By: Emily Wheeler, Residential Life Coordinator

Snow days! Just like every other kid who lives in a snowy part of the country, sometimes there is just too much snow to ski. Such was the case last week when all of the area schools shut down for the day due to the wintery-mix precipitation and unsafe road conditions. But we didn’t let that stand in the way of having a great day! Team Freeride got out right in our backyard and started building a mini-park with some interesting features (jumps, rails, etc.) which is now a great home hill for some apres-ski trick practice!

 

 

In the afternoon, a big crew of Winter Term athletes headed over to the local yoga studio, Lake Placid Hot Yoga, for some warm stretching (not all classes are hot) – turns out yoga is an amazing activity for skiers to get into those tight muscles, work on our balance, get out of our minds a bit and just focus on mastering some new moves, like tree pose (pictured below). The team liked the session so much that we’re going to start incorporating yoga into the schedule more regularly!

 

 

Mandala Coloring! Sometimes you just need to put the phone down or computer away and color. We picked up this great color-by-number mandala coloring book for those times when we need a break from our independent academic work. But it’s actually not as easy as it looks! (Well, does it look easy?) As we have been finding out, coloring has been an interesting mirror into the way we see ourselves. We’ve been noticing our tendencies of being overly critical of ourselves but encouraging to others, feeling anxious to just get it done instead of being patient through the process, and always thinking that something could be going better. Still, I think the mandalas are looking beautiful!

 

 

Movies! Another great study break is the classic trip to the movies. Lake Placid has an awesome local movie theater right on Main Street that is actually celebrating their 90th year this year! A few weeks ago, a group of us went to go check out the new hit, Hidden Figures, an inspiring film based on the true story of the black women working at NASA during the Cold War. Not only were these women smart, strong and determined, the film highlights the ways society and culture was shifting in response to individuals standing up for their rights. All of us who went were in agreement: the best scene was when the main character, Katherine Johnson, stood up to her boss about the fact that she had to walk for over an hour each day just to go to the bathrooms designated for “colored people” only to return to one of the top offices at NASA to drink from a coffee pot labeled just for her. To find out what happens, go see the film!

 

 

Ice Cream! While the Olympic Training Center has 2 flavors of ice cream available daily, we all know how fun it is to actually go get a fresh scooped cone of homemade ice cream or a rootbeer float. Here are a couple of our freeride athletes wrapping up their month of January here at Winter Term. Rayan and Joey will be heading back to their families and schools after this weekend’s competitions – We sure will miss you guys!!