Lake Placid, camp five

by Jason Cork

In my last blog, I insinuated that I’d write up “Not Wants, But Needs: Home Edition.” Apologies if you’ve been holding your breath on that, but for a series of reasons, that’s not happening. Primarily, it’s been because I haven’t really been home that much the last month (camps and Super Fit sessions and going to Duluth for a chili fest), but most crucially, I didn’t take any pictures of stuff in my house and now I’m in Lake Placid, New York.

This is the fifth camp I’ve been at this season (though the sixth for some people — I wasn’t hired when the Minocqua camp in May went down). So far, it’s going really well. Jared and all of the staff at the Olympic Training Center here have been helpful, and the ice bath/sauna/cafeteria/cable TV/inflatable-leg-smoosher-thing situations have made recovery between session really easy.

Garrott, Brian, Karl, Santi and I made the drive over last Tuesday-Wednesday, hugely aided by an audio book. ["The Google Story." Apparently you can download these from your local library -- free travel tip!] I managed to take zero photos of relevance during this drive, nor in the ensuing seven days, meaning almost all of the pictures below were taken today.

Photos allegedly add 10 pounds to their subjects.  They certainly subtract 4% in grade.

Diggins, striding uphill at the rollerski loop by the jumps during a speed day. Gus, practicing his cinematography.

For some reason, I bet there are awesome barbecues hosted here.

I met an Olympic luger a couple of days ago, and he told me that the US is behind other countries on runner selection — i.e., they use different metal compositions for cold ice or melting ice or whatever. So if you’re a metallurgy/material science engineer and you’re looking for a cool research project/internship, you’re welcome.

Some sort of stone. Slate? You tell me. Not pictured: Granite curbs.

When I lived in Duluth, back around 2000, my friends Rich and Bruce were obsessed with “appropriating” sandstone blocks from demolition sites, and on many occasions Andy W. and I would be called upon to help lift 2′ X 4′ curbs into the back of Bruce’s truck. Anyway, whenever I see stone curbs, I’m reminded of those summers. More importantly, stone curbs indicate that a municipality is willing to invest in classy sidewalks.

Lake Placid High School and the Olympic Oval

It was hella rainy on my walk into town to buy postcards today (no training on the schedule), which made me wonder: “How do all of these people own umbrellas?” The other thing I wondered was, were classes suspended at LPHS during the 1980 Olympics? I have to think it would be really hard to concentrate on your Algebra II test when Eric Heiden and his 28″ quads were outside your window, en route to five gold medals.

Picturesque.

Finally, this is a really poor photo of some of the foliage going on in upstate New York. There are many “leaf peepers” around now, checking out the colors. Pro-tip: You can buy a postcard with a better photo than you can take yourself for about 40 cents.