The Torch

The last few days up here have been very full Craftsbury days. A full Craftsbury day consists of the required amount of training and then as much work as you can fit in the hours of daylight. Not to mention, meals. Since I have been gone so much this summer and racing quite a bit, I have not had many opportunities to just go to work with no regard for how tired I am going to get. While that may not sound all that appealing, it's great. I like to think that Craftsbury athletes and employees are judged on two coefficient systems. The first being their Gluckman coefficient. This system evaluates an athletes training effect, in other words their ability to do execute a training plan, rest, and perform consistently. Essentially it is the value to the Center in terms of athleticism. The other is the Schulz coefficient. This is named for the entire Schulz family that literally keep the Center running. Eric and Lucas especially are the MVP's of the Center, especially in the winter with their grooming and snow moving capabilities. The Schulz coefficient values an athlete or employee based on their work and their ability to complete jobs that progress the mission of the Center. In season, the athlete's value will swing way towards the Gluckman coeff. and the opposite in the offseason. For the last few days, Kyle and I especially have been turning in high scores in both categories. It seems like the less we let ourselves relax in the middle of the day, the better. After keeping busy all day training and working, there is a natural end to the day once dinner is over. There's just not much extra energy to do anything else. I like the feeling. Yesterday, Kyle and I were out clearing some trees with a few others. I was pretty overwhelmed by the heavy machinery at first, but once I came to grips with the fact that I was probably going to get seriously injured, I went with the flow, worked hard, and came out OK. The process was: 1. Buzz saw tree

2. Excavator picks up trick and swings it around( with no regard to who or what is around) and pushes it into the wood chipper( a device that turns really just about anything into chip form).

3. We pick up the smaller shrubs and boughs that were left from the progress and also throw them into the chipper.

Don't get me wrong, it is ridiculously fun work. But at first, I was a little timid. That is no way to be around heavy machinery, though. Hopefully come winter time we will be skiing through these new clearings. Either way, good strength building out there just lifting trees for a few hours. 

This morning was one of the first heavy lifts I have done in a while, and boy, it felt good. It's a wonderfully simple thing, picking heavy things up and putting them down. Today consisted of romanian dead lifts, bench press, some front squats, and dragging a tractor tire up a hill several times. After watching a video of current M2x World Champion Kjetil Borch doing 390 lbs x 7 reps for dead lift I realize that I may never lift more than him, but it's not an irrelevant challenge to try to. It seems to me like the traits allow him to lift that weight are also consistent with the traits that allow him to be open water up on the M2x field in the A final at Worlds. I may be wrong, but where I see a weakness I see a opportunity to get a lot better. 

On saturday morning, we did a 5,6 k race.  I have definitely been feeling a little shaky out there in the single, but I was able to have a pretty solid piece actually. It was blowing 15 mph, tailwind on the way down, headwind on the way back. Incredibly slow on the way back. I rowed around 30 spm in the tail, but it was so choppy that rowing lower and cleaner was better than rowing high and out of control. I built a pretty good lead by the half way mark so that I could row clean and clever on the way back into the headwind. I tried to just maintain blade clearance with circular hands at either end. Very tough piece but felt good to blow out the cobwebs a little bit before the Green Mtn Head next week!