Regionals 2016

Our season ended with a beautiful weekend in Middlebury at the Eastern Regional Championships - our final carnival of the year.  Because of a massive rainstorm on Thursday, the races had to be pushed back to Saturday/Sunday to give the organizers time to put the course back together.  Amazingly, the folks at Rikert were able to till up the ice and push around some manmade snow until we had a pretty decent surface for racing.  Saturday's skate was still tricky, though, with icy patches causing carnage on some of the turns - Sam and Jake both had crashes, with Jake breaking a pole.  Overall, though, it was a good day.  Mac was just outside the points in 31st, closely followed by Sean.  Wil caught a ride from a skier two bibs back and was able to hang on for most of the second lap, ending up as our third scorer for the day.  This was his first race in almost a month after a lingering illness, so it was a pretty impressive comeback.  Hannah Miller had the race of the day - like Wil (and a couple others), she had a nagging cold that cost her a lot of training and racing in February, and she was still fighting it during these races, but she was able to dig really deep and grind out an 18th place finish - really a remarkable effort.  Ellie was 34th for one of her best finishes ever - she was just 14 seconds from Hannah, which shows how incredibly close the times were.  Marshal was a big part of our success for these races - he helped us out with testing and fluoro application, which allowed us to do a more thorough job of testing several different options to get the fastest skis possible.  That night, we had a wonderful dinner at the Groves house, with several parents in attendance - it was great to combine family time and team time!  The skiers finished their evening with the usual Middlebury Inn shenanigans - hide and seek and Piggly Wiggly (a game I still don't really understand and am not sure if I want to).

Temps continued warming up for Sunday's mass start classic race - sunny skies and perfect klister skiing!  Sean had a fall early on and had to work his way up from way in the back, but somehow he got himself right back to his usual spot to finish in 19th.  It's been an excellent season for Sean, with top 20 finishes in every classic qualifier and a top 10 in the Bates sprint - certainly one of the best seasons ever by Bowdoin Nordic first-year.  Mac, Sam, and Jake worked together brilliantly - they started out toward the back but right in contact with a big group, and then moved up steadily.  It was really exciting to watch Sam hanging right onto Mac through the middle kilometers, skiing well above his usual level.  As they came out of the woods for the final time, Mac had pulled into 35th, with Jake and Sam close behind in 42nd and 43rd.  We later found out that another skier had stepped on Sam's pole on the final big climb and broken it - he had to ski the last kilometer or so with one pole, which surely cost him a couple places.  Still, it was a huge PR for him.  He's been skiing really well all year long and has been just shy of great races several times, so it was really satisfying to see him finally break through.  Things got really warm for the women's races, to the point where lots of people were racing in t-shirts, and we broke out our warmest klisters.  H. Miller had clearly spent her reserves the day before, but she still gave it a great effort to lead the team in 34th.  Ellie skied with a lot of spring on the climbs and a nice big double pole on the flats to finish 46th - probably the best classic skiing I've seen from her.  It was fun to see the three seniors in their last college race ever - all three of them were battling hard, and they all skied well in both races for a strong finish to the season.  A perfect day to end a career - gorgeous spring skiing and a nice long mass start!  I should also mention that Marshal was once again a great help to us on the wax table, joined by August for this race.

All in all, Regionals was a lot of fun - a really nice way to wrap up the season.  It's been a good season overall, despite the really disappointing snow situation and the outrageously persistent illnesses that many of our skiers had to deal with.  I feel really lucky that we had such a cohesive and positive group to navigate one of the toughest winters I can remember - a different kind of group could have easily broken down in the face of all this trouble, but our skiers hung in there and kept supporting each other and kept having fun.  A huge thanks to all the parents, who were magnificent as always - I know how lucky we are to have such great parents, and every year I'm thankful for their support.  Now, just like that the Bowdoin Nordic season is over.  There's lots more excitement to come, though - several of the skiers are headed up to Quebec City this weekend to watch Kaitlynn race in the World Cup events, and people will do a few more races (marathons and/or SuperTour Finals in Craftsbury).  More updates to come!

Here are some photos from Everett Marshall, Doug Hands, and Meg Groves: