State Champions!

We did it!  It took 13 tries, but we finally won the Chummy Broomhall Cup!  Here's how it went down:

Saturday morning - our fearless wax team (Leslie, Nathan, Rachel Zafren, and John Eldredge) set out for Quarry Road in Waterville.  Cold and sunny, frozen transformed snow, and fast firm tracks.  Rachel and I did a couple quick rounds of klister testing and started narrowing down our options.  All three teams had agreed to share testing info - one of the many things I love about being part of Maine skiing is that we're all ready to work together and help each other.  Before long we all had settled on a starting point of Rex purple klister, and we set about prepping the women's skis.  After a few adjustments, everyone was at the start line.  We had our hands full waxing the men's skis, so I wasn't able to catch the start, but minutes later the racers headed back through the stadium midway through their first lap.  The crowd seemed pretty fired up, so I ran over to see what was happening.  Turns out that Renae had made a big break right from the gun, and she was leading by several seconds after less than 2k.  Gabby was right behind in a chase pack - before long she had broken away and bridged the gap to ski with Renae.  The rest of our women were a bit further back (I later found out that we'd had a couple falls), but they were looking strong.  I kept running between the wax trailer and the stadium, and every time I checked in Gabby and Renae had increased their lead.  Meanwhile, Lily had moved into the top 10, with Triana close behind.  After a series of nervous back-and-forths, I realized that no one was going to catch our girls!  Gabby eventually pulled ahead of Renae to take the win, while Lily moved up to 7th and Triana won a sprint finish to claim 9th - four skiers on the All-State team!

Luckily for our men, Leslie and John had kept on trucking with ski prep throughout all this excitement, and the men's skis were done in time for some fine-tuning before the start.  A lead pack quickly formed:  Elliot, Sean, and Christian, along with two Mules and one Bobcat.  After the first lap, Elliot looked around and decided it was time to break things up.  He picked up the pace a bit, expecting at least one or two people to follow, but suddenly he was all alone in front.  Like Gabby and Renae, he just kept piling it on and skied to a dominating win!  Meanwhile, Sean was doggedly following Colby's Zane Fields, breaking away from the rest of the chase group to finish 3rd.  Christian battled the remaining chasers before pulling away for 4th.  Cirque gave us our fourth All-State finisher with a strong and steady effort to finish 8th - so great to see him breaking through this season.

When it was all over, the Cup was ours!  It's been a long road - years and years of Bowdoin skiers working hard without ever quite making it over the top.  This is huge for us, and I hope all of our alumni are feeling proud.  Thanks to Rachel and John for fantastic waxing support - no way we could have gotten competitive skis on everyone's feet without their help.  Thanks also to the parents - amazing as always - and a great crew of Bowdoin students who drove up to cheer us on!  Can't wait to see what the rest of the season has in store for us!

Thanks to Laurel Rabson for the photos!

Jan Camp 2019

We're back - so much to catch up on!  The first 3 weeks of 2019 have been packed - here's a quick recap of what we've been doing:

Right after New Year's, we packed up and headed to Craftsbury for US Nationals.  Normally I'm not a big US Nationals fan - it costs a lot of time, energy, and money, and I prefer to keep the team at home to train and time trial in a most peaceful environment.  But it's a cool experience for the skiers, and when it's within a reasonable drive you kind of have to do it.  We squeezed into a beautiful house in the wilds of the Northeast Kingdom and spent the next 5 days racing, training, and hanging out.  Conditions were amazing and the energy was intense - almost every college team in the country was there, along with a ton of elite racers and top juniors from all over the country.  Elliot provided the biggest highlights of the week - 40th in the 15k classic (6th junior) and 7th in the junior 10k skate mass start.  He just missed qualifying for World Juniors - a bit of a bummer to be so close for the second year in a row, but certainly a showing to be proud of.  The rest of the team was right in the mix - nothing special, but a good jump start to the season and a lot of fun.

(photos courtesy of Todd Anderson)

We caught our breath on campus with a few good days of training at Pineland and a little Maine vs World.

(this looks dramatic and church-like, but it's just the MvW trick basketball competition)

Soon enough we were making the long drive to Lake Placid for the St. Lawrence Carnival.  Conditions were fantastic and the scenery was gorgeous.  Solid showing in the skate - Elliot 7th and Renae 22nd.  We came back strong the next day in classic - Renae 8th (tying her PR), Gabby 16th, and Lily 24th to put the women in 4th for the day.  The men followed it up with a 5th place finish, led by Elliot in 9th and Christian 23rd.  This put us in 5th for the weekend - pretty good start for our first carnival, when we're rarely at our best.

(race photos courtesy of Dave Priganc)

The next few days on campus went by in a flash - a couple more good training days at Pineland, a few more MvW challenges, and a nice time at the annual Friends of Bowdoin dinners.  Before we knew it we were in Jackson for the UNH Carnival, where perfect tracks awaited us.  We had to scramble a bit to get the skis ready on time for the mass start classic, but fortunately we had a pair of capable helpers in John Eldredge and Rachel Zafren '18.  They helped us catch up on binders and test kick efficiently - we waxed thin to win, made some adjustments for individuals, and got everyone to the start line with minimal stress.  After that, the skiers held up their end of the deal with one of our best performances ever - men 3rd and women 4th!  Elliot was 5th, just 16 seconds from the win, with Christian tying his PR in 14th and Sean close behind in 19th.  Gabby led the women in 11th, Renae was 17th, and Lily closed out the scoring in 35th.  That night we celebrated a great day with a fine dinner hosted by Angus Badger '89 and Rachel Vose '87.  Many thanks to Angus, Rachel, and daughter Nina '22!

Saturday's skate sprint was a little less thrilling than the classic race - good solid effort, but skate sprinting just isn't one of our stronger areas right now.  Still, we had some highlights - Renae, Elliot, and Sean all qualified for the heats.  None of them advanced from the quaterfinals, but all 3 looked great and were right in the mix.  We also had some new blood in the team scoring - Noah E, Perrin, and Triana all scored for the first time!  We were 6th for the weekend - a bit of a letdown after a hot start to the carnival, but still a good solid result.

(photos courtesy of Steve Fuller at Flying Point Road)

Overall it's been a great Jan Camp - good skiing, fun times, and some encouraging signs in the early races.  We're all feeling pretty good about how things are going so far, but I think we all agree that we can ski faster - hoping to hit that next level in the coming weeks!