STORY AND ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF MARSHA MCKENNA What began as four to six hikes per summer, has evolved to 26 hikes from spring to fall. The Peak-A-Week hiking group, also referred to as PAW, is now in it’s 30th successive year. The River Valley community has something very special that most communities in the state and country do not have. That is the abundance of rolling mountain tops all around us, many of which provide well groomed trails and beautiful vistas once you reach their summits. But what most people in the area give little thought to, unless they’re an avid hiker, is where the trailhead to that peak is and can I get there from here?
In the summer of 1984, three engineering students from Northeastern University named Larry Mikulski, Nicholas Vals and Roger Daigle came to work at the Rumford paper mill through the mill co-op program. They were all very active guys and so were the other employees of the engineering department at that time. On lunch breaks as well as after work this group of young men would bike, run, kayak, canoe and swim. On weekends they trained for or entered triathlons. Mikulski in particular wanted to take the groups athletic endeavors to another level. The students rented a condo at Sunday River and after work they often times would hike up the face of the ski slopes.
This was exercise, but it still was not satisfying enough for Mikulski. As he looked around at all the other beautiful mountains he started asking that age old question, “How do I get there from here?” Kim Redmond, one of the original group members, recalls that one evening they all went on a moonlight hike. That hike was just what Mikulski needed to start the ball rolling. He sent out a letter to the other men in his department which in short implanted the idea of taking on a different peak each week.
Their new love for hiking and passion for exercise quickly formed into a group that they branded as PAW. This legendary group of engineers included Mikulski, Vals, Daigle, Redmond, Wayne Landry, Jerry Martin, and Steve Fuller. That band of seven men has since grown over the last 30 years to over 60 men, women and children.
They’ve ranged in age from toddlers to men in their 80s. Toshio Hashimoto’s first PAW hike was in 1991 when his youngest son was only one year old. He hikes faithfully with the group and has also been involved with other hiking organizations doing search and rescue throughout the state.
He has been on far too many of those rescues, however, the PAW group provides him with a more relaxing, socialization time with great friends. He recalls his favorite hike as being the Loop Trail at Tumbeldown in Weld. The hiking season for PAW begins in April and ends around the first week of October.
You can expect some snow and ice on the first few treks while the last few descents challenge the hikers with total darkness before they are out. The hikes get longer and more vigorous as the summer progresses and then it begins to taper back, once again to milder climbs. Nothing, however, is too long or hard that it cannot be accomplished with a 5:20 pm departure time from the Rumford Information Center. “I have been in a lot of towns in Maine, New York, Connecticut, Alabama, Texas and New Zealand and while a lot of those places have longer hikes they are also a lot further away from where you could set up a base operation”, says Redmond. “There is no place else where you could do what we are doing, 26 hikes after work from spring to fall, this is unbelievable”, he says.
Kathy McKenna heads up the scheduling for the season’s hikes as well as email reminders of additional events. She delights in hiking along side her father, Jim Thomas, whom would never miss a hike because of a little weather. “We hike rain or shine. If we hiked only the good days we wouldn’t hike much at all,” she stated. Sally Roy says, “My favorite hike is Eyebrow Loop in Grafton Notch due to the cables, ropes and ladders. Jim Thomas and I always say ‘one step at a time’gets us both to the top.” That’s a great attitude and motivation for all.
No matter what kind of a day you’ve had up until that moment when you first disappear into the woods, you can leave it all behind and just take it one step at a time. Landry still holds on to that original letter from Mikulski as well as other PAW documentation they had developed 30 years ago. He claims that his personal favorite hike has always been Table Rock in Grafton Notch. For me personally, I have been hiking for over 20 years. There is nothing quite like when you first pop up out of the woods at the top of a mountain. You stop and look around and the beauty just makes it all worth it. The terrain on each climb and the scenery from each top is never duplicated with any other.
I asked several hikers tonight which of the hikes is their favorite and remarkably I got several different answers. I like hiking with PAW because it is a safe way to get deep into the woods. You have the protection of 30 to 60 other people. Not too many wild animals are going to want to come out and eat you with a network of bodyguards like that. Anyone is welcome to join in with PAW. It cost nothing and we only ask that you have a good attitude, know your personal abilities by backing off from any hike you feel you cannot do, and be respectful of the land and of each other. We watch out for one another and no one is left behind on a trail.
I have been hearing lately from kids, how they are bored and can’t find anything to do. Maybe, just maybe, some of those kids have looked up at the mountains from their own back porch and also thought those same words that Mikulski did 30 years ago; “How do I get there from here?” Come join us, we’ll show you. Many trailheads are tricky to find unless you have someone lead you first hand. Even us veteran hikers get confused now and then as to where they are, but united we conquer. For more information, or to get on our email list, please contact me at 357-5582 or Kathy McKenna at 562-8042.
I could fill a book with the quotes I hear at contests from competitors who placed from second to last in their class. There are many versions, but just one quote. I'll paraphrase: 'I screwed up my peak.'
That's it - end of quote. It's usually sandwiched in a paragraph including words like carb loading, sodium manipulation, water depletion, and it always comes right before the line, 'I tried something new this time.' Now, I'm talking about legitimate peaking screw-ups, of which there are many. Why Most Fail.
The one thing I want to eliminate from your mind at the beginning of this article is to blame your body fat percentage on peaking. Some people start peak week at 14% body fat and think that by doing one neat, new little trick that they read about, they'll wake up Saturday morning looking like. You've seen them. The ones at 8% body fat who say, 'Yeah, I was just holding a little water today.' This article isn't for them.
This is for people who know how to dial in on contest shape and now want to know exactly what to do in order to wake up Saturday morning and shout, 'Eureka! -if you're on the East Coast) - I did it!! I finally nailed my peak!!' First of all, let's begin with how you should plan to enter peak week. If you still have to be concerned with losing 'the last couple pounds' in the week before the show, you won't be able to peak properly.
Peak week should be thought of as recovering slightly, being fresh, and focusing just on making sure the muscles are full and hard yet visible because of proper subcutaneous water elimination. Fat elimination should be over before this last week. The next thing I want to erase from your thought process is the myth that you have to make extreme changes to manipulate your body into looking good on contest day. You've no doubt experimented with massive sodium loading and depletion, varying carb loading schemes, and endless water depletion schedules to try to be your biggest, hardest, and driest all at one time.
You also have probably experienced the shock at looking at a flat, shriveled up, smooth physique (with it's mouth gaping open in terror) in the mirror six hours before prejudging. DO NOT PLAN ON DOING ANYTHING DRASTIC DURING PEAK WEEK! Your body is constantly being monitored by your brain with thousands of chemoreceptors that are sending feedback on millions of chemical reactions happening in the body. It's how your brain manages to balance the chemical necessities for life. This vast neuro-hormonal-chemical network is brutally dynamic and always in flux. I'm not smart enough to predict and override these millions of reactions in my body to create an unnatural super-compensation effect exactly at prejudging and then maintain it all day. Neither are you.
Peek Of The Week Barefoot Bay Fl
What we can do is understand the cycles that our body goes through in directing water into muscles or outside of the muscle cells, the way our body stores carbohydrates, and how to gently massage these cycles so that we ride the right wave into the right day and predictably peak perfectly and naturally instead of trying to force a freaky, extreme response. That is a gamble you'll lose nine times out of ten. How To Properly Peak. When I peak a bodybuilder, I control protein, carbs, fat, sodium, water, and training.
We start seven days from the show and I provide a chart that tells the athlete exactly what to do in what amounts each day for the entire week. I use these variables to control the normal cycles of water and glycogen flow in and out of the muscle tissue. We start out the week in a certain pattern and then each day the variables change in a subtle way to be able to predict and control peaking. Obviously, every bodybuilder is different in the amounts of each of the variables.
Some people have unbelievably fast and some people are very carb-sensitive - two extreme differences which dictate different amounts of each nutrient variable and a slightly different schedule. But, the actual flow and cycle is still very similar. It is important to know and understand what to expect on each day so you know how to adjust. For this reason, even my 'long-distance' clients have daily communication with me during peak week.
I want to go through each of these variables and give you some physiological insight to why peaking is so elusive. Swallow the sun korean drama english subbed. Carbing-up is the great myth started and continuing with 250-pound steroid using bodybuilders who consume huge amounts of food anyway and then take prescription diuretics to eliminate the steroid bloat. If this describes you, traditional carb depletion and loading may work. If you're body isn't an eighth grade science experiment out of control, let's stick with normal physiology.
Even the hardest, leanest bodies cannot metabolize and shuttle glucose into muscle cells at a maximum rate without having some extracellular spill-over. Read that sentence again. You cannot deplete carbs and then supercompensate and expect all of the glucose and water to end up in the muscle. 'You cannot deplete carbs and then supercompensate and expect all of the glucose and water to end up in the muscle.' You'll certainly fill out, but you'll also smooth out. Some a little, and some a great deal. Yes, a lot of carbs will go into the muscle, but a little or a lot will end up outside the muscle cell with a lot of water which makes you smooth.
Next time you're dieting and you're fairly lean, log some comments every day in a journal. 'Woke up pretty lean. Very smooth - must have been the sodium in the chips. Very vascular. Hard as a freak'n rock!' Just write down comments on how you look in the morning. Get a Bodybuilding.com workout log, they are great!
I guarantee that you'll consistently be your hardest after a couple of low-carb, high-water intake days. You may not be your biggest because the carbs aren't as high, but the lack of extraneous carbs and water under the skin makes you very tight and you appear much bigger. Who wins the show: the big soft guy or the bone-dry striated competitor? The way I carb up my clients catches the wave of glucose and water entering the muscle on the way up, but not at the expense of smoothing out on the rebound effect of over-carbing. Saturday & Sunday My general carb cycle for peak week is to start at the highest point on the weekend before. I start at a slightly above 'normal' level on Saturday and Sunday and schedule no training. I want this weekend to be a recovery time with a refilling of glycogen.
As training starts again on Monday, I slowly drop carbs each day. It's a subtle drop, not a severe depletion. Monday Through Wednesday The training each day, Monday through Wednesday, with the slight drop will create a sufficient carb deficit without total depletion.
Depending on the client's metabolism, I keep the carbs coming down and keep the water very high all the way through Friday. For a very high metabolism bodybuilder, I'm not going as low on the carbs during the week, and I may start re-carbing on Friday. For carb-sensitive clients it's very important to wait until Saturday to reload. By waiting until later in the week to carb up, you eliminate the chance of glycogen and water spill over.
Your body can metabolize glucose very quickly and you don't have to start three days ahead of time especially if you haven't completely bottomed out with a severe carb depletion. There are also some issues with the type of carbs you use to reload. There are some that create more subcutaneous swelling due to being food allergens.
It's important to know which are the most common and how they affect you. Is just as misunderstood as carbs. The traditional carb and water theories have people drop their water sometimes days before the show. Nothing will flatten and smooth you out faster! You have to maintain a high water intake because your muscle tissue is around 70% water. No water, no hardness - just flat, squishy muscle tissue.
Peek Of The Week Template
The reason people typically start dropping water is because they've over-carbed so much that they're already spilling glycogen and water under the skin and think, 'Oh, my gosh!! I've got to get rid of this water!!' With the carb reload as I described, you won't have that problem; you'll actually get harder and harder throughout the week. REMEMBER: Keep the water intake up and let it follow the carbs into the muscle! If you're not over-carbed, the rest of the water will be eliminated!
Thursday Sodium also has to be cycled. Start with a moderate amount of sodium, up to two grams at the beginning of the week and around Thursday start dropping it slightly but don't eliminate it completely. If you do, you'll force water out of the muscle cell, you'll look flat and smooth, and you'll cramp like there's no tomorrow. You need approximately four times more sodium than potassium for your muscles to contract normally.
Again, don't let the myths from the pharmaceutically dominated side of our sport lure you into doing things that aren't physiologically correct. You don't have all those drug side-effects to combat in peaking properly. If you sodium load and/or deplete in a big way you're gambling with extreme chemical rebound effects that you can't possibly time.
If you're lucky enough to stumble into a good effect, it will be short lived because you're on a pendulum swing that your body will adjust to and you'll look absolutely lousy in a very short time. I also use specific tricks regarding fat intake and schedule very specific contest day meal strategies for the individual needs and characteristics of my clients. As I get to know their metabolic rates through the dieting process, I'm already planning their peak and everyone's a little different. These general guidelines, however, I hope will dispel some common mistakes and put you on a path to learn your body type and peak perfectly every time!! About The Author Dr. Joe Klemczewski is a WNBF Pro and has graduate degrees in health and nutrition. From his office in Evansville, Indiana he works with clients all over the country, including top WNBF Pros, using his online consulting program.
Financial study. He can be reached.
Dani Chu and Matthew Ryers explain some of the major sport analytics statistics. Arshika Chandranath / The Peak By: Dani Chu and Matthew Ryers With the advancement of technology in the sports world, new stats pop up almost daily to try and better explain individual and team performance. In this column, we plan to discuss the history, usefulness, and flaws of advanced statistics in sport. We will be covering a wide range of sports including everything from baseball and basketball, to hockey and soccer.
This week we will break down the first heavily adopted advanced statistic in hockey — Corsi. The focus of Corsi is to measure the difference in offensive opportunities between the two teams on the ice. It does so by counting the difference in shot attempts. The reason to consider shot attempts instead of counting only shots on goal is that not all shot attempts generate a shot on goal despite still being an offensive opportunity. A Corsi value for each team is calculated based on the difference between their shot attempts and their opponents. Positive Corsi scores indicate the team spends more time in the offensive zone while negative numbers reflect the opposite. For example, the Vancouver Canucks have a Corsi score of -190 on the season, averaging out to be -3.96 per game.
In comparison the Buffalo Sabres, a team with fewer goals for and more goals against than the Canucks, are currently averaging a -4.75 Corsi rating per game. Because of the success of Corsi, recent expansion have been made to measure player Corsi. This modified calculation is then based on shot attempts only when the given player is on the ice. Some of the exceptional individual Corsi totals amongst players who have played more than 25 games this season include Artemi Panarin, Dougie Hamilton Brandon Saad, Jonathan Toews, and Mark Giordano. As for the history, the statistic was first modelled by, the creator of the blog “Irreverent Oiler Fans” — a hotbed for hockey analytics ten years ago.
The statistic is after Jim Corsi, a goalie coach of the Buffalo Sabres, simply because Ferrari liked a picture of Corsi’s mustache on the Buffalo Sabres website. If not for that brilliant moustache, this statistic could have easily been named after the former head coach of the Buffalo Sabres and Dallas Stars, Lindy Ruff. The obsession with naming this newly formalized statistics after Buffalo Sabres’ management is due to Ferrari hearing the outline of this idea on a radio show featuring the general manager of the Sabres.
Finally, the stat is not without its faults. While Corsi does a good job measuring puck possession, and team strength, individual player Corsi is flawed in that it does not isolate a single player.
A less skilled player who plays with more skilled players will often have a better Corsi than a skilled player playing with less skilled players. This happens because the less skilled players have their Corsi inflated by their more skilled teammates. Thanks for exploring Corsi with us, we hope that you join us as we travel across sports looking at the newest and greatest advancements in player evaluation and strategy.