Here's a report from Nick, who raced at Craftsbury last weekend:
Ollie and I went to the Craftsbury Classic this past weekend in the Northeast Kingdom area of VT. My day started at 5:30 when I had a big mug of coffee for the 4 hour drive up there. While Courtney and the other coffee drinkers on the team are delighted to start the day like this, it didn’t sit so well in my stomach. I was a little worried but I ended up feeling much better by the time the race started. It was supposed to be a low key, local citizen’s race, but because there weren’t any other races in New England, a large field showed up. The organizers had not anticipated so many participants so there ended up being a mass start, self seeded race with 130 men and women aged 15-70+. The start was pretty hectic, quickly going to two tracks through the woods. After a kilometer of mostly downhill, the course went down a series of sharp hair pin turns in this big field the locals call “Eleanor’s”. I was hoping to see some crashes but since the snow was fairly forgiving and the trail was plenty wide I don’t think anyone went down. The trail rolled back up to the start area with another sharp downhill turn that Ollie and I both almost went down on before a long false-flat straightaway to the finish. The race was very successful for us with Ollie taking 8th and the first U23 finisher and I was 24th as the second U23 finisher. Afterward we enjoyed a nice cool down and easy tour on Craftsbury's scenic trails through old farm fields and forest with great views of the Green Mountains. The snow was nearly perfect with blue-extra wax, firm tracks and good cover.
-Nick
Pictures courtesy of Harvard skier Anna Schulz.
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