After the “huge baller” week last week, these last few days have been a little more low-key. Fortunately, I’ve used my time very well, including film screenings of the artistic classics “Gladiator” and “Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail.” Little to no schoolwork has been accomplished, but after the frenzied bird-gathering of recent times, my conscience has not yet prevailed upon me to stray far from the couch.

However, I did participate in a few noteworthy athletic endeavors. First among them was the “Doppio Ciclo,” or double loop for those of you who are not fluent Italian speakers. Every Saturday during the year, from March to November, the Portland Velo Club assembles for a warp-speed 30-mile group ride leaving at 7:30 from Cyclemania (Portland’s raddest bike shop). The last Saturday ride of the year, always in late November, is two loops, and the shop puts up money for the eight winners of the four intermediate sprints along the loop. You’d be amazed at how many crusty old men show up ready to rumble at 7:30 on a Saturday morning (there were about 50 this weekend); they put the Bowdoin ski team to shame. I managed to prevail upon my coach to let me get in one more ride, and I saddled up the old Trek for its last hurrah of 2008. I wore five layers on top, three on bottom, and was still really cold.

Sunday was our second Morse Mountain Time Trial (M^2 T^2). It’s about one mile of running, mostly up hill, at a nearby road/trail owned by Bates College. Most of the team shaved off a few seconds (I went from 6:21 to 6:17–not great, but sufficient), and then we ran down the hill for a cooldown on Seawall Beach, which is very scenic (we’ve been discussing a potential sand ski if snow doesn’t materialize before winter break). We didn’t have a camera, so no photos, but it was so nice that I drew a picture–it’s below. Note the sand painting we did (nothing personal, Colby, but everyone needs a rival).

Tomorrow we drive to Quebec for our camp at Foret Montmorency. There’s apparently 1k of skiing there now, but the weather looks like it should be in our favor and things will only get better. If they don’t, there’s going to be hell to pay, because Thanksgiving is BY FAR the best day of the year…

I was a little circumspect about the title of this post–I use the term “baller” and “huge baller” a lot, but I wasn’t actually sure whether it referred to, like, a huge basketballer, or more of a sexual meaning.

So, I looked up “baller” on urban dictionary, and this is what they gave me:

Given this description, I think it is not inappropriate to describe this past week as a “huge baller” week, given that the Bowdoin ski team has become, in this season of VO2max intervals and max strength complexes, thugs that have made it to the big time.

Now I know what some of you guys are thinking: “What?! Bowdoin?! Huge ballers?! No way! Those guys are just sucka MCs [defined as "an MC with an inflated opinion of himself, but no skillz or flow]!”

Here are the facts:

1. This week included three intensity sessions. No, we’re not Marit Bjorgen rocking 8 interval sessions in three days, but we did get in two good sets of uphill V02max intervals, and a quality threshold pace workout.

2. We wear pimpin’ orange vests. Trust me, you’ll be seeing them at discos and clubs all over New England by spring.

3. Max strength workouts=nighttime parking lot sprints.

4. We skied to my house from school. MY HOUSE. 26 miles over hill and dale, in the rain. Nothing says “huge baller” like going to the house to visit your mom, then eating a gigantic lunch of delicious chili and lentil salad (yeah, lentil salad). (see team picture below, courtesy of Nathan Alsobrook) 

That’s about it. Check out the other photos that I finally got ahold of from the summer–they’re from the Exeter Criterium in New Hampshire. The flamingo’s always watching…

It’s into November, and there’s a lot to look forward to–Quebec/Thanksgiving camp in less than three week; our first race, the Great Glen Sprints in less than a month; snow in Maine; college carnivals, marathons, etc.

Unfortunately, standing between all of that and me at this moment are 35 species of birds. NOT in a literal sense–as much as I revere animal life, I would not hesitate to step on a few seagulls or chickadees to get to snow or college carnivals sooner. No, when I say 35 species are in my way, I am referring to a gigantic project for my ecology class, for which I am required to see, identify, sketch, and provide notes on this preposterously high number of birds.

No offense to people on the U.S. ski team, but I’m pretty sure that if I didn’t have to complete this project, I would be competitive at the international level in no time. The amount of energy I’ve spent worrying, procrastinating, and whining about birds over the past few weeks is a severe drain on my recovery, as well as my sanity. If there are any readers out there who might be willing to draw a few sketches birds and send them to me before Tuesday, I’d appreciate it–my lab instructor says they don’t have to be well-executed, just physiologically accurate, so don’t worry if you’re not an experienced artist. My address is:

Nat Herz

443 Smith Union

Bowdoin College

Brunswick, ME 04011

In other news, we held the 8th annual duelathon (NOT duathlon) last weekend, and I had the privilege of being the pace-biker for the second year in a row. Unfortunately, a friend had broken my cyclocross bike, so I was stuck on a malfunctioning mountain bike with only one gear. While Sunday was a recovery day on the training plan, it turned out that pace-biking on a hilly cross-country course is actually NOT a good way to stay in level one. The course started on a soccer field, and the runners got going so fast that they’d passed me before I even knew what was happening. I had to kill it to get back up ahead, and managed to stay in the lead for about 4k of the 5k run, but then I unfortunately got passed after a steep rock wall that someone thought would be great to include in the course. It was a pretty exciting day…

Today was a pretty sweet 3 hour classic rollerski, followed by some delicious brunching. Late in the afternoon, I determined that said delicious brunching had not entirely completed the recovery process, so I was forced to set out on an easy bike ride in search of additional recovery food. A process of scientific discovery led us to Wendy’s, where further investigation deduced that a “Baconator” would be an optimal muscle-restoring tonic. I highly recommend Baconators for anyone looking for a reliable recovery food to be used after every workout–especially if you belong to the Colby, Bates, Middlebury, UVM, Dartmouth, UNH, Williams or St. Lawrence ski teams…

So, Sunday was the Lobster Roll. I wrote up a report for the Maine Winter Sports Center that I’m going to include below. It’s a little hokey because I was trying to make MWSC look good (a worthy cause, I promise), so please forgive me–I’ll try to make the next post a little more sarcastic and biting to compensate…

Also, a brief quick plug–MWSC is really cool–they’ve done a lot for cross-country skiing and biathlon in Maine in the last few years. They’ve got a number of excellent programs, but one to keep in mind is a college summer training group that they run during the summer in northern Maine. I know northern Maine may not sound sweet, but there’s more to do than you’d think, and it’s a beautiful area with a good community of athletes training together. I think they’ll even help you with housing for the duration. For more info check out mainewsc.org, or e-mail the xc coach Will Sweetser at will@mainewsc.org.

I first realized that this wasn’t going to be a normal day as I was trying to change into my race suit in the ferry bathroom. Spandex is so tight that it’s hard to put it on to begin with–the ocean swells and cramped space complicated things even further.
I’m a college cross-country skier. Before most races–on snow, on pavement (using a special training tool called rollerskis), or otherwise–I’m usually comfortable and relaxed, holed up in a ski lodge or in the team van. Today was different–instead, I was sitting out on a ferry deck, trying to stave off the stiff Atlantic sea breeze.
Along with students from Bates, Colby, UMaine Orono and UMaine Presque Isle, I was on my way to the island of North Haven for the second annual Lobster Roll, a 15km rollerski race. Organized by the Maine Winter Sports Center (MWSC), the race serves as the state’s collegiate championship for rollerskiing.

An hour after departing the ferry terminal in Rockland, we docked at the island. I’d been to North Haven once before on vacation ten years ago, and the town was a lot like I remembered it–a tough-but-friendly place. All the athletes and coaches walked off the ferry, and we walked in a sort of odd parade up to a schoolhouse near the starting line.

North Haven’s roads are a rollerskiers dream: rolling and smooth, with only the occasional car to worry about. I warmed up for half an hour with my teammates, and then the racers started to go off–one at a time, every fifteen seconds.

The course was 15 km, essentially circumnavigating the island, and it was tough. I had a tailwind for the first half, and the course was mostly downhill in the beginning, which I think lulled me into a false sense of security. Once we hit our furthest point and started to turn back towards the school, a stiff headwind and challenging terrain made the going really painful and slow. Fortunately, headwinds and uphills are equal opportunity obstacles, so I don’t think that anyone else had it easier than I did.

Following a quick cool down, we all headed back down to Waterman’s, North Haven’s community center, for some delicious tomato soup, salad, and sandwiches prepared for us by the island’s residents. As my parents can certainly attest, feeding just one ski team is a big challenge–feeding five must have been an epic undertaking.

After lunch, as part of the day’s program, MWSC President Andy Shepard had enlisted North Haven State Representative and House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree to talk to us athletes for a few minutes about island life and lobstering. Pingree told us about her life growing up on North Haven, and discussed some of the challenges facing its residents, especially those in the lobster industry. Shepard finished the talk picking up where Pingree left off–asking us to think about how to revitalize the economy of Maine’s islands and rural communities using the skills we’ve acquired at college.

Before heading home, most of us suited up again for one last spin on North Haven’s roads. It was nice to be able to enjoy the island scenery at a more relaxed pace, as opposed to the head-down, teeth-grinding effort of the race. After a snack and a quick change, I got on the ferry totally exhausted, but also exhilarated–knowing that I’d just had a unique and unforgettable experience.

Bowdoin ski team members on the way to North Haven.

It seems that every year we schedule some sort of time trial or test with a few of the other college teams. This event always seems to fall on a frigid morning, be excruciatingly painful, and end with the other team(s) gleefully stomping on us.

Last weekend we had our obligatory event of the fall, a classic time trial with Colby College. Surprisingly, we held our own, taking second, fourth, seventh, and eighth. Rollerski races are obviously very subjective, with ski speeds and other things to take into account, but it’s heartening to see that we can be in the mix with some of the East’s best skiers–Colby sent three guys to NCAA’s last year, and I’m pretty sure they even qualified four.

Another exciting thing that happened this week was lactate testing. We’ve all done some treadmill/heart rate testing to get a general feel for where our training zones are, but doing a blood test in the middle of a workout is just another objective measure of how hard you’re working, and it keeps you honest. We were shooting for a threshold level of 4 mmol/deciliter of blood, and while many of us were pretty close, others had pretty valuable learning experiences.

Tomorrow the Bowdoin team is braving the waters of the frigid Atlantic (in a ferry, mind you) for the Maine State College rollerski championships. We’re catching a ferry to North Haven, a small island off the coast, and banging heads with the other Maine colleges in a 14.5 skate course that apparently circumnavigates the island. Rolling terrain and sea breezes supposedly make it pretty tough. I spent about four hours today switching the wheels and shafts of my skate rollerskis, so if they don’t work for me tomorrow, it might be worth it for any coastal readers to check the beaches over the next few days if they want a free pair of Marwes.

Speaking of free Marwes, I’m still not yet sponsored by anyone, so Mr. Marwe, if you’re reading this, I could use four new wheels if you’ve got any lying around.

That’s about it–as for the lactose, a few of my teammates are planning on tackling the gallon challenge tomorrow once we’re back from the race. We’ve had some pretty impressive finishes in the dozen donut challenge, so I’m looking forward to a spectacular contest. I’ll be sure to let you know how it goes…

All photos are again products of assistant coach “Outrageous” Ollie Burruss. Also, check out this sweet youtube video of sprints in practice. My arm wave is not a victory salute–I almost fell over…

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENMBuM9qr…

Sunday morning I met the Bowdoin ski team at the Irving station in Augusta for the drive up to Sugarloaf. Not having learned from previous mistakes, I pounded a liter of water and a cup of coffee on the way, and though I almost made it, I had to force a van stop just 2 miles from the mountain for a pee break.

I’d never participated in the Sugarloaf Uphill Climb before, but this is an extremely gnar, extremely sweet event. Though I was hoping to contend with some of the Colby men’s skinny–sorry–ski team, I ended up duking it out with one of their women and a middle-aged man. Bowdoin did place a number of finishers in the top 20, however–check out the photos below.  A tasty lunch of pasta and chocolate chip cookies preceded our descent.

Yesterday, we set out to tame the Long Falls Dam Road, a 20-mile stretch of secluded pavement in the Maine woods. No moose, but fog and fall foliage abounded. We classic rollerskied for about three hours. Final tallies included a whole bunch of funny looks, like five ridiculously jacked up jeeps and other cars, one gigantic camper van that had no business being out there, and one middle finger (not mine, to be certain). 

Since yesterday’s drizzle nixed the epic run-hike the team had planned, we made up for it today with a four hour combo rollerski-running workout. We started with two hours on skate skis, alternating between smooth and unfinished jigsaw-puzzle-like pavement, before packing into the van for a quick drive over to Bradbury Mountain State Park–otherwise known as Radbury. Radbury is where I usually go to shred the gnar mountain bike style, but today we had to settle for shredding the gnar running style. The most important tally from this workout was the number of sandwiches I consumed at the dining hall upon my return, which was six.

Pictures are from Sunday’s Uphill Climb, and the Long Falls Dam rollerski. The photographers are “Outrageous” Ollie Burruss and “Nonstop” Nathan Alsobrook…

           So, it’s October 6^th, and I’m pretty sure the last time I posted on this blog was some time in September. I’m hoping this won’t be quite the infrequency at which I will post in the future, but I have a feeling that anyone who reads this might not be hearing from me as much as you did over the summer.

            School does make things a bit more complicated—I’ve been working on a paper for the last few days, and before that, it was a long article for the newspaper ( orient.bowdoin.edu—if anyone wants to hire me as a reporter when I graduate, I’m game, as I don’t think I’m going to be working as an investment banker any time soon). The way I’ve come to view college is that it comes in spurts—I’ll be on go for a week, maybe two, but then eventually things have to relax at a certain point.

            Training with the Bowdoin team over the past few weeks has been excellent. We’ve had a really good group coming out to optional captain’s practices, including a whole bunch of new freshman (see previous post), and they’re super motivated—the culture of the team has really shifted for the month of September from “we practice if we feel like it” to “we practice 6 days a week, and are super serious about it.” One of our freshman has been rollerskiing with us despite a broken wrist.

            Some highlights of the past few weeks: a sweet uphill time trial at Morse Mountain, which has a cool trail system that ends at a beach; a lot of rainy rollerskiing; and actually, that’s about all I can think of. Other than that, training has been pretty conventional—we’ve been sticking to the plan, and that’s been fine.

            A bunch of us are heading up to the Sugarloaf area this weekend for the Bowdoin team’s fall break camp. We’re planning on doing the Sugarloaf Uphill Climb on Sunday, a sweet hike in the Bigelow range on Monday, and a totally rad rollerski on one of the nicest, most secluded roads in Maine, the Long Falls Dam road.

           As for the poison ivy in the title–I got that after a lab I was doing for one of my ecology classes (see photos below–we went to an island in the middle of the Bay of no-Fundy). It really, really sucks.

           As a wise man once said, “keep ‘em pointed straight ahead!”

           After the monotony of the first week of classes, I left Bowdoin behind on Friday afternoon for the four-hour drive to Baxter State Park, home of Mount Katahdin. With a couple of other Bowdoin Outing Club leaders, I was leading a weekend hike up the tallest mountain in Maine—one of the most beautiful in the northeast. Following some sweet driving at speed on the highway up to Millinocket (with a brief stop for urination and the purchase of delicious gummy sharks), we arrived at our campsite at Roaring Brook just after dark. A gigantic dinner of couscous with sausage sent us to bed.

            I could give you the blow-by-blow of our hike, but I think that most people would probably fall asleep if I tried to chronicle the entire day. Some choice moments included:

–Eating a watermelon at the top.

–When I learned how bidets are actually used (you’re not supposed to sit in them–don’t worry, I’d never actually tried this).

–Running into the COC(K), or Colby Outing Club. This may not actually have been the Colby Outing Club, but rather a mindless agglomeration of Colby students. Suffice to say that my disdain for them is at least partially merited, if not entirely.

–When I tried to eat cranberries, and Nick (co-leader and ski team captain), flipped out because THEY COULD BE POISONOUS.

–Eating absurd amounts of pepperoni and cheese, with appropriately minimal quantities of accompanying tortilla.

When we got down, we made one of the most awesome, rad, extreme dinners ever:

ramen bombs. If you’ve never experienced the goodness that is ramen bombs, allow me to enlighten you. The gist of it is, combine cooked ramen with instant mashed potatoes. Season with whatever you want—we used ramen packet seasoning and cheese, though sausage or bacon or some other meat product would have been a welcome addition. It was awesome, and sufficiently high on the glycemic index that we all needed more sugar from brownies and smores to stave off the inevitable crash that would have otherwise followed.

          I’ve been doing much better this year than in years past in terms of being a responsible athlete. Since April or May, I’d only been sick once, and even with some annoying allergy problems, I haven’t had health interfere with training at all.

            Until this week. I think it was bound to happen at some point, as you have like 1600 people all coming from different places with different germs at the beginning of the school year. Looking back, there were probably a few things I could have done differently, mainly drinking water in the 24 hours between the end of the Katahdin hike and the beginning of my specific strength workout the next day. But this is in the past. Monday morning I woke up with one of the most intense sore throats I’ve had ever. The only thing consoling me is that about half of the rest of the school is sick, as is the same proportion of the ski team. I’ve been pounding the Vitamin C and water, and hopefully I’ll be good to go by tomorrow. 

Below are some gratuitous watermelon shots, as well as some other good pictures…

School is finally here, which along with little sleep and lots of work, also brings freshmen. For those unfamiliar with higher education, freshmen are essentially gifts from on high made to more experienced members of the ski team–useless balls of clay for us to shape into handsome, athletic specimens.
Well, sort of. If you thought that this was going to be a post about hazing, think again. (We keep those reports and pictures under wraps.) No, in all seriousness, it’s very exciting every fall to get a new bunch of fresh faces ready and excited to train hard, learn about the sport, and make new friends.
This year, the incoming group of skiers has actually doubled the size of the team. We’ve got something like six or seven new guys and a similar number of girls. They come from far and wide– Utah, Western Mass., Upstate New York, Minnesota, Michigan, and Maine–and they also boast impressive resumes. We’ve got a Michigan state champion, multiple Junior Olympic attendees, and some plain-old all-around solid athletes.
One of the most exciting things about the new freshmen are the rollerskis that they’ve been using during captain’s practices. I’m currently on a pair of V2 920s for classic, which are normally decent speed, but the bearings in them are seriously in the hurt locker. Trying to keep up with some of these new kids on their Proskis, Sharks, and Swenors has been causing me quite a bit of pain; I think I’m going to have to spring for some new wheels at a certain point or I’ll be doing a lot of training by myself.
The other exciting thing that happened this week was the absolute last paddling excursion I’ll be participating in this fall. On Saturday, I cruised down to the Rapid River (near Bethel) with the Bowdoin Outing Club for some solid class IV boating, which apparently results in disaster when combined with canoes. I felt really badass as the only person in our group in an open boat right up until the first four rapids, which resulted in four successive swims (see pictures). I then proceeded to slice open my right palm on a kayak paddle while trying to surf at a sweet play spot. Hmmmm…..
I’m heading up to Katahdin this weekend for a solid hike with a few other ski team members. Hopefully I’ll have an exciting report on that next week, although if it weren’t quite as exciting as the Presi traverse that’d be fine by me…