As another week passes up in Northern Vermont, Craftsbury has started to see some new arrivals, and the training load has been increasing. The three arrivals this week are Katie Burke of Duke, Alycia Da’Loia-Moore of Boston College, and Claire Kuehnel of Boston University. We are still awaiting the arrival of five more men from Boston University, Cornell, and Brown, and one woman from Michigan State. They are all representing their schools at the women’s NCAA championships this weekend, and the men’s IRA championships next weekend.

Knowing that the new arrivals are approaching their peak racing form, those of us already here are also beginning to build speed work into our weekly workouts. Most of our work is still based around solidifying technique and building an aerobic base, but now touches of speed and higher rate work will be incorporated. This past week we rowed over 150 kilometers on the water, and also completed speed and strength workouts on land. Even the land workouts are focused on our rowing, and each exercise has something that is incorporated in the rowing stroke. All of this focus is directed towards U23 trials in the last week of June.

In exchange for the opportunities we are given at Craftsbury we also complete a certain amount of work each week to offset our room, board, coaching, and boat usage. Many of these activities are either helping to maintain the landscaping around the camp, or helping out with the green initiatives of the camp. Just yesterday we were spreading compost in a set of new gardens of the recently acquired Hosmer Point Camp. As I understand it the new camp will be used for many outdoor and wilderness activities. Another interesting part of this past week has been the weather. Although I have seen fiercer lightning and thunder storms, I have never seen them with such frequency. It seems like every afternoon and night for the past week has been lightning ridden. We have been lucky enough to only have one practice moved indoors, but some of the campers have not been so fortunate. Even now the Internet has been down for several days, so I’m not sure when this will be posted. So long!