Well on Our Way...

Believe it or not, summer has finally arrived, and it's already flying by! But instead of lounging around in the sun, the comp team and both Truckee and Tahoe City devo teams have been busy "gettin' after it" week after week.

We were incredibly fortunate to have snow to ski on at the Auburn Ski Club until the third of July, which has made for some major ski technique progression and given us a huge advantage over our competitors -- many of whom were done skiing at the end of March.

Now that the snow has finally dwindled from the trails and the sun seems to be out for a while, the transition to full-on summer training mode has taken place. Comp team members dove in head-first, quickly progressing into longer workouts, intensity sessions and ski-specific training, including rollerskiing, skiwalking and hillbounding. In addition to a variety of daily endurance-, speed-, technique or intensity-focused workouts, agility and strength training have been a major focus this summer, with group sessions taking place twice each week. Devo athletes are also invited, and encouraged, to attend these sessions.

Likewise, the devo teams have wasted little time "getting the ball rolling" this summer. Both the Truckee and Tahoe City teams have already gotten a taste for rollerskiing; nearly perfected their soccer/speedball/ultimate frisbee skills; increased their distance runs each week; gone mountain biking; completed some epic weekend adventure hikes (garbage bag sledding included); done technique work through classic/skate progressions and skiwalking; and also put in some solid intensity and speed sessions.

In addition to all the awesome adventures we've been on and hard work we've already put in so far, one unique highlight of the past few weeks has been a nutrition presentation we received from Registered Dietician Dana Lis (check out her website here: http://www.summitsportsnutrition.com ), who talked with us about fueling for proper recovery after our workout sessions, and assisted us in making some delicious post-workout smoothies and giving us other ideas for post-workout snacks for home or on the road.

Check out the slideshow of what we've done so far this summer (click on any image to make it larger), and check back frequently for updates as we continue on our quest to become better, faster, stronger!

-Coach Kara