Colby Carnival - EISA Regionals

Another carnival season in the books. We finished up this weekend with the Regional Championships at Sugarloaf. Messy weather made this a challenging weekend. Yesterday started off easily enough - dry snow and straightforward waxing in the lead-up to the men's race - but things got weird in a hurry. The sun came out, temps rose quickly, and suddenly we were climbing the ladder with warm hard waxes. Our guys kept coming back in need of more kick, so we eventually went nuclear and sent most of them out on VR7o, with a little 75 for some. Unfortunately, the snow on the high point of the course had stayed somewhat dry, so people ended up on stilts halfway through the lap and spent the rest of the lap double poling the downhills - a total mess. We weren't the only ones struggling - I heard some horror stories from other teams. As far as I know no one got it right - the top skiers all raced on Zeros, of which we had none. Fischer will be selling a lot of those to EISA kids next year. Although it was a tough day, the guys held it together for some decent finishes, with Colman leading in 37th.

Things stabilized a bit for the women - the tracks in most places were wet enough for klister, althougth the snow up top was still quasi-powder. We ended up with a very thin klister layer covered with a lot of hard wax. It worked out pretty well - sounded like we had some of the better skis out there. Erin was solid in 48th, with Olivia posting one of her better finishes in 51st. Grace looked great and skied with a lot of snap - one of her best races ever. Courtney felt and looked good, but for some reason, her result didn't reflect that - she finished 52nd. It's always frustrating when this happens, but she skied well - once you've done that there's nothing more you can control, and the results just are what they are.

Overall, the team skied well yesterday - the women were solid, and the men seemed to have the legs, just not the skis. We had great support from Tom and Matt, who drove up from campus to watch. They jumped into the mix when things got frantic before the men's race, helping us to get skis done on time - a messy situation would have been worse without their help (they were really on the ball when our tent blew away, too). So, a difficult day but not a bad one. In hindsight, I'm wishing I'd tried all sorts of clever combinations for the guys to see if any of the tricky stuff might have been the magic bullet, but unfortunately there's only a narrow window before a race where you can get your testing done and still have time to wax the skis. Maybe there was no magic bullet to be had - certainly no one else found one. This race seemed more like 2 races: a race for people with Zeros and a race for those without. That's tough to accept. I want a race to be decided by who skis the best, with the wax accounting for only a small portion of the difference between racers. I don't like days when the gap between those two factors gets narrow, but that's part of the sport. Now Zeros are one more piece of the wax puzzle - not just an oddity that a few lucky skiers have, but something you can't compete without on certain days. One more level of financial commitment, and one more factor separating two equal skiers on a messy wax day. Guess we'll all have to get them to make things equal again. Damn it.

But enough of that nonsense. We had another race today, and it was a good one. 15/20k mass start skate. It rained buckets last night, and we lost tons of snow. Coverage was still great, but apparently there was some trouble with the grooming equipment, because the course was icy with lots of bumps and ruts. The women were solid again - decent races across the board, with Courtney leading in 43rd. This was a tough race - a fast, icy, and uneven track is challenging for anyone, and I'm proud of how well our women were able to hold it together. I'm really happy for Grace - she had another good race, battling Ollie's sister Meri to the end. She's trained really well this year, and it's great to see that paying off at the end of the season.

The course softened up just a bit for the men, but things were still somewhat sketchy. We had a few crashes in the early going, most notably Niko: someone fell in front of him, his legs got taken out, and his head hit the snow - the hard, icy, sharp snow. He opened up a good gash above his eye, but this didn't stop him from skiing hard for the next 20k. Lots of people drop out of races for lesser reasons, but Niko's a hero. Two weekends in a row that he's the toughest man on the team.

Meanwhile, Walt and Spencer had gotten themselves in decent position in the middle of the pack. They kept picking people off and moving up, finally finishing with a surge over the last few kilometers to put themselves deep into the 20s: 22nd for Walt and 26th for Spencer. Great to have 2 guys in the top 30. If you'd told me at the beginning of the season that I'd be happy with a 22nd place finish by Walt at Regionals, I'd have laughed. But the season didn't go exactly as we planned, and this was a big positive step in what's been a long road back. Now he's ready to have some good races in March. Great day for Spencer, too - I can't wait to see what the future holds for him and the rest of this talented first-year class.

By the way, we had a great group of supporters at the race today - lots of Bowdoin folks drove up to cheer and help out. Shem, Nick, Wilson, and Elissa did feeds and poles, which was huge. Great parent turnout as well (so nice to race in Maine) - we were well fed all all weekend. Special thanks to Courtney's family, who hosted half the team in their condo at Sugarloaf - it was wonderful to stay in a home instead of a hotel! Thanks to all of our parents and supporters who took care of us this season - it's been a good one, thanks in large part to you.

So, that's that. Another carnival season done. Soon enough we'll reflect on the season and figure out what's next, but for now there's still plenty of skiing and racing to be done. Rangeley Loppet this weekend, and then a lot of good race opportunities over Spring Break. I'll keep the updates coming.