Chummy Cup 2020

It's been a real pleasure having the Chummy Cup at Bowdoin this past year, and I was sad to pack it up last week for the trip to Rumford.  Would we be able to bring it back?  It's been a great season, and we figured we'd have a decent shot, but we also knew that Bates and Colby would make it tough on us, especially in a skate race.  The big wild card was health - all three teams had been crushed by various cold and flu stuff last week, and it was a question as to which skiers would make it to the start line, and which of those who did would have anything in the tank for the race.

Saturday morning dawned bright and cold - perfect for a ski race.  The women got things going with a clean start, and Gabby and Renae went right to the front with Lily in the lead pack as well.  They stuck together well into the second lap before the pace started to pick up.  Renae took the lead up High School Hill and Gabby followed - they spread the pack a bit but couldn't get away.  Coming into the stadium, Kirsten Miller of Colby slingshotted past them and sprinted to a narrow win, with Gabby 2nd and Renae 3rd.  It was a good learning experience for them both - our skiers don't get many chances to ski a tactical race at the front of the pack, and this was a chance to see how it feels to set the pace and get a sense of when to lead, when to follow, and when to try to break away.  Although it's always disappointing to come out on the wrong end of a close race, this is the kind of experience that will make them better skiers in the future.  Lily hung on for 7th place, earning 2nd Team All-State honors and keeping the team within 2 points of Colby heading into the men's race.

The men weren't messing around - Elliot, Christian, and Peter set a hot pace from the start, and after 3k they'd opened up a small gap on the field that continued to grow as the race progressed.  They hung together for a few more kilometers before Christian broke away and skated to victory, with Elliot close behind and Peter completing the podium sweep in 3rd.  Meanwhile, Russell, Zach, and Cirque battled in the chase pack with a group of Colby and Bates skiers, ultimately finishing 6th, 7th, and 9th, respectively.  This gave us six guys on the All-State team.  More importantly, the men's dominating performance locked up our second ever Chummy Cup victory!  It's pretty sweet to defend our title after so many years of looking up at Bates and Colby - happy to have it decorating my office for another year!

RESULTS

Regardless of the races, it was pretty special to have the Maine college teams come together for a day of our own - many thanks to the Chisholm Ski Club for putting on a great event as always.  All of us coaches have pretty deep ties to Maine skiing, and all of us are proud to be a part of this ski community.  It's fun competing against these guys - we drive each other to be better, and as much as we all want to win, we're also happy for the other teams when they have success.  Looking forward to a great finish for all of us!

JNs for James

While we were off scoring podiums at the Williams Carnival last weekend, James and Luke struck out on their own to score some JN qualifying points at Eastern Cup Finals.  They both put up solid results in the Dublin Double, a 3k skate prologue followed by a 1.5k skate sprint prelim, although it was tough going for Luke, since he registered day-of and had to start in the back and pass a bunch of people - never ideal for short fast races.  The next day was the Cheri Walsh Memorial, a 10k classic at Holderness.  Luke handled the wax tech duties while James raced.  They both nailed it - James had great skis and finished 13th to lock up a spot on the New England JN team!  Qualifying for JNs is a pretty significant accomplishment for anyone, and it's particularly remarkable for James.  Going into this season he had pretty limited ski racing experience and had never even raced in an Eastern Cup before.  For months he's been working hard, chasing our top guys in practice and constantly focusing on refining his technique in every single workout.  He's really earned this, and we're all super proud of him.  Luke also deserves credit for his great work on the wax bench - it's pretty impressive for a first-year to take charge of testing and wax application, and even more impressive to nail it and produce great skis!  Luke has been a team-first guy ever since he joined us last fall, and this is just the latest example.  Our team wouldn't be what it is without skiers working together to help each other succeed, and that's why I'm equally proud of Luke - congratulations to both of these guys.  Looking forward to seeing James represent New England and Bowdoin in Truckee!

Williams Carnival 2020

Another great weekend to be a Polar Bear!  Podiums were the theme of the Williams Carnival - 3rd for Gabby in the classic race, 3rd for the men in the relay, and 3rd for the team in the nordic scoring.  The trip didn't start out quite so auspiciously, though - the carnival had been relocated to Lake Placid, and the usual 6 hour drive got even longer with light snow and a very unwelcome detour when we discovered that Middlebury Gap had been blocked by a stuck school bus.  Eventually, we all made it, with the last van arriving about a half hour before midnight - ugh.  The combined strain of travel and schoolwork was definitely showing on a lot of faces, and I wasn't sure what to expect the next day, but everyone shook off the fatigue and brought their best to the races.  Friday was super cold - kick was easy to find, but with a fairly flat course we had to decide how much of it we actually wanted.  Most of our skiers gambled on thin to win, with just enough to kick DP the graduals and run up the short climbs.  This paid off pretty nicely - Christian equaled his PR in 6th, with Elliot in 9th and Peter with a PR of his own in 16th.  As we've seen so often this season, the other half of the team stepped it up even more.  Gabby went out cautiously and then closed with a ridiculously fast final lap to lock up her first ever podium in 3rd - our first women's podium since Kaitlynn Miller '14 finished 2nd in the 2014 Williams Carnival classic race.  Renae did pretty much the opposite - she went out super hot and then hung on to finish 7th, just a few seconds behind Gabby.  Lily closed out the scoring with a solid 25th.  Overall, the men were 2nd on the day and the women were 3rd (despite outscoring the boys by one point).  That night we were once again lucky to be treated to a fine dinner courtesy of a big group of team parents.  Big thanks to the parents for their support, and particularly to Jim Ahearne for helping with waxing!

Next day was relay day - always a team favorite!  After an absolutely frigid night, the sun came up blazing and took the edge off the cold - perfect conditions for racing or watching.  The men's relay got off to a hot start - Peter was skiing in a lead group of four when he caught a ski and took a hard fall.  This was a tough setback, but he skied hard to keep our top team within striking distance of the podium in 10th.  Christian chipped away and moved us up to 8th on the second leg.  Then Elliot took over and blew up the last leg to bring us all the way back to 3rd, just 5 seconds back of 2nd - our best ever men's relay finish!  In the women's race, Gabby scrambled and settled in with an unusually large lead pack of 8 or 9 - I could tell she was ready to gun it, but there was nowhere to go.  Just before the tag she was able to break away with a couple other skiers and tag off near the front of the pack.  Lily hung in there as the pack began to splinter, and Renae brought it home to wrap up a solid 8th place - not as exciting as a podium, but still one of our better relay finishes.  We also got strong performances from our second teams - 14th for men and 19th for women.  Russell and Fiona both skied strong final legs to move each team up several places.  For the overall carnival, we were the 3rd place nordic team once again - pretty excited to see this becoming the norm.  We were closer than ever to 2nd this weekend - close enough to give us a clear goal for our final carnival!

(photos courtesy of Michael Ketchel)

 After the relays the skiers enjoyed some Carni Crush shenanigans to put smiles on their faces for the long drive home.  Another great carnival in the books - looking forward to defending the Chummy Cup at Rumford next weekend!

Bates Carnival 2020

Back-to-back carnivals in Maine - great stuff!  Back-to-back third place finishes - even better!  The Bates Carnival started off with some exciting weather - mixed precipitation for the drive up that kept things interesting.  Luckily we had a beautiful house to relax in, thanks to some generous friends of Leslie's, Ann and Peter LeBourdais.  This place was an amazing ski house - tons of space plus a sauna and an indoor basketball hoop - very Bowdoin Nordic.  After a restful night, we woke up to find that the snow/rain was now coming down as ice.  This left the course with a lot of fresh snow mixed with loose ice pellets - perfect for classic waxing.  It was one of those days where every team came up with a different solution - hard wax, klister, or some combination of the two.  We opted for klister, with everyone giving different feedback and getting different adjustments - pure chaos, which we barely managed with much help from our new ace wax tech Rachel.  Gabby and Renae jumped in with the lead pack and stayed there for most of the race until things splintered in the final kilometers.  Gabby ended up 7th and Renae 9th, with Lily completing the scoring in 32nd and Tri grabbing a PR in 43rd.  The men's race played out quite different from usual, with the top 2 guys breaking away early and the rest of the group fragmenting into smaller packs.  Christian and Elliot went back and forth with a chase pack, with Christian ending up with a career-best 6th.  Elliot finished 9th and Peter 21st.  The women were 3rd on the day, with the men in 4th.  That night we enjoyed a great dinner hosted by a big crew of parents, led by Bobbie Gostout.

Next morning was cold and sunny and perfect for ski racing.  This was another combined carnival/Eastern Cup, so there was a big crowd on hand and tons of energy.  We ripped through a bunch of testing with help from Rachel, Noah, and long-lost alumna Ellie Hands '18 and got the skis out with plenty of time to get out on course and cheer.  The women put 3 in the top 20 - Renae 16th, Lily tying her skate PR in 18th, and Gabby 20th - for a solid 5th place finish.  The men must have gotten fired up from indoor basketball or something, because they laid down the most complete team performance I've ever seen from Bowdoin Nordic - seven men in the top 30!  Elliot 8th, Peter with a breakout race in 10th, Christian 12th, Cirque 19th (a PR), Russell 24th, Zach 28th, and Ayden 29th - plus James scored a big PR in 50th.  I have no idea what got into them, but this was so so much fun to watch - I don't know if I've ever seen the whole team so happy after a race.  The men were 2nd on the day to lock up an overall nordic finish of 3rd for the second straight week - fantastic!

The weekend wasn't over yet, though - we had some bonus racing on Sunday with Luke and Orion in the Eastern Cup classic sprint.  Leslie nailed the wax and the boys nailed the qualifier, with Orion 5th and Luke 21st.  Luke finished a close 5th in his quarterfinal to end the day 21st; Orion won his quarter and then settled for 5th in the semis to end in 9th for the day - a great showing and fun time for both of them.  A fine ending to another great weekend.  Many thanks to Ann and Peter for hosting us, to the parents for feeding us, and to Rachel, Ellie, and Noah for helping us get fast skis.  Can't wait for next weekend!

Colby Carnival 2020

Wow that was fun!  The Colby Carnival was fantastic - we set a new team-best with a 3rd place finish in the nordic scoring, and there were almost too many team and individual highlights to count.  Here's how it happened:

We always seem to get a big thaw or rainstorm before the Colby Carnival, and we kept that tradition going this year with a big meltdown just a few days before the races.  Fortunately, Quarry Road's amazing season-long snowmaking efforts allowed us to race on a good hard 2.7k race loop with excellent coverage.  The morning was cold but sunny, and it warmed up quickly.  The men set the tone early with Christian in 7th, Elliot 9th, and Peter 18th, good for 2nd place!  Cirque set a skate PR in 26th, and Zach came close to his first top 30 finish in 32nd.  The women followed up with a batch of PRs of their own, with Gabby 15th and Lily 18th - both skate PRs.  Renae completed the scoring in 23rd, and Greta grabbed her first ever top 30 in 27th.  Rachel came up big once again with wax testing and application, helping us get competitive skis.  All these heroics put us in 4th place by the end of the day, just one point out of 3rd!

We were pretty thrilled with all this, but somehow the classic day was even better.  The race was 10/15k - 4 and 6 laps of a very challenging course with a huge climb to start each lap.  We had a superstar tech crew - Luca and Rachel helped with testing and troubleshooting, and volunteer assistant John Eldredge and Leslie crushed the klister application.  We also had a flood of Bowdoin students came up to cheer, along with a big crew of parents.  They were all over the trails, making a wall of noise every time our skiers came through.  The energy was amazing, and it definitely got the team going.  Elliot was the first starter out of the gate - at first his race looked solid but unremarkable, but as the laps wore on and the course broke down, he stayed steady and started picking up places, ending the day on the podium in 3rd!  Christian matched his skate race with a career-best classic finish of 7th, and Peter had a fantastic race of his own in 18th.  By the time with women raced, the course was pretty beat up, with tracks obliterated on a number of steep sections, and it was clear that this was going to be a grit and grind type of race.  Fortunately, our crew was up to the task.  Gabby went out on fire as one of the earlier starters.  Renae was a couple bibs back and looked good as well, but I couldn't understand why she was losing time to Gabby, and I didn't expect much of a result.  Turns out they were both having an amazing day - Gabby in 4th and Renae 8th!  Lily followed up in 23rd to complete the scoring.  Every one of our other women crushed it as well, finishing with a PR or close - Greta 30th, Fiona 39th, Meredith 43rd, and Triana 50th.  This put the cap on a great day and a great weekend - Bowdoin Nordic's first ever 3rd place carnival finish!  It's been an incredible first month of the season, and I can't wait to see what comes next.  Thanks so much to all the parents and fans who made this such a great carnival, and special thanks to John, Rachel, and Luca for their waxing help - we definitely could not have pulled off these results without them.

Photos courtesy of Traci Ennis, Regina Sohn, and Cirque - thanks to all of you!