Lake Placid Cross Training Camp

Lake Placid, NY is an awesome place to train in all year round but I have a soft spot for the area in the winter. Over the next two weeks the USA sprint and Slalom Canoe/Kayak teams are coming together at the Lake Placid OTC for an intensive cross training camp involving skiing, speed skating, weight training, gym games and anything else are coaches can think of.
We started of the camp with an easy 2hrs ski this morning/orientation session for those folks who had never been on snow. This afternoon will be an hour of 4 v 4 soccer in the gym. So we're off to a great start.

OKC Blizzard

Oklahoma city was hit by a massive blizzard on Christmas Eve stranding many people on the roads and in the airport for the holiday.
I left work around 11:30am and made it to my apartment and hour later (its a 20min drive). All flights out were canceled so Jen and I spent the Holiday snowed in in Oklahoma. We did get to have a Christmas dinner at a friends house today which was really nice.
The weather and snow conditions today would have been perfect for skiing alas my skies are in ME.
Hope everyone had a very happy holiday!

ICE

The river had a thin coat of ice on it the other day so we were forced indoors to the pool. Now I love the water with a passion but its a bit more specific then that, I should say I love being ON the water. Notice the emphasis on the ON not the in. Well this morning I was in the water swimming laps in a pool, I have a rather difficult issue with swimming because I get motion sick, don't laugh its true. I solved that today by popping a few Dramamine before practice and it worked I didn't feel sick! While this did nothing to improve the quality of my session I felt much better and will live to tackle the pool again another day.

K2

I am getting ready to head out for my first K2 practice with Jen Burke we have 8x500m lined up for a practice. I am really excited and a bit nervous to get into a K2 its always such a great unknown or a least to me. Wish us luck but hopefully it will be all skill!

Strength Training

As a nordic skier I was considered fairly strong as a kayaker I have a long way to go. Recently it feels like each time I hit the weight room my butt gets kicked, the funny thing is I don't mind. I keep thing well if I feel like death it must mean that I will get stronger and therefore faster its a little bit of a long convoluted mental process but it seems to be working for me.
We did a brief max testing in bench press and bench pull 135, and 140 respectively which is more then my body weight so I feel that that's an ok place to start the winter season.

Twitter

I' m now on twitter Username: Kaitie_Mcelroy. I am working on getting my tweets to go to my blog site hopefully I will have that running in the next few days.

Coffee conversations and communication

Today has been a whirlwind of activity. I had the opportunity to meet with Joe Jacobi (executive director of USACK), Coach Caven (current coach) and Jen Burke( future k2 partner) to discuss the promotion of canoe/kayak in the USA. I think the meeting was great and gave all of us a lot to think about and expand upon.
After that I grabbed my Phone and had a conversation with Dan from Canoe & Kayak Racing magazine about writing an article form them. Now I am catching up on emails having dinner and heading off to a OKC thunder Basketball game.
Plus I got a California girl out on the water in 33degrees for a rather productive workout oh yeah !!!!
What a day, I love it.