I might become a lumberjack

Because everyone that will be living in get Gallagher house has moved in, the modivation to make improvements to the house has risen. We cleaned out the basement, moved the junk from the garage to outside the garage, and cut down a tree! We cut down the tree because it was dead and preventing the alive tree adjscent to it from growing. I found out from chopping up the tree that chainsaws are very fun and powerful. It's safe to say that I had a grand afternoon. (I was very safe and cautious because Austin told us a story about how he almost sawed off his foot last year.)

Dustin going at it

On Friday, Dustin and Nate had to go to Bangor, so Mitch, Austin and I went candlepin bowling! Candlepin bowling is just like regular bowling except the ball is the size of a grapefruit and the pins look like tall, thick candles.

 

Sunday was the last over distance workout of the year that we got to choose what we do. We choose to go mountain biking in Edmondston, New Brunswick. We have gone there before and the trails are world class, going back was a must. Dustin finally got Austin's bike fixed that I wrote about a month ago. 

On the way to Fort Kent, where we spent the night, we stopped at the MWSC farm house. Welly Ramsey has an extensive garden so we picked some veggies while he was away. While we were there I caught a mouse! We decided not to keep him because we already have 3 fish at home and having a mouse would be just too much responsibility. 

The trails are so great in Edmondston because of the extra things. Like little jumps and pipes they put instead of bridges!

The little kid in me still thrives so naturally I decided to ride through a big puddle as fast as I could. Needless to say, I was not disappointed.

 Austin at a senic view

An interesting tree on the side of the trail

 It easily the best mountain bike ride I've ever gone on, injury free, bike injury free and no Rio incidents!

This week is testing week. We do lots of the same test that my very first blog post was about plus a 3k time trial up Mars Hill and a 15k skate rollerski time trial. These tests will determine how training has gone this summer and what my weakness' are! Check back on Monday for a report on my pain filled week!

Home & Home

It's been a little while since I've posted but it is what it is!

While I was home I started using my brothers road bike which he used to use to get around, but hasn't used  since he moved to college. I took it on a nice triangle loop in greater Portland. I rode from my house to Pineland Farms, across to Wolfe's Neck farm and home again. The ride took me about 3 hours, which isn't bad considering I'm riding a 1970 Raleigh Grand Prix. 

Later that day my father and I went go-carting! It was very exciting and new school beat old school!! That's something that never happens to me so every victory counts. After our two races we went and got lunch at Chicago Dogs, it was a different type of restaurant that makes their own hot dogs. I suggest going there if you're in the Scarborough area.

Thursday I went for another bike ride, except I had company for half of it. My good friend Mitch met me at Thorton Academy, half way on my ride to Goose Rocks Beach in Kennebunk. Ever since I can remember I've gone to Goose Rocks Beach every summer because my great aunt rented a beach house there every summer for a month. My father has 2 sister, so each family got a week plus my grandmother also got a week. It is a fact that Goose Rocks Beach is the best beach in the entire world. Undebatable. The sand is so soft and it's never too busy. If you go you also need to go to sinking sand island. Unfortunately a little over a year ago my great aunt passed away and the tradition was no longer. Luck for me, last year my aunt and uncle did rent a house on the same beach but it wasn't the same, close though. Because this would have been the first summer not going, I figured I needed to go. Because I didn't have a car that day I figured it'd be a good idea to make a workout out of it, and I'm extremely happy I did. 

                                  Even though it was a cloudy day it was worth the 4 hour ride

                               The ride home looking out onto the Scarborough marsh

That night my grandmother took me out to Boone's fish house for the best swordfish I had ever had in my entire life.

The day before I left I went for a rollerski with my middle school coach Mark Arienti. It was good to talk about the days when I was a wee lad. 

Later that day my grandmother took my brother out again to the Royal River Grillhouse in Yarmouth. It's a favorite spot of my because the food is always extremely good.

Back in the Aroostoock we started the training week strong with some bounding intervals.

Was nice to be home in Portland but it's also hard for me personally to train by myself. Being back in the county feels awesome and I can't wait to put the nose to the grindstone during the fall and get fit!

Bike racing, UMPI camp, and a Surprise

Hello once again! My apologizes, on how long it took me to put a new post up, almost 3 weeks. Reminds me of passing in late homework. Anyway, lots has happened in the last three weeks so we'll start from the beginning. 

Mondays are off days for the post graduate boys, but we've started to get into rock climbing at the climbing at UMPI. Its nice to change it up once a week to a sport that doesn't involve cardio. 

Nate scaling the wall

On Tuesday, we had a track workout that consisted of 12x400m@10k pace. It was a fairly easy workout but for me it was aimed at pacing. Having a set pace in my mind and not varying from it. A self discipline type of workout. 

Austin was down to his last pair of running shorts #lookinggood

Wednesday rollerskied with Mike Smith, MWSC Healthy Hometown director.

Thursday, the biathletes from Fort Kent came down to train with us. We did a L2 hill bounding workout 7-8 times around a 1k loop. Also Andy Shepard, MWSC CEO and Mary Barton Smith came to practice, these two people that came through to help MWSC exist through hard times.

Austin and Nate flexing

Because I have tendonitis in my right arm, I've been spending a lot of time roller skiing with no poles.  Thus, making me go slower that the rest of the guys. Luckily, Dustin (we call him Rio now) decided to be a nice guy and ski with me. We got so far behind we came to an intersection and didn't know which way to go! We found an office right next to a truck scale and used their land line, something I haven't done in a very long time. Will came an picked us up and we finished out the workout.

Nate and Austin looking good. 

GOING THROUGH THE CAR WASH!!!

The Nordic Trail Festival is a weekend long event that takes place at the Nordic Heritage Center, which happens to be right next to our house! There's a downhill mountain bike race, a kids bike race, where adults race on bikes that are made for toddlers, 6 hour running race, and 6 hour mountain bike race. The 6 hour races had 3 different formats. You could race solo, as a 2 person team, or have a 3-6 person team. How the team format works is you race a lap, then tag off to you teammate, they race a lap then tag you and so on, for 6 hours. 

The Gallagher house decided to race as 2 - 2person teams. Nate and Dustin, and Austin and I. Austin and I didn't do as well as we thought. Even though it was our first mountain bike race ever we still thought that being in shape had its advantage. And it did for the first 2 laps. Then Austin caught a stick in his rear wheel and it got pulled into his derailleur. He bent his derailleur hanger and broke the derailleur, putting him out of the race for a lap. So he ran his bike back to me and I rode a lap. After I completed a lap Austin took my bike and did a lap, but he came back with no seat or seat post! My seat came loose and all the parts came off. He tried looking for all of them, but couldn't find them all so, he had to ride the rest of the lap standing up. When he got to exchange zone, I decide enough was enough and we called it a day. Austin and I went back looking for the part and we found it! It was quite a race to say the least. 

The positive parts of the day was that the MWSC running relay team came in first and Coach Seth Hubbard and Welly Ramsey came in second in the 2 person division. 

On August 5th, Maine team camp #2 started at University of Maine Presque Isle. We got there, Will handed us awesome t-shirts, then the PG boys created an agility course to practice confidence on roller skis. Soon after we went for a 1.5 hour ski. The next day we had a classic distance session, and since my ski broke I just mountain biked.

Everyone one else skiing

MWSC junior team member Brendan Cry got a boo boo

The most exciting part of the week was VO2 Max testing. For those of you who don't know what that means don't feel bad, I didn't either until after the testing. Here's my best shot at explaining it. When you exercise your muscles use up oxygen, thats why when you work hard you're breathing harder because the body needs more oxygen. So, during a VO2 max test they put a face mask on you like you can see in the second picture. The special treadmill goes higher and faster until you literally can not go any more. My exerting so much effort the face mask measures the maximum amount oxygen you're using and boom, you have your VO2 max. 

Now what can this tell me about my training? It determines how much of an engine I have, how much fuel my tank can hold. If I had a lower VO2 max then I need to do more intensity to condition my body to improve how much oxygen I can take in. Since I have a higher VO2 max then I need to do more distance to become more efficient. There you have it, a somewhat correct explanation of VO2 Max testing and how it works.

Austin warming up

Putting the mask on

Falling from exhaustion 

Good thing the harness caught me!

The end of Maine team camp came on Sunday with a beautiful roller ski in Northern Maine (I'm never exactly sure where I am anymore). 

As many of you know, I'm back in Portland! I got a ride back to Portland from Forrest McCurdy and surprised my parents. They had no idea I was coming home and the look on their face when I walked into the drive way was priceless!! Its so nice to be home with my family and be by the ocean once again. 

On Tuesday night I and 5 dudes drove up to Millinocket, Maine to hike Mt. Katahdin the next morning. We ended up getting only 3 hours a sleep (not the best for training but let the good times roll), and we started hiking around 7.

Here we are at Chimney pond

Oliver Nolan stepping into the unknown

Made it to the top!

Doing the Knife Edge trail was something I've been looking forward to for a long time. I had heard a lot about it so I had to do it for myself! It was an awesome experience even thought there are only 2 really sketchy parts.

Katahdin is right around the corner.

And there you have it, 3 weeks all summed up into 1 post. I'll certainly be posting weekly again because it was much too difficult to remember what happened 3 weeks ago! Thanks for reading, and may the wind be at your back. 

Bloggin' and boggin'

Welcome to another installment of the blog of Ben Allen! Last week was a very low week in terms of training hours because the 2 weeks before that were high in hours. That means there was lots of sitting around and resting, which is a very important part of training. Stress and recover is a good way to think of it. 

This will not turn into a blog about food, but I must share what Austin made on Monday night. Quesaritos. A cross between a quesadilla and a burrito. The best of both world. I highly suggest you make it, its quick and easy. Plus you can make it if 3 cross country guys living by themselves can make it. 

On Thursday we went bogging. This just means running through a bog. This was a different kind of bog from the Sugarloaf camp, where this had no standing water. The best way to describe it is that my feet were confused. As Dr. Casey Smith described it, "Its a cross between a waterbed and a tempurpedic mattress."

 After we bounded through the bog we played ultimate frisbee, because the bog was so soft you could dive for the frisbee without a worry that you were going to get injured.

Friday the biathletes came down from Fort Kent and we all went blueberry picking.

Saturday Lance and I did strength and as you can see Lance gained an insane amount of muscle mass. 

Sunday we all went to the Northern Maine Fair to see what it had to offer. The tractor/truck pull is where we ended up, and oh boy was it awesome! The power that these tractors had was jaw dropping. They were so loud and make so much smoke it made me want to drive one. In my opinion they should have this every single weekend, year-round and add obstacles and jumps. It should also be added into the Olympics, just my opinion.

This is me inside a tractor wheel. 

Thanks for reading! Tune back next week!

Volume Week and Canada

Hello family, friends, and anyone who wants to know what a post graduate is doing! This week was, just like every other week, very exciting and filled with new adventures. This week I have lots of pictures, just warning you.

This week Austin Huneck came back from his trip out west that included climbing Mt. Hood and Mt. Rainier. Also we had a guest, Nate Moreau, who skis for Bates College. He came up to the county for a change in training from southern Maine. Once everyone got settled in, I preformed the duty of grill master and cooked up some hamburgers.

Thanks for the grill Grandma!

(photo: Austin Huneck)

Wednesday was another event filled day. Austin and I had to go see Lance because Austin left lunch meat in his fridge (another story). As usual, hanging out with Lance always ends with an adventure and on this day it ended with rebuilding his zip line in his back yard. It had been a couple years since this zip line was used so it took a little work but we eventually got it to work.

Action shot

(photo: Austin Huneck)

On the way back to the house Austin and I saw a cluster of food vendors in a parking lot just off of Main St. Through some investigating, we found out that it was the beginning of the Potato Blossom Festival. I am still unclear why there is a festival for this but it turned out to be awesome later in the week. Since it was a potato festival we though that we could buy potatoes in bulk for cooking. Unfortunately that was  not the case. We asked the locals we could buy bulk potatoes and we were directed to Goughan's Farm.  Again we were disappointed no to find what we were looking for but we did find mini golf!! Even better it only cost $3.50!

Austin and I decided it was a no-brainer and played 9 holes of mini golf behind a farm stand.

Taking the first shot

(photo: Austin Huneck)

The 9 holes were really nicely laid out

We found a goose

On Friday night Mrs. Bartley, junior skier Jason and Max Bartley's mom, had us over for a dinner of pulled pork sandwiches. It was absolutely delicious, thank you Mrs. Bartley! There was a dance where the food court was earlier in the week. They blocked off a part of Main St. and had a band playing. It felt like we were at a county fair in the midwest, except we were in northern Maine. 

The band played out of a tractor trailer 

Saturday we had intervals and speeds when a group of bikers went by.

Saturday afternoon we left for Kamouraska, Quebec. This was a trip for post graduates and Olympic Development Team members.

Kamouraska was amazing, It was so nice to be back at the ocean again. I had forgotten how much I missed it. It's a very unique place also. All around is farm land except for small ridges that ran parallel to the St. Lawrence. The ridges were only about 500 to 1000 yards long. It was unlike anything I had ever seen before.

On Sunday one group went for a 5 hour road bike and another group went for a run/hike. I was a hiker and we set out to climb the ridges and make our way back to the campsite. What ended up happening was we bushwhacked for 2 hours along a "trail". This trail was marked but that's about it. It was still uncut so it made a rough going, but it was an excellent hike. 

Near the end of the hike

(L to R: Bates skier and runner Gabby Naranja, me, Bates skier Nate Moreau, Casey Smith MWSC ODT biathlete)

Slack lining

On Monday, 7 of us went rock climbing. I haven't gone in a while but it was a beautiful day and many of my teammates were really good at it.

Kelsey Dickinson scaling up the face

Another incredible day 

On they way back from Canada Austin and I decided to take a dip in Lake Madawaska. It felt amazing.

One last thing. Shout out to my teammate Austin Huneck recently got sponsored by the skiing company Alpina. He's worked really hard and definitely deserves it.