SLU Skate & Rumford EC

Saturday's skate race was one of the best performances by our team in a long time - every single athlete raced well. Hannah led the way with a 22nd place finish, the best result I can recall by a Bowdoin first-year woman. Niko was our top male skier in 34th, just 4 seconds from the top 30 - nice PR for him. Both Niko and Hannah skied smart races, conserving energy in the pack and gradually moving up throughout the race. Actually, pretty much everyone on the team skied a smart race - I was amazed to see how relaxed everyone was, even while racing hard. It's incredibly gratifying to see how thoroughly they've absorbed my nagging. A couple folks had some bad breaks - Sanville had a big crash and a broken pole, while Scott had a pair of pole mishaps as well. Nonetheless, both gave a great effort to ski their way back into the race and end with respectable finishes. Sanville, Wilson, Matt, and Polasky all ended up with PRs, and Maren also skied her best college race by far. A great day - I wish they could all be this good. I'm confident that we'll have a few more like that before the season's over.

We also had 3 skiers racing in the Rumford Eastern Cups - Jeff, Erin, and Spencer. Saturday's classic sprint was tough - weird conditions and tricky waxing. Like the carnival team, they bounced back with decent results in Sunday's skate race. Erin had the race of the day, finishing 24th among a strong group of juniors and some fast seniors. Full results from the weekend here.

Here's a photo of Erin from Steve Fuller at Flying Point Road.

Hannah and Emma went up to Rumford yesterday to cheer on both their teammates and their younger sisters.