We've had a packed few weeks here at the NYSEF Winter Term-- lots of high quality training sessions and plenty of races and events. Pile on the Empire State Games, back to back races, Olympic opening ceremonies, and you've got some skiers ready for a break.
Built into the coaches' schedule for mid February was a recovery and regeneration week-- an opportunity to take three consecutive days off from skiing to let the body (and mind!) recharge with championship events right around the corner. Nothing leaves athletes hungry and ready to attack the hill like three mandatory days away from skiing.
Thankfully Lake Placid offers the whole gamut of alternative activities to make for an awesome recovery week! Check out some of our recent recovery adventures:
We got to hang out with some of our "Olympic friends" during the torchlighting ceremony:
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| Winter Term athletes showing support for our NYSEF olympians: get ready for Bill Demong to defend his GOLD MEDAL (Tuesday 2/18 @ 4:30am EST) |
Freeride coach JP hooked us up with some lessons on the trampolines at the OTC-- awesome!
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| Gavin sending it at the OTC |
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| Audrey Higgins-Lopez demonstrating some textbook form... nice! |
Last Monday we laced up our skates for a fun recovery skating session on Mirror Lake. The ice was perfect-- a great way to loosen up the muscles. Hanna and Quin made their ice skating debut and did an awesome job-- we even saw Quin throw a few front flips at high speed into the snow, sweet!
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| WT athletes atop the Igloo on Mirror Lake. A perfect afternoon for a skate! |
On Tuesday afternoon after our academics we gathered our cross-country gear for a real afternoon adventure-- a backcountry ski outing leaving from the front door of the OTC! We cruised on the John Brown Farm trails over to the ski jumps, where we watched the
US National Team and some top Scandinavians training for the
USA Cup event which took place Wednesday at the jumps. We got up close and personal, chatted with some athletes, took a whole buncha selfies... and even took the elevator ride to the top of the K-120. It makes the view from the Super G starthouse look pretty mellow!
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| U14 Inez Burkard demonstrating a great classic stride! Maybe she'll become the next Haley Johnson :) |
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| It's clear-- skiiny skiing is not a new endeavor for U16 Blake Piper |
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| Sprints at the jumps! |
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| Sweden's Erik Gundersson logging some flight time on Lake Placid's K90 meter ski jump |
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| The crew! Coach Dave looks a tad bit snowy... |
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| Hey do these things have edges?! |
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| Hey Blake... we'll give you 20 bucks. You'll need a good helmet though! |
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| Gulp. |
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| Recovered athletes are happy athletes! |
To really kick off our recovery week we invited Elise Munn, a certified personal trainer from the Adirondack Medical Center over for dinner to teach us a little bit about recovery, regeneration, and how it can improve performance.
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| Elise discussing the finer points of recovery |
Elise has worked with Olympians and medal winners in all kinds of sports and she had some awesome tips on how recovery is tied to performance, how to get adequate rest, how to fuel and hydrate properly during different phases of training, and she even passed out some awesome training logs for us to start filling out. We learned a whole bunch and can't wait to put it all into practice!
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| The WT crew with AMC's Elise Munn. Thanks for the visit! |
Now we're ready to attack the hill and gear up for Championships-- recovery is awesome!
