Dartmouth Photos

Here are a few photos from Andy Shepard - these are from the men's skate race on Saturday. Check out the rest of his gallery here.

Colman

Spencer

Walt

Dartmouth Skate

Today was a gorgeous day for a race: blue skies and sun, no wind, fast snow - perfect. The team responded with our best race of the year. Spencer provided the day's highlight with a 30th place finish, our best of the year. He got himself in good position out of the start in spite of a high seed, and moved up throughout the race. It was exciting to see him battling with so many good skiers and looking like he belonged there. He was in the 20s for a while before a couple crashes dropped him back, but he hung in there and finished with a strong sprint to lock up an NCAA qualifying point. To my knowledge, only 3 other Bowdoin first-years have ever scored NCAA points: Walt and Elissa in 2007 and Ed Hunter in 2005. The rest of the team was solid. Colman and Walt finished 34th and 36th - nice to have our top 3 guys in the 30s. Nat and Niko had good days as well, although between the two of them they broke two poles and lost a basket on a third.

On the women's side, Courtney was 45th, Erin 50th, and Olivia 52nd. Erin and Olivia were both really happy with their races - they felt great on the climbs, and would have been several places higher if they hadn't crashed a couple times each (we struggled on the downhills again today). Maren's still recovering from a cold, but she showed good fire by chasing down another skier in the last couple kilometers. The little victories matter. Overall, I'm encouraged to have so many people feeling good today - I think we're starting to come into form at the right time. These next couple weekends should be fun.

We had great support again this weekend. Thanks to the many parents who helped feed the team (those groovy cranberry/Cheerio things from the Askins family really hit the spot). Thanks also to Jeremy Huckins '05 for showing up to cheer and help with wax testing yesterday. I'm sure there are some great photos out there - please pass them along if you have any!

Dartmouth Classic

Dartmouth 5/10k classic today. Coarse, frozen snow - nice and fast. We klistered up and took our best shot. No breakthroughs today, but a good effort all around. Courtney and Erin put up decent results in spite of crashes, and Olivia was solid as usual. Nat and Niko had the best races on the men's side - Niko crashed twice and still had one of his better races of the season. Scott took the prize, though - he ended up in the woods about 20 seconds after he started. Any time your skis are above your head, your race is in jeopardy. He had to take off a ski and a pole to get back upright. I have to say that I'm a bit concerned with the number of crashes we've put up this year - this is getting rather silly. Next year we're going to devote a ridiculous amount of time to downhill skills. But I'm proud of everyone for getting up and racing hard in spite of misfortune. Decent day overall. Tomorrow's a mass start 10/15k skate on one of the toughest, most technical courses around. It's going to be great.

Pat Cushman Sprints

Ollie took a group down to Portland yesterday for the Pat Cushman Memorial Sprint Race at Deering Oaks. This event is held in memory of Pat Cushman, a pillar of the Portland ski community who passed away last winter. By all accounts it was a great event. Deering Oaks is in downtown Portland, and the races were held in the late afternoon and evening - a cool atmosphere for a ski race. Ollie won the prelim, but graciously stepped aside so that Jeff could advance to the finals (there was only one heat), along with Tom and Dan. Tom battled with 2 Bates skiers at the front of the pack before slingshotting ahead to take the win. Dan was close behind the lead group in 4th, with Jeff taking 7th. The guys had a great time - I'm looking forward to making this event a regular part of our winter in the future.

Tonight we're in Hanover. Things are a bit slushy here, but there's plenty of snow for a good clean course tomorrow. Temps are supposed to get nice and cold tonight - should be a great day.

Detours

Sunday's trip home from Stowe got a bit interesting for 2 of our 4 vans. Here's a map by Spencer illustrating the various detours:
As you can see, one van went north instead of south on 89, finally realizing their error as they approached the Canadian border. They then made it home with only a minor mishap in Lebanon as they mistook 91 for 93 - could've happened to anyone. Credit for the excursion to Massachusetts belongs to an unnamed coach. Only coaches not graduating from Harvard and members of Coach Slovenski's Van Driver Hall of Fame made it home unscathed.

Good training this week in spite of a mini-thaw across New England. Yesterday was perfect purple klister conditions - my favorite. Let's hope that Oak Hill looks like this on Friday...

UVM/SuperTour Classic

Yesterday's classic race was an adventure. We had warm temps and a bit of rain overnight - by morning the snow was wet and transformed - pretty straightforward klister conditions. Ollie, Wilson and I were up at the venue early, and we had the wax dialed in pretty quickly. Right about then the weather got biblical - snow/sleet, huge gusts of wind, and even some thunder in the distance. Pretty soon, klister was too much but hard wax wasn't enough - everyone's favorite conditions. We finally broke down and tested hairies at Wilson's suggestion - they were working great, so we made the call and put them on the women's skis, with much help from Matt and Elissa. As the race got underway, the temps started to drop, the wind kept up, and the snow dried out - trouble. Predictably, the skis weren't so great, and the women did a lot of running up the hills. Amazingly, we still ended up with some of our best results of the season - Courtney scored a huge PR in 32nd, with Erin 44th and Olivia 49th. It wasn't exactly a satisfying day, but there was a lot to be proud of - everyone was struggling with the wax, and our skiers held it together as well as anyone.

Things settled down a bit for the men, but the conditions were still variable all over the course: windblown powder, slush, glazed tracks gradually turning to ice - a mess. We ended up with klister covered - not an easy application, but fortunately Nick's sister Kate (a former all-American for UVM) had volunteered to help, and we were able to get everyone's skis waxed on time. Things worked out OK - Spencer and Nat had carnival PRs (34th and 49th), and Scott tied yesterday's PR of 35th. The race of the day belonged to Shem, though - he skied smoothly, caught rides off faster skiers, and looked great throughout the race. He's been working hard and making big technique gains this season, but until yesterday he hadn't put it all together. Overall, the team showed some toughness on a brutal day, and I'm pretty happy about that.

A lot of people took good care of our team this weekend. Lots of parents and siblings were on hand to cheer and take photos. Kathy Bishop (Jeff's mom) set out a huge spread for the team on Saturday, and the Shepards brought their usual tasty lentil and chicken apple sausage soup (the Shepards and this soup are responsible for 100% of my meat consumption in the last 6 months). Wilson was a tireless test pilot and wax tech, and his hairies skills were stellar. Matt and Elissa were also indispensable at the wax table. Lastly, special thanks to Kate Crawford for volunteering to get her hands covered with klister when she could have been relaxing and enjoying a great day of racing. Thanks to all of you for helping us survive a very challenging weekend.

Here are a few photos by Andy Shepard from the men's races - more online here. We had tons of other folks taking pictures out there, so I'll post some of those when I get them.

Spencer getting nice and tall.

Tom Cook had a solid weekend with two good races.

Walt chasing Sylvan Ellefson around a turn.

Niko showing no signs that he spent the fall in the rollerski-free zone of Copenhagen.

UVM/SuperTour Skate

Decent day at Trapps today - 5/10k skate. The carnival is being held as part of a SuperTour & Eastern Cup race, so there was a huge crowd and tons of fast skiers. Our group held its own - carnival PRs for Erin (44th), Olivia (49th), Scott (35th) and Nat (52nd), with Colman tying his best of 32nd. Lots of others had solid races as well - Tom was right in the mix, and Woody looked nice and smooth in what was clearly his best race of the season. Overall, a good start to February. We'll be looking to keep moving up in tomorrow's classic race. Interesting weather forecast - temps right around freezing with snow and high winds. Should be fun.
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