A Day at the Hill

Today was a busy day for us coaches with sessions at 8 AM and 6 PM for the Comp Team athletes, and 4 PM for the Prep/Devo summer crew - all at Birch Hill.  It was a good day too - lots of sun, lots of fun, and - most importantly - lots of good training.

I'll let the pictures tell the story:

We started the morning off with some technique drills for bounding

Then we did a few passes without and with poles for power and speed

We had a special focus on adapting our technique - turnover in particular - to changes in terrain

The group looked pretty good (reference Eliza here), but we accept that there is always room to be better

Then we finished off the morning session with some L3 ski-walking intervals from the bottom of the Comp Wall and up tower direct. 

The intervals took 4-5 min and the crew did 3-6 of them.

Prep/Devo athletes on their warm-up run around - get this - warm-up loop.

Crawling exercises as part of our warm-up - to engage the core and increase mobility in the legs

We then split up into two groups - one at the bounding station focused on technique and power, the second doing ski-walking with some technique working into intervals.

Eloise shows how it's done

I was at the bounding station so I took some shots of the 'Cruisers' (one of our two groups) as they did the work.

We (coaches) finished the day with the Comp Team athletes.  After a 30-40 min run and some strength, we got out the frisbee for some ultimate.

The late day sun was at the right position that we all looked like we were in the spotlight - it looked really cool, but I'm not sure the camera did it justice.