Williams & Bowdoin Carnivals

After a nice snowy weekend at Dartmouth, it was back to warm temps for the Williams Carnival.  By the time we got to Prospect on Thursday afternoon, we were in full spring skiing mode.  Sadly, the massive melting wiped out the stadium and kept us from accessing some tough climbs and fun descents, but the organizers did a nice job of pulling together a decently challenging 2.5k loop for Friday's 5/10k classic.  It was an unusual waxing day - super warm when we started testing, and then gradually dropping down toward freezing as the morning went on.  As with any klister day, we had to do some scrambling, but we got good skis on almost everyone's feet.  The team was really feeling the strain of schoolwork this week - mid-February is a tough time for us every year - and a lot of people were tired, but they managed to put up surprisingly solid results nonetheless.  Elliot was 9th and Christian 20th to lead the men, with Renae 14th and Gabby 19th for women.  These 4 have been amazingly consistent all year, to the point where it's easy to take these results for granted - I have to constantly remind myself how impressive it is that a sophomore and three first-years are putting up these performances every week.  Sam also had a nice race, scoring a big classic PR in 35th - lots of technique work paying off.  One other fun thing about this race was that a bunch of local HS skiers came out to watch the races - lots of them knew Ian since he grew up just down the road in Williamstown, so there were a ton of excited kids cheering for him every time he came around - very cool.

Things kept cooling, and the next morning we had a nice fast track to work with.  With no stadium, the originally scheduled sprint race wasn't possible - very sad, since this was our only sprint of the year.  Instead, we did a 3.8k prologue.  I've never loved the prologue as an event, but this was actually a really great race thanks to the fast snow and fun course - a couple big climbs in the first 800 meters, followed by a series of short descents and fast rolling terrain - tons of free skate, V2alt, and all the fast stuff that makes skating so much fun.  This race wasn't an NCAA qualifier, and this combined with the weird distance had me worried that the skiers might not be able to get fully focused.  Fortunately, no problems there - everyone was excited to let it fly, and everyone came back talking about how much fun it was.  Turns out we got some pretty good results out of the day as well.  Renae led the women in 18th, with Gabby 22nd for a skate PR and Lily 30th.  For men, Elliot was 6th, beating Gabby's record from last week for the best first-year result ever.  Sean was 22nd, Jake 29th, and Christian 30th.  Seven people in the top 30 - that's a good day even by the standards of this season!  Thanks to the strong team showing, we were able to overtake Williams to claim 5th place overall for nordic teams.

A few other notes on the weekend:  1) Rachel served as our third wax tech this weekend and was a great help.  She did a little bit of everything - testing, structure, klister touch ups, and a ton of glide waxing and scraping - and her efforts really helped make our good results possible; 2) Jane Culnane led a small but determined group of parents who went above and beyond to provide a great array of hot and delicious food on a damp chilly weekend; 3) Last but not least, a few of our men lost their minds and fashion sense and decided to get really bad/amazing haircuts:

As someone who lived through the late 80s/early 90s, I enjoyed this little dose of nostalgia despite the questionable aesthetics.

While some of us were racing and cutting hair in Vermont, others were back in Maine doing an informal race I dubbed "the Bowdoin Carnival" - a duathlon with several skiers from Colby and Bates at Pineland.  Russell and Orion broke away from the group, with Russell taking the win in the final sprint.  Many thanks to John Eldredge and John Tarling for handling timing and helping the skiers get organized!  Here are results:

MEN				Total
Number	First	Last	School	Time	Place
43	Russell	O'Brien	BOW	36:12'	1
45	Orion	Watson	BOW	36:13'	2
48	Anders	Hanson	COL	36:20'	3
44	Cirque	Gammelin	BOW	36:57'	4
46	Carter	Hall	COL	37:17'	5
50	Mark	Young	COL	37:31'	6
47	Gabe	Forest	COL	37:43'	7
54	Tucker	Pierce	BAT	37:49'	8
51	Addie	Sinkler	COL	37:55'	9
55	Ben	Keener	BAT	37:57'	10
52	Ben	Theyerl	COL	38:34'	11
53	Cole	Fuller	BAT	39:07'	12
57	Charlie	Cobb	COL	39:12'	13
WOMEN
Number	First	Last	School	Time	Place
71	Talia	Seltzer	COL	29:44'	1
72	Meg	Yoder	COL	30:14'	2
75	Amy	Bruce	COL	30:43'	3
74	Julia	Lazzeroni	COL	31:06'	4

One more carnival to go:  Eastern Regional Championships at Middlebury this weekend.  Can't wait!

Dartmouth Carnival

For the first time since 2011, the Dartmouth Carnival took place at Dartmouth!  Oak Hill is a great race venue - narrow and winding trails lined by beautiful tall evergreens.  With a nice dose of snow just a few days before the carnival, conditions were excellent.  Friday's 10/10k classic was old school - a single 10k loop.  These days a 5k loop is standard, and it's pretty common to do several short loops when snow is low, but anything longer is rare, so this was a fun treat.  When I say "fun," I mean a certain type of fun - interesting, different, challenging, fun when you're done, etc (if you're a ski racer, you know what I mean) - because the Dartmouth 10k loop is really, really hard.  I raced it a few times myself back in college, and it still shows up in my nightmares now and then - an unrelenting series of switchback climbs followed by several technical downhill turns that are fun when you're on your game and not so fun when your legs are shot from all the climbing.  So this was not your typical course.  The men got it started with some respectable finishes - Elliot 9th, Christian 29th, and Orion 38th.  Ski feedback was mixed, so we did another quick round of testing and made some adjustments for the women.  The early starters looked solid, so we started feeling cautiously optimistic.  Then Gabby came by - WOW.  Fast, focused, everything driving forward powerfully - great skiing.  When Renae came through a few minutes later looking just as good, we knew it was going to be a special day.  They ended up 7th and 8th - combined with Elliot's 9th, this was the first time we've ever had 3 top 10 finishers in one day.  Gabby's 7th also set a new mark for us - best finish ever for a Bowdoin Nordic first-year, edging Hannah Miller's 8th place finish from the 2014 Midd Carnival.  Lily rounded out the women's scoring with a solid 28th, putting the women in 4th, just three points out of 3rd!  Overall, a great day that wouldn't have been possible without volunteer assistant coach John Eldredge, who made a special trip out to NH so he could help with the waxing.

Saturday's 5/10k skate was combined with an Eastern Cup - a large, competitive field and a charged, slightly chaotic atmosphere.  Elliot led the men in 13th (for EISA), with Christian 20th and Sam posting his first official top 30 finish of the year in 30th.  The women continued their strong trend, with all three scorers in the top 30 for the fourth race in a row - Renae 16th, Ellie 25th, and Gabby 28th.  I don't mind saying that we got some rather unusual but very positive feedback from the women about the skis - "too fast!"  A little hyperbolic, no doubt, but I'll take it.  The team's combined efforts put us in 5th for the weekend - hard to believe that this kind of finish is the new normal for Bowdoin Nordic!

Unfortunately, an otherwise great weekend was marred by a bad accident - Luca had a nasty crash in the skate race and dislocated his shoulder again.  I can't even describe how heartbreaking this is - Luca has had a lot of ups and downs with his shoulder over the last year and a half, and he's worked so hard to come back from his surgery last May.  He's a strong person, and he has an amazing family backing him up - I know he'll come back strong.  Even so, this is a tough blow to absorb.  We'll be sending all our love and support to help Luca through his recovery.

UVM Carnival

After the latest round of warm weather, the UVM Carnival had to be moved to Craftsbury.  I can't remember when the last time was that we didn't race at Trapps at least once in a season, so this was kind of sad.  But Craftsbury is a great venue and we were certainly grateful to have them step up and host - conditions were excellent all weekend.  Friday's skate mass start took place on a new course (for us, at least) that was super challenging - some long climbs, some steep climbs, and some long steep climbs.  It would have been a grind in any race, but 3-4 times around for a 15/20k was extra nasty.  The women got the day off to a great start with a fantastic team performance from top to bottom.  The field spread out right away as 5 skiers broke away early.  Renae stuck with a large chase pack for the whole race - even when they shattered in the final kilometer, she was able to stay right in the mix for a 13th place finish, just a few seconds from the top 10.  Ellie was really gunning for this race, and her aggressive approach paid off with her first ever top 20 finish!  Lily skied more conservatively and picked up a ton of places in the final lap to finish 26th, with Gabby right behind in 27th - first ever skate top 30 for both of them.  Fiona struggled a bit with the 15k skate races last year, so it was really gratifying to see her crush this race for a best-ever skate finish of 43rd.  Rachel showed great toughness, grinding up the big climbs to score a big PR in 52nd.  Her mom got to see her race for the first time of her college career, so that made it extra special.  The women were 4th on the day, with every racer scoring a skate or overall PR - a really impressive performance.

The men's race got off to a clean start, with all of our people in good position.  The race stayed pretty close for a long time, with Elliot settled in at the back of a lead pack of 15 or so.  Although he's been brilliant all season long, I was a bit worried that he wouldn't be able to hold on for such a long race on such a hard course.  My fears turned out to be groundless - Elliot actually gained a few spots on the last few climbs climbs and one more in the final sprint to finish 8th - a stellar showing for his first college 20k!  Jake also put on a strong charge at the end to finish 19th - first ever top 20 finish!  Christian was just behind in 23rd, with four others in the 30s - Sean (31), Sam (32), Russell (37), and Ian (39).  The overall nordic team score put us in 4th for the day - really a great showing for the whole team.

After a nice dinner with a big group of team parents, we woke up the next morning to cold temps and nice crisp tracks for the classic race.  The race was combined with an Eastern Cup - with 15 second intervals, there were lots of skiers to chase or catch rides from, and it was a great atmosphere for racing.  Gabby caught fire and absolutely crushed this race for 15th, with Renae close behind in 19th and Lily in 23rd.  For the men, Elliot was 15th and Christian was 17th - it was super fun watching him get onto a mini train and hang on for a nice classic PR.  Ian C found an extra gear out there and skied the best race I've ever seen from him.  One of the quirks of the combined college/Eastern Cup events is that the non-carnival skiers don't get included in the college results, and Ian was unfortunately not on our carnival team this weekend (with such great depth, picking the carnival team has been quite a challenge for me each weekend - a good problem to have).  Anyway, by my count Ian was 31st in the college field - a nice PR!  Although we skied well, UNH and Colby skied even better, and we had to settle for 6th place in the nordic team standings.  It's a mark of how far we've come that we're a bit disappointed by 6th place - going into the season this was the best finish in program history, accomplished just once before.  This team is raising the bar for Bowdoin Nordic!

Many thanks to the team parents - a huge crowd of them came out for this carnival and braved cold and windy weather to set up a wonderful post-race food table for the team.  I'm particularly grateful for Mike Ketchel's excellent photos from the skate race - here are a few: