Rutland Adventures

Quite an eventful weekend in Rutland!  The trip started out well enough - an uneventful drive and a nice pre-race ski on Thursday afternoon.  Things took a turn for the worse when we rolled up to the Rodeway Inn after dropping the boys off at their motel - as I was checking us in, an unmarked van rolled up and several heavily armed men jumped out to apprehend a man staying in one of the rooms.  I'm not exactly sure what was going on, but there was a VT state police car present, so I'm fairly certain that this was some sort of legitimate law enforcement action and not just some shady underworld doings.  In any case, the women and Mike were sitting in the vans just a few feet away from all of this, which was fairly scary.  Needless to say, we chose not to stay at the Rodeway Inn, and instead squeezed everyone into the shabby motel where the boys were staying.  Hannah W and a few of the women ended up staying at the Wright house, which eased the crowding a bit (thanks Deb and Jim!).

The actual racing part of the trip went pretty well.  Almost everyone had a good race in Saturday's skate sprint.  Shelby and Tyler rocked the qualifier, finishing 16th and 23rd, respectively, to move on to the open heats, while Eva and Kevin qualified for the junior heats.  James and Hannah W. just missed the open heats as well, with Jackson narrowly outside the junior heats.  In the quarterfinals, Shelby made a fantastic move coming off of a downhill to slingshot from forth to first by a wide margin - she cruised up the last hill and into the semifinals easily.  The look of astonished delight on her face after the heat was priceless - this is why I'm a ski coach.  Tyler stayed right with the pack in his quarterfinal and put on an impressive surge up the last hill, but he had to weave through a couple of other skiers, which cost him some time and left him just a ski length from advancing.  His final place for the day was 15th - an outstanding effort and by far his best Eastern Cup result ever.  Shelby's semifinal didn't go so well - she got tangled up early and lost contact with the pack.  She came back strong in the B final, though, battling to 3rd in the heat and 9th overall - her best ever EC performance as well.  In the junior heats, Kevin cruised to the win in his semifinal and then battled to a 3rd place finish in the A final.  Eva skied strongly for most of her semifinal before fading on the final climb, but she came back to make a strong push and finish 3rd in the B final.  Overall, a great day that left our team feeling proud and excited.  The only blemish on the day was when one of our vans got stuck in the muddy slope disguised as a parking lot.  We had to get towed out by a tractor, with half the racers and spectators looking on - a humiliating walk of shame.

Sprint Results

Sunday's classic race had some highs and lows.  It got incredibly hot in a hurry, and the snow quickly turned to slush streaked with mud.  Mike and I got to break out our super warm klisters, which was kind of fun.  Kaitlynn provided our biggest highlight by finishing third in a field full of college skiers and top juniors.  Third!  This was a pretty great way to start the day.  Several of our other women also had strong races, most notably Lucy, who almost didn't race because of a nagging cough.  The men's race was somewhat less successful - the guys looked decent, but all of them felt a bit flat.  Still, a solid day with a huge milestone for us to get excited about.

Classic Results

Now that we're back on campus, we're just trying to get through this heat wave.  It's been warm for a week now, and today was the worst - just a massive thaw.  Like everyone else in New England, we're losing snow in a hurry - just hoping that we can hang on until it gets cold again....