Exams are finally over and our people have all scattered for break. These last few weeks have been productive for our team despite how busy everyone's been with schoolwork. Coming back from Thanksgiving Camp to dryland is always a bit of a letdown, but it wasn't too painful this year thanks to Quarry Road's early season snow making efforts. During the week we did a mix of running and strength (as well as a hotly contested game of ultimate/football in the snow), and Friday through Sunday we drove up to Waterville to ski. This has been a good model for us these last couple years, and hopefully it can be the new normal - it was pretty great to leave the rollerskis untouched post-Thanksgiving! We made good use of our ski weekends, packing a lot of quality into each three-day block. After a couple days of speed work and threshold, we did the Quarry Road Opener - it was a beautiful snowy Sunday morning, and a great mix of juniors, masters, and college athletes turned out, including Bates and Colby. Our women nearly swept the podium, with Emma winning, Jori second, and Mirra in fourth, and Keira (8th) and Kira (10th) rounded out the top 10. The men weren't quite as sharp, but Michael gave us a nice highlight with a 9th place finish that put him right in the mix with the top guys - arguably his best performance ever and a nice indicator that his hard work is paying off. As always, we were primarily concerned with process, and this was a fun day and another step forward in our pre-season race prep.
After a few days of dryland that included our annual running tour of the Brunswick/Topsham holiday lights, we were back at Quarry Road for what I hope will be a new tradition, our second annual Fake Carnival - back to back time trial intended to prepare us for the demands of a carnival. Quarry Road had survived a huge mid-week rainstorm with 50 degree temps, and we were able to put together a short loop for our time trials. Day 1 was a classic sprint simulation - lots of double poling but also a couple times up a short, tough climb. The women's race was pretty straightforward - Emma won the qualifier and was off the front in every heat, with Jori solidly in second. The men's side was much more mixed up, with a bigger group and a couple Colby guys joining us. Adam won the qualifier, but Colby's Ellis Slover took over in the heats and won the overall despite a strong test from Will and Sawyer in the final. Next day was our traditional 20k - this used to be a basic threshold workout, but the athletes always ended up racing each other despite my instructions, so I just gave up and made it a time trial, which at 20k is basically a threshold workout anyway. We had to do 24 laps to get the distance, but we did it! It was pretty fun to see everyone doing their own thing, with packs forming and breaking up and everyone on different lap counts. Will had a great battle with Andy DeFor from Colby - Andy pulled away late in the race, but still a great experience for Will to ski with the race leader. Behind them, Sawyer, Eli, Michael and Caleb worked together for most of the race before Eli made a move that held up until the finish. Emma went out hard and found herself between the men and women for most of the race, but she was actually able to catch a ride with Will and Andy when they passed her midway through the race. She hung with them for 3 laps - an impressive show of fitness and determination. Three other women - Kira, Mirra, and Jori - formed their own pack and stayed together for about half the race before Jori went off the front. Women's college races often splinter pretty early in mass starts, so it was really nice to see this group get some practice skiing together - hopefully a sign of many Bowdoin trains to come. Overall, a good solid grind that should diminish some of the nerves that we always see heading into our first long mass start race. We closed out the weekend with a long easy ski and lots of technique work on a beautiful sunny Sunday to send us into exams with good vibes. It's been an up and down semester - lots more injuries and illness than we'd like, but also plenty of great training and really positive team chemistry. A nice (if short) break is going to be a great re-set for our skiers, and I'm positive that they'll come back strong and refreshed. Can't wait to get started in 2025 - until then, happy holidays to everyone!
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