OY !
Next Meeting
Thats Ernie`s Department. There "Should Be" an on-snow meeting at Smigiel Ski Valley any day now…
December 30
Holiday Cup @ Nick Baic's Walloon Lake Lodge
12km classic (women stride 8km)
Inspiration
#1 It's snowing in west Michigan & the vasa trail reports in with the best conditions although you can easily make it up as you go in parks & golf courses right now, so get on snow ! That should be all the inspiration we need !
GRNSTers Iceman MTB Race Results with Age Group Finishes
Biathlon World Cup Feeds
http://www.biathlonworld.com
Unbelievable! Free, live web feeds of World Cup biathlon.
SuperFlat & Flatbeiner Rollerski Event Reports
Small turnouts for both events. Beautiful weather for both. I was able to ski 50k and then 82km with the same gang both times: Christian Byar, Greg Worsnop, Don Camp. Very fun hearing Don Camp tell biking stories for 132km. Incredibly, his bike team was the precursor for what has become Team Discovery Channel, and Detroit was the national hot spot for cycling. He still has wool race jerseys and Schwinn Paramount Team bikes. Think of the ebay value. Other than that, what happens in the peloton, stays in the peloton.
(Ernie's SuperFlat report)I talked Peter Johnson into going another 3 miles after Ravenna which turned out to be two miles so we got in about 30 miles. Peter, Steve Smigiel and I skied the whole way together, with me leading most of the way out and them leading most of the way back. They finished about two minutes ahead of me. I was 3:12. We passed Dan on the way back after Ravenna and I don't know exactly how far he went. They we saw Lars on the bike. We caught Rick about 3-4 miles east of Ravenna and Carole just after Conklin. Carole came in at 3:31, Rick at about 3:54 and Dan at 4:01. It is amazing how good that first gulp of Icehouse tastes after a long roller ski. It even tastes sweet. (Heh heh, thanks Ernie.)
Briefly With Greg Worsnop
Greg Worsnop is a long-time Michigan Cup ski racer who GRNST is very fortunate to count as our own. Hailing from the incredible Nordic hotspot of PawPaw, Greg has a wife and one daughter in her junior year at K College.
The start of his Nordic obsession, in his own words…"I started skiing in the late seventies, the wine skin variety, and got into racing through a roommate's former frat brothers. One had moved to the twin cities and skied the birkie. The next year a couple of Kazoo folks went and brought home the tales of the race. The following year Pete (D'Arienzo) and I raced a couple of times here in Michigan, including my first Vasa and off to Telemark for our first Birkie in 1979, wood skis and all. I actually met Pete at that first race. "
Q) Pete is your long time training partner, and has his amazing back-40 trails, Rosie's Nordic Ski Training Compound. How did you two train before he made his trail system
A) Most of our early skiing was done at the Al Sabo land preserve in Kazoo and the Allegan forest. Breaking trail and cursing snowmobiles and hikers. The only groomed trails around were in Augusta at Hugh Acton's TurSkiRee. The site of that first race.
Q) When did you and Pete first travel abroad for a Worldloppett race, and how many have you raced ? The plan is Germany this year ?
A) Pete went over for the first time last year, but John "OC" O'Connell (ex-Kzoo Nordic, now a Mpls skier) and I went for the first time in 1993 for the Engadin and the Norwegian Birkie. I completed my first world master circuit at the 2000 Vasaloppet and have eight toward my second and two on my third. I am planning the double up in Germany with 50k classic on Saturday and 50K skate on Sunday.
Q) Not only have you been racing almost as long as anyone, you are the fastest GRSNT racer, or fastest from SW Michigan (pre-GRNST), and one of the fastest Michigan ski racers at the Birkie, and you always have been. Are you a natural born phenom and you stepped into the game like that, or did you have to work on it for a long time, and what other sports did you do prior to Nordic ski racing ? It is hard to imagine a young Greg Worsnop with bamboo poles and hot wooden fifteen pound skis at the TC Vasa 27k race.
A) (I) ran in high school and briefly in college, but took a 6 year hiatus from physical pursuits to explore other forms of stimulation. Getting into skiing brought back the competitive juices. I did do that first year of racing on wood skis, Bonna 1800's, which I still get out at least once per year, but no bamboo poles just some whippy excels.
Q) You are a serial marathoner, and River Run 25k racer too. Do you have plans to continue that kind of training, or is it just rollerskiiing and then circling Rosie's for ten million laps per snow season ?
A) No my marathoning days are behind me. Two years ago when I turned 50 I got it in my head to run my tenth marathon to end that career with a nice round number. A series of minor injuries and set backs ended that idea after the River Bank run. I did qualify and run Boston three times with a PR of 3:04 at Grandma's at age 42. I was in shape to break three hours, but conditions were to warm (85 at the finish) to make that possible. Long story short biking and rollerskiing are my off season training.
Q) Can you share with us a little bit of your training ? How often do you do your intervals ? I notice that when I have had the rare chance to ski or train with you, surges are a huge part of the workout. Do you always do that, or just when you need to ditch me to shut me up
?A) My training is summed up by "Just go Ski" Rollerski, ski, Rollerski, ski then repeat year after year. I track it all, but no longer have any designed plan. I get in about 400 hrs per year and 2,000 miles on rollerskis, 1,000 miles on snow, and the rest on the bike. This year I took up Mtn Bike racing with humbling results, kick butt going uphill, but lose it all on the way to cautious downhill side.
Thanks Greg. It's great to have you on the GRNST team. So there you have it team, if you plan to ski up front with Greg, how are you going to do it on less than 400 hours per year. There is the secret sauce. It's impossible to compensate for training volume that isn't in the training logs. Good work Greg. Have a good ski season.
Nutritional Notes
http://health.yahoo.com/experts/weightkoch/8292/pumpkins-more-than-decoration;_ylt=AvYS521owlkUapXdmqfOfgwT08gF Good article on using pumpkins. For Halloween we had pumpkin seeds and pumpkin pie and pumpkin soup - great stuff !
Eating Squash Is Like Doping Your Immunity (Legal Too). I have had impressive success using squash as a diet staple; when I should have gotten sick I dodged the bullet several times this fall, because I am "on squash." Now that I have some great squash recipes I can enjoy squash frequently. I have had outstanding squash soup (that is darn good eatin' - just mix chicken stock about 1:1 with pumpkin or butternut squash stock (judge consistency by eyeball), add some FGP - fresh ground pepper, and a small drizzle of whole whipping cream). You would not believe how good this is, and totally chock full of what you need to stay healthy.
Squash stock: Use just about any squash (like pumpkin or butternut, maybe not zucchini), peel skin, remove seeds and stringy guts, cut into small chunks, add small amount of water, low simmer for 45 minutes to 2.5 hours depending on batch size. As soon as you can easily mush it into one smooth chunkless pot of wholesome goodness you are done. Chill pot quickly in sink of cold water, update the cold water to keep it chilling, freeze it in useable size doses, and put one dose aside to use right now. Use it in soup or in pie. Even cookies !
Chicken stock: Boil whole chicken 50-60 mins. Remove the chicken, save the water. Eat the chicken for dinner. Remove the usable chicken meat for chicken salad or chicken burritos. Take all the bones, even the "used" drumsticks, and dump them right into the still-warm water, cover, simmer for at least two hours. Chill the water using the cold sink method. Strain thru a perforated colander into another pot, pour the clean stock into a couple useable sized Ziploc freezer bags. Now you can make chicken soup or squash soup in a very short period of time on a weeknight and eat healthy right out of your own freezer.
Chicken soup: thaw the stock in your soup pot because it tends to leak out so avoid the sink. Chop (small for quick cooking) some celery, carrots, potatoes. Bring the veggies to a slow rolling boil, immediately add paste. Elbows or shells are good. If using spaghetti / linguine break them into small lengths before putting it in. Simmer about 10 - 15 mins to finish the veggies and pasta. Just before serving, add flavor package: FGP (again fresh ground pepper) and table salt, and you might be surprised at how good of a soup chef you are now.
Credit goes to Abigail Larson for the following article. She is a degreed nutritional expert and ski racer with the Factory Team, and NMU alumnae. Her article was lifted with permission from skipost. Subscribe to skipost here: www.skipost.com
(I have no idea why the following story requires a lot of white space before it appears, so please bear with that & just page down to it).
To Caffeinate Or Not, The Science Behind The Molecule By Abigail Larson, MS, CSCS
Caffeine is the most widely used drug in sport and the world. Athletes often use it for er gogenic purposes but science has yet to conclusively figure out how it actually enhances endurance performance. But we know that it does; almost every study that has tested the effects of caffeine and prolonged strenuous exercise has been positive. However, caffeine has very little effect on muscular strength or events less than 1 minute in length.
What about dehydration? There are lots of nasty rumors about caffeine being the dehydration monster but recent research has not found this to be the case. Rehydrating with caffeine containing beverages verses non-caffeine containing beverages after exercise results in no difference in urinary output or electrolyte balance; additionally this study was conducted over several days of exercise in moderate heat (23 C).
How much is enough? Most studies have used 3-10 mg/kg/ body weight of caffeine. In "real terms" this is 1 ½ - 5 cups of coffee for a 110 # person or 3 - 10 cups of coffee for a 220 # person. I don't recommend anyone drinking 10 cups of coffee and most studies show diminishing returns beyond 200 mg of caffeine (about 2-3 cups of coffee). Caffeine consumption related to performance enhancement was generally 1-2 hours before exercise or immediately after exercise for research pertaining to rehydration. Some studies have looked into the effects of consuming caffeine containing beverages during exercise. These studies show increased rate of carbohydrate uptake and oxidation, increased time to exhaustion, and lower rating of perceived exertion. One of the main shortcomings of these particular studies is that they are conducted in a controlled environment where caffeine beverages are consumed at regular intervals throughout the exercise testing period. In real life race situations it is difficult to consume enough caffeine to have an ergogenic effect (how much defizzed Coke can you really get down at 40 k).
Caffeine is relatively safe and has no known negative performance effects when consumed at a level of 5 mg/kg/body weight or less. It can increase gastric motility, cause headache, increase blood pressure and heart rate when consumed by people who have a very low tolerance so it's not advisable for the non-caffeine drinker to consume three cups of strong black coffee the morning of the biggest race of the year. Personally, I love coffee. I drink it everyday. I try to cut back on my consumption a few days before I race. This makes me feel like I get a little better effect from my usual amount on race morning (non-caffeine drinkers show a greater response to the substance). If I drink too much I get "gut rot" and if I try to drink Coke during a race I usually throw-up. That's all non-scientific data but I've learned what works for me and that's something that the research can't tell you, so experiment on yourself, just not on race morning.
Thank you to skipost.com and to Abi Larson.
www.sweetmarias.com
This is where to get your caffeine. Randy Bladel introduced me to the simple art of roasting one's own coffee for the freshest best coffee available. It's more affordable than Maxwell House and tastes better than Starbucks. I'm not seeing the down side. It's also quick.
Ski Tuning Notes from Zach Caldwell www.engineeredtuning.net Brushes are used to remove wax and to polish or work-harden the base. We're not talking about the type of base modifications that wax and structure make. All things being equal you'd have a very hard time finding ski-speed performance differences between brushes unless you simply didn't manage to do the required job with one of them. That should be plainly evident to the eye. No need to use a speed trap to determine that you haven't got the wax off the ski base!
Zach
Next Meeting
November 15 @ Ellie’s new house. Celebrate the opening of firearm season, OpenerBeiner. Iceman tales are sure to flow. Louise Herrick's new house 4301 Willow Drive - Take 4 Mile Road West of Coit to the Grand River where it turns right and into Willow Drivet on East side of the Grand River. 7PM Wed, Nov 15. Phone home if you get lost 616-634-5618 Remember that the short days of the early season are soon to be followed by SNOW, and then it’s fun again and the days soon grow longer. Work thru the short days getting your workouts done in the dark, and reap rewards when the snow hits. Don’t burn out now. Winter solstice (shortest day) is December 21. Then the days grow longer already. It’ll go by quick.
Tuesdays weekly – *Except during FIREARM DEER SEASON* Cannonsburg Hill Bounding @ 6-ish, work up to 10x – A perfect hill for doing 4X4 Intervals ala John Aalberg and the Norwegian Ski Team Add workouts that you are willing to lead. PLEASE. Contact Dell and Dan Nolan to post on website. www.grnst.org * GRSNTer Christian Byar who sports a discrete Nordic ski tattoo, proudly served the USA in the National Guard. CB, when did you serve and tell us how far you went as an athlete during this time ? It must have been a lot of fun to ski with a gun, no / yes ? I joined the National Guard right out of college. Actually, I joined during my Senior year, even before I finished school in 1991. I attended all the regular Army training for about 4-5 months during the fall/winter of 2001 so I missed an entire season, but I stayed in pretty good shape. Interestingly enough, I was the fastest runner (that’s not saying much) on the base. Our commanding officer would actually put bets on me to win our 2 mile competitions and my reward was to get to miss the early morning physical training (I only took him up on this once). I started training seriously for biathlon in the spring of 2002 with the Michigan regional team. During the winter of 1992-1993 I made the All-Guard Development Team during the National Championships and was granted the ability to attend several paid training camps during the year. We would train with the US Biathlon Team in places like Lake Placid, NY, Jericho, VT, Utah, Minnesota, etc… for 2-3 weeks at a time. It was my first and only time to actually train like a full-time athlete (no work – no school). We got to train with the best guys in the country (Ian Harvey, Curt Schreiner, etc…) and in the world sometimes (we trained with the Russians for 2 weeks in 1993). My personal bests mostly occurred in relays at the National Guard Championships. I have always been a good relay scrambler and biathlon was no different. I went to Olympic trials in 2004 at Kincaid Park, Anchorage, Alaska. It was a great experience. I didn’t pull off any miracles and skied and shot only at a mediocre level for me, but it is still something I am very proud to have done. I did represent the USA at the Military Ski Championships in the Italian Alps that year. It was a great trip and again, something I will always remember. I continued competing in biathlon until 1996, but at a lower level, as I went back to finish my degree. Personally, I loved it! It is a great sport and I would love to continue at it even now. The shooting adds another dimension that I really miss and carrying the rifle was not bad at all.
*You skied XC & ran CC in college @ NMU. What hour volume did you guys train year round ? What races did you guys do – college kids don’t do 50k’s, eh ?
In college we would maintain anywhere from 450-750 hours. It’s a wide range, but we had workhorses like Mike Zielke and Dan Ray that would train ridiculous amounts of hours even while going to school and some that could perform spectacularly at much lower levels. Of course most of us where around 500-550 and that was still a heavy load with school and summer working. We did not do 50ks as Freshman, that is for sure. As Sophomores and Juniors I think some of us would jump into the Great Bear or another spring marathon for the experience. We also had an 80k snowmobile trail marathon that some of us did in the spring as well. It was good to test our limits and see what we could do with the big guys after the college season was over.
* So you have been at the top of the sport (both XC & Biathlon), and as fit as you may ever be. What keep you working out today, balancing the challenge of of the time crunch required for training, with work & family & modern life ? (you don’t watch much TV do you!)
I actually had this conversation with Milan during a rollerski a week ago and yes, I am at (or approaching) that magic line where my physical abilities will peak out. Right now I am at a point in my life where I can put in some pretty good hours of training, I have built a really strong-base, and I’m a lot smarter than I was in my twenties. So to be honest, I think I’m very near the peak level I achieved in the early-nineties. I do a lot of my training with my son, Mika. He put in almost 300 miles on his bike last year while I ran or rollerskied. Hopefully he is building a life-long interest in sport as well (it kept me out of trouble). I maintain my interest just because I love it. The answer is as simple as that. I began skiing and racing with my dad about 30 years ago. The people that I have been coached by, raced with, had as teammates, and continue to meet are a big part of why I still find the time to train and compete. A Sunday morning 3-hour rollerski with friends is as fun now as it was when I was in college(minus the hang-over). The other side is my love for the sport of skiing itself and my own competitive nature. I have no doubt that I will continue to train and compete at some level for many, many years. My heroes used to be World Cup stars in their twenties and thirties. Now my heroes are the 70 and 80 year old competitors at the Masters World Cup. “The times they are a changin’”
Awesome. Thanks CB. That was really cool.
Eat your vegetables to reduce age related mental decline (by 40% !)
Recently I read an article that said you should have sports drink before, during and after your workouts in order to boost your immunity. This is a no-brainer!
Check this sweet info on the Nutritional Facts on pasta & red sauce:
There is a LOT more info on that site about other foods besides pasta, so check it out, and you can tweak your serving sizes too.
I had an educational experience this fall where I had to make weight, cutting nine pounds from not much to lose, about ten days before the marathon, so I could not afford to get too stupid about it & lose too much muscle, nor let my immunity down and catch a cold. I made the weight goal! Key lessons learned:
You need a large variety of foods no matter your caloric intake, in fact too much of one thing is really not good anyway, and the variety has quite a beneficial effect on fullness as well as nutrition & immunity.
You can eat a surprising volume of some healthy things, almost to excess; lettuces (obviously watch what you pour ONTO the salad!), carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, celery, oranges, bananas, apples, kiwis, peaches, plumbs. Tuna has plenty of protein, surprisingly few calories, even the whole can, and other goodies like the Omega-things that you need.
If you eat salty food, you increase your sodium, which retains water, which leads to unnecessary weight gain. Sodium is deadly stuff anyway, so drop it, you already get more than you need by way of your American diet. Yes it’s an electrolyte, but there are also six other electrolytes that are essential. Sodium is way overserved. Also, don’t use the salt shaker. I probably did most of the weight loss with dehydration (last couple pounds anyway) which is a pretty sick way to operate, but effective in the short term because water weighs so much and you can process so much of it daily. It was really easy to put the water back in, and the recovery didn’t take too long. That said, all through that period I never missed a meal. That is vital. You do damage that way, and teach your body poor physiological response. I greatly reduced meal size, and I have stuck with that plan. Eat the right amount of the right stuff.
Look at the calories you are eating. A Gel is about 100 calories. I use that as a baseline to compare with other foods. How much do you actually burn ? Once you get efficient (inevitable) at running or skiing, you burn fewer calories. They say you burn about 100 calories per hour running, probably a little more if you are newer at it. Probably a little more also for skiing, being a quadrapedal sport. Don’t louse it up with a full rack of ribs and four beers and a bloomin’ onion. Woah. That is a months worth of calories.
See what little fuel you “need” to run your engine. Be sure you are burning the correct fuels and you will be fine. Play around with the low end, and see if you lose a couple stubborn pounds. It’s actually quite a bit of fun.
Hi Folks - I've got a couple of simple suggestions for completely
minimizing the number of waxes you carry, and still having very
competitive skis.
First, you can't ignore the importance of fluorocarbons. Specifically,
you MUST have pure fluoros in the game if you want to be competitive in
many conditions. And the dirty secret is that, once you've got a good
pure fluoro, the underlayer becomes much less important. That's not to
say that it becomes unimportant, but it's a lot less important than if
you're trying to make fast skis WITHOUT the pure fluoro top coat.
There are a couple of options out there for relatively economical entry
to the pure fluoro game. My suggestions would be to look at Swix FC1 or
Toko Jetstream Moly rub-on. There are plenty of others that will get
you in the door too, but these two have extraordinarily broad ranges
and are relatively economical because you can rub-on a fairly thin coat
in most conditions. So, for the bare minimalist wax box get CH4, LF6 and FC1 (or some other
pure fluoro rub-on). LF6 is often a BETTER underlayer for pure fluoros
than whatever tests fastest without a top-coat. Most people test their
underlayers without top-coats and then test fluoros with a basic
underlayer and assume that the best fluoro on top of the best
underlayer is the best wax job. That's definitely not always the case.
Quite often a mid-fluoro and somewhat harder underlayer is the best
thing under the best top-coat.
So it's simple. In really cold dry snow use CH4. In moderate temps and
dry or unglazed snow use LF6. In wetter snow or glazing conditions at
almost any temperature use the FC1 or jetstream moly on top of LF6.
Finally, a lot of people are extremely concerned about pure fluoros
hardening or damaging their bases. This is an appropriate concern, but
it generally has a lot more to do with the very high iron temps used to
iron in pure fluoros. I recommend investing in a roto-cork for pure
fluoro application - especially when you're using rub-ons. Again, it's
not always the best, but sometimes it is. Get a cheap corded drill at
your local hardware store that will run 2000-2500 rpms - you can
usually find something for around $15. And get some CH8 to clean and
recondition your skis after using the pure fluoro.
In my experience this approach will yield the best bang for a
relatively small cash outlay. There are many additional gains to be
made, but the once you go beyond this point diminishing returns start
to set-in. You get the clearest idea of how effective a wax application
is when you're working for a large team. I've done a lot of waxing for
the New England JO team over the years. And when the whole team (of 50
kids) does really well on the same wax you've got a pretty good idea
that the variation in skis, flexes, grinds and everything else is more
or less takes those variables out of play. So I'm comfortable saying
there are very large gains to be made by getting everything right.
However , I also know that it takes a lot of work, and even having
spent the time, it's not always going to be clear when you look at one
person at a time. Even on a day when we absolutely nail it for the JO
team there will be a few kids with bad skis. If that happened in
isolation they'd probably think the wax was bad... My point is that it
gets really hard to parse all the variables when you've got just one
pair of skis to work with. So there's an definite argument for keeping
it simple.
Zach by Ernie “Pythagorean Theorem” Brumbaugh
During our last several June clinics John Aalberg, Sten Fjeldheim and Jennifer Ryan have been very helpful to me on refining my technique. One characteristic that they have all notice is that I tend to plant my poles inclined inward toward the center of my chest rather than directly in front of the shoulder. If I were to plant directly in front of my shoulder then the entire poling force would be directed down and backwards resulting in 100% of my poling force being directed down the track. As I was doing it in the clinics, a certain percentage of my poling force was being directed sideways to the direction of motion and the forward poling force was diminished. How much? That was what I wanted to know too.
Sailing and canoeing offer practical examples of the vector analysis technique needed to calculate the poling force/speed loss due to my aberrant poling technique. In vector analysis, trigonometry allows the calculation of the vertical and horizontal force components simply by using the length of the pole and the angle of inclination inwards from the shoulder joint. If the pole length is the hypotenuse of the triangle and we assume or measure the angle of inclination then using Pythagorean Theorem formula we can calculate the sideways component and the down the track component. Then by dividing the sideways component by the pole length we arrive at the percentage of time lost due to pole inclination.
First I measured the distance between my shoulder joint and the center of my chest, which was about 8 inches or 20 centimeters. Using a 155 cm skating pole, I have a maximum pole inclination of about 8 degrees. The chart below shows the wasted sideways poling force in terms of degree of inclination in both percentage and time lost in a 50K ski race.
Please note that lost poling force is independent of pole length at a specific inclination angle. However, longer poles would decrease inclination angle for a given person. However, longer poles would decrease overall poling efficiency.
Effect of Pole Inclination on 50K Race Times 50K Race Time Degree of Inclination
Percent Lost Poling Force Minutes Lost in 50 K Ski Race Interestingly, the maximum loss is about 1% at the 8 degree inclination (the middle of my chest) and this results in the loss of 2.3 minutes in a 4 hour Birkie or a minute and a half in 2:30 Birkie. So the bottom line is really that I won’t be beating Milan in the Birkie just by correcting my pole inclination problem, but I might keep ahead of Dan Nolan for another year. However, think about all the little things that I either am or might be doing wrong, such as squaring my hips, pushing off the gliding ski in a V2 Alternate, pushing off the ski in a direction perpendicular to the direction of motion. If I can get 4 or 5 of them identified and corrected, I might gain 10-15 minutes in the Birkie and that could easily move me up a wave. I wouldn’t have to train any harder or loose any weight (the more difficult of the two).
Dark Days
Standing Workouts
Thursdays weekly – meet for a rollerski @ Belmont WPT @ 5:30-6PM
Saturdays & Sundays - Roller Ski on WPT - 9AM (Contact Steve Smigiel Sr re: correct rendezvous point)
***Super Flatbeiner THIS Sunday November 5 at Marne - Musquetawa Trail - 9AM sharp, do 100k
Briefly With…Christian Byar
Nutritional Notes
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/15834652.htm
Ski Tuning Notes From Zach Caldwell
www.engineeredtuning.net
Cross Body Pole Plant Angle and It’s Effect on Speed
FlowTech Corporation
616.447.9920
First Meeting: Smigiel Ski Valley on Dursum in Ada. October X. Workout at 5:30 pm, meeting 7 to 8 pm. (Diane S always provides a cornucopic spread !)
Video Analysis & GRNST Rollerski Day
Sponsored & hosted by Rick Kraai
When: TBA
Standing Workouts
Sten & Jen Clinic Saturday, October 7 at The Otsego Club in Gaylord $89 Go to Mike's site for complete details on the one-day event: http://www.nordicskiracer.com/cgi-bin/news/news_item.asp?NewsID=913
Briefly With Melzar Coulter
Last year GRNST welcomed a long time Nordic ski racer new to Grand Rapids, Melzar Coulter. He & Laurie have two young sons. Melzar & Laurie grew up in the Traverse City area, and Melzar has trained on the Vasa Trail so much that he has grown weary of it (hard to imagine!).
Inspiration
Some summer training highlights for some GRNSTers (please forward your own summer training experiences):
* Christian Byar trained for & raced 15k Muskegon Chronicle Seaway road race, then did the Cherry Festival 15k, and completed a 158 mile road ride between Spring Lake & Traverse City, while continuing to do weight training & rollerskiing year round
* Melzar Coulter trained & rode in the GR Wheelmen weeknight time trials in Ada
* Ernie & Carole trained for & completed the MS 150 Charity Road Ride, a two-day event going from SE GR to Holland, returning the next day.
* Dell Todd ran the River Run 25k in May, and had a great summer exclusively doing marathon training for the Twin Cities Marathon on October 1, and also raced the 15k in Muskegon. Looking forward to Nordic training October 3.
* Michael Seaman went to France for the third consecutive year riding all the mountain stages of the TdF, typically a couple days in advance of the race, while racking up insane mileage.
What are you training for & how is it going ? Birkie Top 200 ? Noque classic ? WorldLoppett foreign event ? Share it with the team, and inspire someone. Send a writeup to delltodd(at)comcast.net
Nutritional Notes
*To boost your metabolism without any effort, divide your daily caloric count into four meals instead of the typical three. You'll lose a couple lbs, for free. Do not add calories to your day. Same caloric count.
*A tough workout or race causes physiological response (good). The cost of the workout is damaged muscle tissue (ouch). To recover from a workout immediately afterwards, get carbs. To rebuild the muscles over the next 12 - 48 hours, eat protein, which is required by the muscle tissue for repair. This process takesa long time, so bear that in mind in the days following a tough workout or race, as your body can't seem to beat the hunger. Listen to that, it's telling you you need protein.
West Yellowstone
The annual Thanksgiving Nordic ski fest is November 21 - 25 this year. If you can make it out there, it's obviously a must-do event and you'll get more skiing than you can stand. On snow, not on rollerskis.
Created on ... September 24,2006