Jan Camp So Far

Jan Camp 2016 is underway - the first week-plus has been busy!  We started up on the first weekend of the new year with five hardy skiers:  H. Marshall, Lucy, Tess, Mac, and Wil.

 The first thing we did was head up to Quarry Road in Waterville for a classic time trial.  No other teams were back yet, unfortunately, so we had to settle for time trialing ourselves.  Lucy pulled off the upset to post the top time for women despite not having raced classic since the Hoover administration.  Mac and Wil were locked in a tight battle until Wil took a wrong turn 200 meters into the race, leaving Mac racing only against himself (he won).

 After a nice PM jog and a restful night in the scenic village of Kingfield, we ventured into the woods to explore the Maine Huts and Trails system in Carrabassett Valley.  If you live in New England and you haven't checked out these trails, you should remedy that - they're beautiful, challenging, and totally free to the public.  We had a great OD ski full of long climbs, fun downhills, and gorgeous views.

 By the time we got home, Pineland had scraped together enough snow to open the trails.  The skiing was really good!  We can always count on Pineland to do more with less.  Over the next couple days, teammates gradually trickled back to campus while we did intervals, specific strength, worked on technique, and practiced our downhill moves.

 Before we knew it, the weekend was almost upon us, and we headed up to Jackson for a mini-carnival organized by UNH.  We had a lovely pre-race ski on Thursday afternoon, highlighted by a little extra strength work when we had to push the van out of a snowbank on the way out of the parking lot - perfect race prep.  Friday brought a 9k skate - H. Miller was our top women, and Jake led the men, with Sam and Wil close behind.  Saturday was a classic sprint - 2 person teams alternating for a total of 6 laps.  After scraping off the rust on Friday, everyone was pretty peppy.  The women were particularly energized, because just before their race started we found out that Bowdoin Nordic alumna Kaitlynn Miller '14 had won the National Championship classic sprint! (an amazing accomplishment that deserves its own blog post - coming soon).  They crushed the double poling and dominated the downhills.  H. Miller and Ellie were in the mix the whole race and finished 3rd amidst some very strong skiers.  Tess gets extra respect for switching to skate skis for her last 2 laps and double poling the whole course - the only skier in the race bold enough to attempt this feat.

 We closed out a great trip with a pancake breakfast at the home of Angus ('89) and Rachel ('87) Badger.  They live on top of a big hill at the end of a country road - after our previous van mishap, we decided to walk the last couple pitches up to their house.  The women made friends with the Badger family sheep, while the men got a head start on the pancakes.  Angus and Rachel have been big ski team supporters for a long time, and it was fun to chat with them and two of their kids who were up for breakfast, Nina and Willem.  Thanks for the hospitality, Angus and Rachel!

Despite full bellies, we rallied for one final ski on the Jackson trails as the rain started coming down - we finished wet and chilled but happy.  All in all, a great trip, and we feel very lucky to have packed in a lot of skiing now that New England is pretty much bare after yesterday's monsoon.  Now we're enjoying a rest day and looking forward to more snow soon!