Bowdoin Nordic

UNH Skate

2012-01-30T08:36:00.002-05:00

Day 2 of the UNH Carnival couldn't have been more different than Day 1 - nothing but sunshine. We had a respectable day - no fireworks, but some solid results. Spencer led the way in 23rd (for EISA), with Kaitlynn in 37th. Riley had one of his best college races ever, and Jackson was an absolute hero - despite having the second to last start position, he skied aggressively, passing dozens of skiers. By the end of the race, he'd worked his way up to mid-pack, finishing sandwiched between two of the league's better skiers - a big step forward for him. Steph and Sierra also had good races - both battled to strong finishes in spite of crashes. Speaking of crashes, there were a LOT of those. On a fast snow day (like Saturday), lots of racers are challenged by the rollers and sharp turns on this course, and in a mass start, when one person goes down, others are sure to follow. There were some fantastic blowouts - almost NASCAR-esque. Every team had their share of falls, and ours was no exception. Among other incidents, Nate broke a pole in a bottleneck out of the start, Scott lost some skin in a crash, and Chris spent some quality time in the woods. Between the carnage and the inherent toughness of a 15/20k mass start race, there were lots of entertaining war stories when all was said and done. A nice OD ski yesterday and a rest day today should have the team feeling recovered and ready for a some good training before we head to Stowe on Friday.

Thanks to all the parents who came out to cheer and tailgate on Saturday! Once again, Greg Askins took some great race photos - I'll post these soon.

UNH Classic Sprint

2012-01-27T22:28:00.002-05:00

Great day for our team here at the races in Jackson. The forecast was scary, calling for snow, ice pellets, and rain - turns out that this was exactly what we got. Somehow, though, the waxing didn't end up being as messy as the weather - it was a bit tricky, with the conditions steadily changing throughout the morning, but we were able to nail down a klister combination that worked pretty well for most people (a few ended up going on zeroes, which also worked reasonably well). Kaitlynn and Spencer led the way, qualifying in 19th and 29th, respectively. Several others had solid races as well - Nate was just a couple seconds from qualifying, and Shelby, Hannah, and Maren were not far off on the women's side. Maren had her best collegiate finish ever (47th for EISA), beating some really strong skiers.

The day got better in the heats. Spencer skied a strong quarterfinal, finishing a close 4th and improving his placing to 23rd (22nd EISA). Kaitlynn got off to a quick start in her quarterfinal, and pulled away from the pack with one other skier to advance comfortably. She drew a really strong heat in the semis and ended up 5th, leaving her in the B final. Once again, she got off to a quick start - a couple of other skiers broke away on the one big climb, but Kaitlynn led the rest of the group back into the stadium and held off a pair of hard-charging UNH skiers to lock up 3rd in the heat and 9th place overall. A fantastic day of racing - first top 10 by a Bowdoin woman since 2001! Remarkably, she was the top skier not from Dartmouth or UVM, which left us in good position in the team scoring. The women ended up tying Colby for 7th and finishing just ahead of Williams, which hasn't happened in years - at least not during my tenure at Bowdoin. So, a very good day for our team. Hopefully we'll carry some momentum into tomorrow, which should be a FUN day - a 15/20k mass start skate on a winding rollercoaster course. I almost wish I were racing tomorrow. Almost.

We capped off a good day with a great dinner courtesy of Ben and Anne Niles, who are hosting several of our boys for the weekend. Ben and Anne, along with Greg and Joanna Askins, also took great care of the team at the races, providing warm food and drinks on a wet and chilly day. Thanks to all of you for helping make today great!

Bates Photos

2012-01-24T21:45:00.007-05:00

As usual, Greg Askins was all over the course taking photos at Rumford last weekend - here are a few:

Bates Carnival

2012-01-21T20:58:00.003-05:00

Carnival season is underway at last. Several inches of snow fell on Thursday night, giving us a clean, soft course for the weekend. Friday's 5/10k skate was a so-so day. The skiers pushed hard, but the results weren't there - we still don't quite have the edge that we need to race fast, and most of our competitors do. Still, most of our skiers felt strong, if not fast - the fitness is there, and the results will come. This race also happened to be the 6th Annual Broomhall Cup, Maine's collegiate state championship. We ended up in 3rd behind Bates and Colby, with Spencer finishing 4th for Maine skiers and earning First Team All-State honors.

Today's 10/10k classic was a step forward. The cold temps and fresh snow made the waxing straightforward, and we were able to get the skis dialed in pretty well, thanks in no small part to Walt Shepard '10, who took some time away from his high-powered consulting job to provide expert wax tech assistance. In the men's race, Spencer got off to a strong start before crashing twice on the first lap - with over 100 skiers clustered close together in the early kilometers, he lost a lot of places and had to burn a ton of energy passing people. Riley took over as our top skier, and for a while it looked like he'd win the battle of the Eusdens, but Spencer rallied to pass dozens of skiers in the second half of the race and earn our top finish in 52nd, with Riley close behind - still an outstanding day for him. We also got some strong performances from the first-years - Kevin and Jackson were right in the mix. I should also note that Wilson commented that his skis (waxed by Walt) were the best he'd ever had - that's why we like to keep Walt around. The women had a very solid day - every single one of them bettered their skate finishes. Kaitlynn got off to a good start and moved up throughout the race, ending up in 35th - she's been feeling better bit by bit, and today was definitely a sign of good progress. Hannah also looked like she was starting to find her race gears after spending the fall in Argentina. Erin had a particularly impressive effort - before the race she was worn out just walking around, and she was dead last going up the first hill out of the stadium. She kept after it and eased into the race, passing a ton of people and beating some very good skiers. Overall, a very encouraging day for the women, and a respectable day for the team as a whole. Although I wish we'd been able to get our season off to a faster start, I have a lot of confidence in our skiers - I'm positive that we'll keep getting better as the season goes on, just like we do every year.

We had great support this weekend from a lot of team parents, who spent a long time huddled in a cold parking lot to give our skiers hot soup and snacks after the races - thanks to all of you! Thanks also to Andy Shepard for keeping the Broomhall Cup event going strong. This has always been a fun event for our team, and it's become a major goal for us to strive toward - we'll keep chipping away in anticipation of winning the Cup someday soon!

Maine vs. World and Name the Skier Pt. 3

2012-01-19T21:37:00.001-05:00

We've had a few good days of training since the Eastern Cup - conditions at Pineland have held up well. With no classes until next week, we've had time for a few fun distractions as well. Yesterday, Zach took a big crew down to Portland, where they spent some quality time in the Old Port and watched a Pirates game. The 4th annual Maine vs. World competition is also underway - Maine jumped out to a commanding lead by winning the sprint relay and the sensory awareness challenge, but World rallied with victories in basketball and trivia. Undaunted, Maine responded by totally dominating this afternoon's Polasky Ball game to take a 3-2 lead. Just a couple more event to go - stay tuned for the dramatic conclusion.

We also have some other competitions happening this weekend - some sort of ski race type thing. Bates Carnival/Broomhall Cup - tomorrow and Saturday at Black Mountain. Here we go! Updates to follow. In the meantime, try to identify these 2 current Bowdoin Nordic skiers:

No gold stars for correct guesses - they're too easy. Instead, you get kicked out of the Bowdoin Nordic Fan Club if you can't get these right.

Titcomb Eastern Cup Day 2

2012-01-16T10:00:00.006-05:00

Yesterday was one of those days that you remember. Super cold temps with an occasional stiff breeze made it a tough day to be outside, let alone ski around in race tights. Combine that with a LOT of climbing and you have a day of racing that won't soon be forgotten. The race was a 9/12k skate on a short loop - basically, a long climb up an alpine slope had been added to Saturday's sprint course. The ensuing downhill claimed several victims - steep and fast, with several small rollers and a big sweeping turn at the bottom. It got tougher as the day went on and the flat light made it easy to miss the little bumps. Six laps for women and eight for men meant a lot of trips up and down the hill, and a lot of skiers sharing the trail at once - an exhausting race that was probably more fun to watch than to ski.

Our team handled the challenge well. Spencer led the men with a 32nd place finish in a very competitive field, with Riley having one of his best races ever in 50th. On the women's side, Kaitlynn, Shelby, and Hannah were stacked up in 44th, 45th, and 48th. Jackson had the race of the day, however - he was on fire. Unfortunately, a counting mixup (not by Jackson) ended with him skiing an extra lap - judging by the bibs he was skiing around, he would have been around 4 1/2 minutes faster. Still, a great race and an encouraging sign for the rest of the season. I was equally proud of our skiers who didn't have great days - not everyone was feeling their best today, but everyone stuck it out and kept grinding. Overall, this was a very successful weekend - we still have a ways to go before we're where we want to be, but this was a solid showing for mid-January - we're definitely ahead of where we've been in the past.

SATURDAY RESULTS

SUNDAY RESULTS

We had tremendous support from the team parents this weekend - several folks braved the cold to cheer, and also brought a lot of delicious food for post-race recovery. We were also lucky to have wonderful overnight hosts to save the skiers from a lot of driving back and forth to campus: Steve DeAngelis and Tara Wicks hosted the men in Readfield, while the women stayed with Deb and Ron Aseltine in Wilton (amazingly, Deb and Ron were also key members of the race organizing crew, helping to put on a fantastic event for hundreds of skiers despite tough low-snow conditions). Thanks to all of you for taking such good care of our team!

Here are some photos from Sunday's race, courtesy of Greg Askins:

Titcomb Eastern Cup Day 1

2012-01-14T23:06:00.002-05:00

Good day for us at today's Eastern Cup classic sprint at Titcomb in Farmington. Kaitlynn led the way by qualifying 14th and ending the day in 15th after a strong 3rd place showing in her quarterfinal heat. She made a bold call by choosing to double pole the fast, rolling course on skate skis - one of only a few women to do so. Nate, Tyler, and Spencer chose the same route in the men's race. Nate qualified in 15th for men and ended the day in 26th after being eliminated in the quarterfinals, and Tyler qualified for the junior heats and made it to the A final, where he finished 5th, just missing out on 4th by a lunge. Spencer and Shelby missed the open and junior heats, respectively, by just a few hundredths of a second. The whole team skied solidly today - I was pretty thrilled with how everyone looked, especially considering that today was the first true race start of the season for many of our skiers. Tomorrow is a distance skate race - forecast says it'll be cold and windy!

In other news, a few of the guys (Kevin, Wilson, Scott, and Chris) stayed home today and did a time trial at Pineland with some of the Bates skiers. Poles were shattered and brand new skis were gouged, but it was a solid race effort nonetheless - a good tune up for tomorrow.

Live Update from Pineland: What a difference a day makes

2012-01-12T15:10:00.010-05:00

Bowdoin Nordic, and most of New England, have been waiting for snow and chasing every man-made meter we can find. Pineland Farms kept hope alive, opening a surprisingly good 0.5K loop to local programs. Maine native Nate Niles takes advantage here (above left).

Lap after lap, hope for a storm grew. Drew Gustafson of Minnesota ended the day yesterday with promising weather over his shoulder (above right).

Here is the difference between yesterday and today...

With snow still falling, Seniors Dan Polasky, Scott Longwell & Chris Sanville lead the charge into winter...

Post from Assistant Coach Zach Stegeman

Name This Skier Pt. 2

2012-01-11T08:40:00.003-05:00

After last week's warmup at Nationals, we're ready to start the season in earnest. Almost everyone's back on campus now - we have 2 weeks before classes start, and we're looking forward to some great training and racing. We'll have reports and photos soon from the awesomely outrageous manmade snow loop at Pineland, and, of course, Maine vs. World. For now, though, here's another challenge - can you name this current Bowdoin skier?

Nationals Recap

2012-01-08T21:09:00.002-05:00

We had a small crew racing at Senior Nationals in Rumford this past week: Shelby, Nate, Kaitlynn, Alec, and Spencer all competed. Going in, I wasn't sure what to expect - like most Easterners, our crew has had limited snow time, and even more limited racing time. Not exactly the way you're supposed to prepare for a big race series, but it was the best we could manage - not such a big deal, since we were looking at these races as tune-ups for carnival season anyway. All told, the week went very well - some good races, some not so good, and a couple great ones. Our skiers looked good out there, especially considering the lack of snow and racing time. Alec in particular looked super smooth and efficient, posting perhaps the two best races I've seen from him so far - he seems to have reached a new level this year.

A pair of other highlights came from the 20/30k mass start classic races - Kaitlynn and Spencer, for different reasons. Kaitlynn has been working through some fatigue lately, and she clearly didn't have much energy on this day - extra difficult considering that the short race loop meant 6 trips up the notorious High School Hill. It's pretty common for people to drop out of a long race when they're not having a good day, in order to save energy for later races - I wouldn't have blamed Kaitlynn if she'd chosen this route, but she stuck with it, pushing hard until the finish. Sometimes, just grinding it out through a bad race is as much of an achievement as a great race - from my place on the side of the trail, that's what Kaitlynn's 20k looked like. In the men's 30k, Spencer settled into a good rhythm near the back of the pack. After a few laps, he ended up in a small pack with Tim (now coaching at Gould and still occasionally racing) - it was pretty fun watching their little group cruising steadily through the field and picking people off one by one. At one point, it looked like Spencer was going to get dropped, but he found something extra, hung on, and ended up mounting a final charge to pick up several more places in the final kilometers - easily his best classic race ever. I was incredibly impressed by how well he skied - he's been working diligently on his classic technique for a long time, and it's clearly paid off. As importantly, he held his technique together for the entire race (which has often been a weakness for him in the past). A very exciting race and a fantastic effort.

Overall, it's been a very encouraging week - if these 5 skiers are representative of the rest of our team, we have good reason to feel optimistic about the season. The whole team will be back together on Tuesday, and we'll have several days to prepare for our first carnival without the stress of classes - should be a very productive couple of weeks.

The Second Annual Camp Miller

2012-01-02T22:39:00.003-05:00

Last week, several Bowdoin skiers got together at Kaitlynn's house in VT for a training camp of sorts. Here's Steph's report:

After a brown Christmas in southern New Hampshire, I decided to drag my aging mini-van up Interstate 89 to the Miller residence in northern Vermont. Rain began to fall in the vicinity of Hanover, which turned to snow somewhere around Montpelier. At home it was fifty degrees but Vermont was in the grips of a blizzard, relatively speaking. On Wednesday afternoon as Kaitlynn dragged me around the woods in the midst of a “winter weather advisory,” I could hardly contain my glee. Real skiing with one of my favorite people - what could be better? The very next day I was about to find out.

Throughout the week skiers, drawn to the snow like moths to a flame, congregated in Stowe. By Thursday evening I was joined on the floor of the Miller house by Alec and Jackson. Over a game of Boggle, the four of us decided to seek the answer to the age-old question: which state is better - Vermont or New Hampshire. Two days of intense debate followed. As far as word games are concerned, Team New Hampshire reigned supreme. Alec and I amassed an untouchable 26 points in 3 rounds of Boggle. The following day, when Sierra, Tess, and the Wright sisters joined us for a very unofficial 5k skate time trial, the competition heated up. Although Jackson took home the crown for Maine, Alec still managed to pass the majority of the field while skiing classic. Due to an unconventional start format, the girl’s results from the time trial are somewhat muddled, but I have reason to suspect that Tess’s strong skiing may have contributed to a victory for the Granite State. That being said, Team Vermont provided something that New Hampshire could not: snow. In the interest of remaining unbiased, I am forced to accept a stalemate between states. On Saturday, after a skate speed workout in the rain and a quick stop for legendary donuts at the Cold Hollow Cider Mill, the boys and I headed our separate ways.

And now, for the denouement: entering New Hampshire via West Leb, I noticed the near imperceptible tang of bad air.

Name This Skier

2011-12-30T15:56:00.003-05:00

Slow times here on the Bowdoin Nordic blog lately - the calm before the storm. Here's something to keep our loyal readers busy - a gold star for anyone who can name this current Bowdoin skier:

Photo courtesy of Flying Point Road.

TUNA Race

2011-12-20T17:13:00.002-05:00

Wilson capped off a great week by coming home to Utah and jumping into a 10k classic race on Saturday. The Salt Lake/Park City area has a thriving ski community, and there are a lot of good racers in the area, so this was a great opportunity to get some on-snow race prep. Some travel and baggage hassles left him arriving at the venue with barely enough time for waxing and warmup, but he pulled off a strong performance nonetheless, finishing a close second in a competitive field. More importantly, he felt good throughout the race - very encouraging considering that he missed a lot of training while rehabbing a back injury this fall. Unlike most of the team, he'll have regular access to training on snow these next few weeks - in lean snow years like this one, it's good to be a Westerner.

Wilson's Secret Training

2011-12-15T16:15:00.003-05:00

Wilson is in Montana right now, ostensibly to do some research for his honors project. It turns out that his schedule is flexible enough to allow for a little exploration - these last couple days, he's been able to do some great skiing on a quiet road out in the wilderness somewhere. Got to love the Mountain West - there's always snow somewhere if you're willing to go high enough to find it.

Merepoint Time Trial

2011-12-05T15:21:00.003-05:00

One of my big goals this fall was to add more competition to the training plan - time trials and mini-races within workouts. We've certainly accomplished this, with 4 time trials in the last 4 weeks, among other competitions. Our latest effort was a 5k skate time trial with Bates on Merepoint Rd - a new time trial venue for us and a nice change of pace. We had originally planned to repeat our bike path TT from earlier this fall to measure our improvements, but unfortunately the Thanksgiving snowstorm left the path pretty sandy - not so good for a time trial. Anyway, the time trial went well, and several people - most notably Steph, Dan, Wilson, and Riley - put up impressive performances. Overall, though, our team is clearly feeling several weeks of hard training combined with increasing school stress. Lots of tired faces out there on Saturday. Still, this was not unexpected, and we should bounce back quickly once we start getting some extra rest. For now, we have one more week of training as a team before the skiers are on their own for exams and Winter Break.

Oh yeah - one other point of interest from Saturday. After the TT, Bates invited us to join them in a team tradition - a plank contest, in which everyone held the plank position for as long as possible. There were a lot of stubbon people planking on the grass outside of Farley - some pretty impressive efforts. Ultimately, it came down to Wilson against Hallie Grossman of Bates - they both planked for around 15 minutes before agreeing to settle for a draw.

Here are results from the time trial:

Men

Buetow	Jordan	Bates	11:15.0
Dippo	Wilson	Bowdoin	11:24.3
Milliken	Lucas	Bates	11:28.0
Michaud	Nick	Bates	11:46.2
Hamilton	Alex	Bates	12:04.3
Woods	Sean	Bates	12:11.4
Eusden	Riley	Bowdoin	12:23.5
Deangelis	Tyler	Bowdoin	12:30.1
Regan	Connor	Bates	12:39.6
Polasky	Dan	Bowdoin	12:42.7
Longwell	Scott	Bowdoin	12:48.7
Eusden	Spencer	Bowdoin	12:50.3
Burnham	Jimmy	Bates	12:53.8
Hoose	Kevin	Bowdoin	13:20.3
McGovern	Alec	Bowdoin	13:23.2
Sanville	Chris	Bowdoin	13:51.4
Bloch	Jackson	Bowdoin	13:57.3
Kuzio	Dan	Bates	14:03.0

Women
Dion	Kelsey	Bates	13:03.7
Taylor	Beth	Bates	13:34.9
Grossman	Hallie	Bates	13:35.0
Sellegren	Gretchen	Bates	14:17.2
Lynn	Stephanie	Bowdoin	14:32.8
Aseltine	Shelby	Bowdoin	15:11.7
Daniels	Caroline	Bates	15:11.9
Miller	Kaitlynn	Bowdoin	15:23.9
Forrest	Sam	Bates	16:06.0
Askins	Maren	Bowdoin	16:21.0
Frisbie	Sierra	Bowdoin	16:24.6

Camp Wrap-Up

2011-11-29T15:26:00.005-05:00

Back home now after finishing camp with a great OD ski on Sunday morning - everyone scattered and explored various logging roads with just enough snow for skiing and came back tired and happy. We had a quick and uneventful trip home (aside from being briefly detained at the border - should have shaved before the trip), and another Thanksgiving Camp was in the books. This was perhaps our most productive Thanksgiving Camp ever - the limited snow kept people confined to a limited space for much of the time, which allowed the coaches to see a lot of each athlete and do some good technique work with everyone. However, there was enough snow so that when people started to go crazy skiing the same trails over and over, they were able to push the boundaries and find some good adventure skiing deep in the woods. As bonus points, we got to do a quality race effort against EISA competition. All in all, a really productive camp that should set us up well for good training in December.

Here are some photos, courtesy of Maren (who also happens to be the Skier of the Week for Thanksgiving Camp 2011, due not only to her photography, but also her expert driving, outstanding conbread, and all-around excellence):

Sierra and Erin

Kaitlynn
Kevin
Jackson
Chris
Maren
Scott, Kevin, and Riley
Shelby
Steph
Spencer carving the turkey.

Nate and Sierra
Men dressed up for Thanksgiving Dinner. In case any Bowdoin administrators are reading this post, I'd like to state that the empty wine bottle that Riley is brandishing did not make its appearance at dinner. Rather, it's a makeshift foam roller belonging to Spencer (it's covered with several layers of plastic wrap).

Women at Lac Bedard, deep in the woods of Foret Montmorency.

Drew
Alec
Spencer

Thanksgiving, Time Trial, etc

2011-11-26T22:23:00.003-05:00

All sorts of good stuff happening over the last few days. The snow has held up quite well in spite of warm temps today and yesterday - we've been skiing only a little on the 1k loop and doing a lot of exploring on the various ungroomed roads and trails - not bad skiing out there in spite of thin snow. We've put in a lot of hours and done some good productive technique work. I've seen some notable improvements in a short time - hopefully we can maintain these when we start up with rollerskiing again back home. We've had some outstanding meals, highlighted by a stellar Thanksgiving spread - green bean casserole, broccoli and cheese casserole, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potato fries, stuffing, pies, and of course turkey, masterminded by Spencer.

Today we teamed up with St. Lawrence, UMPI, and Colby for a 5.5k classic time trial on the 1k loop - klister waxing and lots of people in a small space made for a chaotic morning, but everything went quite well. I was really pleased with how everyone looked. People were really pushing hard - a good quality race effort. As importantly, most people I talked to enjoyed the race and were happy with how they'd skied. The results weren't anything special - we clearly have some work to do before we're race ready - but this was expected. I feel good about where we are right now, and I think we're on track to see some good results in the carnival season.

I'll get pictures up as soon as I can. For now, here are the results from today's time trial:

Men

Last Name	First Name	Team	Time
Barton	Jake	Colby	17:10.3
Jackson	Teo	SLU	17:55.1
Supple	Jared	Colby	17:59.6
Terko	Adam	SLU	18:06.3
Meng	Austin	SLU	18:06.4
Fereshetian	Justin	UMPI	18:11.3
Eusden	Spencer	Bowdoin	18:12.9
DeFrancis	Paco	Colby	18:14.5
Lustgarten	Eric	SLU	18:22.4
Bard	Joey	UMPI	18:25.0
Zars	Levin	Colby	18:30.5
Spencer	Kody	Colby	18:41.5
Likly	Reed	SLU	18:50.4
Niles	Nate	Bowdoin	18:55.5
Hoose	Kevin	Bowdoin	18:59.5
Ogden	Ben	SLU	19:05.5
Frielinghaus	Will	SLU	19:05.8
McGovern	Alec	Bowdoin	19:07.7
Prescott	Bill	SLU	19:11.5
Eusden	Riley	Bowdoin	19:39.5
Burnham	Chris	Colby	19:41.6
Hart	Austin	SLU	19:43.3
Sanville	Chris	Bowdoin	19:45.8
Dermody	Dan	UMPI	19:52.7
Longwell	Scott	Bowdoin	20:09.7
Bloch	Jackson	Bowdoin	20:13.8
Nesbitt	Andrew	UMPI	20:47.0
Gustafson	Drew	Bowdoin	21:05.8

Women

Last Name	First Name	Team	Time
Anderson	Lizzie	Colby	21:48.1
Moreland	Amanda	SLU	22:05.6
Susla	Molly	Colby	22:15.7
Miller	Kaitlynn	Bowdoin	22:16.4
Brockett	Sarah	Colby	22:20.5
Krause	Missy	Colby	22:29.2
Donohoe	Emma	Colby	22:47.5
Carpenter	Caroline	SLU	22:53.3
Christoffel	Kati	UMPI	22:53.9
Aseltine	Shelby	Bowdoin	22:59.1
Mulcahy	Kate	SLU	23:00.3
Hotopp	Alice	Colby	23:19.6
Lones	Amy	Colby	23:40.5
Lynn	Stephanie	Bowdoin	23:49.1
Askins	Maren	Bowdoin	23:56.3
Hatten	Erin	Bowdoin	24:29.5
Olson	Lauren	SLU	25:35.6
Frisbie	Sierra	Bowdoin	25:45.5

Camp - Day 1

2011-11-23T18:23:00.002-05:00

First day of camp was a big success. We weren't sure what we'd find when we got up to Foret this morning, but things worked out really well. The 1k loop is in very good shape - rock solid tracks, and good kick with hard wax. The road is also surprisingly good - some rocks poking through, but pretty decent skating, and not bad for classic outside the tracks. All told, it was enough for us to put in 3 or 4 hours of skiing without getting too crazy. The advantage of the limited space was that coaches were able to see each skier frequently, so Zach and I were able to pull people aside one after another to work on technique - not possible when there are several kilometers of good skiing and everyone just scatters. I'm really pleased with today - a great start to the camp. We might run into some difficulties as the weekend approaches and the trails get more crowded, but for now we'll just enjoy the skiing and make the most of what we have.

Pineland Sprint TT

2011-11-22T22:24:00.004-05:00

Last week was another challenging week, highlighted by long threshold intervals on Lewis Hill Rd, a pleasant run at Wolfe's Neck, a sprint time trial with Bates, and a fine OD rollerski on Ridge Rd. Here are a few photos:

The time trial was a nice change of pace - we ran a prelim and three rounds of heats. A rather elegant format designed by the Bates coaches ensured that everyone was matched up against other skiers of similar speed in each heat, which was both fun and productive. Wilson and Shelby laid down our fastest qualifying times, while Kaitlynn and Tyler each made the A finals. Here are results from the prelim:

Men

Jordan	Buetow	Bates	2:51.7
Lucas	Milliken	Bates	2:57.4
Nick	Michaud	Bates	2:57.6
Wilson	Dippo	Bowdoin	3:05
Tyler	DeAngelis	Bowdoin	3:07.4
Sean	Woods	Bates	3:09.1
Nate	Niles	Bowdoin	3:09.4
Alex	Hamilton	Bates	3:16.7
Connor	Regan	Bates	3:22.4
Jimmy	Burnham	Bates	3:28
Alec	McGovern	Bowdoin	3:36.2
Dan	Polasky	Bowdoin	3:40.4
Jackson	Bloch	Bowdoin	3:42
Drew	Gustafson	Bowdoin	3:44.2
Scott	Longwell	Bowdoin	3:44.3
Women
Gretchen	Sellegren	Bates	3:34.7
Hallie	Grossman	Bates	3:35.4
Beth	Taylor	Bates	3:40.2
Shelby	Aseltine	Bowdoin	3:50.8
Andrea	Fisher	Bates	3:52.9
Caroline	Daniels	Bates	3:54.2
Kaitlynn	Miller	Bowdoin	3:56.2
Stephanie	Lynn	Bowdoin	3:57.1
Kelsey	Dion	Bates	4:02.7
Sierra	Frisbie	Bowdoin	4:12.4
Sam	Forrest	Bates	4:13.2
Maren	Askins	Bowdoin	4:20.3
Erin	Hatton	Bowdoin	4:27.7

Now we're up in Quebec - on snow tomorrow! It sounds like we'll be doing a mix of rock skiing on the logging roads and laps around the 1k manmade loop - whatever it is, it'll just be good to be skiing.

The Tradition Continues

2011-11-15T21:18:00.004-05:00

Last Sunday was our annual "Ski to Hallowell" day. Since 2006, Naomi Schalit (mother of Nat Herz '09) has hosted the team for lunch after a point-to-point rollerski from Bowdoin (the town, not the college) to her house in Hallowell. Even though Nat graduated three years ago, Naomi and her husband John Christie have generously continued the tradition every November. This year, we had fine weather and good roads (aside from one little roadblock where a bridge was being rebuilt). The team is getting so fast these days that I had to add on a few extra miles for some of them - even so, they cruised right along and made the skiing look effortless. As always, Naomi and John had a huge, delicious chili lunch waiting for us at the end of the road. This event is always one of the highlights of our fall, and the team was in high spirits after the workout (and promptly fell asleep once we got in the vans to head home). Thanks to Naomi and John for their wonderful hospitality!

Penny Road Time Trial

2011-11-12T20:13:00.006-05:00

This has been a fairly tough week of training: an early morning skate rollerski threshold, a VO2max bounding workout at Bradbury in the rain, a harder-than-planned specific strength session, and a 30/60 speed session on skate skis, along with a couple of general strength workouts. Today we added to the load with a classic rollerski time trial embedded in a threshold workout. The course went up Penny Road and Gloucester Hill - 4.5k of mostly steady climbing with a few rolls to break it up. Just to mix things up a bit, we split the skiers up into 3 teams (which will also serve as the cook groups for Quebec camp): Mon Petit Chou, Noff Noff, and Der Freischutz. It was a fairly closely matched affair, with Noff Noff prevailing and Der Freischutz and Mon Petit Chou not far behind. Here are individual results:

Men
Spencer	Noff Noff	15:02
Chris	Der Freischutz	15:37.5
Scott	Mon Petit Chou	16:24.2
Jackson	Noff Noff	16:54.6
Alec	Mon Petit Chou	17:00.4
Riley	Der Freischutz	17:18.7
Drew	Noff Noff	19:34	Broken pole tip
Mark	Der Freischutz	21:25.9	DP only
Women
Kaitlynn	Der Freischutz	19:42.2
Maren	Noff Noff	20:30.6
Erin	Mon Petit Chou	20:51.7
Steph	Mon Petit Chou	21:18.2
Sierra	Der Freischutz	21.23.2

This was a fun time trial to watch - everyone gave it a good effort, and there were some great battles out there. In these last few weeks, there's been a sharpness that I haven't seen before from Bowdoin Nordic - aggressive skiing and solid technique. I feel like these guys are on the verge of reaching a new level as a team - very exciting stuff.

No photos from the time trial, but here are some shots Zach took of the soggy Bradbury workout:

The boys also had fun with Photo Booth on the way home from the time trial. Here are a few of the less nightmare-inducing pictures:

Rest Week (sort of)

2011-11-08T14:50:00.003-05:00

After a reasonably challenging October, we were all set to back off a bit and have a nice easy rest week to open November. For most of the week, we followed this plan - easy runs and rollerskis close to campus, leaving plenty of time for rest and schoolwork catch-up. We did have one threshold workout that was slightly tougher than planned for some skiers - it was a skate rollerski alternating between 2 min at threshold and 30 seconds easy skiing. The short intervals allowed us to go faster than we usually would in a threshold session, but the cumulative effect of skiing fast for lots and lots of short intervals was pretty fatiguing. That's OK - at this point in the season the skiers need to be moving fast more than they need to be rigidly adhering to the target training zone.

On Sunday, we radically departed from the "easy week" theme - since we'd had a very short practice during the snowstorm last Sunday, we moved our long OD workout to this Sunday. We did a 2 hour "no V1" skate rollerski followed by a 1.5 hour run on the Pineland trails - a pretty solid piece of training, and our longest OD of the fall (outside of camps). I was thrilled with how the team looked in this workout (and for the last few weeks overall) - very fit and focused, and technically solid. Great, great stuff.

One other important note: Chris and Wilson stopped by a local orchard to provide the team with a donut feed - gold stars for them. I'll try to post some donut footage when I have a chance.

Morse Mountain and First Snow

2011-11-01T15:08:00.005-04:00

We finally made it out to Morse Mountain on Saturday - hard to believe that we didn't get out to one of our best training venues until the end of October. We did a series of hard hill repeats at VO2max pace, with a surprise mini-race in the middle of the workout - a sort of reverse pursuit, where we handicapped everyone based on their times for the previous interval. It was an interesting exercise to find out who had an extra gear when we switched into race mode (or, as Scott noted, to find out who was sandbagging in the early intervals). Spencer came out on top, with Sierra close behind after an impressive finishing kick. We had several parents cheering us on, and Alec's dad Scott earned much respect by doing the whole workout with the team.

Wilson is nursing a back injury, but he came along to cheer the team on and take some photos. This is the final pitch leading up to the top.

We're glad to have Scott back with us now that his XC season has ended. He pretty much destroyed everyone in this workout.

A perfect day to be out at Morse Mountain.

Since the preserve was open for hunting, we all wore vests, but Riley probably would have been safe without one.

Drew working hard around the final turn.

Glad to be done with a very tough workout.

Like most of the Northeast, we woke up to several inches of snow on Sunday morning. We had originally planned to do an extra-long OD workout, but the weather made this unfeasible, so we switched gears and did an easy ski around the fields, capped off by some erging and a little basketball. The snow was wet and sticky and the skiing wasn't pretty, but it was skiing!

Lobster Roll etc

2011-10-28T14:45:00.002-04:00

Since coming back from Fall Camp, we've been chipping away with business as usual - just good solid training. In particular, we've been trying to mix up both the training venues and the workouts themselves, partly for fun and variety and partly to make sure we hit some more hilly terrain than the stuff we can find close to campus. The last few days have included the whole range of our bag of tricks: running at Wolfe's Neck, Bradbury, and Pineland, and rollerskiing at Cathance/Ridge Rd, Doughty Rd, Penny Rd & Gloucester Hill, and the Pownal/Pineland OD loop. We've also created our own hills, so to speak, in some on-campus workouts: a high resistance erg session designed to imitate uphill double poling, running intervals on Pickard Field while dragging weight plates, and a blissful early morning treadmill workout. Tomorrow we'll head out to Morse Mountain for the first time this year - no time trial, just a good hill workout and perhaps a little competition mixed in.

The big highlight of the last few weeks, however, was the 5th Annual Lobster Roll, a 15k rollerski time trial hosted by Maine Winter Sports Center on the island of North Haven. We had great weather and tough competition for the event, and our skiers gave a good effort. Overall, I thought the team looked a bit sharper than we have in past years, with Tyler, Steph, and Kaitlynn posting particularly strong finishes. Here's a quick overview of how our skiers fared:

Men
Tyler - 40:51
Jackson - 42:04
Spencer - 42:57
Nate - 43:05
Riley - 45:49
Drew - 48:12

Women
Kaitlynn - 50:27
Steph - 51:55
Shelby - 54:19
Maren - 54:21
Sierra - 56:25

As always, it was a fun day and a unique Maine experience. Thanks to Andy Shepard and MWSC for making it happen!

Acadia Camp

2011-10-14T10:17:00.004-04:00

Fall Camp in Acadia was a big success - beautiful weather and great training all three days. On Saturday, we decided to mix things up a bit by stopping en route to Maren's camp and doing a bounding workout up Bald Mountain in Dedham. Bald Mountain is a basically a big chunk of granite plunked into the middle of the fields and woods of downeast Maine - it's a steep half-mile climb from bottom to top. Our workout was a variation on 30/30s that I learned from Walt Shepard - bound uphill for 30 seconds, then walk slowly downhill for 30 seconds, repeating until you reach the top. We did 2 trips up the mountain for a hard and fun VO2max workout. That afternoon, we did a short recovery run around Witch Hole Pond in the park. Later that evening, the team sat out on the rocks overlooking the water. The sun was setting, porpoises were swimming up the river, and we were eating delicious homemade enchiladas - what's better than that?

The next day was a long run/hike over several peaks on the eastern side of the island. We started with the Bubbles, then Pemetic, Cadillac, Dorr, Champlain, the Beehive, and Gorham - not a bad day's work. Finally, on Monday we ran the Around the Mountain loop, a hilly 12-mile loop on the carriage roads. Zach provided support on his bike, allowing the skiers to run with minimal gear. Erin and I closed out the workout with a little extra intensity, picking up the pace in an effort to chase down the boys in the final 2 1/2 miles - this felt surprisingly good at the end of 3 hard days of running, hiking, and bounding. All in all, three great days of training - perhaps the best Fall Camp we've ever had. Thanks to the Askins family for making it all possible!

Testing and Time Trial

2011-10-07T19:58:00.003-04:00

Official practice is underway! We've had a busy week, with fitness testing and a bike path time trial, among other workouts. Testing consisted of a 500m erg test, same as last year, and a short but nasty treadmill test (12 or 15% grade, speed increasing by 0.5mph every minute, to exhaustion). Chris and Erin were tops on the treadmill, and Steph and Riley had the fastest erg times. Pretty solid performances all around - a number of people were clustered near the top in both tests, and overall team fitness is looking good. This was confirmed yesterday with our bike path time trial - lots of people close together, and considerably faster times than last year's October test. More importantly, people just looked good - nice springy skiing. Some of these guys have improved their skiing tremendously since last season. Overall, I'm pretty excited about how the team looks after these first few days. Off to Acadia for Fall Camp tomorrow!

Here are the time trial results:

Women

Shelby - 11:55

Kaitlynn - 12:32

Steph - 12:53

Maren - 13:24

Men

Wilson - 9:47

Tyler - 10:05

Nate - 10:18

Spencer - 10:35

Riley - 10:38

Jackson - 10:40

Chris - 10:46

Alec - 10:49

Drew - 11:26

Mark - 12:01

Maren's Junior Recital

2011-09-29T16:50:00.003-04:00

I recently learned that Maren's junior recital had been posted on the Bowdoin Music Department website. I've never had the chance to hear Maren play, aside from occasional notes from her electric cello on ski trips, so it was a real pleasure to watch her performance from last spring. I've posted it here for the benefit of Bowdoin Nordic fans and music lovers everywhere.

Maren Askins '12, cello, accompanied by David Askins. from Bowdoin College on Vimeo.

New Assistant Coach Zach Stegeman

2011-09-13T15:45:00.003-04:00

I'm happy to announce that we've hired Zach Stegeman as our new assistant coach. Zach is a southern Maine native and a graduate of Yarmouth HS, where he was a teammate of Walt Shepard '10 (and yes, he's even older than Walt). He went on to earn a degree in History from St. Lawrence, where he was a four-year carnival team skier and team captain his senior year. After graduating in 2002, he was an assistant coach at Cape Elizabeth HS for two years and then head coach at North Yarmouth Academy for two years (where he coached Grace Hyndman '11). For the last five years, Zach has been living in Colorado Springs and working in sponsorship and marketing for USA Triathlon. We were lucky to have Zach show up on our radar when his wife Kathryn (former Bates Nordic captain) was hired as an Associate Dean of Admissions here at Bowdoin - fortunately for us, he was eager to get back into ski coaching. Zach comes to us highly recommended by lots of people in the Bowdoin Nordic family - I'm absolutely thrilled to have him on board!

Summer Recap

2011-09-08T09:31:00.003-04:00

Well, the semester is underway and students have been back on campus for several days, so I guess it's time for me to stop slacking and start updating this blog again. So far the year is off to a great start. Over these last few days, I've talked to most of our skiers, and I've been really impressed by the quality of training that people have done. Some people have been training by the book, while others have been doing less structured stuff, but almost everyone appears to be in great shape. Here are a few of the highlights:

Spencer spent the summer in Truckee training with a group of EISA skiers led by former Bates assistant Martin Benes. He racked up a ton of high-quality training with a good training partners - an ideal situation. He also got quite a bit of on-snow training in June, and he's had a lot of time to do focused technique work.

Erin was on campus for the summer - she did a lot of running, but also mixed it up and took advantage of the college resources by swimming, erging, and lifting quite a bit. I was happy to hear that she incorporated some speed work into every rollerski session she did this summer.

Kaitlynn spent a few weeks at home in VT doing great work with the Craftsbury club. This stint was bookended by a trip to England where she seemingly ran, walked, and hiked all over the country, and then a lengthy backpacking trip to the Sierra Nevadas.

Wilson worked as a raft guide in Glacier National Park. He did a decent amount of hiking and trail running and an incredible amount of paddling. I'm going to have a hard time challenging him with specific strength work this fall.

Chris taught ski lessons at the Snow Farm in New Zealand. He accumulated a massive amount of training through a regular routine of a morning trail run followed by a ski before work, and then another trail run in the afternoon. He did several races, including a great performance at the 30k Kangaroo Hoppet. He also was able to do regular technique work with Alexei Sotskov, coach of Vermont Academy and also the NZ National Team, and he's super excited about the progress he's made.

Steph and Riley both worked on trail crews. Steph was in Idaho - she reports that she carried a 70 pound pack and 20 pounds of tools while hiking several miles a day to and from the work sites. Riley was in New Hampshire. He came back to campus with a mohawk and quite a bit more muscle, so he's actually kind of scary right now - I think I'll be a little nicer to him this year.

One last thing - we revived a tradition I'd hoped would stay dormant when incoming first-year Shelby Aseltine separated her shoulder in a bike crash. That makes 4 first-year arm injuries in the past 4 years, all right at the start of the school year. Fortunately, she's making a quick recovery and should be back to full strength soon.

Overall, I'm extremely happy with how the summer went - I think the team's fitness is higher than it's ever been at this time of year. These guys have gotten me incredibly excited about the season, and I can't wait to start working with them in October!

Phlail Change - Trail Race!

2011-08-19T15:29:00.002-04:00

I'm happy to report that the 6th Annual Phil Soule Phlail will be a trail race instead of a road race. For various reasons, we've had to move the race from Whitter Field to the Pickard Field complex. Rather than running through the neighborhoods around Whittier, we'll be using the XC team's 5k race course (2 laps of a 2.5k loop). Although it's always hard to change an established event, I'm actually pretty excited about this. The old course was pretty unexciting - although the new course will be just as flat as ever, it's quite a nice little run, with a pleasant mix of grassy fields and wooded trails, with good footing throughout. Better yet, there's no traffic to worry about and (hopefully) minimal risk of people going off course. Also better parking, better indoor space, and internet access to help with timing. It's too bad to lose the connection to the football field and Phil's rock, but in the end I think that it'll be a better event because of the change. I'm hopeful that our local runners will agree!

Presidential Traverse 2011

2011-07-28T15:55:00.003-04:00

The Presidential Traverse is on its way to becoming a team tradition - Alec, Emma, Riley, Kaitlynn, and incoming first-year Tyler DeAngelis completed this massive hike a few weeks ago. Here are some photos from Kaitlynn:

A group photo on top of Madison.

Looking back towards Adams and Madison.

Emma and Me on top of the last peak of the day (Mt. Pierce) with Washington in the background.

Nordic Training Sources

2011-07-15T17:49:00.002-04:00

Former Gould Academy coach Dick Taylor has started a new website that explores nordic skiing from a multidisciplinary perspective grounded in sports science. For me, this is an incredibly welcome resource - I think that sports science is somewhat undervalued by the US nordic ski racing community, and consequently there's not a lot of science-based discussion about the sport in this country. This site has some great articles that have challenged me to think critically about my approach to coaching - always a good thing. It's pretty dense stuff, but well worth the time - check it out!

Truckee Sucks - Don't Come to Truckee!

2011-07-05T16:22:00.004-04:00

Spencer sends word from Truckee, where he's training with a group of other Eastern college skiers:

This photo pretty much sums it up. Due to a ton of late season snow we've been able to get in a bunch of awesome skiing in. The Auburn Ski Club has done an amazing job grooming, in temperatures that barely get below freezing at night and in the 70's during the day, to give us pretty solid tracks every weekend for over a month now.

When not skiing there are tons of hills to run and roller ski up. A few times a week we work out with the local junior program. It has been a lot of fun to see a bunch of younger kids excited about skiing. They also have a bunch of really good coaches who have made training so far a blast and have helped me with my technique a bunch, especially in avoiding bad habits while roller skiing. Despite being dominated by Bates skiers, who are actually quite nice, it has been a ton of fun to train with a bunch of other skiers from the East . We've definitely benefited from pushing each other during strength sessions and have done a lot of work on improving our bodies' tolerance for questionable but DELICIOUS Mexican food.

Despite training pretty hard there are still a bunch of opportunities to get out and have fun/shred the huge amounts of vertical here. Aside from the skiing there is also a bunch awesome single track mountain biking to be done. Luckily the 4th of July is on an off day so we get to take full advantage of a bunch of alpine areas opening up for the day. If that isn't one of the best opportunities to ski in jorts and a cut-off t-shirt I don't know what would be.

Reunion BBQ!

2011-06-27T16:43:00.006-04:00

We hosted a ski team alumni barbecue at the Schwartz Outdoor Leadership Center last Saturday. We had a decent turnout of alumni, ex-coaches, and family members - almost 40 people all told. It was great to reconnect with old friends and meet a few new folks, and it was especially fun to hear people share their experiences with the team. It's actually a bit humbling to learn more about team history - over the years a lot of people have worked really hard to keep the team alive and build the program, and we wouldn't be where we are today without their efforts. As importantly, it's clear that Bowdoin Skiing was an important part of many people's college experience - this event was a chance to rekindle some of that energy. Over the past few years, we've been gradually working to reconnect with ski team alumni, and I think we're off to a good start. In the months and years to come, we'll be looking for more ways to get the alumni together - keep an eye on this blog and the Friends of Bowdoin Skiing Facebook page.

Thanks to all of the folks who turned out for the get-together! Thanks also to Andy and Betsey Shepard for helping to get the ball rolling on the event, to Outing Club Director Mike Woodruff for use of the Schwartz Center, to Alumni Relations for helping get the word out, and to Dining Service for a fine spread.

(photo courtesy of Hannah Shepard)

Finley's New Best Friend

2011-06-14T21:56:00.003-04:00

Back before school ended, several skiers generously offered to babysit the kids while Shannon and I went out one evening. The next day, Finley remarked, "Spencer is my best friend." When I asked him why, he said, "He is kind and sweet." So there you have it - Spencer really is a good guy. Thanks to all of the skiers for their thoughtfulness!

Graduation 2011!

2011-05-31T14:00:00.003-04:00

Last Saturday was Graduation Day - we sent Grace and Walt off into the world. Graduation is always a happy and sad day, and this one was no exception. Grace joined the team at the same time I arrived - she's the first Bowdoin skier I've coached through a full 4 years. During that time, she's been an integral part of the team - the character and leadership she brought to the team won't be easily replaced. It's been a pleasure watching her develop as an athlete and a person. As for Walter, it's been a long road - for him, this day was many years in the making. He's done as much as anyone to put our program on the map these last few years, and he's set a high bar for future Bowdoin skiers to strive for. It was a real privilege to have him rejoin the team this year as a volunteer assistant as well. Both of them will be dearly missed, but I suspect that we'll be seeing them both around in the not-too-distant future. Congratulations Grace and Walt!

Thoughts on This Season and Next

2011-04-29T16:42:00.003-04:00

Earlier this week I sent the team the outline of our 2011-12 training plan. As usual, before finalizing this plan I did a lot of thinking about last season and had a lot of good conversations with athletes about what worked and what didn't. Here are a few thoughts:

I'm pretty pleased with the season. Our fall training was excellent - definitely the best fall we've had in my 4 years. People were focused and positive, team chemistry was good (aside from a few bumps), and most people stayed pretty healthy. Our results continued to improve - I would say that this was perhaps our best overall team performance ever. We've had some great individual performances over the years, and occasionally one half of the team or another has been outstanding, but this year we got very solid skiing on the men's and women's side alike. We improved our classic skiing in particular - in fact, I felt that our classic results were actually a bit stronger than our skate, if anything. We haven't been anywhere close to even in the 2 techniques since I've been here, so this feels good. So, a very good season.

But, of course, there are lots of things we can improve on - although we're taking baby steps forward, there's still a long way to go before we can be consistently competitive with the rest of EISA. Here are a few of the things we'll be tweaking for next year:

1. More hills! How does one train on hills in Brunswick? I don't have a good answer yet, but I'm going to spend the summer figuring this out. I've known for a long time that our lack of hills was a disadvantage, but this year it really hit me when almost every skier noted a clear disparity between their ability to be competitive on flats versus climbs. An occasional trip to Pineland or Bradbury for bounding isn't enough. Next year we'll be headed to these places more frequently, as well as Gloucester Hill, Penny Rd, and Ridge Rd for rollerskiing. We may also try to do more with the short hills that we have in the area - I just need to get creative and break out of the "3-minute hill" mindset. I'm also not above using artificial hills once in a while - ie, stadium steps, treadmill, etc. We won't be caught dead running up the Tower stairs, though - ugh.

2. Quicker start to the carnival season. This has varied over the years, but our team often seems to be a bit flat to start the carnival season. It's been nice to improve throughout the season, and we consistently put up our best results at Regionals, but I think we can have it both ways - be more competitive in January without peaking early. One of our skiers pointed out that we don't time trial much, and this is certainly true. In fact, we don't do much high intensity training of any sort until late fall. I think this is generally a good thing, but recent patterns would seem to indicate that we can be a bit more aggressive. Specifically, we'll have a more even sprinkling of high-intensity training added to our threshold work throughout the summer and fall, as well as a few more time trials. Some skiers will also need to be more assertive about finding race opportunities over Winter Break - this is a critical link between fall training and the carnival season.

3. Modified strength program. Nothing new here - I tweak the strength plan every year. Truthfully, I don't think anyone really knows the best way to do strength training for cross-country skiing - there are a million different approaches out there, and lots of highly successful skiers use very different programs. So I'll keep playing around with different ideas - one of these years I'll find the perfect plan and win a Nobel Prize for Nordic Skiing. For next year, I think we can make some small but productive changes. I may end up recycling some old ideas that perhaps I gave up on too soon and patching these together with some of the stuff we already do. Not sure how/if I can make it all fit together smoothly, but that's what the summer is for.

We'll mix up a few other things as well - more "unpredictable" training, an adjusted speed workout, and a really awesome treadmill test - but in general, we have a good training framework that seems to be effective. We also have a really motivated group of skiers coming back and some fired-up newcomers - next season should be fun!

Tuckerman's Trip

2011-04-13T14:47:00.003-04:00

Spencer sends this post about a classic spring ski trip:

Each year there is a narrow window when the race season ends and there is still some lingering snow to be exploited. Over the last few years some of have used this time to get in our fix of the other type of skiing. Last Saturday, Maren, Riley, and I went and skied Mt. Washington for what turned out to be one of the best days of skiing I've ever had. First off the weather and conditions were amazing, which brought people in the thousands - one of the Rangers there guessed about 2500 people made the hike up that day. The combination of a high number of people there and the pretty technical level of skiing led to a ton of spectacular wipeouts in which people would slide up to several hundred yards down the bowl, almost always followed by cheers and applause from a very sizable peanut gallery, including a few Colby skiers.

After the 3ish mile hike into Tuckerman's Ravine where most of the skiing takes place, we first hiked up the main headwall into the upper snowfield and skied back down to the bottom of the bowl. Maren pretty solidly proved that she was a far better skier than Riley and I and ripped down the headwall leaving us to more cautiously make our way down. Next we hiked up almost to the summit for an awesome view of Wildcat and the Northern Presidentials. It was a great day, way cooler than I can give justice to, so here are some awesome photos we took along the way. . .

A view above the top of the headwall.

Riley and Spencer (below) climbing up the headwall.

Maren and Riley near the summit.

The three of us with the mountain in the background.

Ski Team Reunion - Date Change

2011-03-30T16:12:00.003-04:00

For those who haven't heard, we're planning a ski team reunion for this summer. Unfortunately, we've had to change the date - it is now June 25th instead of June 11th. We'll have a barbecue from 5-8pm - it should be a fun chance to reconnect with old teammates and share stories and classic photos like this one:

Family members are welcome, of course, including parents - we'd love to have anyone who's a fan of Bowdoin Skiing in attendance. I'll be sending out registration info to alumni shortly - anyone who's not on the alumni list should contact me for more information. Also, Andy Shepard has started a Facebook page with photos and updates. Hope to see you there!

Jeff Bush - Pro Ski Racer

2011-03-28T14:46:00.002-04:00

I got an email from Jeff Bush '10 last week, who's been out in Colorado working for an outdoor education program. I'm happy to report that not only has he stayed in touch with xc ski racing, he's winning cash money. Here's the story:

I've been very tempted by the dark side (telemark skiing) here in Colorado and not nordic skiing as much as I should have. However, I got motivated enough to do two races and train a tiny bit for them. This entails one threshold workout and three or four skis total, but it was better than nothing. The first race was the Leadville Loppet, where I entered the 22k. It was a great day for racing and I got off to a solid start, in the lead pack. I skied smart for the beginning and drafted a bunch of different master blasters. Then I would race ahead on the downhills and catch someone else. My tragic error came in the last 3k where I took a wrong turn and lost sight of the skier I was about to pass. I pulled myself together and managed to finish 5th (6th if you count the classic winner), which I was happy about - 1st place in my age group, too, although I was the only one. Other than the turn though it was a very strong performance for me - I skied smart, and even though I was racing at 10,000 ft I used my knowledge of the sport rather than fitness to gain an advantage.

The second race was even more fun - a 600m sprint down Harrison Ave, the main street in Leadville. It was a small event, organized by the HS coach. There were head to head sprints on the snow they trucked in and I got to race in my favorite discipline, the super short sprint. I generally am very modest and try very hard not to sound pompous or arrogant, but there really wasn't any competition for me; there is no other accurate way to describe it. I won every race without contention. It was a fun experience for me, though, because I have actually never won a ski race before, and I also won $50! Not bad for a retired college skier.

It's always fun to hear about alumni racing success. One of these years we'll have to organize an alumni race...

Sugarloaf Marathon

2011-03-21T14:44:00.002-04:00

Alec, Riley and Walt raced the Sugarloaf Marathon on Saturday - all 3 of them turned in solid performances. Skiing in his first and only race of the season, Walt skied with the leaders for a long time, and actually made a big move to break away from the pack around 30k - only eventual winner Wyatt Fereday was able to stay with him. Sadly, he blew up spectacularly at 42k - although he struggled mightily to hold off the chase pack, they finally caught and passed him just a couple kilometers from the finish, and he ended up in 7th. Nonetheless, it was an impressive performance from a guy who's trained less than I have this year. Alec turned in yet another strong 50k effort, finishing just a couple minutes behind Walt in 8th - the way these last few weeks have gone, we might have to turn him into a marathon specialist. Riley wasn't far behind Alec in 10th. Congratulations to Alec and Riley for completing the Triple Crown of New England marathons: Rangely, Bretton Woods, and Sugarloaf. Three marathons in 3 weeks is a heroic feat, especially for a couple of first-years with no previous marathon experience. Very impressive accomplishment - well done guys!

Results

A Humble Poem

2011-03-18T14:23:00.002-04:00

Steph has turned her poetic talents toward a summary of the ski season:

Kaitlynn and Erin asked for a season recap

So here is a bit of poetic slap

We met at Mac House in the early fall

At first, roller skiing on Maquoit was a haul

Mark joined the team on a whim

We were blessed by his rear, which is far from slim

Scrambling up Baldface in the rain

Together, we learned to usher in the pain

Morse Mountain was our first hard workout

Dinner on the beach was fun, without a doubt

Later, playing Taboo we learned who was smart

And in Reed House we saw the fires begin to start

The following week the season began

Nathan and Tim showed up to drive the van

Fall break in the Bigelows was the best

Sleeping in Tim’s Cabin, the boys had a bro-fest

Back on campus, we ran the Phlail

Felted rocks for prizes, what a fail!

Riley learned that practice required gloves

And, the Beatles impersonator taught him: “all you need is love”

The Lobster Roll at North Haven was hard for some

Frisbee initiation nearly killed the fun

Parents weekend came and went

Scott and Dan gave the team some supplement

Then, we headed to Canada for Thanksgiving break

Spencer and Wilson, much bread did they bake

The abroad contingent finally returned

The freshman’s love, Maren and Erin soon earned

The snow at Foret was a great start

In our video, I had the only speaking part

Our potluck holiday was a meal oversize

An enchilada dinner took the cooking prize

Finally, we arrived at the Christmas Holiday

What would begin were three weeks of play

But back on campus, Nordic beards were showing

Although, there were no girls, at our boys throwing

In January the carnival season did commence

Racing at Lake Placid was super intense

Chris treated us to a lecture about keeping the vans clean

Although, whose oatmeal bowl on the floor was then seen?

The course at Bond Brook made me want to die

In fact, when skiing the down hills I started to cry

Kaitlynn’s top fifteen outdid Wilson’s performance

As a result, a mullet briefly enhanced Tim’s appearance

On Saturday, Nathan taught us to ski with a beam

Thus, the Broomhall Cup went well for the team

Racing Vermont was hilly and hard

But dinner at Kaitlynn’s made it worth every yard

Carnie Crush weekend was certainly a success

Full of photographed skiers in varying states of undress

As if to provide the strength of our team an advertisement

James once again broke his equipment

For the New Hampshire races the boys stayed at my house

Timmy slept in the bed of his potential future spouse

The season wrapped up at Black Mountain in Rumford

Bowdoin was skiing so fast it was absurd

It was Grace's final race of the year

Next fall will not be the same without her, I fear

The season ended where is began

In Mac house we located our final plans

All told, this season has been absolutely insane

But Spring break is here, and I’m off to Spain

JNs Wrap-up and Bretton Woods

2011-03-13T22:58:00.002-04:00

Junior Nationals is over, with New England taking a decisive victory. It's been a good week for James. Friday's 10k skate race wasn't his best, but he hung in for a respectable 33rd. In Saturday's 3x3k classic relay, he skied a very good scramble leg and put his team right in the mix with the 7th fastest split time (final team finish was 9th). Overall, a fun experience and a great way to cap off a very successful season.

Full Results

Meanwhile, a few of the boys headed over to Bretton Woods yesterday for another marathon. Alec appears to be some kind of closet marathon specialist - he had another great race, finishing 10th in a field filled with college skiers. Riley skied to a solid 16th place finish. Great work by both guys to complete their second marathon in 2 weekend. Spencer had intended to race, but he suffered a freak cheese-making accident last week that left him with stitches in one hand (this would only happen to Spencer), so he skied part of the 25k with no poles just for fun. It sounds like this same crew is headed to Sugarloaf next weekend for yet another marathon - they'll be up against Walt, who's making a big comeback with his first and only race of the season - should be fun to see how it goes.

50k Results

NCAA Races Live

2011-03-10T19:28:00.002-05:00

NCAA Championships got underway yesterday with the 5/10k skate - tomorrow is the 15/20k classic. You can watch a live webcast of the races here. I caught most of yesterday's races - it was pretty exciting to watch the coverage side-by-side with the live timing. Tomorrow's races are mass start, so it should be even better.

JNs Update

2011-03-09T16:53:00.002-05:00

Junior Nationals is well underway in Minneapolis. James has acquitted himself well so far - a respectable 23rd in the skate sprint on Monday, followed by a stellar 7th place finish in today's 15k classic (just missed 6th by a boot length - still need to work on lunges, I guess). Today's race was particularly impressive - he was right in the thick of a group of great skiers. I'm pretty sure that today's effort will earn him All-American status, although this information isn't out yet. For what it's worth, he was also faster than all of the J1s, some of whom are pretty nasty. The J1s and OJs had completely separate races, so it's hard to say how different conditions and tactics affected the times - in any case, it's clear that James is skiing at a really high level right now. Great work, James!

Results

Rangeley and the Last Day

2011-03-08T10:57:00.002-05:00

Last Saturday saw a small but hardy crew make the journey up to Rangeley for what has become an end-of-season Bowdoin Nordic tradition: the Rangeley Lakes Loppet. Alec, Spencer, Wilson, Riley, Rainer, and Tim all raced the 50k. The day started out suprisingly cold and windy, but shortly after the start things began to warm up and the snow got decently fast. The pace was relaxed, to say the least, in the early kilometers, and several skiers stayed with the lead pack for a long time, including Spencer, Wilson, and Tim. Eventually, Tim went to the front and started pushing the pace a bit, which thinned things out somewhat, but there was still a group of 8 or 9 skiers on the train by the lap. Gradually, people started falling off the back, including Wilson and Tim, but Spencer stayed with the lead group. Finally, master skier Phil Lawson showed the youngsters who was boss, making a big move with about 8k to go and breaking up the pack on a series of hard climbs. I was sad to see Spencer get dropped, but on the other hand it's always good for the college boys to get an occasional reminder that the wily veterans can still get it done. Meanwhile, Tim used the hills to move up, and the two of them ended up skiing the last few kilometers with John Dixon from Colby. Fortunately, they both pulled away from John before the final sprint, when, unsurprisingly, Spencer outkicked Tim to lock up a respectable 5th place finish. It wasn't Spencer's best day, but it was a pretty impressive effort considering that he was fighting a bad cold and probably shouldn't have been racing (with carnivals over, he figured he might as well go for it). Wilson was not far behind, gutting out an 8th place finish that left him wrecked for the next couple days (seems like he was in the process of falling victim to the same thing Spencer had, but on steroids). Alec had the race of the day - he finished 11th in hist first-ever 50k. This was probably his best race of the season - he skied smoothly throughout the race and outlasted a number of good skiers. Riley ran a bit low on fuel, but hung in there to finish 19th, while Rainer battled his way to 49th - this was the first 50k for both of them as well. All told, a great effort by all of our guys, and a very fun and challenging day.

Results

With Rangeley in the books, we rallied for one final team practice on Sunday - a victory lap of sorts. After a nice easy ski, we finished with a great game of Polasky Ball - the team's PB skills have improved remarkably since camp, which was nice to see. And with that, our season is officially over. Lots more individual post-season racing is in the works for March, including James at JNs (reports to follow soon), but the 2010-11 edition of Bowdoin Nordic is now part of history.

Regionals Recap

2011-03-03T11:17:00.005-05:00

Shamefully late, I know, but here's a recap of a fantastic weekend at Regionals:

Saturday morning (5/10k skate) was cold and windy, with a several inches of new snow on the ground from a storm earlier in the week - tough conditions for racing, but our team stayed focused and positive. They've done a great job of this for the last several weeks - one of the things I'm most proud of them for. Hannah came out strong again, finishing 30th. Times were incredibly tight - 8.4 seconds would have put her in 21st. Lots of fast skiers in that group just ahead of her - a good sign that she's skiing at a high level. She'll be on the right side of those battles next year. Kaitlynn was just a few seconds back in 36th, and Emma skied her best skate race of the year to finish 53rd. On the men's side, Spencer led with a 23rd place finish, followed by James in 30th, his first NCAA points after a few near misses. Times were again tight, with James just 50 seconds from the top 10. Scott rounded out the scoring with one of his best races of the season, finishing 38th. Spencer's finish put him ahead of Walt for the most top-30 finishes of any Bowdoin male skier in history. Here's a photo to commemorate the occasion, courtesy of Andy Shepard:

More fresh snow greeted us for Sunday's 15/20k classic. The final long mass start race of the year has generally been one of our best races, and this one was no exception. Spencer and James got themselves in good position out of the start and gradually started moving up as the race progressed. Entering the final lap, both of them looked like they were starting to fade, with Spencer trying to hang onto the top 20 and James just outside the top 30. Luckily, I was wrong - Spencer held it together and picked off another skier to finish 19th, and James found an inner reserve and blew past several skiers in the last few k to finish 25th. Riley quietly had a great race as well, moving up throughout the race and digging for a couple extra places in the final kilometers - he finished 42nd to close out an outstanding rookie season.

The women's race was equally exciting. In the early going, I saw a few slips and got really nervous, but the skiers pulled it together and got the skis working - they were fast on the downhills, with just enough kick for the climbs. Kaitlynn skied her usual calm, determined race, moving from the 20s into the teens. She finished 14th, ahead of several NCAA qualifiers and close behind a number of great skiers. She's so relaxed and patient in classic races that it's easy to take her results for granted, but this would be a mistake - her achievements have been remarkable this year, well beyond anything we've seen from a Bowdoin first-year woman. Hannah also had a great race, finishing 30th, a career-best for classic. It was a thrill to see her chase down a couple of Williams skiers in the last kilometer to secure a top-30 finish. Emma skied another excellent race, perhaps the best racing I've seen from her, finishing 50th as our 3rd scorer. The women also had their best team finish of the season - they beat Colby, tied Harvard, and were just 2 points behind St. Lawrence and Williams. It's exciting to be in contention with teams that have always been well ahead of us - a great sign of progress.

Overall, it was a great weekend - very satisfying to end the season at our best. I'm extremely proud of how everyone skied, especially in the classic race - the skiers were incredibly determined. I'm not normally one to play up the "pain and suffering" aspect of the sport, but it was impossible to not notice how hard our skiers were working on Sunday - they were absolutely destroying themselves as they fought for every second. If we bring this same focus and desire into next season, we have a lot to look forward to.

On a more sad note, Grace's college ski career came to an end last weekend. It's been a pleasure watching her develop as both an athlete and an individual over the past 4 years. She's been a fantastic captain this year and was largely responsible for turning our women into a super cohesive group. It'll be impossible to replace her leadership next year - we'll miss her dearly, and we'll look forward to seeing what the future holds for her.

And that's the end of our official college season. A few folks will do Rangeley this weekend, and James is headed to Minnesota for JNs. After that, everyone goes their own way for Spring Break and various other race opportunities. I'll keep the updates coming.

Midd and EC Photos

2011-02-25T12:38:00.007-05:00

Lots of great photos from last weekend, courtesy of Scott McGovern, Hannah Miller, and the Kenneys:

ECT at the Silver Fox Trot - Steph, Rainer, Mark, and James

James

Rainer

Mark

Maren

Kaitlynn

Hannah

Riley

Wilson

Scott

Grace

Emma

Chris

Wilson and Scott

Alec

Spencer

Middlebury and EC Wrap-up

2011-02-21T16:35:00.004-05:00

Just a quick recap of much racing action from the weekend:

Friday's skate at Middlebury was a very good day for our team. We had weird weather - super warm, windy, and intermittent rain - almost winter thunderstorm weather. Our skiers weren't fazed, though, and we posted some great results, highlighted by the Eusden brothers' stellar skiing - 14th for Spencer and a personal-best 41st for Riley. Riley was crushing it - he looked like a whole different skier out there. Got to love first-years - they get better every week. Good skiing on the women's side as well. Hannah was burning it up for the first 5k - V2-ing up hills and holding her own against the top skiers in the 6th seed. She got tired and lost some ground on the last lap, but still a very competitive 30th place finish. Kaitlynn was just behind in 31st - a well-paced effort that saw her gain several places in the last couple kilometers. In the team scoring, the men beat UNH - this means that we've beaten every team except Dartmouth, UVM, and Williams in at least one event this year - gives us a clear goal for Regionals...

Saturday's sprint relay was a bit less successful. We were fired up for the races, and the skiers left everything out there, but we just couldn't hang in with most of the other teams. Not our day, for whatever reason. Lots of good fire, though - everyone was battling hard, and Grace in particular seemed to find another gear, which was fun to see. We also discovered that Sanville prefers to be "yelled at" in short races - this quickly devolved into derogatory comments about the Birkie and other Midwestern institutions, which was fun. Not our typical coaching approach, but it seemed to help him ski faster. Overall, a very fun day in spite of the results.

Meanwhile, the ECT spent the weekend in New Hampshire contesting the final 2 Eastern Cup races. The whole crew raced well all weekend - Steph and Rainer had fantastic skate races, and Mark got back into the action after a nasty illness that kept him sidelined for the past month. James was chasing a berth on the Junior National team - he qualified by crushing Sunday's classic race. New England has more depth than any other region in the country, so this was a great accomplishment. He'll be headed to Minnesota shortly after the end of the carnival season - we're excited to see how he fares!

Eastern Cup Results

Lots of photos to follow in a future post, thanks to the great crew of parents who supported the team at both events. Particular thanks to Patti and Gary Lynn for hosting the ECT in beautiful Bow, NH - this trip would have been hard to pull off without their help.

Dartmouth Carnival

2011-02-15T17:15:00.008-05:00

Great skiing at Dartmouth last weekend. Thanks to this stellar winter we're having, there was plenty of snow at Oak Hill. With its winding trails, technical downhills, and challenging climbs, Oak Hill is always a fun place for a race. Good weather and solid performances for our team, including a huge race for Hannah in the 5k skate - her 24th place finish was her best of the season and 2nd best ever. We knew she was poised to break through soon, and she did. Emma had a great race as well, using her farm girl strength to power her way to a personal best 49th place finish in the 15k classic - great to see her coming back strong after a lingering illness over Winter Break. Alec skied very well in his first collegiate 20k, and Spencer finished just outside the top 20 on both days - probably his best all-around carnival ever. The weekend wasn't without some frustrations - the abrasive snow on Saturday caused a few people to lose their wax partway through the classic race, and James broke his boot midway through what was shaping up to be a great performance. Still, it was a very good weekend overall, and one that leaves me feeling like we're on track to have great finishes in the final two carnivals.

Much thanks to the many team parents who showed up with food and cheers. Thanks also to the long-lost alums who showed up on Saturday bearing donuts and helping with feeds: Matt Bowers '10, Elissa Rodman '10, and Jeremy Huckins '05. Great to see you guys again!

Here are a few photos from the indefatigable Kenney family:

Men and Beards

2011-02-10T22:55:00.005-05:00

Here are some thoughts from Wilson about the men's team performance this season:

With so much talent departing from our senior class last year it looked like this season would be a wash. We lost our top two guys, and I'll admit I was pretty pessimistic about the Bowdoin men's chances for doing anything at all this season. But then December came in, and with it a glimmer of hope for the Bowdoin men - Rainer put down his razor and said enough was enough. Pretty soon Spencer and myself decided that we too were done accepting mediocrity. Unfortunately, most of our freshmen seemed to worry that this was some sort of prank or hazing ritual - and to make matters worse one of our top men thought that by going for broke he would ruin his chances with the ladies (he didn't have a chance as it was). Bowdoin, however, would not be undone. We got back to campus and started working like we've never worked before. I am pleased to say that a team which came in with almost no talent whatsoever rose to the occasion and put in some fairly respectable showings for the Bowdoin Nordic team's most important competition. Yes, I am talking about one of Bowdoin College's oldest traditions/competitions - the 214th annual Men's Nordic Team Beard Growing competition (The competition took several years off during WWI and WWII out of respect for the soldiers).

In the tradition of other great Bowdoin Beards like Matthew Bowers' interpretation of Ambrose Burnside's, Niko Kubota's 7 stray chin hairs, Nat Herz's single side burn, and countless other exhibits of pure Skill, Determination, Talent, and Hardwork I am pleased to announce the 2011 Nordic Beards:

UVM Carnival/Stowe Eastern Cup

2011-02-07T14:18:00.009-05:00

Another good weekend at Trapps at the combined UVM Carnival/Eastern Cup. This was our best weekend so far as a team - good solid skiing by everyone. Friday's mass start 15/20k classic was highlighted by Kaitlynn's 19th place finish. The women beat Colby for the first time in years - I can't even guess when that last happened. The men were solid as well, with Spencer and Wilson in the top 30 and James just missing it by a lunge. Sub-par skis for a couple people kept a good day from becoming a great day, but even so this was our best ever classic showing at a carnival.

Saturday's skate was beautiful and sunny, with tons of Eastern Cup skiers joining the college crowd. Spencer led the way in 20th, following his usual pattern of picking up steam after a sluggish January. Wilson scored NCAA points for the 4th time in 5 qualifiers - he finished 29th, just 15 seconds from another top 20. Kaitlynn was our top woman in 34th with her best skate performance of the year. Hannah had a great half-race - at 2k she was just 15 seconds down to Erika Flowers of Dartmouth (who ended up finishing 4th) and she stayed on Erika's tail for another kilometer before an unfortunate stumble and face plant. This cost her a lot of time and momentum, and her result wasn't anything remarkable - still, her performance in those first 3k tells me that she's capable of skiing in the upper half of the field. With a little better luck in these next few races, she'll have some nice finishes.

Sunday's Eastern Cup also went well, although it was lightly attended by Bowdoin skiers due to illness. Grace, Alec, and Rainer all scored some of their best NENSA points ever.

EISA Results
Eastern Cup Results

Much thanks to the parents who came out to support the team this weekend. Deborah Miller hosted our team for a delicious dinner on Friday, with some help from the Lynn family, and several families were in attendance at the races with food and cheering. Here are some photos courtesy of Greg Askins and the Kenney family.

Astute alums will recognize John B. Hall '08 on the right - he and his family came out to cheer on the team on Saturday.

Saturday was also Hannah's 20th birthday.

We just found out that Dan has mono - what a bummer. After a nagging shoulder injury that cost him a lot of training and racing last year, he wasn't due for any more bad luck for a while, but he got it anyway. Here's hoping that he'll be able to make the most of these last few weeks and then have a huge season next year.

Great Day at the Broomhall!

2011-02-01T15:46:00.008-05:00

The Broomhall Cup is always a fun event - it's great to get all of the Maine teams together to compete for a championship. This Sunday was no exception - a great day for a classic race, and one of our best days ever as a team. After finishing 3rd for the first four years of this race's existence, we managed a 2nd place finish this year, beating Bates and giving Colby a run for the win. Great skiing all around - I couldn't be more proud of the team. Huge thanks to Cookie Monster Tom Cook, who generously donated his Sunday to serve as our 3rd wax tech, and old friend Shem Dixon, who jumped in to bail us out with some last minute waxing before the start of the men's race - the day wouldn't have gone nearly so well without their help. Much thanks also to the parents, who were out in force to cheer, take photos, and set up a wonderful post-race spread.

Results here (scroll down on the sidebar).

Here are some photos courtesy of Greg Askins and Dyk Eusden:

Where is Dan's bib? It was right in the pile, #72...

Oh, there it is. On Spencer. Bib #12 still sitting sad and lonely next to the wax table. Fortunately for us, the Broomhall is a friendly event, and opposing coaches declined the opportunity to disqualify him (thanks guys!)

Wilson quick off the start line.

A 40-person race makes for a nice clean mass start.

Spencer and Wilson were locked together for the whole race - they took turns leading and worked together for a fantastic 2-3 finish (Wilson won the sprint).

Emma and Maren working the downhill.

Photos like this make you realize that Riley is really quite tall. Another great race for him - he finished in good company, right in the midst of some very good skiers.

On Saturday, we worked on creating a positive mental atmosphere in order to stay relaxed while racing. Rainer did a great job of this on Sunday and skied super smoothly.

I tend to think of Scott as a slow-twitcher because he's a skinny runner type, but this is false - he sprints quite well (did you know that he used to play football?) He didn't win this battle against John Dixon of Colby, one of the best classic sprinters in the East, but it was way closer than one might have expected.

Maren took my advice about smiling while racing to heart. This was easily her best race ever as a Bowdoin skier.

Kaitlynn skied with the lead pack for several kilometers, ending up 4th behind 3 of EISA's top classic skiers.

Very gritty effort by James on his way to a 7th place finish.

Hannah ended up leading this train and gradually dropping them to finish 5th - great to see her finding her form after a slow start to the season.

Grace skiing smoothly as always - looking quite casual in shades and Hattonwear.

Erin's double pole is starting to come back after a fall spent on the bike.

Very good race for Emma, who's coming back from a nagging bronchitis-type thing.

Chris's striding looked about as good as I've seen it on Sunday.

Alec is also coming back from illness - he missed several weeks but is getting stronger every week.

Steph at the finish - so good to be done.

Happy girls.

Which one of these is not like the other? (Hint: Rainer has his tights on backward).

A fine day for the Bowdoin Nordic team.

Skate Relay Photos

2011-01-25T15:42:00.006-05:00

Some photos from Saturday's skate relay, courtesy of Greg Askins:

Colby Carnival

2011-01-22T21:09:00.002-05:00

All kinds of excitement at the Colby Carnival this weekend. First, the 5k race loop was cut down to a 3.3k loop to eliminate some challenging turns that some coaches felt were too sketchy. Next, the races were shortened to 10/10k due to the shorter loops. Then, a huge storm rolled in on Friday morning, and it snowed heavily before and throughout the classic race. Lastly and most importantly, we had some very good performances both days. The big highlights were a 13th for Kaitlynn and an 18th for Wilson in the classic race. Wilson skied smoothly throughout the race and basically just crushed it, even though he was the last carnival starter and was skiing alone for most of the race. Kaitlynn got off to a slow start, but was able to jump in behind one of UVM's top skiers halfway through the race, and she hung on all the way to the finish - a nice display of tenacity. To my knowledge, this was the best-ever finish for a Bowdoin Nordic first-year woman. It was great to see things come together for these two - the whole team gets energized by results like these.

Today's skate relay also went well. Our women's A team ended up a respectable 18th with the A team men in 10th, which is one of our better relay finishes ever. The men beat Middlebury for the first time since 2007 and ended up 6th in the team scoring. Overall, a solid step forward from last weekend. Lots of people who were flat in Lake Placid are starting to come around. Not everyone has found their top form yet, and consequently we're not quite where we want to be as a team, but we're making progress - lots of reason for optimism. Best of all, there's tons of snow at Pineland, cold temps in the forecast, and no racing until next Sunday. We're looking forward to some great skiing and productive training this week.

Results

MvW Underway

2011-01-19T22:03:00.003-05:00

With several inches of snow falling yesterday, the roads were messy enough that we decided to minimize driving by training at Mt. Ararat. Mt. Ararat HS coach Ed Mendes grooms a nice little set of trails around the fields and through the woods behind the school, including a pretty decent hill. We started off with a sprint relay, the first of the Maine vs. World events. World pulled off a comeback win in a race filled with crashes. More crashes were in store in our next MvW event - we combined hill repeats with a series of downhill races. Maine evened the score thanks to a heroic effort by the Eusdens and Grace's upset win over previously undefeated Kaitlynn. Many impressive body prints were left in the trailside powder, mine included - one of my best crashes in a while, thanks to a slow-witted Alaskan standing in the middle of the turn. Overall, not a bad workout for a sloppy conditions day, and it was fun to check out a new training venue.

Today we started things off with Round 3 of MvW - the baking/dessert contest. The judging proved to be absolutely painful, as both entries were fantastic. Maine's truffles were technically dazzling and near professional quality, but World's apple tart had that down-homey quality that has made America what it is today (ie, really overweight). 3-2, World - could have just as easily gone the other way.

With our blood sugar running high, we headed to Pineland for some sprints. More sloppy skiing due to yesterday's snow and the classic coastal Maine "wintery mix," but we managed another productive workout. First, Maine narrowly edged World in the agility course relay to even things up at 3-3. Next, we combined our sprints with more downhill work, racing in small groups around the hairpin turn just off the teaching field. More spectacular crashes - I think Rainer and Sanville were having some sort of contest to see who could auger in most deeply. Toward the end of the session, Riley pulled of this impressive maneuver:

Fortunately, everyone survived, and I think they even sharpened their turning skills. I was actually pretty pleased with how things came around. I've heard that this weekend's course at Bond Brook has some nice technical turns - looking forward to seeing how our skiers handle them!

SLU Skate

2011-01-17T16:05:00.004-05:00

Saturday's skate race was another great day for racing - nice and cold temps, with a little fresh snow. The course was gently rolling, with lots of turns and a few short, steep climbs. It ended up being deceptively hard - with so many racers, the hills got chopped up and fairly sloppy, and most people who went out fast faded hard. It wasn't a great day for our team - several people are feeling tired right now, while others just haven't found their race legs yet. There were some bright spots, though, most notably Wilson's 29th place finish - his first ever NCAA points! It's great to see him getting off to such a strong start after two up and down seasons.

Some race photos, courtesy of the Kenney family:

SLU Carnival Day 1

2011-01-14T23:24:00.002-05:00

5/10k classic at the SLU Carnival today. The event is doubling as a SuperTour, so there was a good crowd of fast skiers on hand. Due to low snow at Mt. Van Hovenburg, the race was held on a 2k loop at the ski jumps - a very challenging loop with lots of climbing. We had a decent opening to the carnival season - results weren't amazing, but people looked solid. Wilson and James led the men - 37 & 38 for EISA skiers, separated by a few tenths - while Kaitlynn was our top woman (39th EISA). Riley had the race of the day, though - he skied smoothly and looked fantastic through the whole race, ending up in 44th, just a few seconds behind Spencer. A great start to his college career - hopefully there's more where that came from! It'll take a little more racing before most of our skiers are ready to put up the results that I know we're capable of, but today was a good start. Another highlight of the day was Walt's work on the wax bench - he's joined us as a volunteer assistant this season. We've never had a 3rd wax tech before - it makes a huge difference! Quicker waxing and more productive testing helped us get the wax dialed in pretty well today. We'll have better skis every race thanks to his efforts. Thanks also to the Kenneys and Longwells for braving the cold to help feed the team post-race - much appreciated after a long, tough day!

Back Together & Lots of Snow

2011-01-12T16:25:00.002-05:00

Almost everyone returned to campus on Monday, leaving us with a great training group these last couple days. Yesterday we did a very productive threshold workout at Pineland. Oak Hill has been holding up well, thanks to the usual stellar work by the Pineland crew - lots of shoveling and moving snow around gave us a surprisingly good 6k loop. Last night the snow started hammering, leaving the roads too treacherous for driving this afternoon. Instead, we skied on campus - a bit sloppy, but good to get out and get moving. I'd guess that at least 10 inches have fallen so far, with a couple more forecast before it's over. Hopefully this will set us up for good training these next few weeks.

Ironically, we're about to leave town for a much less snowy venue, Lake Placid, where we'll start the carnival season. Everyone's fired up to get things underway - just crossing our fingers for good roads and half-decent snow. We'll know soon enough.

Nationals Sprint

2011-01-10T15:01:00.002-05:00

Wilson was our lone representative in Saturday's skate sprint at Nationals. He acquitted himself well, finishing 90th. This was better than I'd expected - he'd been training at altitude in Utah for the past 2 weeks, and although altitude training is great for building red blood cells, it's not so good for developing or maintaining speed. Not surprisingly, he felt like his top speed was a bit too low to be truly competitive on Saturday, which tells me that his solid result is indicative of good fitness and strength.

I'm pretty pleased with how things went this week. Results were respectable, but more importantly, our skiers looked fit and technically sound. We've made great progress toward closing the gap between us and the other college teams that we saw in our early season races and time trials, and I'm confident that we'll continue to get sharper in the weeks to come. For now, we're in a good place. The rest of the team is coming back to campus today, and we'll start training together tomorrow. If they look half as good as the Nationals group, carnival season will be pretty exciting.

US Nationals - Distance

2011-01-06T15:59:00.001-05:00

We've had a small group racing in Rumford these last couple days for the distance races at US Nationals. The snow is certainly thin, but there's adequate coverage on the 2.5k race loop. The highlight of yesterday's classic race was a very strong effort by Spencer - he finished 81st out of over 200 of the country's best racers. This was the best classic skiing that I've seen from him so far - very encouraging sign for the future. Today's 30k skate race was a bit absurd - 11 laps, with 101 racers sharing the loop. With 5 skiers starting at widely-spaced intervals, lap counting was a potential nightmare. It went surprisingly well, though - the skiers and I worked together to make sure everyone skied the right number of laps, with a little help from Riley and Dyk Eusden as well. No results yet, but from what I could tell our people skied very well and held their own against the other college skiers in the race. Wilson in particular looked snappy, despite being just 36 hours removed from a cross-country flight. Tomorrow, everyone's taking it easy, and then Wilson and Tim will close out the week with Saturday's skate sprint. Results for both races can be found at the Chisholm Ski Club site (when available).

Snow, East and West

2010-12-27T09:41:00.003-05:00

There's a good sized storm ongoing throughout New England today - Brunswick is supposed to get at least a foot, with inland areas getting several inches as well. This is quite welcome after a very thin December.

Wilson is unimpressed. From Utah, he writes:

As the champion of oneupsmanship (I'm going to leave that as one word because I have no idea how else one would spell it): You think that your 6-10'' is a big storm? This is what Alta looked like today:

Eastern Cup Opener

2010-12-20T16:12:00.002-05:00

A couple Bowdoin skiers raced in last weekend's Eastern Cup Openers in Jericho, VT. Spencer had a rather sloppy skate qualifier on Saturday, but came back with one of his best classic efforts ever in yesterday's 12k mass start. Kaitlynn finished exams and got home just in time to jump into the classic race and post a respectable finish. Both were right in the mix with a number of strong college skiers. I have no doubt that they'll both be racing faster in a few weeks, but this is a good starting point. Full results here.

As of today, almost everyone has headed home (I think Polasky is going to be the last person left on campus tomorrow morning). Sounds like the West/Midwest crowd has decent skiing to look forward to, while things might be thin for the Easterners for the near future. Regardless, everyone should have plenty of chances for productive training and, more importantly, lots of rest. I'm excited to see how they look when we're back together in January - in the meantime, I'll post race reports as I get them.

Grafton TT, Erg Test

2010-12-12T14:22:00.003-05:00

Yesterday we were able to get away for an on-snow time trial in Grafton Notch - 10k classic. It was great to get on snow again, and even better to do something resembling a race. No times available, but here's the finish order:

Men
Tim
Wilson
James
Scott
Spencer
Riley
Mark
Dan
Rainer

Women
Kaitlynn
Hannah
Emma
Grace
Erin
Steph

On the way home, most the guys stopped by the Eusden house for a quick hot tub. Here's a photo courtesy of Dykstra Eusden:

Either that's a very large tub or our guys are much skinnier than I'd realized.

We also did a repeat of our 500m erg test last Friday. Again, almost everyone saw improvements, some quite substantial. Results were as follows:

Men
James	01:37.1
Riley	01:37.3
Wilson	01:40.4
Spencer	01:40.9
Scott	01:43.2
Rainer	01:45.0
Mark	01:49.6

Women
Grace	01:58.8
Kaitlynn	02:00.9
Steph	02:01.1
Hannah	02:05.3

After 5 straight tough weeks, most people are pretty thoroughly exhausted and ready for a rest. I'm happy that we made it through such a tough period with minimal illness, etc - it's been a very productive month or so. At this point, I'd say that the team's overall fitness is solid, and speed and strength are better than ever, but we're definitely lacking the top-end fitness that gets you up the hills fast. Fortunately, we've got a few weeks to work on this over break. With a little rest and some quality interval work, this group should be ready to ski fast by the time the carnivals start. For now, though, it's exam period - time to forget about skiing for a few days.

Bike Path Time Trial #2

2010-12-06T16:21:00.002-05:00

Very encouraging results from our re-test of the bike path time trial last weekend. I was expecting modest gains, maybe 10-15 seconds per leg, so I was pleasantly surprised to see several people improving by 30+ seconds, with some gaining over a minute. Almost everyone improved on at least one leg, and most people had solid gains on both. This is especially impressive considering that we've had 4 big training weeks in a row and that school stress is running high as we get close to exams. The colder temps of December probably didn't help rollerski speeds, either. All in all, a big success - I'm pretty excited.

Wilson	9:39
Scott	10:43
James	10:45
Rainer	11:20
Riley	11:40
Mark	12:19
Spencer	12:25	broken wheel
Dan	13:05	no poles

Grace	13:03
Kaitlynn	13:08
Hannah	13:36
Steph	14:30
Emma	15:18

Classic
Wilson	11:16
James	11:22
Spencer	11:38
Scott	12:13
Rainer	12:45
Riley	13:36
Mark	13:45
Dan	16:00	no poles

Hannah	14:30
Kaitlynn	14:42
Steph	14:51
Emma	15:18
Grace	15:30

Ski to Hallowell, Morse Mtn

2010-12-02T16:46:00.004-05:00

Catching up on some of the fun stuff we did the week before camp. First, we did our annual Ski to Nat's Mom's House in Hallowell. It was a fine crisp fall day, made even better by the presence of Walt and Nat himself. There were lots of freshly-paved sections on the route, and the skiing went almost without a hitch. We covered the distance faster than ever this year - not sure if this was due to new pavement, good weather, knowing the route better, or some combination of all these factors, but I'm going to chalk it up to our team's improved fitness and technique. The lunch was even better than the skiing. Nat's Mom (aka Naomi Schalit) cooked up her usual delicious chili feast for us - even with Polasky in attendance, we were totally overmatched by the sheer volume of food. It was a great day - always one of the year's highlights. Much thanks to Naomi and co-host John Christie!

(photo courtesy of Hallie Herz)

We also took a trip to Morse Mountain for a combined VO2max workout and time trial. Times were comparable to the self-test that most people did in September. This is encouraging, considering that we've done very little hard running lately - we've maintained our general aerobic fitness over these last few weeks while focusing on ski-specific speed and strength. A few people made big gains, while a few others lost a bit. In any case, we'll get the edge back as we build high-end fitness throughout December. This weekend we'll find out how well we've done with the whole package, as we'll repeat our bike path time trial from a few weeks ago.

Camp Wrap-up

2010-11-30T17:00:00.002-05:00

Another Thanksgiving Camp in the books. This was a particularly successful one - we had decent skiing the whole time, and we accomplished lots of good training and some productive technique work as well. Getting a race under our belts was bonus points. Best of all, everyone stayed healthy - this might be a first for our team. I'm really happy with how our team looks right now. Our returning skiers have made huge technique gains in the past year, and I can't wait to see how this translates into race speed. Fitness is coming along as well - we're definitely not in peak racing form right now, but with some good hard training in December we should get there in time for the first carnival. Team chemistry is really good as well. All told, a very good camp, and one that has me feeling really optimistic about the coming season.

A couple other noteworthy camp items: First, in spite of an impressive final dinner from the Mavericks (Turkish kebabs with some kind of homemade cheese bread), the Dudefish earned the win for their enchiladas. Great performances by all, though - certainly the best meals I've had at any training camp. Also, I'm pleased to announce that Grace is the recipient of the coveted Jeffrey Bush Skier of the Week award. Her capable van driving, occasional French speaking, and general take-charge leadership contributed greatly to the success of our camp. Well done, Grace!

Video, Sprint Race

2010-11-27T18:35:00.002-05:00

Here's the video Rainer made:

Today we had a classic sprint race. Several other college teams and some strong Canadian skiers participated, so the competition was very solid. Kaitlynn led the team, qualifying in 8th and advancing to the semifinals (odd format - only 1 advanced from the semifinals, and she finished 2nd to the eventual winner). James, Wilson, Scott, Hannah, and Emma also qualified, but didn't make it out of their first round heats. A decent first race - good to get a chance for a good hard effort. Tomorrow we'll do a morning OD ski and hit the road. It's been a great camp, and we'll be sorry to see it end, but I think everyone is ready to get back home.

Thanksgiving and Snow

2010-11-26T22:47:00.002-05:00

Two more good days of skiing in the books. A couple inches smoothed things out yesterday and made for some very nice classic skiing, and a few more today has made it even better. Yesterday was all classic, since good classic skiing is fleeting. Today was a nice combination of both techniques - some easy skiing, fun downhills, and a rousing game of Polasky Ball. Rainer pulled together a video of the highlights from the last couple days - I'll post it as soon as I have it.

We've also been fortunate to have some great meals - lots of hard work in the kitchen from our cook groups. The Uptight Squares made us gnocchi and carrot cake on Tuesday, and everyone pitched in for a fantastic Thanksgiving Dinner. Enchiladas with homemade tortillas and brownies from the Dudefishes tonight, so we're living well.

Classic sprint race tomorrow - should be a fun chance to clean the rust off.

First Day on Snow!

2010-11-24T17:23:00.002-05:00

Day One on snow was a big success. There's not a ton of snow up at Foret, and the skiing is pretty marginal - one central trail/road with a little snow over ice, and a few ungroomed side trails with enough snow to slide on - but we had a very productive day nonetheless. Even though there's not much snow, the coverage is surprisingly good - very little in the way of dirt or rocks. Everyone skied for 3-4 hours using both techniques, and I was impressed with how quickly the team adapted to skiing on snow. There's more snow coming, supposedly, so things should get better as the week goes on. All in all, a great start!

World's Steepest Street

2010-11-22T14:33:00.003-05:00

Lots going on this past weekend, and lots more coming up soon - we leave for Quebec tomorrow. But for now, a quick final post from abroad. Here are some photos from Spencer's last rollerski in New Zealand, on what was apparently the World's Steepest Street. Somehow, he managed to pose for a shot with a very cute kitten - presumably this happened on the way up.

Spencer, Maren, and Erin will all rejoin us tomorrow for camp - can't wait to have them back!

Good Training

2010-11-17T16:47:00.002-05:00

These last couple weeks have been good for us. After a very easy week at the start of the month, we jumped right back into it with some fairly challenging training last week, including a long rollerski pace workout, threshold running intervals at Wolfe's Neck, an extra-long combi roll/run OD, and our bread-and-butter speed and specific strength work. We've also started a new phase in our general strength/athleticism training - hard sprints on the SkiErg and lots of plyos. On top of that, the volume is still fairly high. All told, we're in the middle of a pretty ambitious (perhaps even risky) training phase. But so far so good - I've been really happy with how well the team is handling the load. I think that our easy week set us up nicely, and now we just have a few more tough days to get through before we leave for Quebec next Tuesday. Not that training will get any easier, but at least the external distractions will be minimal, and the mental boost of being on snow will be huge... IF we can get on snow. Still waiting and watching the forecast anxiously...

Forrest Horton '08 in Afghanistan

2010-11-10T13:55:00.003-05:00

Here's a great article about former Bowdoin Nordic captain Forrest Horton '08. Forrest recently received a Civilian Service Medal from the US Department of Defense for his work on a geological research project in Afghanistan. Congratulations Forrest!

Lobster Roll

2010-11-01T15:25:00.002-04:00

We headed up to North Haven for the 4th Annual Lobster Roll on Sunday - quality rollerskiing at a beautiful and unique venue. Results weren't anything special, but good efforts all around, and a nice chance to practice racing - a very fun and productive day. Check out Flying Point Road for race photos. Thanks to Andy Shepard for making it all happen!

After a fantastic OD classic ski yesterday, we're entering an easy recovery week. Everyone's ready for it, and they've certainly earned it. I've been very happy with what I've seen so far - good focused training and steady technique improvements. Lots of reasons to be optimistic at this point in the fall.

Bradbury Etc.

2010-10-29T09:25:00.004-04:00

Lots of good training happening recently. On Tuesday, we did a nice long run at Bradbury - absolutely fantastic. There's still enough color on the trees to make the woods glow on an overcast afternoon - gorgeous. It was great to get out on some hilly trails with some fun technical downhills requiring a bit of footwork. A fun workout and well worth the drive.

We've kept busy with some of our staple workouts as well: 200m intervals on the bike path, steep uphill double poling, and rollerski speed/agility mixed into general strength, among other sessions. Tim and I have both seen a lot of improvements in technique and overall fitness, and we're pretty excited about how the team looks right now. Tomorrow we're off to North Haven for the Lobster Roll time trial - it'll be helpful to see the team in a race situation. Should be a great day.

Our camera is broken, so no recent photos, but here are a couple pictures from the Bigelows hike from Kaitlynn:

Also a shot from the top of Spencer's favorite rollerski hill in New Zealand:

Spencer - NZ Run/Hike

2010-10-22T10:38:00.004-04:00

New Zealand is well into spring now, and Spencer is back to dryland. Here's his latest:

Still jealous of the fall training camp the rest of the team had, I decided to take advantage of my ridiculously relaxed reading period. From my last day of classes I have two weeks before my first exam. Then I have another two weeks before my next exam. After that I have a mere two days before my last exam. There are a lot of 3-5 day hiking tracks in New Zealand and I figured that one of these would be a pretty awesome place for an OD run. Here are some photos I took along the way.

The run was a blast with nice trails and gentle rolling terrain. All up it was 26 miles over 5 hours. I had a blast and was really happy how I was able to cruise for a long ways, even with a backpack.

Maren in Australia

2010-10-18T17:11:00.005-04:00

Life is good for Maren in Australia - here's her report:

I just got back from spring break…in September…. And I can honestly say I had the best week of my life. This is mostly due to my newest obsession: SCUBA diving. After getting certified back in August, I have become absolutely addicted. The first three days of my spring break, I lived on a boat on the Great Barrier Reef with about 30 other people that are just as obsessed with diving as I am. Each day consisted of a wake up dive at 5:30am, delicious eatery, sun bathing on the bow, Harry Potter (another obsession I’ve picked up), and lots more diving. I spent a good part of each day swimming next to white tipped reef sharks, turtles (they like having their shells scratched), a barracuda named Barry who likes to hang out under the boat’s hull, hundreds of fish including Nemo, and heaps upon heaps of coral. A single coral polyp can be as small as 3mm in size, yet the GBR is 2,000k long and can be seen from space. That’s a lot of old, old coral. It’s mind boggling, and I’ve been living on it. Whoa.

It gets better. After dinner, we would do a night dive, which is possibly the coolest thing I’ve ever done. It’s a weird feeling, being suspended in the middle of the pitch-black Pacific Ocean with only a torch, but I felt oddly safe, since there’s nothing on the reef that attacks without provocation, unlike things on land—like serial killers or hormonal teenagers—and I don’t consider myself much of a wildlife provoker. Each night dive, our resident divemaster said we were allowed two fish kills. Basically, some of the predatory fish, namely the Red Bass, are wicked smart and have learned to hunt by torchlight. So if we found a particularly ugly little fish and were in a killing mood, we could just shine our torch on them, and a Red Bass would gobble them up. Don’t fret vegetarians/vegans, I was never in much of a killing mood nor did I find any exceptionally ugly fish, so my record’s clear. The best part of night dives was when we turned our torches off, leaving us in pitch black. Any movement in the water was followed by bursts of bioluminescence, like hundreds of tiny fireflies were underwater with us. We looked like fairies with pixie dust shooting out of our flippers. I'm not a 5-year old, I swear. Needless to say, the Great Barrier Reef is incredible.
Despite all the wonderful things about this country, like its reefs, it has its risks and its major downfalls. It’s true what they say about

Australia

: it’s trying to kill you. On campus, I’ve been up close and personal with slatey grey snakes, which turns out, are not venomous, and pythons. I’ve been stung by jellyfish, attacked and bitten by a triggerfish guarding its nest, sliced up by oysters, and dive-bombed by fruit bats. There is also a hole in the ozone layer right above

Australia

, and I’ve wracked up a good number of sunburns. Now I have a pathetic excuse for a tan, about 500 new freckles, and a dermatology appointment scheduled upon my return home.

The people who live here could also be considered life threatening. First of all, they’re terrible TERRIBLE drivers. I experience a near miss pretty much every day. Then, after they almost run me over, they force me to jump off dangerous things into more dangerous things. Like a thread swing—not a rope swing—attached to a really high tree over a croc-infested river. “No worries mate,” the Aussies say, “they’re only baby crocs in this river” (because that makes sense…). Baby crocs could still take off a hefty portion of a leg, if I had to gander a guess. Tip of the day: When defending yourself against a croc, go for the eyes; it’s their weakness. There are also plenty of cliffs and rocks and pirate ships and top sails that I’ve been forced to jump off of. All the while, copious amounts of non-alcoholic beverages have been forced down my throat. I daresay I’ll be lucky to return home in one piece with fully functioning organs. We must forgive them though, for 20% of Aussies descend from British convicts.

My Australian experience has also made me appreciate some of the simpler things in life, aside from my general sense of security, most of which are food related.

1) Free ketchup. Most restaurants make you pay for ketchup, and most of the time it’s around $1. Absurd? I know Nathan will say YES. Also, it’s not ketchup; it’s tomato sauce.

2) Raspberry/Strawberry Jam. When you’re eating at least one PB&J a day, you start to appreciate normal jam flavors. Not orange marmalade that tastes like toothpaste or plum jam that tastes like prune juice, two staple jam flavors of Uni Hall Dining Services.

3) Single sex bathrooms. Alas, I’ll be sharing a bathroom with Chris and Spencer next semester, but even the latter will be cleaner than a 17yr old Aussie boy.

4) Now, I don’t eat pop tarts on a regular basis—in fact I think my last one was from my high school’s vending machine, but pop tarts cost $14 here. That is ridiculous.

5) Cereal at every meal. They have some delicious cereal here, and I would much rather eat delicious cereal than mystery meat slop. Unfortunately, cereal is around $8 a box, so they can’t afford to let me eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Hence the PB&J situation.

6) Dunkin Donuts. The first thing I’m buying when I return is an ice coffee and a chocolate glaze donut. ‘nough said.

Unfortunately, the list goes on and on, but I don’t want to bore you with complaints. Let’s just say, I’ll be happy to be back in the US of A in 6 weeks, where ketchup and jam flow freely, and where I’ll be greeted by the open arms of my two families: my parental unit and my Nordic ski team.

Also, ancient coral knows what’s up. Just like the ancient Egyptians.

First Week

2010-10-13T17:11:00.002-04:00

The first few days of official training have been packed - all kinds of stuff going on here. In addition to the Phlail, we started off with some fitness testing early in the week - a 500m sprint on the SkiErg and a combined skate/classic rollerski time trial on the bike path (results below).

Fall Break began at the end of the week, and we went straight into training camp mode. We stayed on campus for the weekend. On Saturday, most of the team did some hard bounding intervals at Lost Valley with Tim, but a few of us (Rainer, James, Wilson, Riley, and myself) opted for a 5k trail race in Cumberland, the Craig Cup. We found ourselves severely limited by a lack of leg speed, but put up respectable results nonetheless. That afternoon, the team did a short technique session and an easy recovery rollerski. Sunday's workout was an OD skate rollerski through the Pownal/New Gloucester area ending at Pineland - a great route that we haven't visited in a while. As if everyone wasn't already tired enough from all of this excitement, we headed up to Western Maine for a long run/hike in the Bigelows on Monday and another OD rollerski (classic) on the Long Falls Dam Rd on Tuesday. On the hike, we had 3 different groups using slightly different routes, covering 14-18.5 miles and multiple peaks on one of the most rugged mountain ranges in New England. The views of Flagstaff Lake and the Carrabassett Valley were fantastic. I've never been up on the Bigelow Range with clear skies - absolutely stunning. For the rollerski, Long Falls Dam Rd was its usual placid self. Even better, the pavement was in good shape, the weather was perfect, and the fall colors were still out in force.

We were lucky to have wonderful hospitality for the trip from the James family, who hosted the girls and made a great dinner for the whole team, and the Whiton family, who generously let the boys use their camp. Special thanks also to Mike and Louise Gilmore for hosting their very exhausted son-in-law. All in all, a great trip, and hopefully a sign of good things to come! I'll try to get some photos up soon, and perhaps a more detailed account of camp from one of the athletes.

500m Erg Test

Men

Alec	01:38.7
James	01:39.1
Riley	01:41.3
Wilson	01:47.3
Mark	01:48.0
Scott	01:48.6
Rainer	01:55.2

Women
Emma	01:52.9
Steph	01:58.9
Kaitlynn	02:02.7
Hannah	02:03.8
Grace	02:05.4

Bike Path Time Trial
Women - Skate

Grace	12:35
Hannah	13:23
Kaitlynn	14:12
Steph	14:41
Emma	14:50

Women - Classic

Emma	14:16
Hannah	14:28
Kaitlynn	15:12
Steph	15:14
Grace	17:04

Men - Skate

Alec	11:21
James	11:33
Marc	12:09
Rainer	12:12
Riley	12:48

Men - Classic

James	12:31
Alec	12:53
Riley	13:48
Rainer	13:54
Marc	14:46

5th Annual Phlail

2010-10-07T13:38:00.003-04:00

The 5th Annual Phil Soule Phlail on Sunday was a big success. We had beautiful weather and a nice turnout of around 100 people for the event, including a good crowd of Soule family members and alumni linemen. I was also thrilled to see several ex-ski team members in attendance: Will, Walt, Elissa, Matt, Jeffrey Dragonwolf, and Cookie Monster Tom Cook. The team did a nice job of making this perhaps our most smoothly run Phlail ever, particularly our finish crew, who ably negotiated the inevitable bumps of a hand-timed event to put out timely and accurate results. Thanks to all who participated and helped out - hope to see you all next year!

September Wrap

2010-10-01T14:57:00.003-04:00

September has been pretty peaceful around here. With several folks abroad or doing fall sports, we've had a fairly small crew training together. Grace and Wilson have done a nice job keeping people semi-organized, and it sounds like everyone's been able to manage some good quality training. From what I've heard, team chemistry has been great. Fitness is solid, too. Several people did a self-test at Morse Mtn last week - results were strong, highlighted by Hannah's team record. Good stuff. Now we're finally on the verge of official training - first practice is Tuesday. In the meantime, we have a busy weekend planned, with some fitness testing, the Hall of Honor induction ceremony, and the 5th Annual Phil Soule Phlail. More to come.

Nat's FS Editorial

2010-09-24T11:15:00.004-04:00

Great Fasterskier editorial by Nat Herz '09. I love the message here, and it's a nice piece of writing as well. I'll be sad when Nat leaves FS for some high-rolling journalism job. Hopefully there's comparable talent in the nordic ski journalist development pipeline...

Erin in Europe

2010-09-16T14:30:00.002-04:00

Erin is one of several Bowdoin skiers abroad this fall - she's spending the semester touring Europe by bike with a couple of friends. I'm looking forward to finding out how well massive amounts of cycling translates into ski racing fitness - it's not exactly the same as running and rollerskiing all fall, but riding a fully loaded touring bike for several hours a day definitely gets you fit. Check out their frequently-updated blog here.

Baby Charlotte, 5 months

2010-09-10T15:07:00.002-04:00

In case anyone was wondering, Baby Charlotte is still cute.

The onesie was a thoughtful gift from Rainer - it's from the farm where he worked this summer. Guess who's leading the Sophomore Responsibility Rankings?

International Ski Conspiracy

2010-08-31T14:55:00.004-04:00

Sanville's first post from Egypt:

For those of you who don’t know, I’m spending the semester in Cairo, Egypt. There isn’t a whole lot of snow here and I certainly didn’t bring my rollerskis (any excuse), but believe it or not, this post is actually about skiing. Many of you may know the story of my first few hours of Bowdoin, on my Pre-O. I tell it a lot. However, it bears repeating here for those of you that know, and for those of you that don’t, this will be the first of many tellings. Anyway, my first day at Bowdoin was spent on Farley Fields in preparation for my pre-orientation trip. I was late (surprise) and originally put in the wrong group. After a standard amount of Bowdoin time, the leaders discovered the gaffe and moved me into my actual group, right as everyone was making introductions. Coming to Bowdoin, I was under the mistaken impression that I would be the only Minnesotan on campus. Everyone at home asked me (after the standard question for graduated high schoolers: Oh, where are you going to school?), the what became equally formulaic, "Bow-do-in? Where’s that?" So, much to my surprise, I noticed a tall blond kid in my Pre-O group that looked familiar. The reason he looked familiar, I soon found out, was that I had skied against him in high school and he lived fifteen minutes from my house. He was from Mounds View, and his name was Dan Polasky. I had traveled 2,000 miles to a school no one in the Mid West has heard of, only to be on the same Pre-O has my virtual neighbor and member of former arch-rival school (stupid Mounds View).

Now I’m in Egypt. I’m staying in the international students dorm in the Zamalek district of Cairo (which is an awesome city, by the way). I know for a fact that no Bowdoin students are in Cairo this semester (I checked, and no offense meant guys, it was kind of part of the draw). Most of the international students are American, but they’re from all over. Tonight Reslife offered us free Felucca rides on the Nile. They’re a type of wide, medium sized, wooden boat with a triangular sail. It turned out that the free rides were actually a trick to trap us while an RA gave us an orientation spiel, but it was really cool all the same. Through some mishap (pretty common here in Egypt, or even applying to go to Egypt), I, along with a handful of other students, were stuck waiting for a much later bus. While waiting in the lobby of the dorm, I heard “Chris Sanville!!!” shouted by an oddly familiar voice. I looked over and could not believe my eyes. Standing there, grinning at me, was GUNNAR FREAKIN’ DANCER!!!

Most of you probably don’t know that name, but as you’ve hopefully guessed by the first part of the story, Gunnar and I skied against each other in high school. He’s from Hastings, another Northeast suburb of the Twin Cities. We were friends from just seeing each all the time at every ski race and at Troll (a hell hole - for more explanation talk to Polasky). We kind of fell out of contact when we went to college, but strangely, two of his best friends in college are related closely to other parts of my life. It’s a small, small, small, smaller than Bowdoin feels world.

In short, at the far corner of the globe, over 5,000 miles away from home, in the middle of a desert country, I run into another Nordic Skier. This leads me to believe that there is something very odd and possibly sinister at work. I’ll call it an international ski conspiracy. No matter where I go, no matter how far I flee, skiers that I know will be there following me. I have no idea how large this organization is, but I’m sure its well waxed, scraped, and brushed tentacles stretch all the way to the most Northern frozen tip or Norway to the sunny Southern outback of Australia. I’m onto them now and its only a matter of time before I figure what they’re up to and why they’re following me. Sound far-fetched? How else do you explain how EVERYONE in Minnesota knows Jeff Bush?

A Workout in the Woods

2010-08-23T14:40:00.004-04:00

Recently, a few of our guys did the Presidential Traverse. Here's Sanville's account of the trip:

A few weekends ago, Scott, Alec McGovern, Riley Eusden, and I ran and hiked the Presidential traverse, a 21-mile slog across, up, and over the highest peaks in the East, topping out at 6288 ft above sea level. We started at 6:30 in the morning and ended nine hours later around 3:30. It was fun to meet and spend time with both Riley and Alec, two incoming freshmen, before I disappear until January. Judging by the way they dropped me in the last mile or so, they will both be important additions to our team. Rather than write a long, full, verbose account of our nine hours, instead I have here just a moment that I feel captures the spirit of our hike. Also, I would like to thank any Eusdens reading this piece from the bottom of my heart for their hospitality and delicious grilled chicken - so good after a nine hour OD.

Don’t Race the Train

In Minnesota, you are required to take thirty hours of driver’s ed. before you receive your permit and climb behind the wheel of a car - ten three-hour classes. There are, of course, a variety of driving schools that you can go to, and I went to a particularly sketchy one called Safeway. During our break the kids would go steal things from the gas station convenience store across the street. I’m pretty sure that one kid was drunk at every session, and there were three pregnant 15-year olds in my class. All that aside, there is one universality across all driver’s ed. classes in Minnesota, at least according to my friends who were in less shady programs: Don’t Race the Train Day.

Don’t Race the Train Day is where you come to class, sit down, and the first thing out of the instructor’s mouth is, “Don’t race the train. The train will win, and you will die.” She says it again and then for the next two hours and fifty-eight minutes you watch videos of cars that have tried to beat trains. In every single video the car just gets smoked and the train chugs along like nothing happened. Don’t race the train. The train will win, and you will die.

I don’t know how familiar you are with Mt. Washington, but, and I kind of think this is B.S., there is both an auto-road that winds its way up to the top and a strange contraption called the cog train. I knew about the road, but not the train. So, as we came down Mt. Jefferson I saw it for the first time: the cog-train chugging its way slowly up its 20% grade tracks.

Now, like I said, and I kind of think this stems from being a Nordic skier, I think motorized transportation to the top of mountains is kind of a big stinking pile of B.S. When that deceptively slow moving train came into view, I was struck by sudden inspiration. I could race the train. I could run alongside it, beat it to the top of Mt. Washington, and prove once and for all how awesome I am and how motorized mountain climbing is a load of crap. And, you know, how awesome I am.

These thoughts in mind, I booked it down the little of Jefferson we had left (we were already running), and then started up Mt. Washington in hot pursuit of the train. About 100 ft up Washington, though probably much less, my lungs, heart, and legs all reminded me simultaneously that I was not actually that awesome. Within no more than three minutes taking off in wild pursuit of glory, I was bent over, panting and gasping. Riley, Alec, and Scott swiftly caught up to me and passed me. When my heart moved from my esophagus back to its normal place in my chest (though my spirit had sunk much lower), I looked up, and, as if to tease me, the train had stopped, dead on the tracks, calling to me to sprint after it again. Needless to say, I took off again, visions of victorious awesomeness filling my altitude-dizzied head. Just as I was about to reach, and dare I dream, pass the train, it fired up again, chugged away, and finally left me in the dust.

During those two shorts beelines after the train, I easily discovered a new max heart rate. Consequently, shortly thereafter, I died. I absolutely bonked, though I did my best to hide from my three fellow hikers. It wasn’t until I stumbled into the Mt. Washington observatory, elevated my feet and put peanut butter, tortillas, and the life-giving Nutella into my body that I began to recover. The rest of the hike was a little rough for me, and by the end I slowed way down. Everyone did, but I was certainly falling behind. Though this is definitely due to a combination of factors, most of them probably having something to do with having too much fun at Bowdoin over the summer, I can’t help but feel that my little train race contributed to my absolutely dying by the end of the hike. Lesson learned: don’t race the train. The train will win, and you will die.

Spencer on Snow

2010-07-30T16:21:00.004-04:00

Here's a post from Spencer describing the first of hopefully many weekends on snow in New Zealand:

As some of you may or may not know, the real reason I’m in New Zealand is because it’s winter here and that only means one thing: skiing. Unfortunately, NZ being a small Pacific island the ski culture here isn’t that big. In order to get to the one nordic ski area they have, called the Snow Farm, on Friday some friends and I rented a car and drove 4 hours inland into the mountains and camped on the side of a lake. Keep in mind it is winter here and was below freezing. In order to maximize ski time the next day I scraped my skis using the light of the van headlights on the beach we were camping on, easily the weirdest place I’ve ever waxed skis.

Since I was the only one of my friends going skiing, the next morning I woke up early and took an hour shuttle to the base of an alpine area near the Snow Farm, then hitchhiked up the 13km access road with my skis. I got picked up pretty quick by a shuttle bus coming from another town - if I haven’t it mentioned yet, everyone here is really nice. On the way up we picked up the Venezuelan national ski team, consisting only of a 23-year-old ex-rugby player named Cesar who came close to getting a slot in the 2010 Olympics as a developing country. He’s only been skiing for 3 years, so 2014 looks pretty promising. Also, McDonald's sponsors him - USSA should look into this, way more calories than that Nature Valley crap.

Anyway, once I got to the ski area I found that despite being on the other side of the world there were a fair number of familiar faces. The Koons brothers as well as couple ex-UMPI skier/coaches were there as ski instructors. The first awesome surprise of the day was that a recently graduated UMPI skier offered me a free place to stay and a ride to and from the trails. This sure as hell beat the original plan of hitchhiking back to town, camping out, and then hitching back to the Snow Farm. After getting a quick tour by the Snow Farm's resident NZ Olympian, I waxed up my classic skis and headed out. The conditions were unreal - a pretty good snow pack, and no ice anywhere. I skied on VR 45 and 50 all day with blue sky and would have worn a t-shirt if I had been doing anything but lots of easy skiing.

My second awesome surprise of the day came when I skied around a corner to find the US Nordic team cruising around a loop filming technique. I was wearing the JO bottom spandex and got some pretty good double takes from them. I pretty quickly realized that my technique showed pretty obviously that I had been skiing for a grand total of 5 minutes in the last 4 months and stopped flailing after them.

The training plan for the weekend called for as much volume as I could get in. To make things simple, I figured start out in the morning with 2 hours easy, then take a snack and go out again for as long as I could. Now I wasn’t expecting that much, not having skied in a while and having to deal with some hellacious roller ski conditions, but that first couple hours absolutely kicked my butt. After dragging myself up to the lodge and devouring some peanut butter, jelly, and cheese sandwiches. I admitted my difficulties to one of the ski instructors there. She replied, “You know we’re at about 6,000 feet elevation here?” 6,000 ft. might not be that much for some of you from out West, but for an Easterner who has spent most of the last 2 years living on the coast it made a difference. Feeling some justification for how clunky I was skiing, I went out after lunch and was able to reassemble my technique and start moving around pretty smoothly.

After skiing I helped de-fumigate some very stanky rental boots to earn a seat in the staff van headed into town. Back in town I went out to eat mountains of Indian food with some of the ski instructors. It turns out that the ski season down here corresponds pretty well with our summer vacation and that it’s manageable for a well-qualified skier earn enough to pay for a flight, rent, and food. Needless to say, I talked with the owners on Sunday and prospects look pretty good for a 2011 summer on snow.

The next day was pretty much the same: more awesome conditions, skiing with/getting passed by the USST. I managed to get in a little over 8 hours of skiing between the two days. Here are some pictures of the ski area. Sorry no pictures with/of the US team - I was too ashamed about my technique to ask them, but I’ll try next weekend.

The ski school instructors let me borrow an iron to travel wax skis. As I was waxing in the empty wax room, I looked over and noticed a bunch of nice skis leaning against the wall. Upon reading the names on the skis I came to realize that I was alone in a room with a least one pair of skis from most of the USST members. What’s more is that each pair of skis had a pair of ski ties with their first name then NZ written on it. Did I mention that I was completely alone with 4 perfectly good ski ties without my name on them in the next room over? After a long and ethically tumultuous debate in my head, I grudgingly decided against acquiring a nearly complete set of USST ski ties in one go. I saw kids fight over a single Southam ski tie at JOs. The main reason I left them was karma. I still needed to hitchhike 50 miles back to town that afternoon with a ski bag, and my legs were already fried from skiing all day which made walking any extended part of that very undesirable. I’d like to think that I made the right choice. Between the 3 times I hitchhiked this trip, I only got passed by 4 cars that didn’t pick me up, and never waited longer than 5 minutes for a ride - that’s also with a ski bag which won’t fit into a lot of the tiny cars they have here. I ended up getting back to where my friends were going to pick me up an hour early and took probably the most scenic nap on the side of the road imaginable.

It was a pretty awesome trip to say the least, and I should be able to go back most weekends through mid-September.

Part II: The Best Weekend EVER!!!

2010-07-28T16:08:00.003-04:00

Here's Part 2 of Sanville's post from last week:

I know that a lot of you are doing some pretty cool things this summer. Maren is in Australia, Spencer is in New Zealand, Wilson is doing all sorts of kayaking, climbing, and high altitude snow skiing, and Grace is in Philadelphia (Ed. note: Which one of these things is not like the others?). In the meantime, Scott and I are still at Bowdoin, and though fun, it is really remarkable only in that it’s not home, thank God (sorry Mom and Dad, but I know for a fact that you’re thankful too). My existence here at Bowdoin is justified and paid for by my forty hours of pretty much sitting and nothing else in a windowless office on the second floor of Coles tower. Though I am ridiculously overpaid for what I do, the job’s sole requirement really is just to sit in that office. Consequently, I don’t really have a chance to do too many awesome things. Well, last weekend that all changed. Last weekend was The Best Weekend EVER!!!

Those of you who regularly follow the blog already know how Scott and I did a sick workout on Saturday, but that’s not actually the beginning. This story starts in Portland, at the Portland Pie Company. Scott, myself, and a few of our friends decided to hoof it down to Portland for some pizza, the Cabin and the Brunswick House of Pizza being notably lacking in menu items that actually taste good. Sitting there as our gum-snapping, bad hair dye job waitress laid two delicious pizza pies in front of us, I had sudden revelation, and premonition, or perhaps epiphany, that this was going to be the best weekend ever.

Taking one bite of that delicious pizza (seriously, if you’re ever in Portland, GO!), my prophecies were fulfilled - it was so good. About halfway through the meal, we started talking and decided to go see Inception, which had just come out. Inception turned out to be just as good as the pizza, though in a slightly different manner. My mind totally warped from sheer deliciousness and dream-heist-movie awesomeness, I went to sleep.

The next morning I woke up early, packed the car, woke Slongwell, and we headed out to what I already talked about in Part I (I didn’t realize that you lived in the Sugarloaf area, Emma, I will totally call you next time I’m out there). What I didn’t tell you, was that afterward we went back to the river and found a series of small waterfalls that, when you sat beneath them, gave nature-based back massages. The cool water calmed my aching muscles and the rocks still retained their heat from earlier that day, acting like warm, though not in the least fuzzy, towels. On the way home we stopped at McDonald’s for milkshakes and I indulged in a medium fries - best recovery food ever.

Early that week I had been invited to go to Canobie Lake Park with some friends I’ve met recently here over the summer. It’s an amusement park, and I had fun, but I think if I died without ever going to another one, I would die contented. On the way back they dropped me off in Cape Elizabeth, where I was going to spend a night at the Hatton’s and hang out with Erin during her precious time away from the candy concentration camp where she is working this summer.

You see, this summer Erin is working at a summer camp for the children of the rich and famous. She only has a little time off, and the weekend previously she stopped by Bowdoin on her way home on one of her short little stints away from the camp (she can tell you all about the horrors of camp some other time - this is a happy blog post). We had talked earlier in the school year about me visiting her in Cape, but it never worked out until this weekend. So, after laying plans a week ago, she picked up Scott on her way home again and I was dropped. I was fried from Canobie and Erin from camp, so we talked just a little while, had some delicious food, and went to bed.

We woke up late the next day (Monday by this point, Scott and I both took the day off), and cranked out an absolutely amazing two-hour run. Cape Elizabeth, just outside of Portland, is actually one of the most beautiful parts of Maine I’ve ever seen. We ran down by the ocean, along a beach for a while, and then up to the most-photographed lighthouse in the world.

Portland Head Lighthouse

Then we came back. I crashed again, this time on the couch, for three or four hours, until we had a delicious dinner of chili and caperese salads cooked by Mr. Hatton (thank you so much for having us, Mr. and Mrs. Hatton - we really appreciated your hospitality and food, and had a ton of fun).

And that’s really about it. That epic? I don’t know. No, actually, I do, and here’s why: We did do some pretty cool things this weekend, had some sick work outs, communed with nature, etc., but the truly epic part was just spending time with fellow ski team friends. College presents a number of really unique opportunities while you’re there, but skiing is a doubtlessly individual experience within that range of once in a life time possibilities provided in college. Traveling all over the Northeast (to New Hampshire and back) with a group of people who before you even realize it you’ve become incredibly close and attached to, eating cooking, napping, skiing, training with them, is so incredibly, epically fun. I believe it to be a trait absolutely individual to the Nordic Ski Team because of its size, closeness, and own strange flavors of personality. It’s what I once described to a girl I was hitting on (failure, again) as living the Nordic-Ski-Rock-Star-Life-Style. Though I’m jealous beyond what words appropriate for a public blog post can possibly describe of Spencer’s last e-mail from New Zealand, for me, skiing is really about the people. A weeny cop-out with an emotional appeal shove into it in the face of Spencer’s overwhelming snow covered New Zealand awesomeness? Perhaps, but I don’t care. So, who’s up for the Presidentials?

The People

Rock on with your Nordic-Ski-Rock-Star-Life-Style Bad Selves.

Spencer in New Zealand

2010-07-26T12:59:00.002-04:00

From New Zealand, Spencer responds with this video and a team email entitled: What did you do this morning?

Part I: The Gauntlet Thrown (or A Whole Lot of Testosterone)

2010-07-23T10:04:00.006-04:00

Here's the first of a two-part Sanville story - apparently the sheer awesomeness of this tale can't be contained by a single post.

The first part of this post is a direct response to Spencer’s challenge to find an interval workout cooler than the one depicted on the Isle of Skye. Normally I’m not a one-upper, or a Mario as they’re known (think about it, you’ll get it eventually, maybe), but I just can’t let that kind of challenge go unanswered, especially since I was at the Isle of Skye last summer and did intervals up this:

As proven by this picture of me with a muddy shoe after I put my foot in one of the numerous mud holes Scotland seems to be covered in:

Well all right, as some of you have already deduced from the cargo shorts in the picture, I didn’t actually run up, but I did hike it as proven by this picture of me at the top:

Which is actually a picture of my little brother, but he looks enough like me that you get the idea.

Anyway, last Saturday Scott and I set out to actually top Spencer’s interval workout. We woke up early in the morning, loaded our skis, poles, and running shoes into Scott’s small and now very stinky car and set out from campus. Eventually we arrived at our destination and ran from here:

To there:

Yep, we ran all the way up Sugarloaf. It took us about forty minutes and was certainly an interval workout, alternating from the highest ends of threshold to just below cardiac arrest. We ended up walking a lot of the steepest parts, keeping our heart rates right around 180 (for the Polaskys on the team, that’s right about the very end of threshold for those of us who fit into airplane bathrooms), but whenever the slope was greater than a 43° angle we would start running again, spiking our heart rates to just below heart attack. Not going to lie though, it’s pretty satisfying to run past people walking up Sugarloaf with their Trek Poles.

Afterward we had lunch and napped here:

And then went on a two-hour rollerski. The ski was pretty baller. It’s nice, in a painful sore calf kind of way, to be able to ski altitude bigger than a those few bumps out on Pleasant Hill Rd. It’s a whole different kind of training on actual vertical.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: “Wow, that is pretty sweet. I wish I did awesome things during my summer like sit in an office with no windows for forty hours a week and then run up ski hills on the weekends, but does it really top Spencer’s interval workout?” To which I respond, “No.” It is indeed pretty sweet, mysterious reader voice, but you are correct in wondering whether Spencer’s workout is indeed one-upped. Nay, it is merely on par. In order to truly show Spencer who loves suicidally painful training more, Scott and I plan on running the entire Presidential Traverse next Saturday, rain, shine, lightning, or 30-mile-an-hour wind. So yeah, um, take that Spencer.

Anyway, I’ve also decided to get a head start on the beards off a little early this year. I hope to win by Bowers-esque margins this season. I actually consider it part of training, and unless Riley and Alec have some as-of-yet undiscovered facial hair growing talent, I think I might actually have this one in the bag.

(Beard at one week two days)

Oh, and Erin says “hi!” to everyone:

TO BE CONTINUED…!

Cute Little Duckies

2010-07-21T09:51:00.003-04:00

It's been a slow news month for Bowdoin Nordic, so I thought I'd post a photo of Emma's recently-acquired ducklings. No word on whether they're going to be pets or food, but in either case they're pretty cute.

Isle of Skye

2010-07-02T01:06:00.003-04:00

Here's a photo from the Isle of Skye in Scotland, which Spencer visited with his family recently - he did a threshold pace workout up the road and along the cliff to the top. He writes, "I challenge anyone to find a cooler interval or summer workout." Team, are you guys going to let that stand?

Playing Hard to Get

2010-06-25T13:58:00.003-04:00

Sanville's thoughts on running:

This next bit is going to sound a little, or even maybe a lot like bragging. In some ways it is, but really I’m just trying to tell a story here. So, if you don’t want to hear about it, then don’t read any further. You have been forewarned.

Anyway, all that aside, this story starts at the beginning of this school year with the Lobster Run. Every year Bowdoin hosts, for its students and faculty, a little 2-mile fun run/race followed by a lobster bake. My freshman year I ran with my new found friends that I had met three days previously on our pre-orientation kayaking trip. This year however, I decided to run it with the ski team.

Now, I’m a pretty good runner. I ran both track and cross country in high school and posted some times that I’m more than a little proud of. I’m not as good as I used to be, mostly because I’ve just been training for skiing, but, though it has never been tested, I’m fairly certain that I still have a relatively high VO2 Max. Consequently, I decided to go out and compete in this Lobster Run, just to see how I would do. So, we all found our spots on the starting line, the ski team uniquely visible because of our heart rate monitors (I received more than a few “Go Nordic!” cheers during the race for what I’m pretty sure is precisely that reason), and when the gun went off, I booked it across Farley Fields and into the woods.

To make a short story shorter, I did pretty well. I ended up in second place, being beaten out in a sprint to the finish (surprise, surprise), and to my own smug satisfaction, housing all of the freshmen running recruits for the cross country team. I ran a good race. However, because the cross country team staffs the event, my race did not go unnoticed. As soon as I crossed the finish line, before I even had a chance to collapse to the ground and ponder why I do this kind of thing to myself (a time-honored running tradition), an upper classman friend of mine on the cross team materialized in my post-race tunnel vision and said that I should join cross country. I grunted as I went past him on my way to the ground.

However, my cross friend was not an isolated incident. For about the next three months, anytime I ran into or by a cross country runner I knew, they attempted to recruit me for the team. Sometimes the kids I didn’t know would tell me that I should join. Scott Longwell cajoled, pleaded, bargained, and once tried bribe me into joining. I think one runner in my Shakespeare class thought he could surprise me into joining. He would make small talk about whatever, then out of nowhere, BAM! “You should join cross!” Colman even talked to me twice, both times about how I should join the team.

Not going to lie, I kind of enjoyed the attention. It was nice to feel wanted and for a short while I vacillated on the issue. However, in the end I decided cross country and track just weren’t for me. You see, I’ve been there before, and at best it could called a love-hate relationship, or maybe more accurately a hate-love-hate-loath relationship. It wasn’t something that I really wanted to do in college again. Instead I could be perfectly happening just popping off a good race every once in a while, to show running that I might be still interested, but never to allow it to actually go anywhere. I just don’t want any long term commitment.

At this point (as usual it seems for those that have read more than one of my posts), you’re probably saying, “Great, you can occasionally run well and for once in your life felt wanted. Yep, that did sound an awful lot like bragging and before I lose interest in you singing your own accolades, what in God’s snowy world does this have to do with skiing?” Well, fast forward to now, or rather next fall. Next fall I’m going to be in Cairo, Egypt, studying Middle Eastern politics and failing to learn Arabic. Egypt, as some of you might have already guessed, is not the most conducive country in the world to Nordic ski training, a problem that has me pretty worried. However, as I recently found out, the University that I’m going to be studying at has a track and field/cross country team, and as of the last e-mail with the coach, the plan is for me to join it. In a strange twist of fate and concern over my fitness come January, I’ve decided to do in Egypt what I refused to do here, subject myself to a more than incidental relationship with running.

Needless to say, I’m worried. I don’t like this, not one bit. It’s something that I swore to myself I would never do again after four years of countless 800s, 1600s, 3200s, and 5ks of pain. Once again I’m amazed at the things that I do for skiing. I just want to be perfectly clear though, under no condition does this mean I’m going to start running when I return to Bowdoin. What happens in Egypt stays in Egypt, and once again I pledge my undying commitment to Nordic as the one and only sport in my life. Sorry cross country, but skiing is just sexier.

To back up that last statement, here's a high school photo of Sanville mid nose wipe: