First Eastern Cups

A small but fearless crew made the trip over to Craftsbury for the Eastern Cup openers last weekend:  James, Shelby, Alec, Emma, Riley, and Kaitlynn (who was already at home in Elmore).  At that point, Craftsbury had pretty much the only skiing in New England, with a 1.75k man-made loop, so things were pretty tight for an event with several hundred racers.  An unfortunate timing malfunction temporarily wiped out the results of Saturday's classic sprint qualifier, so the skiers ended up doing a second qualifying round in the afternoon instead of heats - this was a bummer, but at least everyone got two race starts out of the deal.  Sunday's 8.75/11.25k skate went as planned despite heavy crowding and falling snow that made things tough for the late starters.  Our skiers did well - solid performances punctuated by a few great races, most notably James's sprint and Kaitlynn's skate race.  Kaitlynn's skate was easily the best skate result I've ever seen from her - she finished among several strong EISA skiers, including some of last year's NCAA qualifiers.  Overall, an encouraging start to the season.  Now we'll look forward to a couple weeks of hard training and relaxation before getting back together after New Year's.

Results (scroll down)

Penny Rd Time Trial & Exams

We wrapped up fall semester practices with a classic time trial on Penny Rd to close out our intensity week - 4.5k of rolling climbs to the top of Gloucester Hill.  It was a messy day - temps in the 30s with intermittent cold rain.  The roads were covered with fresh sand - a pre-emptive strike against snow and ice that never materialized.  So, not the greatest conditions for fast skiing, but a good chance to practice racing in tough conditions.  The skiers did a nice job - no complaints, just focused warmup and a solid race effort.  Kaitlynn had arrived in town the day before, having just gotten off the plane from Svalbard - she crushed the time trial with an impressive performance under tough conditions.  She's clearly in great shape despite her somewhat unorthodox training situation in Svalbard (eg, skiing in a roadside ditch, training with a shotgun on her back, occasional week-long research cruises, not seeing the sun for 2 months, etc).  Kevin was the top man - even though he's done minimal rollerskiing this summer and fall, his fitness is outstanding after a season of XC racing.  I should also mention that Coach Mike posted a faster time than any of the athletes - he's at that nice point in his coaching career where experience and residual fitness allow him to compete with the athletes despite sporadic training.  I miss those days...  Overall, a solid workout despite the nasty, nasty conditions (the skiers were little icicles by the time they finished their cool down - luckily no one came down with pneumonia in the days following).

After a pleasant recovery run at Bradbury on Sunday, team training for 2012 was over.  Now the skiers are working their way through exams and trying to get as much rest as possible.  We'll get back together on January 2nd to start our final push before the carnival season starts - until then, hopefully everyone will have a couple restful weeks with some good training at home.  I'll post a few updates with race results from the Craftsbury Eastern Cups, US Nationals, and any other races that people can dig up.

Sandy Skiing and Broken Ratchets

We're into that special time of year when the roads are covered with sand after a fleeting mini snowstorm, but there's still no skiing.  So far we're muddling through.  Last week we took it easy to bounce back from the heavy load of camp - now we're going for one final intensity week before we wrap up organized practices for the semester.  We're doing different things for different people this week.  It's the time of year when we put a bit more focus on polishing the top end race gears with shorter, faster intervals; however, several of our skiers are feeling OK in the high end department and are looking to build more endurance in the form of long, sustained threshold intervals.  A few others are battling illness, injury, or fatigue, and are easing back into harder training.  One unexpected challenge that's cropped up is rollerski malfunction - it seems like half the team has had the ratchets stop working on their classic rollerskis.  Obviously ratchets wear out, but it's a bit uncanny to see it happening to so many people all at once.  My two guesses about the cause are road grit (although this was happening before the snowstorm and heavy sanding) and/or cold temps (the worst of the slippage took place on Saturday, when it was really cold).  Who knows - maybe a little of both, maybe just coincidence.  Anyway, we're passing around skis and making it work.  With any luck, we're right around the corner from snow skiing and a nice long vacation for our hard-working rollerskis.

Here's a team photo from our last day in Foret, courtesy of Shelby: