. I thought, “why not…I have a few extra great photos and some webspace.” So now if you visit my old blog  nezzysblogski.blogspot.com you can find average quality cool photos from my DSLR. I posted three today, all from the Holderness senior class trip to Boston during which we took a riverboat tour of the bay. Check my improved old blog out!

And finally, from Phil Bowen’s website, a finish line bootstretch between Ola Vigen Hattestad and Petter Nortug in Lahti. His comment (in a link below the picture) explains a lot about the difficulty of photography at ski races.

I’m excited for my track workout tomorrow to get ready for the 3000m test.
…
Ha, I wish.

Ian

Wednesday was the Proctor Circuit race, basically a criterium with 5 different dangerous 90º turns, three of them at high speed. It took place in the giant parking lot behind Nascar’s Loudon speedway, which is basically a glorified desert with some access roads running through it. It has been hot every year I’ve been there, and I think it’s the hardest race we do. The pace is always high and the turns always cause a couple crashes.

Anyway I was right in the race the entire time but 3/5 of the times I attacked, my foot came right out of the pedal and I almost crashed. When the attacks worked and there was someone with me, they would not be willing to do any work, so the boys-A peloton rejoined us. I finished ninth because I broke away too early on the final lap and then was caught in the wind eventually when I did have a lead. Better luck next time.

Here is how the last two weeks of racing have gone for me:
Holderness Road Race: 4th
Gould Road Race: 15th
KUA Points Race (track): 1st
Exeter Time Trial: 1st

Do you see a pattern?
The pattern is that I really only get by in cycling because of my capacity to be in a lot of pain and oxygen debt and still work harder. I finished well in the Holderness Road Race because I was able to claw my way back on the last uphill section before the finish line and almost catch the lead group of three.

In the Gould Race the team from Exeter used their four team members to somewhat of an advantage…one of them would attack right after another and when they got caught they would just tuck in out of the wind and rest. By the uphill section to the finish line I just got mad and wanted to break some people, so I pushed the pace quite hard and dislodged two of the Exeter boys from the pack by the time the finish hill came. At that point I just didn’t want to go at all for the finish, so I let the guys who were still on my tail pass me and took last in the pack sprint. Someone asked me later why I went so hard and I couldn’t give them a straight answer other than that I wanted to hurt people. I thought that maybe physical contact would be inappropriate in a race setting, so I decided to hurt them using my legs and my bike.

The last two races have been more fun than the road races. At KUA, I was once again a loner in the A division, so I tried to figure out a way to play that to my advantage a little. I knew based on the Gould race that no one other than me was willing to actually pull the pack at all, so I decided on a strategy that worked for me and another teammate last year. The race takes place on a 1/3 mile race car track near KUA, and every 5 laps there is a sprint for points. As we were gearing up for the sprint, I stayed at the back of the pack and just watched. I took about 7th across the line, and then moved to the right (the outside) of the track, watching patiently. When I saw an Andover kid take off, I hopped right on his wheel and soon there were three of us, and we had about a 2 second advantage. I was a little surprised the group had given us this much berth, so I got excited and began to sprint, yelling something like, “WE HAVE A GAP, LET’S GO GUYS!” and they looked at me like I had three heads. So about half a lap later I looked back and the two kids were sitting up! The pack was still behind them. I made a decision right there to stay away as long as I could. 5 laps went by, and I won the second sprint. Ten laps, fifteen. I had about a ten second gap when the lap-20-double-point sprint happened, and it was increasing. Every sprint lap my lead on the pack would go down by a few seconds by virtue of the fact that I was time-trialling at a constant pace and they were sprinting to the line. Then they would slow the next two laps and I would be able to gain those couple seconds back and add a couple on my own. I think my average speed for the race was 24.3, basically because I was in the drops in the aero position the entire time producing a steady hard effort. My lead got up to 24 seconds at one point when the pack and I were on the same straightaway but I was not able to catch them by the time the 40-lap race ended.

The Exeter race was a little less exciting because of its time trial format, but because of Nordic I am well-acquainted with the concept. I was the only boy in the Boys A division not to have a teammate, which meant that I did the time trial on my own instead of with a partner. It was a very technical course, with four 90 degree and two 180 degree turns. The trick to the 180 degree turns was to actually approach them really fast, break really hard, turn slowly, and then accelerate with everything you had. Doing the 90 degree turns well was just a question of picking the right line through the manhole covers and drain grates, and not hitting the hay bales at the end of the turn. We saw a bunch of crashes, luckily none of which happened in boys’ A, so I was safe. I ended up winning by almost 15 seconds over the team from Andover. What made me happy was that I started last, so I could pick off the teams as I moved up. I passed everyone except Andover and Exeter team 1, but I could see them as they passed on the other side of the road after the 180 turns, so I knew roughly how I was doing based on at what point on the road we passed each other. The rest of our team also did well. We had several podiums, one from Nate and Jordan, one from Lily, and one from Betsey and Lane, and one from Ethan and Julien.

My training log proudly displays 36.5 hours now, after over 4 weeks of training. I’m on track! Damn, that training month went by quickly. I’m moving on from the “Patience” period to the “Patience and Buildup” period and entering phase two of training for Williams Nordic 2010. I just thought I’d say that cause it sounded cool.

In other news: there are 19 days left of school. It’s bittersweet, but when I think about it, I’d much rather be out of here corresponding once in a while than still be here. It’s been a hard three years for sure, and believe it or not, this spring has been the hardest semester of high school I have ever had. I keep reminding myself it will be over soon.

My final bit of news: I joined an athlete sponsorship website recently, not thinking much of it. A couple weeks ago I submitted an application for sponsorship by Rudy Project. They emailed me back today saying I my application had been accepted! I was thrilled to hear that, so now whenever you visit my “About” page, you’ll see the proudly displayed Rudy logo and link. Here it is again just for good measure.

Soon you’ll see me wearing awesome sunglasses and possibly a helmet to display my sponsor’s name. Thank you Rudy Project!

Ian

This will be a short one. I recently got a Twitter account, and I am fascinated with it. I find it such a cool idea that you can follow your friends and celebrities all in one place.

If you want to follow me, I’m at http://www.twitter.com/iannesbitt. I’m thinking of posting more workout-oriented stuff there.

Yesterday was unbearably windy, so when we decided to go west to Rumney, we were basically blown backwards. We weren’t able to go up Hall’s Brook because it took so long to go west. On the other hand when we came back on Rt. 25, I was able to cruise at about 37 at some parts. Today we’re doing intervals and I’ll be lifting tomorrow.