So I had one of the best workouts of the summer yesterday (August 2nd). Let me set the scene: five, 8 minute skate rollerski L3 intervals. I set out after grabbing a **QUICK*** dinner from our lovely Driscoll dining hall and roll down from the Sage dorms all the way past the Towne field house, into linear park and eventually make my way up to Luce/ Pattinson road.
I rip out three fast ones heading up to the entrance of the Greylock auto road feeling good, feeling hot, and feeling FAST. As I turn around for number four, one of the new friends I made this summer texts in our group chat asking if anyone wants to make a Lickety run.
Now, I’ve tried most of the flavors at Lickety (many times over this summer) and I can confidently say that Purple Cow is the best. If you disagree, I'll be in Boston for the rest of the summer and you can come fight me.
ANYWAY, with the sun setting, just two intervals left on a fast descent, and ice cream at the end, I am pumped. I absolutely fly past the reservoir where *someone* may have gone for a dip this summer when it was 97°, past farmstand, and onto route two. A quick rest as cars zipped by me brought me back to Brookline where weaving between cars on roller skis was how one learned agility.
Then, BAM! interval number 5! As I always say: Last one, Fast one! I crest up onto campus, past Currier Quad and WCMA, bang a left down onto Spring Street, making outdoor diners and other NARPS rubberneck to catch a glimpse of me as I careened toward Lickety. I nearly spin out as I take the 90 degree turn onto the road parallel to the parking lot which I whip into to finish this great workout with a lunge that probably looked something like this:.
Then to cooldown, I had a huge Purple Cow ice cream cone. DE-licious!
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Between cinematic interval sessions and sleeping like a rock, I’ve spent the past two ish months in good ol’ Williamstown, USA. I got to stay in the Purple valley because I was working in a Chem lab at the school… well biochem lab… with a sprinkling of computer science… you'll understand soon enough.
The Thuronyi lab (headed by Chemistry Professor Ben Thuronyi) consisted of myself and five other Williams students who ranged from a thesis student to first time research assistants like me! I could give you the whole spiel about what we did in the Thuronyi lab, but I think our End of Summer ‘Zine would give you a better idea of what went on in the Hopper Science building.
When I wasn’t working in the lab or training there was plenty to keep me busy this summer including outbidding Jakin for a banjo being sold by another student on campus this summer (I also played it too). You could often find/hear me and my friends on Chapin steps in the late afternoon, our empty dinner boxes off to the side, them crocheting something new, and me plucking away on banjo.
Our lab was good friends with the people in the Gering lab and so when they had their annual spirit week, we HAD to join in. Evelyn, me, and Addie are posing in our business casual attire right before we headed out for our daily 90 minute lunch. Gotta feed those brains somehow!
Mornings for me usually meant waking up at 6:30 am, getting my workout in for the day, showering, getting dressed, doing a little bit of clerical work, and my OATMEAL breakfast in my common room. I had oatmeal with honey and peanut butter EVERY SINGLE MORNING THIS SUMMER. I went into the summer as not the biggest fan of oatmeal, but I came out of it as a full despiser of the meal of oats. No more, never, I can’t do it anymore. I have it in this ceramic, gifted, novelty margarita glass because the little collapsible bowl I used alway got too hot to handle.
I think my favorite workout might be anything on the RRR trail that gets this view. I did a lot of runs along the Taconic Crest and every single time I stopped for a few minutes to take in the view. I mean, LOOK at this! Maybe I should move out west…
Pictured here, my neighbor from the Sage dorms, Angela, serving at one of the weekly volleyball games. Her and I always went and got so competitive. We dove, nearly pulled muscles, scuffed our knees and elbows, and let out some ungodly grunts as we shot the ball over the net. If there’s no snow this year and the Carnivals don’t happen, you can find me on the volleyball court.
What was just one girl’s dream, turned into 30+ Williams students storming Six Flags New England and spending the entire day there. Me and Olivia, crochet extraordinaire, were the only ones who noticed I was taking a photo on our first ride of the day and our closing ride, the Carosel.
Olivia here seen demonstrating the correct amount of sunscreen to put on when spending the entire day outside.
Lilly Bates was also on campus this summer working as a reunion ranger! She’s got a whole blog post about it, so I’ll let her tell you what she was up to this summer. Here though, we just got finished with some track intervals where we got dumped on. That didn’t stop the temperature from soaring back up to 89 as soon as it was over though.
I broke my pole tip on route 43 an hour and half into my rollerski and so I had to no pole all the way back to campus. At least I got to hear about Boston’s great Molasses flood of 1919 as I hobbled back.
One of the great things about summer in Williamstown is that you can spend so much time outside! I threw a movie night with a bunch of people in frosh quad on one particularly hot Friday. We watched Mamma Mia and so the PA system’s microphone was passed around all night as we watched the movie and then transitioned to karaoke.
The Green River was the perfect spot to jump into after a hot workout and that's what I did most days.
Angela dog sat for a professor’s dog and I had to bring her some stuff one day and got to say hi to Dusty. He didn’t seem fond of me at first, but after a *few* handfuls of treats, he loved me.
Jakin, Lilly, and I got huge this summer lifting in lower Lassel.
But we also got out on bike rides together. I thought at the beginning of the summer we might do the Greylock Century ride, but then after thinking how much it hurt last time, we decided our 50 mile loops were just fine. Maybe next year though?
We did go on an epic hike/run on the AT from Bennington back to Williamstown. Jakin split off right at the end though to get to his house, but Lilly and I ran to the dining hall for lunch only to get there at 1:34 and be turned away. My cramping legs almost didn’t recover but luckily I had snagged a piece of tres leches cake from the dining hall the day before. It satiated me enough that I was able to make it until dinner.
And that’s it folks! Lots of training, friends, labwork, and ice cream! I’m back in Brookline right now so I might forget how to run uphill, but I’m still glad to be back. A few beach days, a few urban runs, and just one or two Shake Shack shakes and I’ll be ready to head back to the Purple Valley. Once we get the team back together, the Skeephs are going to hit it hard and have fun! I’m so excited to see everyone then!
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