Back from Golden Island

Rowing out to the USS Tunny - named after my Grandpa's navel ship.

I took a little "vacation" last week back in the Midwest with my family.  We spent the week at our cabin just over the Minnesota border into Canada.  Grandpa Chuck Golden bought it back in the 60's, and it hasn't changed much since.  

I hadn't been up there in over two years and I wish I could get up there a whole lot more often.  July was pretty crazy with travel and competition so I think I picked a good time to get a bit of a mental break.  It's amazing what a week with the computer, car and iPhone off will do.

The cabin, Ben (just out of splashing range) and I.

The weather permitted some good waterskiing, which, I have to say, I'm a little out of practice at.  "Little brother" Ben's turned into a real ripper though.

Cooking up wild blueberry pancakes in our fancy kitchen.

Of course, training never ends, and I did my best to mirror the training that I was missing back home.  It turned out to be an intensity week, which meant that I had to make an effort to get to shore for running and rollerski intervals.  This wasn't all bad though, as being at sea-level is ideal for intervals (you can go faster and recover harder).   One of the days I tried swimming intervals.  Those hurt.  It's like going hard in any mode of training, but with the sudden inability to breath.  By the end of that session, 10 consecutive freestyle strokes before switching to breaststroke was a struggle.  

...and we caught some fish. Lots of Northern Pike.

Above Ben and my Dad are shooting cans for 20-second time bonuses at the start of our big competition.  After the slingshots, we rowed out and back to the "Tunny," ran laps around the island, swam out to a buoy and back, and canoed around the tunny.  OK, so maybe it wasn't quite as hard as the time trial that I missed out on, but hey, it was fun.  I got the overall, but Ben did win the 90 second time bonus for the closest time prediction to actual time.   Dad fended off Roxy for the podium (unfortunately she was disqualified for skipping the rowing and canoeing legs - but she's the fastest swimmer and runner).

Now, back to the usual for almost two whole weeks.  On another note, we're doing a 3000 likes campaign for the NNF Facebook page.  If you haven't like it yet, do it! Click here:

https://www.facebook.com/NationalNordicFoundation

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