Sunday, August 29, 2010

Adventures at Home

I am still holding down the apartment here in Minneapolis. I did get a one week mini-vacation while I dog-sat for a family a mile away. Their house had AC and it was the hottest week of the summer so I was very excited for the little break in the heat.

Summer training is over and the Park is closed so I have been enjoying the past two weeks of sleeping in past 6AM and having the afternoons to go check out new things. I still don't have a car so I been rollerskiing and biking most places and I have really enjoy the cheaper mode of transit! Minneapolis was named the best bike city in the country so I am in a good place!

Brian came down to visit me from Hayward this week which was Awesome! He has been training really well and I think he is going to have a great season. It's been fun to introduce him to the life I live here in the Twin Cities. His week was smaller so we had the opportunity to train together a bit.

We had a great time together without needing to spend a dime. Brian is extremely resourceful and creative when it comes time to plan new things to do. He leaves tomorrow for Hayward and I am back at Harrison Park as well.

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Coaching Girls!!!

I have often realized that I always seem to have a male coach. Their styles are usually pretty straight forward and recently have focused on mostly strength, power, and intensity. After last season I used a different approach in my training and technique work. I focused less on grunting through my races and tried to think about dancing through them. The result...occasionally I could be spotted doing a jig along the course but mostly I began to relax and ski with more grace and fluidity.

This past week I spent four days coaching the CXC Jr. Birkie Camp at Lakewoods Resort just outside of Cable, WI. The days were long often starting way before 7AM and ending way past 9PM. My first group of athletes were 5 girls from all over the mid-west. None of them knew each other but by the end of camp they were great friends and teammates.

The camp was filled with drills and technique concepts. The information sounded boring and technical so I decided to "spice" up the girl's experience. We began thinking of skiing as more of a dance. Each technique was a new dance move and instead of forcing the correct positions and movements we would simply find them through the groove.

The girls began talking about songs to go with the movements and soon the "technique dance" was born!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1sH662qexw Check it out!!!

Track

The Harrsion Park Track Team finished up their season last week with the end of the year banquet at the Old Country Buffet in Crystal, MN.

I had quite the adventure getting there as my car is no longer working and I was up in Hayward just a few hours before! Thanks to everyone who helped me get to the CXC Jr. Birkie Camp and back in time for the banquet!

After lots and lots of food and even more soda the kids were very energetic and could barely sit down and contain their energy for the city awards and a few messages from the coaches.
Look at the Harrison RECORDS!!!

Twins!

This past couple of weeks have been really busy. I had the opportunity to visit the new Twin's Stadium here in Minneapolis with 15 kids from the Harrison Community Center. We can see the stadium from the park and the walk over was pretty easy. The new stadium is beautiful and the opportunity just to see the inside made me happy. Everyone had a great time even if the Twins lost by quite a margin to the Cleavland Indians.
The View from our seats!