Mountain Camp 2022 has concluded. After spending a few years in VT due to the pandemic, we finally returned to North Conway and many of the iconic workouts and places that have made this camp legendary.
This year I referenced a passage from the book “Do Hard Things” by Steve Magness which I have been reading, and which has been making the rounds in endurance sport circles lately. The specific concept I was thinking about was “raising the floor” and I shared the following with the team after camp:
Lower the bar. Raise the floor. (page 78)
When trying to improve, most of us go for the lift-the-ceiling approach, judging ourselves by our best performance ever. In track, we would define ourselves by our personal best for an event. To get better meant running faster than we ever had before. Brian Barraza, a professional runner, sees performance in a different light. “My goal is to raise the floor. Being confident that whenever I step out on the track, I’m going to be able to run a certain time.” Instead of going all in for a massive breakthrough, Barraza sets a minimum expectation. “When you raise the floor, it allows for those days when everything is clicking to exceed expectations. It’s not that we’re lowering our ceiling or playing it safe; it’s that we’ve developed the confidence to know that X performance is repeatable. That as long as we do what’s in our control, we can achieve a certain standard, no matter the circumstances.”
Brian Zuleger, a sports psychologist out of Adams State University, taught me an exercise to reframe expectations. Instead of aiming for our best performance, something that we can only accomplish rarely, shoot for improving your best average.
So how does that apply to MNC and this camp?
Each year we always do a big hike/run at Mountain Camp and the Presi Traverse has for many years been our “white whale” metaphorically. In 2016 it was a long slog to the top of Washington and down. A few years later we attempted just a half-traverse and couldn’t manage it without half the group bailing and half the group breaking ahead and hitchhiking down. This year we only had bailouts due to injury, and even that bailout group ended up covering 18 miles and I have zero doubt that everyone in the group would have made it if unscathed. You could say the “floor” for this group was raised to about 6,288 feet or so.
Each year we also do the Kanc rollerski. The first year I think everyone started about 6-8 miles closer to the summit than this year. We used to take that “Bear Notch” road which comes out near where that fresh new pavement was, and turn left to work our way back down to determine a starting point. One year it was a contentious decision to have some of the group start lower than the rest of the group. Now, we drive from the opposite direction to come in at the very bottom so that we can get as much distance as possible. And EVERYONE started from the absolute farthest point this year.
On the whole, this group’s hunger for training is pretty insane. The sheer amount of training that club athletes can now put into a week legitimately blows my mind. But this team’s support for one another will be what carries this them further than grinding through hard work alone. Maybe they don’t even think of them in the moment, but certain actions really show me this team is on another level than most out there…
- Hanging back with a teammate who isn’t feeling great or had an injury
- Choosing as a team (not by any coach directive) to elect someone with a controlled pace to lead the train when everyone is tired in order to go the right pace
- Impromptu huddle for warmth atop a mountain
- Staying up late to make a birthday banner on your own volition, not because you were told to
- Asking the coaches how they are doing in a workout
Here is to the return of the NH version of Mountain Camp, and many more fun experiences!
You can check out the Flickr Album of the camp here…and stay tuned for a vlog from some of the skiers!
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