Weekend in Review: Boyne City Training Camp

Although advertised well in advance, the 2008 Boyne City WSC “Off-Race Weekend” Training Camp was low in attendance. Myself, the K-Man, Mr. and Mrs. Smith and a cluster of other notable Smith family members ventured up for a weekend of obscene amounts of miles, morel hunting, and over consumption. Between the food and beer, whether or not we got any fitness benefits out of the weekend is up for question. However, there is no question that we had fun.

A few tidbits of information about the weekend.
1. Throughout the course of two days and 167 miles, the K-man went 0-26 for city limit sprint points and 0-22 for KOMs. Despite his shortcomings, Kroske’s infectious flamboyant smiles, laughter, and great optimistic attitude was evident…and that’s why we love him.


2. It’s hard to believe this is Alan’s not so little brother Doug. Trust me, what Doug lacks in lean body mass he makes up ten-fold in his mad morel hunting skills. With the purchase of a new mountain bike, Doug plans to transform his current flab into fab by the end of the summer. We took detailed (and I mean detailed) photos of his current state to use them as a progress reference throughout his velo-induced transformation this season. With diligence, I foresee a forty-pound loss by September; look forward to potential updates chronicling his progress.


3. Aimee Smith shows signs of potential cycling talent as she hung tough on our pre-trail ride 17-mile jaunt to Charlevoix on Saturday.


4. I performed a track stand on a ferry for the first time in my life.


5. When equipped with brightly colored lycra and a fist full of thistle, Lamas will be your best friends!



6. I think I like mountain biking at Boyne Mountain even more than snowboarding there.



7. Its human nature to hunt and gather. However, in the modern world we are so privileged we have no need to hunt or gather any food. Our hunting tendencies shift to shopping, gathering worthless crap, swinging through drive through obesity causing feeding troughs, and racking up credit card bills. It felt great to reconnect with nature and experience the genuine elation one gets when making a tasty little food discovery. Not to mention, it is extremely gratifying to cook with ingredients you gathered yourself. I popped my morel hunting cherry this weekend and I am hooked!




This area of Michigan is absolutely beautiful this time of year. I’m going to out on a limb and say that this camp rivaled Dybowski’s early season camp. For all of those WSC fence sitters that didn’t make the trek up this year I expect ALL of you to be there next year, as this needs to become a standard staple of Wolverine training camps.