Today was a good day, but it didn't start off that way. It was a cold morning, and we were expecting yesterday's transformed snow to freeze into typical klister conditions, so we showed up a bit early to test waxes. Ezra and I were the first coaches at the venue by at least half an hour, but we didn't get much done with all that extra time. We set out to test some klister and found that none of the 57 matchbooks that we had would light, so no torch. The shed with electric outlets was locked, so no power for our heat gun. Eventually we got power, but it went down quickly - too many irons and heat guns going. Back to the torch. We got ahold of a lighter, but for some reason the torch head wasn't working. Back to the heat gun. We found another power source, but Ezra nearly electrocuted himself when he plugged in the gun - the cord was worn, and today was the day that it finally frayed through to expose the wires. No more heat gun. Back to the torch. Bates generously agreed to lend us a torch head, and at last we were in business. We soon found that all our troubles were for naught, though, because somehow hard wax was working better than klister - just enough of a dusting last night to keep the surface fresh, I guess. After some testing, I determined that straight Toko green binder was kicking and gliding better than hard wax, so this was our call for the men. I'd been waiting for years to use straight Toko binder in a race - today was the day at last. Happy day. However, the snow was ridiculously abrasive, and the wax showed wear even after just one turn around the 1.2k loop - fortunately, the race format allowed us to reapply wax to each person's skis after each lap. The men gave a good show - Colman scrambled, and was right with the leaders until nearly the end of the lap when he wiped out on the downhill - tough skiing in a crowd with such sketchy conditions. Later, on his second lap, he crashed again when trying to pass another skier - tough day, but he skied pretty well when he was on his feet, which is encouraging. Forrest and Walt skied well and kept the team in the thick of it - they ended up 14th overall, with Walt posting some of the better lap times of the day. Nick, John, and Niko skied solidly and finished 18th.
The women's race was a treat to watch. Something was up with our women today. Maybe it was the image of the Virgin Mary that Elissa and Sarah saw in the fog on their motel room window. Maybe it was the tasty Fruit Roll-Ups the restaurant owner gave us last night at dinner. Maybe it was just hard work paying off. Whatever it was, they were on. Elissa got off to a fast start and put the team right in the middle of the action at the first tag. She, Courtney, and Sarah skied strongly throughout the race and ended up 16th. However, they were upstaged by Maresa and Grace, skiing on a mixed team with a UVM skier, who finished just ahead in 15th. Both of these two were skiing with as much snap as I've ever seen from them - they looked great. All in all, this was a great day for all 5 of them - by far the most competitive race our women's team has had all season. I can't wait to see them ski next weekend.
A vast number of Hall family members were at the race today, which was great - so nice to have Bowdoin fans cheering our team on. As always, they provided us with a wonderful lunch - I'm starting to wonder if there's some kind of competition going on among the team parents. Right now I'm daydreaming about the peanut butter cookies. Can I make it till next weekend?
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Friday, February 15, 2008
Williams Skate
5/10k skate at Prospect today for the Williams Carnival. The grooming was somewhat suspect, but nice and fast snow - loose frozen granular. A decent day for our team, if not great. Maresa skied well in spite of a crash, and John had a PR in 32nd to help the men to a 6th place team finish, just 3 points from 5th. Times were really tight today - Walt was 14th, just 5 seconds from 9th - he had been only 7 seconds from the lead on the first lap before fading. Forrest was also in good position before he tripped and had a very painful fall - he still managed 24th. Our expectations are high these days, but a 6th place team finish isn't something to be dismissed - one of the best finishes ever for a Bowdoin team. Classic sprint relay tomorrow - our first and only relay of the year. Great chance to show off as a team - should be fun.
PS - I almost forgot to mention the amazing lunch provided by Sue and Lloyd Crawford: sandwiches on homemade bread, soup, cookies, fruit. It was what you'd expect if you hired a caterer, but better. Outstanding.
PS - I almost forgot to mention the amazing lunch provided by Sue and Lloyd Crawford: sandwiches on homemade bread, soup, cookies, fruit. It was what you'd expect if you hired a caterer, but better. Outstanding.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
VT Eastern Cup Report
Here's a brief report from Nat on last weekend's Eastern Cup races:
Before bogging you down with the tedium of a race report, I first offer you this week's Eastern Cup Index (the term Eastern Cup Index is trademarked by Bowdoin Nordic):
Hours the Eastern Cup Team (ECT) spent in the van this weekend: 11
Hours each ECT member spent racing this weekend, on average: about 1
Number of waxes the ECT tested at Vermont Academy on Sunday: 6-7
Number that got both kick and glide: 0
Number of teams that used hairies: at least 2
Number of snow tires on the rental van: 0
Number of hours the ECT spent pushing the rental van around in the snow: about 1
Cumulative number of racers that Bowdoin skiers beat in Eastern Cup races, despite all of these challenges: 309
Amidst fierce snow showers on Friday afternoon, the Bowdoin Eastern Cup team departed the College for a weekend of racing at Prospect Mountain and Vermont Academy. An hour into the drive, the van's windshield wipers began working; an hour after that it stopped snowing; and two hours after that, we arrived at the Putney School in Putney, Vermont.
Having graduated from Putney in 2005, I fearlessly found changing rooms for the team and we set out on a pre-race ski. After some good pick-ups and threshholds, we cooled down with a powder-8 competition in the pristine powder adorning Putney's fields, with Nick and I the winners by a landslide. We followed a hearty dinner at the Putney Diner with some waxing, then bed.
Saturday was an excellent day for a skate race at Prospect--warm and overcast, with surprisingly firm skating tracks (firm and Prospect Mountain are words that very seldom accompany each other). The going was sticky on our rock skis, but much better when testing the race boards. The men raced first, at 11:00. A field of nearly 100 hungry athletes lined up for what was sure to be a hectic mass-start, and it was on. Bowers was taken out by a rogue high school racer, but fought on, and apparently Jeff exacted revenge on the upstart.
When the dust settled, the Bowdoin men had taken 42nd, 70th, 77th, and 91st in a tough field.
Grace raced next. Her start was was considerably less chaotic, and two laps later, Grace crossed the line in 57th, besting a few Colby and Bates skiers.
With Jeff Bush's mom, brother, and brother's girlfriend (Kathy, Matt, and Hannah) in attendance, we were treated to chili that seriously rivaled the stuff my mom served the team back in the fall. I personally had two huge bowls, as well as a few pieces of some amazing pumpkin bread. After everyone had eaten, we started our way back to Putney as a mid-day blizzard set in, making a brief stop for some homemade cider donuts at a sugarhouse on the way back. Oh yeah, and both Nick and Jeff's brother caught mice INSIDE the Prospect lodge--yet another reason why that place sucks (firm trails notwithstanding).
Amazingly, our snow-tireless van conquered the hill up to Putney, and we drove down the back side to the hostel before settling in for a nap. Around 4:30, everyone but Nick piled into the van again to drive back up to the school to wax our. Nick planned to meet us at the wax room after a jog to clean out his legs.
With me fearlessly at the helm, the van made all the way out of the driveway and at least 20 yards up the hill before pathetically drifting backwards into a snowbank. After a lot of pushing, some sand from a bemused pickup-truck driver, and no help whatsoever from Nick, we managed to turn the van around and drive the 20 yards back to the beginning of the driveway--which is about 200 yards of gentle uphill. With intensive thought and engineering, the Nick-less team devised a strategy involving spinning the tires until they kicked up a strip of dirt (SoD), backing up onto the SoD, and using the SoD as a launching pad to gain speed and momentum. Just as the van rolled into its parking space, Nick conveniently reappeared, refreshed from an easy jaunt up the hill.
I'll spare you all the gory details of our quest for dinner, but suffice to say that two hikes up the hill later, Kathy met Matt Bowers at the top of the hill with the ingredients for a delicious dinner, and there was much rejoicing. Jeff went down to the Putney Inn for the night, while the rest of the team waxed on the kitchen table, doing our best to keep the fluoros distinct from the food.
Sunday morning we awoke to a plowed driveway. With a stop to pick up Jeff at the Putney Inn, we cruised on up to Vermont Academy for a 10k/5k classic. Given all the new snow, we were all but assured of perfect, extra blue conditions, and we arrived with just over an hour before Grace's start--plenty of time for the guys to pick the right hardwax while Grace warmed up.
The first indication that things might not be going as planned was the brief but fierce snow that kicked up as we unpacked that van. As I noticed blow torches and klister boxes on other teams' benches, I started to wonder if things might not be as simple as we thought. The bottom line is that Sunday would have been a perfect day for waxless skis. With high humidity, intermittent snow squalls, and warm temperatures, the tracks were going from powdery to icy and back again quicker than coaches could say "uh-oh." Grace ended up racing on silver covered with yellow klister, and in spite of the crappy wax AND breaking a pole still fought to 72nd place.
Most of the men opted for a different tack. Shem went for Toko orange klister, which was underwhelming, but the rest of us opted for VR70. The 70 kicked like Jackie Chan outside the track, but also attracted clumps of powder like honey attracts Winnie the Pooh. This made for tough going over the tops of hills, turning the race into more of cross-country running event. The men pulled off 47th, 53rd, 58th, 78th, and 83rd.
Kathy pulled through again for us with some delicious sandwiches and cookies. After consuming these with gusto, we set out on the final leg of our journey, which turned out to be no less epic that the rest of the trip, given that we had to conquer the third snowstorm of the weekend. Both Jeff and I kept us on the road, though, and we pulled into Bowdoin in time for a delicious dinner at Thorne. And if you made it all the way to the end of this ridiculous race report, let me know--I'll send you a medal...
Before bogging you down with the tedium of a race report, I first offer you this week's Eastern Cup Index (the term Eastern Cup Index is trademarked by Bowdoin Nordic):
Hours the Eastern Cup Team (ECT) spent in the van this weekend: 11
Hours each ECT member spent racing this weekend, on average: about 1
Number of waxes the ECT tested at Vermont Academy on Sunday: 6-7
Number that got both kick and glide: 0
Number of teams that used hairies: at least 2
Number of snow tires on the rental van: 0
Number of hours the ECT spent pushing the rental van around in the snow: about 1
Cumulative number of racers that Bowdoin skiers beat in Eastern Cup races, despite all of these challenges: 309
Amidst fierce snow showers on Friday afternoon, the Bowdoin Eastern Cup team departed the College for a weekend of racing at Prospect Mountain and Vermont Academy. An hour into the drive, the van's windshield wipers began working; an hour after that it stopped snowing; and two hours after that, we arrived at the Putney School in Putney, Vermont.
Having graduated from Putney in 2005, I fearlessly found changing rooms for the team and we set out on a pre-race ski. After some good pick-ups and threshholds, we cooled down with a powder-8 competition in the pristine powder adorning Putney's fields, with Nick and I the winners by a landslide. We followed a hearty dinner at the Putney Diner with some waxing, then bed.
Saturday was an excellent day for a skate race at Prospect--warm and overcast, with surprisingly firm skating tracks (firm and Prospect Mountain are words that very seldom accompany each other). The going was sticky on our rock skis, but much better when testing the race boards. The men raced first, at 11:00. A field of nearly 100 hungry athletes lined up for what was sure to be a hectic mass-start, and it was on. Bowers was taken out by a rogue high school racer, but fought on, and apparently Jeff exacted revenge on the upstart.
When the dust settled, the Bowdoin men had taken 42nd, 70th, 77th, and 91st in a tough field.
Grace raced next. Her start was was considerably less chaotic, and two laps later, Grace crossed the line in 57th, besting a few Colby and Bates skiers.
With Jeff Bush's mom, brother, and brother's girlfriend (Kathy, Matt, and Hannah) in attendance, we were treated to chili that seriously rivaled the stuff my mom served the team back in the fall. I personally had two huge bowls, as well as a few pieces of some amazing pumpkin bread. After everyone had eaten, we started our way back to Putney as a mid-day blizzard set in, making a brief stop for some homemade cider donuts at a sugarhouse on the way back. Oh yeah, and both Nick and Jeff's brother caught mice INSIDE the Prospect lodge--yet another reason why that place sucks (firm trails notwithstanding).
Amazingly, our snow-tireless van conquered the hill up to Putney, and we drove down the back side to the hostel before settling in for a nap. Around 4:30, everyone but Nick piled into the van again to drive back up to the school to wax our. Nick planned to meet us at the wax room after a jog to clean out his legs.
With me fearlessly at the helm, the van made all the way out of the driveway and at least 20 yards up the hill before pathetically drifting backwards into a snowbank. After a lot of pushing, some sand from a bemused pickup-truck driver, and no help whatsoever from Nick, we managed to turn the van around and drive the 20 yards back to the beginning of the driveway--which is about 200 yards of gentle uphill. With intensive thought and engineering, the Nick-less team devised a strategy involving spinning the tires until they kicked up a strip of dirt (SoD), backing up onto the SoD, and using the SoD as a launching pad to gain speed and momentum. Just as the van rolled into its parking space, Nick conveniently reappeared, refreshed from an easy jaunt up the hill.
I'll spare you all the gory details of our quest for dinner, but suffice to say that two hikes up the hill later, Kathy met Matt Bowers at the top of the hill with the ingredients for a delicious dinner, and there was much rejoicing. Jeff went down to the Putney Inn for the night, while the rest of the team waxed on the kitchen table, doing our best to keep the fluoros distinct from the food.
Sunday morning we awoke to a plowed driveway. With a stop to pick up Jeff at the Putney Inn, we cruised on up to Vermont Academy for a 10k/5k classic. Given all the new snow, we were all but assured of perfect, extra blue conditions, and we arrived with just over an hour before Grace's start--plenty of time for the guys to pick the right hardwax while Grace warmed up.
The first indication that things might not be going as planned was the brief but fierce snow that kicked up as we unpacked that van. As I noticed blow torches and klister boxes on other teams' benches, I started to wonder if things might not be as simple as we thought. The bottom line is that Sunday would have been a perfect day for waxless skis. With high humidity, intermittent snow squalls, and warm temperatures, the tracks were going from powdery to icy and back again quicker than coaches could say "uh-oh." Grace ended up racing on silver covered with yellow klister, and in spite of the crappy wax AND breaking a pole still fought to 72nd place.
Most of the men opted for a different tack. Shem went for Toko orange klister, which was underwhelming, but the rest of us opted for VR70. The 70 kicked like Jackie Chan outside the track, but also attracted clumps of powder like honey attracts Winnie the Pooh. This made for tough going over the tops of hills, turning the race into more of cross-country running event. The men pulled off 47th, 53rd, 58th, 78th, and 83rd.
Kathy pulled through again for us with some delicious sandwiches and cookies. After consuming these with gusto, we set out on the final leg of our journey, which turned out to be no less epic that the rest of the trip, given that we had to conquer the third snowstorm of the weekend. Both Jeff and I kept us on the road, though, and we pulled into Bowdoin in time for a delicious dinner at Thorne. And if you made it all the way to the end of this ridiculous race report, let me know--I'll send you a medal...
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Dartmouth Carnival
A Dartmouth Carnival at Dartmouth - finally! And a good one it was - tons of snow at Oak Hill over the last few days, and the skiing was beautiful. Yesterday's 5/10k skate race was a mixed bag for us - some people were feeling a bit flat. Still, we had personal bests from Colman (33), Niko (40), and Courtney (46). Walt and Forrest both started out strong before fading in the last 5k. Our splits had Walt 10 seconds from the lead on the first lap, with Forrest just a few seconds behind. They don't give medals for half-races, but this was a sign that there's a great race in each of these guys waiting to come out.
Today's 15/20k mass start classic was great - lots of solid races and a couple great ones. Sarah had a PR in 46th, just seconds behind a group of seven. Niko PRed again, finishing 37th - some nice pack skiing with Forrest and Colman gave us 3 guys in the 30s, our best classic result of the season so far. Another stellar post-race lunch by the parents made the day even better - hopefully I can get a picture of the spread to post. So good. I'll guess I'll try to get some skiing pictures too. We also had a couple ski team alumni join us today - Nate Underwood '07 showed up with a generous supply of food and went out on course with poles for the mass start, and Jeremy Huckins '05 gave out feeds during the races. Always good to have alumni support.
Oh yeah - today was the day people gave valentines to their Carnival Crushes, or "Carni Crushes" as they're called these days. Our skiers gave and received some creative valentines - Colman was the big winner in this department, which was not surprising considering that he's the most photographed man on campus.
We have a half dozen folks racing in the VT Eastern Cups this weekend. No results yet, but word is that Nat burned it up in the mass start skate. Full report tomorrow after the classic race.
Today's 15/20k mass start classic was great - lots of solid races and a couple great ones. Sarah had a PR in 46th, just seconds behind a group of seven. Niko PRed again, finishing 37th - some nice pack skiing with Forrest and Colman gave us 3 guys in the 30s, our best classic result of the season so far. Another stellar post-race lunch by the parents made the day even better - hopefully I can get a picture of the spread to post. So good. I'll guess I'll try to get some skiing pictures too. We also had a couple ski team alumni join us today - Nate Underwood '07 showed up with a generous supply of food and went out on course with poles for the mass start, and Jeremy Huckins '05 gave out feeds during the races. Always good to have alumni support.
Oh yeah - today was the day people gave valentines to their Carnival Crushes, or "Carni Crushes" as they're called these days. Our skiers gave and received some creative valentines - Colman was the big winner in this department, which was not surprising considering that he's the most photographed man on campus.
We have a half dozen folks racing in the VT Eastern Cups this weekend. No results yet, but word is that Nat burned it up in the mass start skate. Full report tomorrow after the classic race.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Snow, sort of
Snow yesterday, and more on the way. Yesterday the early crew found 3 or 4 inches on the trails at Pineland and more falling - a bit sloppy, but great skiing after the groomer came around. It was heavy, wet stuff that changed to sleet by the end of practice and rain by the end of the day. Classic coastal Maine storm. This morning it's raining lightly, but it's supposed to change back to snow later and leave us with another 4-8 inches. Sweet - we should be all set for a while.
This messy weather has been playing havoc with the Dartmouth Carnival. Things looked hopeful last weekend - then, with rain in the forecast, they announced on Monday that the races would be moved to Stowe for the fourth year in a row. Unexpectedly, Oak Hill got 6 inches on Monday night, with more in the forecast, so yesterday they reversed course and moved the races back to Hanover. Pretty frustrating for those of us making travel plans, but in the end I'm glad - Hanover is much closer, and Oak Hill has a fun, hard course that no one on our team has ever raced on (in college, at least). Good climbs and technical downhills.
These next few weeks should be good for us. We're starting a taper, with a significant drop in volume - 2 rest days a week now. Our intensity focus is on short, fast intervals - stuff that should get people feeling sharp but not tired. Months of planning and training are coming to a head here - it's an exciting time. We'll definitely see a bounce in the next few weeks - when it happens and how high it is depends on how solid the plan is and how well we execute.
This messy weather has been playing havoc with the Dartmouth Carnival. Things looked hopeful last weekend - then, with rain in the forecast, they announced on Monday that the races would be moved to Stowe for the fourth year in a row. Unexpectedly, Oak Hill got 6 inches on Monday night, with more in the forecast, so yesterday they reversed course and moved the races back to Hanover. Pretty frustrating for those of us making travel plans, but in the end I'm glad - Hanover is much closer, and Oak Hill has a fun, hard course that no one on our team has ever raced on (in college, at least). Good climbs and technical downhills.
These next few weeks should be good for us. We're starting a taper, with a significant drop in volume - 2 rest days a week now. Our intensity focus is on short, fast intervals - stuff that should get people feeling sharp but not tired. Months of planning and training are coming to a head here - it's an exciting time. We'll definitely see a bounce in the next few weeks - when it happens and how high it is depends on how solid the plan is and how well we execute.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
UVM Sprint
Skate sprint at Stowe yesterday. The wind was gusting like crazy in the morning, driving the new fallen snow/ice all over the place. Ezra and I made a heroic effort to put up our waxing tent, but had to abandon the idea before we ended up windsurfing across the parking lot. The entire sprint course was on a wide open hillside, so the skiers were in the thick of it the whole time - good thing it was only a 3-minute race. Forrest and Walt qualified for the elimination rounds in 16th and 30th, respectively (top 30 advanced). The rest of our team skied in the consolation heats - every 6 skiers after the top 30 skied in a single heat to determine their final placing, so you could move up or down as much as 5 places depending on where you had finished in the qualifying. Elissa, Maresa, Colman, Niko, and Nat were all able to improve on their qualifying finishes. In the quarterfinals of the elimination heats, Walt stayed right with the pack the whole way but couldn't quite get past them, ending up fifth in the heat to improve his overall place to 25th. Forrest got off to a great start in his quarterfinal and headed into the first downhill in a great position to draft, but ended up getting boxed in, had to check his speed, lost momentum, and slipped to the back. On the ensuing uphill, he got cut off when another skier made a move - that's sprint racing. He was able to fight his way into fifth, but that was all - his final place was 22nd. Overall, this was a fun day for us - people enjoyed the heats and gained some good experience racing in a tight pack. Some of us have some learning to do when it comes to sprint tactics, but that's what we're here for. Back to the usual distance racing next week - we're looking forward to it.
Friday, February 1, 2008
UVM Classic
The UVM Carnival opened with a 10k mass start classic today. We had nice hard tracks - frozen granular stuff mixed in with some fresh snow from Wednesday. Ezra and I had put a hard wax binder on everyone's skis last night. That was looking like a bad call for a while this morning - not great kick on my test skis, and a track that looked it really needed a klister base. Fortunately, it was just a matter of finding the right wax to go on top of the binder and applying enough layers - after a bit more testing, Ezra was loving the VR40 and wishing he was racing today.
Snow started coming down just before the women's race, much earlier than forecast. This could have played havoc with the waxing, but it was cold enough to make little difference. Their race got off to a clean start, and the pack spread out nicely in the first few kilometers. Elissa ran into some difficulties out on the course but toughed it out to be our top finisher. Another step forward for her - she's finally starting to feel like herself again. Grace also skied with a lot of snap today and picked off a few people to finish close behind Sarah and Courtney.
The men's race was a bit more crowded - the skiers broke into a few big packs that never really spread out. Our guys didn't have great start positions (these were assigned by a points system based on 2 classic races and 1 skate races), and some of them had to burn a lot of energy fighting their way through traffic in the first few kilometers. 10k doesn't give you much time to move up, especially on a rolling course like this one with no long hills to string the pack out, so there was a lot of pressure to position yourself early. Nonetheless, we had some decent finishes. Colman had a great day, finishing 36th for his best college result ever. He was our top skier heading into the last few hundred meters, but Walt put on a surge to pass him and several others just before the line. The two of them were just 20 seconds out of the top 20, which is encouraging.
Skate sprint tomorrow. Should be fun. College skiing is heavily focused on distance racing, and that's what our team trains for, so there's no pressure tomorrow - just a chance for some experience and maybe a little glory.
Snow started coming down just before the women's race, much earlier than forecast. This could have played havoc with the waxing, but it was cold enough to make little difference. Their race got off to a clean start, and the pack spread out nicely in the first few kilometers. Elissa ran into some difficulties out on the course but toughed it out to be our top finisher. Another step forward for her - she's finally starting to feel like herself again. Grace also skied with a lot of snap today and picked off a few people to finish close behind Sarah and Courtney.
The men's race was a bit more crowded - the skiers broke into a few big packs that never really spread out. Our guys didn't have great start positions (these were assigned by a points system based on 2 classic races and 1 skate races), and some of them had to burn a lot of energy fighting their way through traffic in the first few kilometers. 10k doesn't give you much time to move up, especially on a rolling course like this one with no long hills to string the pack out, so there was a lot of pressure to position yourself early. Nonetheless, we had some decent finishes. Colman had a great day, finishing 36th for his best college result ever. He was our top skier heading into the last few hundred meters, but Walt put on a surge to pass him and several others just before the line. The two of them were just 20 seconds out of the top 20, which is encouraging.
Skate sprint tomorrow. Should be fun. College skiing is heavily focused on distance racing, and that's what our team trains for, so there's no pressure tomorrow - just a chance for some experience and maybe a little glory.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
