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!
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