Dartmouth Carnival

A Dartmouth Carnival at Dartmouth - finally! And a good one it was - tons of snow at Oak Hill over the last few days, and the skiing was beautiful. Yesterday's 5/10k skate race was a mixed bag for us - some people were feeling a bit flat. Still, we had personal bests from Colman (33), Niko (40), and Courtney (46). Walt and Forrest both started out strong before fading in the last 5k. Our splits had Walt 10 seconds from the lead on the first lap, with Forrest just a few seconds behind. They don't give medals for half-races, but this was a sign that there's a great race in each of these guys waiting to come out.

Today's 15/20k mass start classic was great - lots of solid races and a couple great ones. Sarah had a PR in 46th, just seconds behind a group of seven. Niko PRed again, finishing 37th - some nice pack skiing with Forrest and Colman gave us 3 guys in the 30s, our best classic result of the season so far. Another stellar post-race lunch by the parents made the day even better - hopefully I can get a picture of the spread to post. So good. I'll guess I'll try to get some skiing pictures too. We also had a couple ski team alumni join us today - Nate Underwood '07 showed up with a generous supply of food and went out on course with poles for the mass start, and Jeremy Huckins '05 gave out feeds during the races. Always good to have alumni support.

Oh yeah - today was the day people gave valentines to their Carnival Crushes, or "Carni Crushes" as they're called these days. Our skiers gave and received some creative valentines - Colman was the big winner in this department, which was not surprising considering that he's the most photographed man on campus.

We have a half dozen folks racing in the VT Eastern Cups this weekend. No results yet, but word is that Nat burned it up in the mass start skate. Full report tomorrow after the classic race.